Something "Lyrid" Is Lurking In The Sky Tonight - UPDATED 8/11/07

The Griffith Observatory - is an icon of Los Angeles, a national leader in public astronomy, a beloved civic gathering place, and one of southern California's most popular attractions. The Observatory is located on the southern slope of Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park, just above the Los Feliz neighborhood. It is 1,134 feet above sea level and is visible from many parts of the Los Angeles basin. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks, Copyright 2006

Something "Lyrid" Is Lurking In The Sky Tonight

Ever stop and wonder why the Earth is really, at once ... so big, and yet, so small?

Tonight and tomorrow we will all have a chance to wonder and realize that this Blue Orb is a special platform on which to observe the real world that is happening around us - the real world that is the sky of which is the community we all belong.

This report from The Griffith Observatory -

The Griffith Observatory Sky Report
Anthony Cook - Astronomical Observer - April 18, 2007

This is the Griffith Observatory Sky Report for the week ending April 25. Here is what’s happening in the skies of Southern California:

The moon returns to the evening sky on Wednesday when it can be found at sunset, midway between the sun’s setting point and the brilliant planet Venus. The moon appears less than 5 degrees to the lower right of Venus on Thursday evening. It reaches first-quarter phase on Monday evening, the 23rd, and on the next night, it passes less than 4 degrees from Saturn.

Saturn, in Leo the Lion, is best placed for viewing–71 degrees high in the west–as soon as darkness falls, and sets in the west northwest at about 3:10 a.m.

Bright tapioca-hued Jupiter rises at about 11p.m., and becomes noticeable in the southeast sky by midnight. The giant planet is highest, 34 degrees above the southern horizon, at 4 a.m., and is slightly west of south at dawn. Jupiter is in the constellation Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, between Scorpius the Scorpion and Sagittarius the Archer.

Jupiter can help you to locate the Hubble Space Telescope when it flies south of Los Angeles this week. The HST will emerge from the Earth’s shadow in the south-southeast–to the left of Jupiter and slightly higher than the planet–each morning from Monday the 23rd to Thursday the 26th. It appears at 4:19 a.m. on Monday morning, then descends towards the east over the next three minutes, where the red planet Mars is rising. The HST appears about 90 seconds earlier each successive morning, following a similar track each time. Look starting at 4:18 a.m. on the 24th, 4:17 a.m. on the 25th, and 4:15 a.m. on the 26th.

The Griffth Observatory (at night) - The large new Richard and Lois Gunther Depths of Space exhibit gallery is activated by the recent transformation of cosmic perspective that began when people first ventured into space. No longer is observation and understanding of the sky bonded to the ground and framed by the horizon. The Gunther Depths of Space is filled with exhibits that are as monumental and unique as the ideas they illustrate: The Planets, Our Earth, Our Solar System,Other Worlds, Other Stars, Milky Way Galaxy, Iconic Universe, A Familiar Star Pattern, Our Address, The Big Picture, The Big Picture-Related Exhibits (Field Guides, Depth of Space, Einstein) - Image Credit: Edmund Jenks, Copyright 2006

The Lyrid meteor shower is predicted to be at its best between 11 p.m. on Saturday night and until dawn starts on Sunday morning April 22, at about 5 a.m. Up to 18 meteors per hour can be seen from a dark wilderness location, far from urban light pollution. The radiant point, from which the meteors seem to stream, is actually in the constellation Hercules the Hero, but is close to the bright star Vega in Lyra, the Lyre.

Free public viewing is available through Griffith Observatory’s telescopes. For information on making a reservation to visit, see our website, www.griffithobservatory.org, or call (213) 473-0800. The next public star party, held by members of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society and the Los Angeles Sidewalk Astronomers, will be held on the Observatory’s front lawn on Saturday, April 21.

And that’s this week’s Sky Report.
Reference Here>>

This description of the Lyrid Meteor Shower from Sky Tonight.Com -

April's Lyrid Meteor Shower
by Roger W. Sinnott

The Lyrid meteor shower has been observed for more than 2,000 years; Chinese records say "stars fell like rain" during the shower of 687 BC. But in recent times the Lyrids have generally been weak. They have a brief maximum that lasts for less than a day, and even then only 10 to 20 Lyrids per hour may appear.

