Pinball Wizard And Body Table King

Mr. Gary Stern, the last pinball machine magnate, is a wise-cracking, fast-talking 62-year-old with a shock of white hair, matching white frame glasses and a deep tan who eats jelly beans at his desk and recently hurt a rib snowboarding in Colorado. Gary says half of his company’s machines now go into homes and not a corner arcade. Image Credit: Sally Ryan - NYT

Pinball Wizard And Body Table King

There was a time in America where pinball could be played almost anywhere … corner shops, markets, bars, arcades and bowling alleys to mention a few. The game was so popular that dozens of companies popped to produce the machines and fill the demand.

Today, however, demand for new machines is down and instead of dozens of manufacturers, there is only one on this Oblate Spheroid that remains true to the goal of providing the stand-up flipper and ball game machine.

Many assume the luster is off of the rose of mechanical gaming devices like pinball machines but the problem may be more than competition from electronic alternatives provided by home computers, dedicated hand held touch-screen PDA’s, and cellphones. The problem with the demand being down might be more in having to do with footprint and the availability of spaces that were once pinball friendly.

There are pachinko machines at the museum, which the curator of the museum keeps working on, so he has always has some spare parts he doesn’t need. So: when you visit the museum, don’t forget to take home your complimentary piece of pachinko history! Or better yet, indulge your burgeoning gambling addiction with a personal pachinko machine at home. Caption and Image Credit: pingmag.jp

Pinball enthusiasts believe that the pendulum will swing back and space available will come back for these grand body table amusement devices (not to be confused with the Asian game, Pachinko) … the pinball machine.

GameSetWatch has a wonderful gallery up showing off some of the amazing pinball machines that can be found at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. In their second set of pictures, the site concentrates on some of the "classic" pinball machines found in the collection. The grooviest by far has got to be Bally's Tommy-themed pinballer Capt. Fantastic, though there are plenty more to see on the site. Caption and Image Credit: Brian Crecente

This excerpted from the New York Times -

For a Pinball Survivor, the Game Isn’t Over
By MONICA DAVEY - New York Times - Published: April 25, 2008

Being inside a pinball machine factory sounds exactly as you think it would. Across a 40,000-square-foot warehouse here, a cheery cacophony of flippers flip, bells ding, bumpers bump and balls click in an endless, echoing loop. The quarter never runs out.

But this place, Stern Pinball Inc., is the last of its kind in the world. A range of companies once mass produced pinball machines, especially in the Chicago area, the one-time capital of the business. Now there is only Stern. And even the dinging and flipping here has slowed: Stern, which used to crank out 27,000 pinball machines each year, is down to around 10,000.
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“There are a lot of things I look at and scratch my head,” said Tim Arnold, who ran an arcade during a heyday of pinball in the 1970s and recently opened The Pinball Hall of Fame, a nonprofit museum in a Las Vegas strip mall. “Why are people playing games on their cellphones while they write e-mail? I don’t get it.”

“The thing that’s killing pinball,” Mr. Arnold added, “is not that people don’t like it. It’s that there’s nowhere to play it.”
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Though pinball has roots in the 1800s game of bagatelle, these are by no means simple machines. Each one contains a half-mile of wire and 3,500 tiny components, and takes 32 hours to build — as the company’s president, Gary Stern, likes to say, longer than a Ford Taurus.
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The manufacturing plant is a game geek’s fantasy job, a Willy Wonka factory of pinball.

Some designers sit in private glass offices seated across from their pinball machines.

Some workers are required to spend 15 minutes a day in the “game room” playing the latest models or risk the wrath of Mr. Stern. “You work at a pinball company,” he explained, grumpily, “you’re going to play a lot of pinball.” (On a clipboard here, the professionals must jot their critiques, which, on a recent day, included “flipper feels soft” and “stupid display.”)

Pachinko Balls - Pachinko is a game where the player floods a verticle board with hundreds of balls that bounce off of pins. Some balls find there way to accrue poins or money. Image Credit: pingmag.jp

A Box Of Pinballs - The typical machine has only six balls where the player keeps one ball in play as long as possible to accrue points for extra game plays. Image Credit: Sally Ryan - NYT

And in a testing laboratory devoted to the physics of all of this, silver balls bounce around alone in cases for hours to record how well certain kickers and flippers and bumpers hold up.
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The creation of the flipper — popularized by the Humpty Dumpty game in 1947 — transformed the activity, which went on to surges in the 1950s, ’70s and early ’90s.

