It’s Was All Relative, ‘Till Now … E=mc2 Proven

People walk past a giant sculpture featuring Albert Einstein's formula "E=mc2" in front of Berlin's Altes Museum in 2006. It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists. Image Credit: AFP/File/John Macdougall

It’s Was All Relative, ‘Till Now … E=mc2 Proven

The Albert Einstein Special Theory of Relativity which he hypothesized over one century ago, was suspected as being correct but was never totally proven until now.

In a study published in the US Journal Science, a brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms … which proves the equation Einstein laid down back in 1903.

The Albert Einstein Memorial with its 21 foot bronze statue was dedicated in 1979. It is across the street from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Constitution Avenue. A star map at Einstein's feet is embedded with more than 2,700 metal studs representing the positions of the sun, moon, planets and stars on April 22, 1979 when the memorial was dedicated. In Einstein's left hand is a paper with mathematical equations summarizing three of his most important scientific contributions including the theory of relativity. Image Credit: VisitingDC.com

This excerpted and edited from AFP -

e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein's proven right
AFP - Thu Nov 20, 6:56 pm ET

It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.
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According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.
The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?

The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.

In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.
Reference Here>>

Triboluminescence – Xrays From A Natural Property, Unnaturally

Sticky Science A finger's x-ray taken with a tape-powered device. The sticky tape setup is in the background. Image Credit: Carlos Camara, Juan Escobar and Seth Putterman - UCLA

Triboluminescence – Xrays From A Natural Property, Unnaturally

Some of the craziest discoveries are found through happenchance or just simply by accident. In an edition of the latest of these discoveries, it has been perfected that through a process as simple as peeling transparent tape (commonly known as Scotch Tape popularized by 3M) one can capture and develop an xray image on film.

This property of excited electron activity when peeling transparent tape was first noticed about fifty (50) years ago in Russia. Some Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off of glass.

Fast forward to California and work done by graduate students and staff researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

The result of this process when recorded by radiographic film is a fuzzy x-ray of the finger bone of physicist Seth Putterman, who runs the lab in which it was made. This undated composite image provided by the UCLA Laboratory of Low Temperatures and Acoustics, shows an image of an x-ray made with Scotch tape superimposed on a hand on top of a vacuum chamber with a roll of Scotch tape mounted on ball bearings inside. Image Credit: AP Photo/ UCLA Laboratory of Low Temperatures and Acoustics, Carlos Camara, Juan V. Escobar and Seth J. Putterman

This excerpted and edited from Scientific American –

Science Friction: An X-Ray Machine Energized by Adhesive Tape
Researchers take an image of a finger using film and some tape
By Susannah F. Locke, Scientific American - October 22, 2008

It may sound bizarre—or like some kind of high school science fair project, but it's not: Researchers have discovered that peeling adhesive tape ejects enough radiation to take an x-ray image. If they stick, the findings could set the stage for a less expensive x-ray machine that does not require electricity.

Lead researcher Carlos Camara, a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, reports in Nature today that his team captured x-rays of a finger on film (positioned behind it) by using a simple tape-peeling device (placed in front of it).

How is that possible? It turns out that radiation is released when tape is ripped from a surface. The reason, says Camara: electrons (negatively charged atomic particles) leap from a surface (peeling off of glass or aluminum works, too) to the adhesive side of a freshly yanked strip of tape, traveling so fast that they give off radiation, or energy, when they slam into it.
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"We have high hopes that this can be a very inexpensive alternative source of x-rays good enough to take x-ray images," Camara tells ScientificAmerican.com.Conventional x-ray machines require expensive electrical components to create a beam of high-energy electrons that is aimed at a metal target.
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Worried about radiation from the tape dispenser on your desk? Don't. In both a conventional and the experimental x-ray machine, electrons travel unhindered by air molecules through a vacuum chamber; that allows them to produce the higher energy needed to make x-rays. Normal air, comprised of nitrogen and oxygen and other gases, slows the electrons to a pace that is so sluggish there is only enough energy left to produce a faintly visible, benign blue light.
Reference Here>>

Funny what God leaves for us to discover here on this Oblate Spheroid. Check out the property called triboluminescence yourself by peeling tape in the dark.