But there have been some remarkable exceptions. In 1982 the rate unexpectedly reached 90 for a single hour, and 180 to 300 for a few minutes. A brief outburst of 100 per hour was also seen in 1922. And on April 20, 1803, residents of Richmond, Virginia, upon being rousted out of bed by a fire bell, were startled to see great numbers of meteors in all parts of the sky. "This unpredictability always makes the Lyrids a shower to watch, since we cannot say when the next unusual return may occur," note Alistair McBeath and Rainer Arlt of the International Meteor Organization.

Use our interactive sky chart to see the appearance of the heavens at 2:00 a.m., during the peak morning of the Lyrids. The radiant point of this shower lies between the bright summer star Vega and the keystone pattern of the constellation Hercules. The chart is set at 40° north latitude for central North America. Click on the "change" button to alter either the date and time or viewing location displayed by the chart. Generally, there will be more meteors than usual visible for a few days on either side of the peak of a meteor shower.
Reference Here>>

On August 12, 1993, J. F. Funderburg photographed this bright Perseid streaking past the Andromeda Galaxy (fuzzy trail just above the meteor's center). Image Credit: J.F. Funderburg via SkyTonight.com

And this from tip from EarthSky.Org –

Who Should Watch The Lyrid Meteor Shower?

You should! If you’re a gambler.

That’s because all meteor showers are just that . . . a gamble. No one can tell you precisely how many meteors you’ll see from any given shower.

We can tell you this. The Lyrid meteor shower will peak this weekend. The best time to watch will be Sunday before dawn, and then again on Monday before dawn.

And we can say that the moon – bane of meteor watchers for its tendency to wash out all but the brightest meteors – will be approaching the first quarter phase during the shower’s peak. That means it’ll set in the middle of the night, leaving the hours before dawn dark for watching meteors. That’s a good thing.

The Lyrid meteor shower is usually more of a trickle, with a typical rate of 10 or 15 meteors per hour. Still, in 1982, the Lyrids ramped up to over 100 meteors per hour for a few minutes. See what we mean? A gamble.

If you want to watch the Lyrids, the same rules apply as for other meteor showers. Most important rule: get away from city lights. Find an open area in a country location. Lie back. Relax. Look up in a casual way, with your eyes roving over all parts of the sky. When you spot one, it’s fun to alert your companions by yelling out “meteor!” It’s fun to count how many you see in an hour.

Most meteor showers are best after midnight, so the later you can stay out the better. Or get up in the wee hours and do your meteor-watching before dawn.

Lyrid meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Lyra the Harp. But you don’t need to identify Lyra to see the meteors. In fact, you’ll see more meteors if you let your eyes wander around the sky. The meteors are streaking away from Lyra, but they tend to be most visible when they’re some distance from the constellation.
The constellation Lyra – the radiant point for the Lyrid meteor shower – is now overhead before dawn. So, if you’re out at that time, the meteors will be streaking down from the top of the sky.

Lyra itself is pretty easy to pick out. It’s tiny and has a distinctive shape. The brightest star seen overhead in the hour before dawn is Lyra’s brightest star, Vega. You’ll easily pick out a tiny quadrilateral of stars near Vega. This little pattern of stars is the rest of the constellation Lyra.

The Lyrids tend to be bright and leisurely in motion. They occur when Earth swings through a thin trail of comet debris floating in space. The tiny icy particles burn up in our atmosphere, creating flashes or streaks.

So imagine yourself under a dark country sky. You’re surrounded by stars. Every so often, you see a streak across the sky: a Lyrid meteor. It is beautiful.
And isn’t that the best thing about a gamble? The payoff!
Reference Here>>

VIDEO: A Visit To Griffith Observatory (Los Angeles)

UPDATE – The Mid-Summer Perseid Is In Effect - 8/11/07

Scientists expect spectacular Perseid meteor shower
By DAVID OLSON - The Press-Enterprise - 04:07 PM PDT on Friday, August 10, 2007

The Perseid shower's peak this year will be late Sunday night and before dawn Monday.
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The Perseid shower is a favorite because the streaks of light tend to be especially bright and sometimes have hues of color, Clarke said.