“Everybody thinks of it as retro, as nostalgia,” Mr. Sharpe said. “But it’s not. These are sophisticated games. Pinball is timeless.”
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Jovita Maravilla uses a soldering iron to attach wires to the game board of a pinball machine. Each one contains a half-mile of wire and 3,500 tiny components, and takes 32 hours to build. Image Credit: Sally Ryan - NYT

“The whole coin-op industry is not what it once was,” Mr. Stern said.

Corner shops, pubs, arcades and bowling alleys stopped stocking pinball machines. A younger audience turned to video games. Men of a certain age, said Mr. Arnold, who is 52, became the reliable audience. (“Chicks,” he announced, “don’t get it.”)
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In the United States, Mr. Stern said, half of his new machines, which cost about $5,000 and are bought through distributors, now go directly into people’s homes and not a corner arcade. He said nearly 40 percent of the machines — some designed to appeal to French, German, Italian and Spanish players — were exported, and he added that he had been working to make inroads in China, India, the Middle East and Russia.
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“Look, pinball is like tennis,” said Mr. Stern, noting that a tennis court could never, for instance, be made round and that certain elements of a pinball play field are equally unchangeable and lasting. “This is a ball game. It’s a bat and ball game, O.K.?”
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Shasta’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Dotting a rocky plain north of Mount Lassen, 42 radio antennas are cocked like ears toward the sky, being readied for an expanded hunt for life beyond Earth. The Allen Telescope Array is slowly coming together as the new listening post for SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Graphic Credit: The Sacramento Bee

Shasta’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

In some of the most Northern reaches of California sits one of the most beautiful stretches of wilderness known as Shasta County.

The wilderness is exactly why this part of the state has become the site where man’s latest attempt to search for life in the universe that surrounds our Oblate Spheroid.

By installing an array of 350 antennas that will be point out into the sky from wilderness located just North of Lassen Volcanic National Park, it is hoped through no-profit support, an understanding of the origins and prevalence of life throughout the universe can be achieved.

The SETI Institute so far has been able to install only 42 of an anticipated 350 - or even 500 - radio antennas at the Hat Creek observatory north of Mount Lassen, at a cost of $50 million. And each one had to be disassembled and blasted with baking soda to dull the surface, when they showed up shinier than promised. Image Credit: Seth Shostak / SETI Institute

This excerpted from The Sacramento Bee -

If E.T. calls, these 'ears' will be listening
Nonprofit aims antennas at sky in Shasta County
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg - Sacramento Bee, Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, April 26, 2008

HAT CREEK – Dotting a rocky plain north of Mount Lassen, 42 radio antennas are cocked like ears toward the sky, being readied for an expanded hunt for life beyond Earth.

The Allen Telescope Array is slowly coming together as the new listening post for SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Here at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, silver-snouted antennas soon will take up the quest for a technological culture that is audacious or lonely or hopeful enough to deliberately beam a signal into the beyond.

It would be a sort of cosmic "Hey, is anybody out there?"

This summer, when the alien-hunting function of the telescope array is expected to start coming online, only a powerfully blasted or very close message would get through.

The array is missing 308 of the 350 antennas that the SETI Institute once hoped to have installed by this year. And equipment is still arriving to enable SETI operators to simultaneously focus on key stars while the antennas are also used in other research.

The Bay Area-based SETI Institute is dedicated to understanding the origins and prevalence of life throughout the universe. The scrappy nonprofit, which decorates some antennas with donor names and advertises an "adopt a scientist" program on its Web site, is scrambling for $35 million to $40 million needed to finish the array.

Even then, "finish" isn't quite the right word. Beyond 350 antennas, some researchers speak wistfully of what they might do with 500.
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SETI runs on hope, fueled by yearning for the breathtaking long shot of alien contact. But its telescope is grounded in pragmatism.
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"Even with 42 antennas, it will be an impressive survey instrument … really a uniquely powerful instrument," Carilli [a radio astronomer with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in New Mexico, who is currently involved in telescope development in Chile] said.
The Allen array relies on multiple, small antennas to create a bigger picture. The complex electronic "back end" of the telescope can be turned into four different instruments, all using the same antennas for different purposes.

Only one of those instruments is devoted to the SETI search. Others are aimed at mapping galaxies, probing how stars are formed, and capturing the distant drama of black holes feeding and supernovas exploding.