Little ‘NoHo’ Model Draws Some Attention

"Little NoHo" as shown at the NoHo Scene festival last weekend. The "Little NoHo" project was created using common objects such as Lego building blocks, bottle caps, game pieces, dominoes, mahjong tiles, jewelry and lapel pins. The model featured parks, bridges, bike paths, plazas, streetcar lines and public art. Image Credit: Mark Kellam – Daily News

Little ‘NoHo’ Model Draws Some Attention

Artist and urban planner, James Rojas, who had built model planning projects which allow for viewer interactive input for the city of Los Angeles before, came up with a 3-D model and plan for the North Hollywood arts district and surrounding neighborhoods.

The model asks people viewing it to participate in the display by adding elements and discuss the project with Rojas so that the L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency, the sponsor of the model display, can benefit from ideas shared through the brainstorm process of the interactivity.

Will any of the ideas placed in the Rojas ‘NoHo’ model ever see the light of day? Only time will tell; it is not known if any of the models that James Rojas has built have ever been adopted as a serious blueprint for urban development.

This excerpted and edited from the Daily News via vallynews.com -

Residents get to give input about 'Little NoHo'
Contributed by: Mark Kellam - 10/10/2008

Man-made streams along Lankershim Boulevard. More benches and a children's playground in North Hollywood Park. Improvements along Vineland Avenue.

Those were some of the changes proposed in an interactive art/urban development model that was on display at the NoHo Scene festival last weekend. Visitors also got to provide their own input.
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"Little NoHo" was created by L.A. urban planner James Rojas, who was at the North Hollywood festival. He said visitors of all ages got into the act.

The feedback was varied. For example, some people said the buildings were too tall, while others said they'd like more tall buildings.

The model showed North Hollywood from Burbank Boulevard to Camarillo Street (north/south) and from Tujunga Avenue to Vineland (east/west).

He saw one woman doing something with model pieces at Camarillo and Vineland. "She said she was recreating all the traffic accidents that happen there," Rojas said, chuckling.

As part of the model, Rojas put a man-made stream running down the center of Lankershim, which got lots of positive comments.

He also created traffic roundabouts along Burbank, Tujunga and Camarillo. "There are super long streets in the Valley," Rojas said. "The roundabouts break things up and make the streets more pedestrian friendly."

Rojas made a park with a lake off Tujunga, which kids enjoyed and provided whimsical input. "They put mermaids in the lake," he said.

Rojas has done interactive models before, including a model for the L.A. River project last year and at an event in Watts a few weeks ago.

The models are sponsored by the L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency, but Rojas does his work on the models as a volunteer.

"This is an exercise to get people thinking about the city and urban planning and break down barriers people have about the city," Rojas said. "It gets people comfortable. It's not contentious."
Reference Here>>

Urban Sprawl Grid Discovered In Xingu Amazonia

Newly discovered traces of ancient roads, bridges and plazas in Brazil's tropical forest may help dispel the once-popular impression of an 'untouched' Amazon before the Europeans' arrival. In southern Brazil, archeologists have found the remains of a NETWORK or urban communities that apparently hosted a population many thousands strong. Reporting their findings in the journal SCIENCE, published by AAAS, the science society, the researchers say the people who dwelled there dramatically changed their local landscape.' /// Michael Heckenberger of the University of Florida and his colleagues were 'baffled' at the discovery. 'There was this cherished image that the Amazon was pure nature...archeologists are compelled to revise their views of ancient Brazil. Image Credit: Michael Heckenberger & Jim Bailey – Science (September 18, 2003)

Urban Sprawl Grid Discovered In Xingu Amazonia

Deep in the heart of the Amazon forest, evidence of an extensive network roads, plazas, and infrastructure that suggests vast human activity has been discovered in a area once thought to be only virgin rain forest.