In addition, said Ralph Megna, chairman of the Riverside Astronomical Society, the Perseids are unusually reliable. Viewers can typically see 60 to 80 meteors an hour during the pinnacle, which this year will be after midnight Monday. A smaller number of meteors will be visible tonight and Monday night.

The meteors will be most visible far away from city lights. Megna will view the meteor shower at the society's observatory in Landers, in the remote San Bernardino County desert.

But they also can be seen -- albeit more faintly -- in suburban backyards. The best way to see them is with the naked eye, because they move too quickly to be easily seen through telescopes, said Doreen Wiggins, of the Big Bear Valley Astronomical Society, which is gathering at Erwin Lake near Big Bear Lake to view the showers.

"You just have to lay out and look up at the sky," she said.

The debris from the Perseid meteor shower was once part of Comet Swift-Tuttle. Comets are collections of rock, dust and ice that were created during the formation of the solar system more than 4 ½ billion years ago.
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Every August, Earth goes toward the trail of particles that follows the same general path as Comet Swift-Tuttle. The debris -- primarily dust the size of a grain of sand -- travels about 132,000 miles per hour, so when it disintegrates upon impact with Earth's atmosphere, the heat and energy that are created produce light seen miles below on Earth, he said. The light is typically 50 to 100 miles above ground.

The most meteors will occur in the hours before dawn on Monday because that is when the densest part of the debris stream will be hitting Earth's atmosphere, Benner said.
Reference Here>>

TIPS FOR VIEWING METEORS

The peak of the Perseid meteor shower is late Sunday night 8/12/07 and, especially, after midnight Monday 8/13/07.

For the best viewing:

Go where the SKY IS DARKEST. You'll see some meteors in cities, but not as many as in areas away from bright lights.

AFTER 9 P.M. SUNDAY, look for the meteors in the NORTHEAST SKY. The meteors will fly out of the constellation Perseus. There will be fewer meteors early in the night, but they will be among the most beautiful. They approach from the horizon and skim through the sky like stones skipping the surface of a pond.

In the hours BEFORE DAWN MONDAY, there could be more than ONE METEOR A MINUTE.

It is best to VIEW the meteors WITH THE NAKED EYE. Telescopes and binoculars would make it more difficult, because the meteors move so quickly.

Bring a blanket or lawn chair so you can LIE DOWN. Otherwise, your neck will get tired from looking up at the sky.

SOURCE: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

"i-CAUGHT" - From Target, To Food, To Family Member

i-CAUGHT Logo - Image Credit: ABC News

"i-CAUGHT" - From Target, To Food, To Family Member

Life here on the Oblate Spheroid can be pretty tenuous at best, especially if you happen to be an animal in Africa.

Last night, a new television show entitled “i-CAUGHT” aired that features video that is posted on the internet (primarily YouTube) for many purposes. For some, people post to share, others post in an effort to discover more information, and most people post video because they now can.

Battle At Kruger - The first YouTube video reported on at i-CAUGHT … Amateur video captures a riveting battle among lions, crocodiles and buffalo in Africa.

ABC News, the division who manages the effort to make “i-Caught” a successful television endeavor has created a web portal of its own through which people can participate in the development of the content shown on the program.

i-Produce, a button feature on the Home page, allows anyone to help “produce” the upcoming airing of the show by voting for the video one believes is the best offered. The video receiving the most votes will be included in the next week’s airing thus giving the show an interactive quality.

This from ABC News’ i-CAUGHT web portal –

What is i-CAUGHT?

Well - we all know there's a video revolution swirling around us all - 24/7. Ask yourself... how many times were you caught on surveillance video today? Did you - like more than 100,000 other people - upload a video onto the internet? Did you go online like millions of others and watch a video?

We're ALL a part of this new video revolution.

But it's more than just entertainment. Every one of these videos has a story behind it. Who made it? What was going on behind the scenes? What came after it? And how much can we really believe what we see?