Unlike optical telescopes, which measure stars and other objects in the visible spectrum, radio telescopes tune into the wavelengths emitted by solid objects, gases and electrons whirling through space.
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Among astronomers, the telescope's progress is being followed closely because its solutions to technical problems could be incorporated into the next generation of much larger radio telescopes.
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The radio dishes don't need to gleam, and astronomers had promised the Forest Service that they wouldn't, so that reflected sunlight would not hamper the wilderness experience for hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail just three miles east of the observatory.

When the equipment showed up shinier than expected, technicians began a tedious process of disassembling each antenna, blasting the curved dish with baking soda to dull the surface, then putting its delicate innards back in place. This week, the ground below some antennas was still dusted white with baking soda.

It has cost about $50 million so far to design, create and install the 42 antennas that make up the first phase of the Allen Telescope Array, named for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, whose foundation donated $25 million to the effort.

Other funds have come from private donors, UC Berkeley and the National Science Foundation.

Because so much expensive design and development work has been done, the remaining 308 antennas will be much cheaper, probably coming in under $40 million, said Jill Tarter, SETI director.

There is no firm timetable for completion, because that money is not in hand.

"If I had a check today, it would be two years," Tarter said.
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Lungless Frog Adaptation Reduces Buoyancy

Barbourula Kalimantanensis - The frog, which has no lungs and breathes through its skin, was found in a remote part of Indonesia's Kalimantan province on Borneo island, a discovery that researchers said Thursday, April 10, 2008, could provide insight into what drives evolution in certain species. Image Credit: David Bickford - AP

Lungless Frog Adaptation Reduces Buoyancy

The Bornean Flat-headed Frog, which looks a little unusual, in that it’s shape is rounded and features skin flaps and folds, was first sighted about thirty years ago and officially noted about one year ago, breathes through its skin in an osmosis like process.

Combination image shows a Map of Borneo (A) showing the Indonesian portion, Kalimantan, in the South-Central part of the island, and (B) Barbourula kalimantanensis in anterior view, and (C) laternal view showing extreme flattening. Barbourula kalimantanensis, a rare and primitive frog living in a remote Borneo stream has no lungs and apparently absorbs oxygen through its skin, researchers reported on April 9, 2008. Image Credit: REUTERS/David Bickford/National University of Singapore/Handout (UNITED STATES)

The lungless nature of this frog is a unique trait and is shared by only a few amphibious species that include some salamanders and a wormlike creature known as a caecilian.

The frog discovery could help scientists understand the environmental factors that contribute to "extreme evolutionary change" since its closest relative in the Philippines and other frogs have lungs.

"These are about the most ancient and bizarre frogs you can get on the planet [Oblate Spheroid]," David Bickford - Evolutionary Biologist at the National University of Singapore, said of the brown amphibian with bulging eyes and a tendency to flatten itself as it glides across the water.

Combination image shows a comparison of (A) the mouth and pharynx of a American Bullfrong (rana catesbeiana), showing glottis, tongue, and esophageal opening, and (B) Barbourula kalimantanensis showing tongue, no glottis, and enlarged esophageal opening leading directly to the stomach. Barbourula kalimantanensis, a rare and primitive frog living in a remote Borneo stream has no lungs and apparently absorbs oxygen through its skin, researchers reported on April 9, 2008. Image Credit: REUTERS/David Bickford/National University of Singapore/Handout (UNITED STATES)

This excerpted from Yahoo! News –

Frog without lungs found in Indonesia
By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer - Thu Apr 10, 5:20 PM ET

BANGKOK, Thailand - A frog has been found in a remote part of Indonesia that has no lungs and breathes through its skin, a discovery that researchers said Thursday could provide insight into what drives evolution in certain species.

The aquatic frog Barbourula kalimantanensis was found in a remote part of Indonesia's Kalimantan province on Borneo island during an expedition in August 2007, said David Bickford, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore. Bickford was part of the trip and co-authored a paper on the find that appeared in this week's edition of the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology.
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"They are like a squished version of Jabba the Hutt," he [David Bickford] said, referring to the character from Star Wars. "They are flat and have eyes that float above the water."

Bickford's Indonesian colleague, Djoko Iskandar, first came across the frog 30 years ago and has been searching for it ever since. He didn't know the frog was lungless until they cut eight of the specimens open in the lab.

Graeme Gillespie, director of conservation and science at Zoos Victoria in Australia, called the frog "evolutionarily unique." He said the eight specimens examined in the lab showed the lunglessness was consistent with the species and not "a freak of nature." Gillespie was not a member of the expedition or the research team.