Image Credit: BBC NEWS

Due to the overgrowth of the forest, it is estimated that the peoples who designed and populated the region may have been wiped out with the introduction of European born diseases introduced to Brazil when Explorers from Europe fist set foot in the Americas.

The research that has been conducted over the course of the past decade, was aided with the use of satellite imagery and GPS to discover the extent of the urban sprawl associated with the network of past human development and activity.

The researchers found evidence of 28 prehistoric residential sites. Initial colonization began about 1,500 years ago, and the villages they studied were dated to between 750 and 450 years ago. The local population declined sharply after Europeans arrived. /// Villages were distinguished by surrounding ditches, with berms on the inside made from material dug from the ditch and topped with a wooden palisade wall, Heckenberger reported. Image Credit: BBC NEWS

This excerpted end edited from the BBC -

'Lost towns' discovered in Amazon
A remote area of the Amazon river basin was once home to densely populated towns, Science journal reports.
Story from BBC NEWS - Published: 2008/08/28 21:37:07 GMT

The Upper Xingu, in west Brazil, was once thought to be virgin forest, but in fact shows traces of extensive human activity.

Researchers found evidence of a grid-like pattern of settlements connected by road networks and arranged around large central plazas.

Roads and canals connected walled cities and villages. The communities were laid out around central plazas. Nearby, smaller settlements focused on agriculture and fish farming. Pictured is evidence of dams used to funnel fish into holding ponds. Image Credit: BBC NEWS

There are signs of [field] farming, wetland management, and possibly fish farms.
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The ancient urban communities date back to before the first Europeans set foot in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon in the 15th Century.

Urban planning

Professor Mike Heckenberger, from the University of Florida, in Gainesville, said: "These are not cities, but this is urbanism, built around towns."
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The tell-tale traces included "dark earth" that indicated past human waste dumps or farming, and concentrations of pottery shards and earthworks.
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The communities consisted of clusters of 60-hectare (150-acre) towns and smaller villages spread out over the rainforest.

Road network

Like medieval European and ancient Greek towns, those forming the Amazonian urban landscape were surrounded by large walls. These were composed of earthworks, the remains of which have survived.

Each community had an identical road, always pointing north-east to south-west, which are connected to a central plaza.

The roads were always oriented this way in keeping with the mid-year summer solstice.

Evidence was found of dams and artificial ponds - thought to have been used for fish farming - as well as open areas and large compost heaps.
Reference Here>>

The more we learn about this Oblate Spheroid we populate, the more we become amazed at the depth assumption plays in our approach to understanding, and the more, through discovery, we begin to understand the depth of what we do not know here in the 21st Century.

Lack Of Drift Indicated In Forearm Fossil Find

Megaraptors found in South America now have a "cousin" that was revealed living in Australia. Image Credit: fahad.com

Lack Of Drift Indicated In Forearm Fossil Find

A Dinosaur forearm bone fossil find in Australia has startled scientists in that it may shatter theories on how the Oblate Spheroid’s continent’s were formed.

As the theory goes, the Earth had only one very large land mass. This mass broke up and large chunks drifted apart over a one-hundred million year plus timeframe.

This bone puts this theory into question because of the type of bone that it is and the age at which the continent of Australia was to be formed and drift away from its suspected origin.

Cape Otway, Victoria, Australia - Image Credit: motelmarengo.com

This excerpted and edited from The Australian via AFP -

Australian dinosaur matches South American raptor
The Australian (AFP) June 11, 2008
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The 19cm bone was found in southeastern Australia but it comes from a very close cousin to Megaraptor, a flesh-ripping monster that lorded over swathes of South American some 90 million years ago.

The extraordinary similarity between the two giant theropods adds weight to a dissident view about the breakup of a super-continent, known as Gondwana, that formed the continents of the southern hemisphere, the authors say.
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The standard theory is that the first continents to go were South America and Africa, which pulled away from Gondwana around 120 million years ago.