An awful lot of it is also news. The politician caught on an open mic. The policeman caught doing the heroic - or the opposite. The patrol on the streets of Baghdad. Or the moment when Mother Nature wreaks havoc on the ususpecting. We're watching - literally - as every single person with a video camera can gather news for all the rest of us.

We call this new television and internet experience i-CAUGHT. Because that's how so many people feel these days. Everywhere you look - cameras - catching everything: breaking news... making headlines... turning unknowns into celebrities... turning others into laughing stocks...

And for all the world to see - in an instant. It's video at the speed of life.

Every week, i-CAUGHT brings you the real stories - reporting on the real people - behind the videos that millions of us watch and share everyday.
Reference Here>>

Truth is, NowPublic and i-CAUGHT would make a good pairing because video is more than just images ... video is surrounded by and contains a story that has a beginning, middle and an end ... just as it is revealed in "Battle At Kruger" - From Target, To Food, To Family Member!

The Coelacanth: A Fish For Time … Any Time

Graphic fact file on the coelacanth, a rare fish once thought to be extinct for millions of years until one was caught in 1938 off the coast of East Africa. A living specimen was caught in Indonesia this year, only the second ever in the region. Image Credit: AFP Graphic

The Coelacanth: A Fish For Time … Any Time

The Coelacanth is just this type of ocean creature.

It has become a fish of our time in that the sightings are so rare that these these occurrences create international attention in the scientific community.

Most scientists believed that this fish was extinct until one was caught and catalogued about 70 years ago, in the Commoros archipelago, off of the coast of Eastern Africa.

Until this latest catch, there was only one other sighting in Indonesia (in the same area, Manado, as this sighting) back in 1998.

Coelacanths, closely related to lungfish, usually live at depths of 656-3,200 feet. They can grow up to 6.5 feet in length and weigh as much as 200 pounds.

This catch was equally unusual, in that, it came on the end of a 360 foot line … about half of the depth that scientists understood this fish could live.

Further, this Coelacanth is a fish for time … any time because it only took a little over two months for information on this capture to make it to general news distribution.

An unidentified researcher measures a coelacanth after it was caught by fishermen at a depth of about 100m off Nungwi, northern Zanzibar July 14, 2007. The fish weighed 27kgs with a total length of 134.8cm. The coelacanth, known from fossil records dating back more than 360 million years, was believed to have become extinct some 80 million years ago until one was caught off the eastern coast of South Africa in 1938 -- a major zoological find. Image Credit: Picture taken July 14, 2007. REUTERS/Dr Narriman Jiddawi/Institute of Marine Sciences in Zanzibar/Handout (TANZANIA)

This from Agence France-Presse (AFP) via Yahoo! News -

Scientists excited by Indonesian-caught coelacanth
By Ronan Bourhis - AFP - Sat Jul 28, 11:06 PM ET

MANADO, Indonesia - Two months ago Indonesian fisherman Justinus Lahama caught a fish so exceptional that an international team of scientists rushed here to investigate.

French experts equipped with sonar and GPS asked Lahama to reconstruct, in his dugout canoe, exactly what it was he did that enabled him to catch a rare coelacanth fish, an awkward-swimming species among the world's oldest.

Indonesian fisherman Justinus Lahama displaying to international researchers how he managed to capture a giant and very rare coelacanth fish in Manado, North Sulawesi, in June. Their fossil records date back more than 360 million years and suggest the animal has changed little in that time. Image Credit: AFP/File/Ronan Bourhis

Last May 19, Lahama and his son Delvy manoevred their frail canoe into the Malalayang river, on the outskirts of Manado, on northern Sulawesi island. Like any other morning, they rowed out to sea and fished within 200 metres (yards) of the beach.
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"I very quickly unrolled the usual trawl line with three hooks, about 110 metres (yards) long, and at the end of three minutes, I felt a large catch," Lahama recounts.

The pull was strong: "I had painful arms -- I felt such a resistance, I thought that I was pulling up a piece of coral."

After 30 minutes of effort under the searing tropical sun, he finally saw a fish swishing at a depth of about 20 metres (65 feet).

"The sea was very calm this day. There was no wind, no clouds, no current. The water was very clear. The fish let itself be drawn in from there," he says.