Bickford surmised that the frog had evolved to adapt to its difficult surroundings, in which it has to navigate cold, rapidly moving streams that are rich in oxygen.

"It's an extreme adaptation that was probably brought about by these fast-moving streams," Bickford said, adding that it probably needed to reduce its buoyancy in order to keep from being swept down the mountainous rivers.
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Bickford and Gillespie said the frog's discovery adds urgency to the need to protect its river habitat, which in recent years has become polluted due to widespread illegal logging and gold mining. Once-pristine waters are now brown and clogged with silt, they said.

"The gold mining is completely illegal and small scale. But when there are thousands of them on the river, it really has a huge impact," Bickford said. "Pretty soon the frogs will run out of the river."
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Peanut-Stars | New Discovery Of Double Star Systems

Peanut-Star System - In a repeating cycle, one star moves to the front and blocks our view of the other. From Earth, the star system brightens and dims, as we see light from two stars, then only one star. The two stars in this system appear to be nearly identical, each 15 to 20 times the mass of our sun. Image Credit: Still frame excerpted from Ohio State University Research News animation video

Peanut-Stars New Discovery Of Double Star Systems

Through the measurement of the wavelength of light, and other confirming methods, astronomers using the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) on Mt. Graham in Arizona, have discovered a unique star formation. In fact, with the information the astronomers developed, they were able to confirm a second such double star formation in a closer galaxy to our Oblate Spheroid.

What is unique about this discovery (and its seconding confirmation), is that it proved the existence of two massive stars that emit light in the yellow spectrum are closely orbiting each other in a stable system (for now). In fact, the stars are so close together that a large amount of stellar material is shared between them, so that the shape of the system resembles that of a peanut.

It is suspected that this may be a formation that signals an eventual supernovae event.

This excerpted from Ohio State University Research News -

TWO NEW STAR SYSTEMS ARE FIRST OF THEIR KIND EVER FOUND
By Pam Frost Gorder, Research News - Last updated 3/31/08

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Astronomers have spied a faraway star system that is so unusual, it was one of a kind -- until its discovery helped them pinpoint a second one that was much closer to home.

In a paper published in a recent issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, Ohio State University astronomers and their colleagues suggest that these star systems are the progenitors of a rare type of supernova.

They discovered the first star system 13 million light years away, tucked inside Holmberg IX, a small galaxy that is orbiting the larger galaxy M81. They studied it between January and October 2007.
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The star system is unusual, because it’s what the astronomers have called a “yellow supergiant eclipsing binary”.
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In a repeating cycle, one star moves to the front and blocks our view of the other. From Earth, the star system brightens and dims, as we see light from two stars, then only one star.

Peanut-Star System - Side view of double star formation. Image Credit: Still frame excerpted from Ohio State University Research News animation video

The two stars in this system appear to be nearly identical, each 15 to 20 times the mass of our sun.

José Prieto, Ohio State University graduate student and lead author on the journal paper, analyzed the new star system as part of his doctoral dissertation.
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To his surprise, he uncovered another one a little less than 230,000 light years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits our own Milky Way.

The star system had been discovered in the 1980s, but was misidentified.
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The stars were even the same size -- 15 to 20 times the mass of the sun -- and melded together in the same kind of peanut shape. The system was clearly a yellow supergiant eclipsing binary.
“We didn’t expect to find one of these things, much less two,” said Kris Stanek, associate professor of astronomy at Ohio State. “You never expect this sort of thing. But I think this shows how flexible you have to be in astrophysics.
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“It shows that there are still valuable discoveries hidden in plain sight. You just have to keep your eyes open and connect the dots.”

The find may help solve another mystery. Of all the supernovae that have been studied over the years, two have been linked to yellow supergiants -- and that’s two more than astronomers would expect.
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“When two stars orbit each other very closely, they share material, and the evolution of one affects the other,” Prieto said. “It’s possible two supergiants in such a system would evolve more slowly, and spend more time in the yellow phase -- long enough that one of them could explode as a yellow supergiant.”

The discovery of this yellow supergiant binary system is just the first result of a long-term LBT project to monitor stellar variability in the nearby universe.
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The LBT is an international collaboration among institutions in the United States, Italy and Germany. The LBT Corporation partners are: the University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona university system; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy; LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Germany, representing the Max Planck Society, the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, and Heidelberg University; Ohio State University; The Research Corporation, on behalf of The University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota, and University of Virginia.
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