Australia remained attached to Antarctica before the two entities drifted apart around 80 million years ago, according to this theory. Australia began an insular existence that incubated flora and fauna which remain unique to this day.

The forearm bone, found near Cape Otway in Victoria, is the first link ever found between a non-flying therapod - or two-footed dinosaur - in Australia and another component of Gondwana.

The investigators, led by Nathan Smith of the University of Chicago, say the two dinosaurs are so similar the two land masses of South America and Australia could not have been separated for so many millions of years beforehand.
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They speculate that land bridges must have persisted between southern South America and the Western Antarctic Archipelago "until at least the Late Eocene," a period that began some 40 million years ago.
Reference Here>>

"Ride the Mountain" Brings Choppers Into Big Bear Lake

Ride The Mountain event comes to Snow Summit resort parking lot for two days. Image Credit: Big Bear Choppers

"Ride the Mountain" Brings Choppers Into Big Bear Lake

This weekend will see an abundance (thousands) of rolling two-wheeled pieces of art traveling throughout Big Bear Valley and the San Bernardino mountains.

Big Bear Choppers brings their 6th annual Ride the Mountain event to Snow Summit Resort and have two days of custom bikes and antique choppers on display, as well as vendors and live music.

Bikes on display at Big Bear Choppers showroom. Image Credit: BBC

Bands featured include 82 Fifty with Rob Piazza and the Mighty Flyers on Saturday afternoon and Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe following the awards show on Sunday.

Image Credit: KBHR 93.3FM

This from the Big Bear Grizzly –

BBC rides into two days of fun
By JUDI BOWERS - Wednesday, June 4, 2008 5:51 PM PDT

Six years ago, Kevin and Mona Alsop decided to branch out. Their business was growing, so why not share it. The first Ride the Mountain was born.

Ride the Mountain brought hundreds of motorcycle and chopper enthusiasts to the mountains. The first and second shows were at the Big Bear Convention Center. Big Bear Choppers grew and so did Ride the Mountain. The show moved to the Big Bear City Airport on the tarmac. Thousands of bikes rolled in, braved the summer thunderstorms and enjoyed a day riding the mountain.

Bikes on display at Big Bear Choppers showroom. Image Credit: BBC

Growth continued, and it was time to move the show again to Snow Summit Mountain Resort. Ride the Mountain took over the main parking lot and the Brownie Lane lot as well.
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It’s time to grow again, but Ride the Mountain is staying put. Instead of a new location, the show expands to two days this year. Ride the Mountain is Saturday and Sunday, June 7 and 8.
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Also on Saturday, is the Ride the Mountain Poker Run [2007 video below].
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The run takes participants around the lake and throughout Big Bear Valley. The Baker Drivetrain Bike Show is also Saturday, with awards on Sunday.
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Kevin Alsop and his crew judge the show. There are three categories, Big Bear Choppers Builder, Big Bear Choppers Factory Built and Open classes. The Big Bear Choppers Builder and Factory Built classes are free to enter. The fee for the open class is $25.
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Proceeds from Ride the Mountain benefit Big Bear Valley Recreation and Park District’s Teen Center.
Reference Here>>

Visually Amazing Japanese Moss Phlox Flower Park

Moss pink flowers are in full bloom in Hitsujiyama Park in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture. Image Credit: SANKEI PHOTO

A young couple relaxes in a field of moss phlox at Hitsujiyama park in Chichibu, west of Tokyo, Friday, May 2, 2008. More than 200,000 moss phlox are now in full-bloom at the park. Image Credit: AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara

Visually Amazing Japanese Moss Phlox Flower Park

Shibazakura, or Phlox … or Thrift in English can be a really nice ground cover in small patches of a garden. They work great as a compliment to other plants, but this display at Hitsujiyama park in Chichibu, west of Tokyo, Japan has to take the cake for the Oblate Speroid’s largest display of a flowering complementary plant for landscaping.