"It was an enormous fish. It had phosphorescent green eyes and legs. If I had pulled it up during the night, I would have been afraid and I would have thrown it back in," he exclaims.
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Lahama, 48, has fished since he was 10 years old, like his father and his grandfather before him. But he was unlikely to have ever run into this "living fossil" species, as scientists have dubbed the enigmatic fish.

Fin of a very rare coelacanth fish in Manado as Indonesian, Japanese and French specialists (unseen) carry out an autopsy, North Sulawesi, in June. Coelacanths are among the world's oldest fish species. Their fossil records date back more than 360 million years and suggest the animal has changed little in that time. Image Credit: AFP/File/Ronan Bourhis

Lahama's catch, 1.3 metres long and weighing 50 kilograms (110 pounds) was only the second ever captured alive in Asia.
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Their fossil records date back more than 360 million years and suggest that the fish has changed little over that period.
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Returning to port, he [Lahama] showed it off to the most senior fisherman, who became alarmed.

"It is a fish which has legs -- it should be given back to the water. It will bring us misfortune," he told him. But the unsuperstitious Lahama decided to keep it.

After spending 30 minutes out of water, the fish, still alive, was placed in a netted pool in front of a restaurant at the edge of the sea. It survived for 17 hours.

The local fisheries authorities filmed the fish swimming in the metre-deep pool, capturing invaluable images as the species had only previously been recorded in caves at great depths.

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The site of capture, so close to the beach and from a depth of 105 metres, had intrigued the scientists. Does the Indonesian coelacanth live in shallower waters than its cousin in the Commoros?

Lahama's fish is to be preserved and will be displayed in a museum in Manado.
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In Fawnskin ... It’s Short Size That Matters

Downtown Fawnskin looking to the Southeast. The Doo-Dah Parade approaches toward this direction and ends at this corner on Highway 38. Image Credit: Mike Manning

In Fawnskin ... It’s Short Size That Matters

Fawnskin, California: Image Credit: ©2006 Mike Manning

Here on the Oblate Spheroid, up in the San Bernardino mountains, about 100 miles East of Los Angeles, around Big Bear Lake this weekend, the world’s shortest parade - The Fawnskin Doo-Dah Parade, proclaimed as being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, takes place in a town on the North shore of the lake.

The Fawnskin Doo-Dah Parade even features a “Fly-Over” by two civilian prop-driven planes. Image Credit: Millener Productions

The areas where the parade participants get together and then end are larger than the parade.

This approximately 40 minute parade is one of two parades staged over the summer celebration event here in the Big Bear Lake valley area known as “Old Miners' Days.

Here is what the official website says about Old Miner’s Days and the event:

Old Miners' Days

The Old Miners' program has been an institution in the Big Bear Valley since 1949, with many of the events dating back as far. This year the 4 weekends of festivities will begin with the Picnic at the Lake, a fundraiser to help support other activities, mainly the OMD Parade, and ends with that annual parade - traditionally the first Sunday in August.
Reference Here>>

Old Miners' Days Doo Dah Parade
Saturday, July 28

This parade is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the shortest parade at 3 blocks long, but what a punch it packs!

Off-the-wall, cheeky, and outright funny is how this event is often described by those that attend. You'll have a good belly laugh at this one-of-a-kind parade that spoofs the Old Miners' Day Parade in August.

"Nuns" - Big Bear Valley C.A.T.S. (Community Arts Theater Society) - Image Credit: ©2005 Edmund Jenks

Don't be surprised to see men dressed as nuns, toilet paper floats, and everything else imaginable. The DooDah Parade is only 3 blocks long, so get there early for a good seat because anything goes at this sometimes odd but tremendously fun event!!
Reference And Additioal Information Here>>

Additional information about the history and background of Fawnskin -

Fawnskin, California

Fawnskin, California is an unincorporated community of San Bernardino County located on the north shore, more specifically at Grout Bay, of Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino National Forest. It sits at an elevation of 6750 feet at the north end of Grout Bay and is bordered by Big Bear City to its east. Directly across the lake is the incorporated City of Big Bear Lake, California.

The small township was once an artist’s colony. Mountain travelers in the 1800s came to the Big Bear Valley through Fawnskin on the rough road by stagecoach and later motorcars. Several other names were temporarily chosen for the North Shore village including Cline-Miller, Bald Eagle Valley, Big Bear Village, Oso Grande and Grout.

The village has always been an attraction to vacationers seeking a retreat from city life in its mountain terrain. Several hundred homes are in the forested mountainside adjacent to the forest.

Gold miners, loggers and hunters were drawn to the adjacent Holcomb Valley during the 1800s. One urban legend is that some hunters discovered deer (fawn) skins stretched out to dry in the sun. Hence, the area became known as Fawn Skin and later Fawnskin.
Fawnskin was once the hub of lakeside acivity, serving as a stagecoach stop and tourist attraction with hotels and dining.

The town includes the Fawn Lodge, built in 1917, but now closed. The Pedersen Saw Mill, which lies just west of the lodge, and the historic post office which lies to the east of it, which is now a private home rental. Downtown Fawnskin has some of the oldest buildings in the valley.

Once popular for camping, the Lighthouse Camp and Landing is the only surviving north shore camp from the 1920s. Hanna Flats and a YMCA camp located within the forest above Fawnskin remain favorites of vacationers.

Image Credit: ©2005 Edmund Jenks

Fawnskin events include the comic Doo Dah Parade, the Loggers’ Jubilee and the Fawnskin Festival. The town also claims the only "honest" election in the nation: anyone can vote for the Fawnskin Mayor, votes are donations of a quarter. The candidate who wins is the one who raises the most money. Hence, the town "buys" their politicians.

Today Fawnskin is designated as a protective habitat for Golden and American Bald Eagles. They return annually to the valley from November to April.

In 1998, the multi-million dollar Big Bear Discovery Center was built and plans to expand. The facility is operated by a partnership between the US Forest Service and the San Bernardino National Forest Association. The grounds around the center are the projected new home for the Big Bear Zoo, presently located at Moonridge on the south shore.

A variety of celebrities live in the area. Two publishers operate out of Fawnskin and several writers live there full time including Bradley L. Winch, Diana L. Guerrero, Rita Robinson, and William Sarabande. Actress/singer Shirley Jones and her husband actor/comedian Marty Ingles also own a home in Fawnskin. Marty Ingles and Shirley Jones created Fawn Park in downtown Fawnskin to prevent development. This park has been closed since July 2006 due to a dispute between Marty and the residents.

The small area contains other parks such as the Old Miller School House Park, Dana Point Park, and the Don Conroy Memorial Park.
Reference Here>>

ADDITIONAL PARADE PHOTOS CATALOGED HERE>>

“Emotionally Double-Parked”: Big Reaction To A Small Town Honor

Great American Race 2007 competitors arrive on the tarmac at the Big Bear Lake Airport for the final pitstop of the race. Image Credit: KBHR

“Emotionally Double-Parked”: Big Reaction To A Small Town Honor

For many decades now, there has been a hamlet in the rugged, Ponderosa and Fir covered mountains of San Bernardino located about 100 miles East of LAX, that has provided an island of serenity and small town charm with little fanfare and recognition.

Last week, all of that lack of recognition changed just a little when The Great American Race bestowed the honor of the title - Great American City!

Map of the Great American Race 2007 route. Image Credit: The Great Race

At last weekend's awards ceremony in Anaheim, the drivers of the Great American Race named Big Bear Lake the Great American City out of their 43 cross-country pitstops (roughly 4,000 miles), from Concord, North Carolina to Anaheim, California.

The Great American Race began in 1982 when an auto enthusiast, Curtis Graf, and
a close friend, Tom McRae, both of Dallas, Texas, learned about a cross-country
rally for classic cars. They approached Norman Miller, a fellow Texan and
president of Interstate Batteries, about sponsoring the pair if they entered the
race. Miller agreed. Within weeks, the original promoter had lost interest and
the entrepreneurial McRae soon found himself in partnership with Miller in
promoting the inaugural Interstate Batteries Great American Race.