Praise must be given to the gardeners though, who have to look after this garden for the rest of the year. Tending the garden, pest control, and the ability to maintain the consistency of the bloom has to be hard work with the amount of pests (wild and human) that lurk around Hitsujiyama park.

Visitors view a field of moss phlox at Hitsujiyama park in Chichibu, west of Tokyo, Friday, May 2, 2008. More than 200,000 moss phlox are now in full-bloom at the park. Image Credit: AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara

Visitors look at landscaped fields of Shibazakura (Moss Phlox) flowers at Hitsujiyama Park in Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture April 30, 2008. Image Credit: REUTERS/Issei Kato (JAPAN)

This type of visual display reminds us here at Oblate Spheroid of what the environmental artist Christo would do with his artistic approach.

His displays were temporary and designed to be a one time only event. This park in Japan is a year round display and changes with the ebb and flow of the seasons.

Hangzhou Bay Bridge - World’s Longest Span Across The Ocean

China has formally opened what it says is the world's longest sea bridge with a ceremony and fireworks. The six-lane bridge was built to address traffic congestion in the booming region, and will cut the driving time between Shanghai and Ningbo to two-and-a-half hours from four. Image Credit: BBC NEWS

Hangzhou Bay Bridge - World’s Longest Span Across The Ocean

Hangzhou Bay Bridge is an S-shaped stayed-cable bridge linking both sides of the Hangzhou Bay. It is the longest sea-crossing bridge on this Oblate Spheroid! The bridge is 22.37 Miles long; it has six lanes in both directions and shortens the distance between Shanghai and Ningbo by 74.56 Miles.

MAP - Hangzhou Bay is a gulf in the East China Sea. For the Zhejiang province this is a first class project as both ends of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge are in the province´s cities of Cixi and Zhapu. The bridge is the main project of the 5.200 kilometres national highway between Heilongjiang Province in the north toi the Hainan Province in the south. Graphic Credit: hangzhoubaybridge.com

Although the bridge is already linked and the opening ceremony was held on 26th June 2007, it opened to the public transport May 1, 2008.

First preparations for planning the bridge started a decade ago; close to 600 experts spent nine years on designing the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. Chief Commander of the Hangzhou Bay Bridge project is Mr Wang Yong.

Hangzhou Bay is known both in China and internationally for it´s fantastic tides, a natural wonder that is a major tourist attraction. . The tides are moving in a speed that can reach 30 kilometres (19 miles), sounds like thunder and the waves can be up to 8 meters (25 feet) high. One reason for the study of the project for a decade is the tide which will make the construction process complicated. Image Credit: hangzhoubaybridge.com

This excerpted from Times Online -

China opens world's longest road bridge
Jane Macartney in Beijing - Times Online - May 2, 2008

“If you want to grow rich, you must first build roads,” an old Chinese saying goes. The opening yesterday of the world’s longest road bridge over the sea should swell still further the coffers of the glittering metropolis that is Shanghai.

The £840 million [1.66 billion dollars] bridge, measuring 36km, spans Hangzhou Bay to link China’s financial hub and the port city of Ningbo to the south. It will reduce travel time between the two key cities in the Yangtze delta from four hours to two and a half.

A ceremony was held in the middle of the cable-stayed bridge to mark the official opening. The bridge has been built to withstand the typhoons that sweep in from the Pacific to batter the east coast each summer. Its steel pylons are 89m long, reaching beneath a sea as deep as 60m in some places. In addition, the sections of the bridge had to be winched into position over expanses of quicksand-like mudflats.
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In a break with tradition, private firms provided almost a third of the investment needed for the project. Image Credit: hangzhoubaybridge.com

State television greeted the start of traffic on the bridge with great fanfare, devoting almost the first ten minutes of the evening news of the Labour Day holiday to the subject. Wen Jiabao, the premier, visited the southern end of the bridge in Ningbo.Private investors funded almost 30 per cent of the project, the first time that China’s private sector had been allowed to put money into a major public infrastructure work. Officials say that the capital costs should be recovered in 15 years.
Reference Here>>

Please note that the title of the Times Online article referenced here is in error, in that the longest "ROAD BRIDGE" is located in the United States. The world's longest road bridge on this Oblate Spheroid is in Louisiana: the Lake Pontchatrain Causeway near New Orleans links Metairie to Mandeville, and spans 24 miles (~40 km). It is not an engineering marvel, but it is longer by almost a couple of miles ... Sorry China.