Knott’s Berry Farm, an amusement park in Buena Park, Calif., hosted the
official start when 69 classic cars took the green flag, waved by Tony Curtis,
star of the 1960s movie “The Great Race.” Seven days later, 62 vehicles finished
in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Great Race was on its way. (ht: The Great Race)

The race for 2007 (the 25th anniversary edition) decided to include Big Bear Lake on the list of cities in which to stage a pitstop due largely to the lobbying efforts of the president of Bear Valley's own antique car club - Cliff Fowler.

To people who are familiar with Big Bear, Cliff Fowler is a recognizable fixture and personality in that he can be heard on the local radio station, 93.3 FM - KBHR (K-Bear), delivering the weekly fishing report titled "Fowlers Fish Tales". Most people tune in to hear some of Cliff's most famous phrases, delivered in a studied and punctuated style, that may include "that beautiful blue jewel located 7,000 feet up in the San Bernardino mountains", "for the bait boys ... a sliding egg sinker and Goo [Eagle Claw Nitro, Power Bait] or Wigglers off the bottom for some good action along the shore”, and ".... so pull up a rock and teach a worm how to swim, this is Cliff Fowler … for this week’s edition of … Fowler’s Fish Tales".

Great American Race participants made their way up Cushenbury Grade to Big Bear Valley on July 13. They left from Laughlin, Nev., on that morning for what turned out to be a long day. Fowler called the penultimate day of the Great American Race brutal for the drivers.

Cresting the mountain at Cushenbury Grade road that leads from Lucerne in the Mojave desert before a relaxing stopover at the Big Bear Lake Airport. Image Credit: Great American Race

This from The Great Race website –

Big Bear Lake, California wins 2007 Great American City Award
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA - July 15, 2007

After the 2007 Great Race participants visited 44 different communities; enjoying celebratory welcomes all the way across America, they voted Big Bear Valley, California the best of the best, giving them the prestigious Great American City Award and $5,000 for their local library. The Big Bear Lake Antique Car Club spearheaded the event and started working on it five months before the arrival of the Great Race. The event was held at the Big Bear Airport as a Pit Stop for the racers on Friday, July 13th, which was also the last day of competition.

“I’m emotionally double parked,” stated Cliff Fowler, Big Bear Lake Antique Car Club President. “Earning the award was something I had a personal vision to do everything in the world to accomplish. I was so honored that thousands of people in town came out for this once in a lifetime event, that’s what Big Bear is all about. We only have 17,000 people who live here, but when it comes to a common cause like this they show their true colors.”

In a scene reminiscent of the 1960’s movie “The Great Race,” thousands lined the winding mountain roads leading into and out of town to cheer on the racers. The reception was a welcome relief after their drive out of the California desert and 120 degree temperatures in Laughlin, NV. Locals waved home made banners, posters and American flags while cheering the racers up the mountain to the community’s 7,000-foot elevation.

“It was a tough choice for the racers with so many great stops to choose from,” said Bill Ewing, CEO of Rally Partners, Inc. “There were so many memorable stops that it was a difficult choice, but Big Bear’s enthusiasm and warmth won out.” With the help from many local sponsors they were able to shower the racers with gifts such as a commemorative hat, a coffee mug and a wooden carved bear driving a red sports car which was raffled off at the competitors final awards ceremony.

“Big Bear was one of my favorite towns,” said Bob LaBine, winner of the 2007 Great American Race. “It was great traveling up the roads and seeing so many people greeting you with signs.”

Portions of Blake Edwards’ 1965 film “The Great Race” were filmed in Big Bear Valley, among other locales in the Big Bear mountain region. The movie was loosely based on the original Great Race that took place in 1908. In 2008, the Great Race will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1908 race from New York to Paris with The Great Race 2008: New York to Paris.

This was the first time the Great Race had ever been through Big Bear, but it will not be the last.
Reference Here>>

And these excerpts from the Big Bear Grizzly -

Drivers overwhelmed by Valley hospitality
By JUDI BOWERS - Saturday July 18, 2007 - Big Bear Grizzly

They came, they saw and they definitely liked Big Bear. So much so, the Great American Race drivers voted Big Bear as the Great American City.