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.?”
Reference Here>>

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.
Reference Here>>

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."
Reference Here>>

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.
Reference Here>>

Happy Anniversary "Oddball" Earth

False-color satellite image of Chimborazo (center, left), Carihuairazo (10km northwest of Chimborazo), Tungurahua (center, right with ash plume) and El Altar (bottom, right), Ecuador. Pale blue indicates snow/ice cover, bright green indicates lush vegetation, and red indicates sparser vegetation. Tungurahua’s volcanic ash plume appears in lavender. Image width is 78km, image direction is top to North. Image Credit: Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory, based on data provided by the Landsat 7 science team and the University of Maryland’s Global Land Cover Facility.

Happy Anniversary "Oddball" Earth

An interesting fact was revealed in a highlighted segment of the mornings news on ABC7 one year ago today, Los Angeles and that is - Mount Everest is NOT the tallest place on Earth, ie. the place on Earth that would be the closest spot next to any other celestial object.

The segment pointed out that the Earth is not perfectly spherical. The Earth has a shape that a beach ball would assume when someone sits on the ball. Kind of an oval silhouette type of shape known formally as an "Oblate Spheroid"! ... Hence the name of this weblog.

The point here is that when one takes this spheroid shape into consideration ... the "tallest" place on Earth would be located logically somewhere around the Equator and it has been found as a volcano in Ecuador.

Mount Chimborazo is located in the Cordillera Occidental of the Andes of central Ecuador, 150 km (93 miles) south-southwest of the capital Quito.

The shadow of Chimborazo as seen from the top of the mountain. Image Credit: Gerd Breitenbach

This description from Wikipedia -

Farthest point from earth center

Although the summit of Mount Everest reaches a higher elevation above sea level, the summit of Chimborazo is widely reported to be the farthest point from earth center (Senne 2000), although this could be challenged by Huascarán. Chimborazo is just one degree south of the equator and the earth's diameter at the equator is greater than at Everest's latitude (nearly 28° north), with sea level also being elevated. So, despite being 2,581 m (8,568 ft) lower in elevation above sea level, it is 6,384.4 km (3,968 mi) from the Earth's center, 2.1 km farther than the summit of Everest.

Mount Chimborazo as viewed from the Southwest. Image Credit: Wikipedia
Reference Here>>

After eating some rats and nearly being killed by a mudslide in Baños, we took off more or less at random and decided for the other side of Chimborazo. First day of approach walking up scree slopes with big packs. Then we didn't feel like going to the summit the next day (that is to say, Vincent was altitude-sick, as usual), so we just went for some ice-climbing on the face on a route that led to nowhere. Basically the rule was: "go where it's steepest". In fact it is hard for us ice climbers to find any routes of technical interest on those gentle-sloped volcanoes. Well, we managed to find a couple pitches of 80° ice. The rock around is real bad though. Image Credit: Guillaume Dargaud

Traditional summit picture on Chimborazo, this time with some sun. The Altar is visible on the right and Iliniza (?) on the left. The Altar is not very well known but it is one of the nicest mountains of Ecuador. It is also one of the hardest, having been first climbed only in the 50's by an italian team. Image Credit: Guillaume Dargaud

With this change in perspective, it's funny ya' know but the gentlemen pictured above did not know that they had just scaled the tallest point on the planet Earth.

Poll Answers

QUESTION:

Who was the first person to climb and conquer Chimborazo and replace Sir Edmund Hillary as the first person to the "Top Of The World"?

Any comments?