When the Great American Race 2007 rolled into Big Bear July 13, they were welcomed by thousands of open arms. The Big Bear community turned out to greet the drivers and navigators as they made their way from Yucca Valley up Highway 18 to Big Bear Airport. The welcome didn’t stop there.

Competitors get a grand sendoff as they crest the Onyx Summit when they left Big Bear Lake and the Big Bear Valley, down highway 38 on to the finale in Anaheim. Image Credit: The Great Race

Big Bear also waved goodbye as the teams left Big Bear Airport and headed out of town on Highway 38 over Onyx Summit. Groups of people waited at turnouts along the highway and at Onyx Summit waving, sporting signs and cheering the drivers on.
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Cliff Fowler of the Big Bear Antique Car Club organized the pit stop in Big Bear. He said the community support put Big Bear over the top as the drivers voted for their top pit stop. There were 45 to choose from. The racers left Concord, N.C., June 30 and made 45 stops along the way.

“It was miraculous,” Fowler said, adding the town came together for a common goal.

Pam Heiman, branch librarian, is thrilled. “We’re pretty ecstatic around here,” Heiman said. She gushed about how fun the event was, how the community under Fowler’s leadership and organization put forth a combined effort. She said it was fun and whether Big Bear won or not, it was a positive experience.
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Big Bear Lake Airport Landing (tarmac location)

In Big Bear, the flavor of the town began as the cars made their way up the highway from Yucca Valley. Greeters lined the road with signs and flags and more. When the cars arrived at Big Bear airport, they were greeted by hundreds on the tarmac. The drivers and navigators were given gifts and food, and a ticket. The ticket was for a drawing to be held at the rally’s end July 14. George Crezee of Unreal Furnishings, created a bear carving commemorating the Great Race. The carving was sent to the finale site and presented to the holder of the winning ticket there, Fowler said.

Fowler said that Wayne Stanfield, chief operating officer for race organizers Rally Partners, told him the Great Race hadn’t seen this type of enthusiasm from a community in 20 years.

“I could not be prouder of this town,” Fowler said. He said the experience and winning the award leave him very emotional.

Fowler thanked the sponsors, the city of Big Bear Lake, San Bernardino County, the Resort Association, Chamber of Commerce, KBHR and Stater Bros. for the financial support. He said the town couldn’t have pulled off a pit stop of this magnitude without them.

The participants in the Great American Race 2007 left Big Bear with a warm and fuzzy feeling, which is just what Fowler had planned.
Reference Here>>

The Era Of General Fiber Ethanol Begins

How It Works (steps and link below) - Image Credit: Range Fuels

The Era Of General Fiber Ethanol Begins

Range Fuels, a company that is in the lead on building conversion plants that can take ANY fiber material (switch grasses, chaff, wood chips, mown grass, fallen tree limbs, waste stalks from corn production as opposed to the food – corn, and etc.) and convert it to Ethanol fuel has just been selected to construct the first commercially viable “Cellulosic” based power plant by the state of Georgia.

The reason this is truly “Peachy” isn’t that Georgia is the leading producer of a nuisance waste plant - KUDZU – but that this type of Ethanol production is the path to the change over from finite fossil fuels to renewable, human produce-able fuel resource.

This type of fuel production is very efficient. Cellulosic Ethanol can contain up to 16 times more energy than is required to create it! This is quite impressive when one considers that fossil fuel gasoline contains only 5 times more energy than was required to create it … and corn or sugar based ethanol contains only 1.3 times the energy required to create it.

So, let the era of sustainable general fiber Ethanol fuel production begin!

Image Credit: Range Fuels

Excerpts from the Range Fuels website –

Range Fuels awarded permit to construct the nation’s first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant
Independence Day marks the start of our country’s independence from fossil fuels
Range Fuels News Release - Palo Alto, CA. and Broomfield, CO – July 2, 2007

Range Fuels announced today that the company was awarded a construction permit from the state of Georgia to build the first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the United States. Ground breaking will take place this summer in Treutlen County, Georgia for a 100-million-gallon-per-year cellulosic ethanol plant that will use wood waste from Georgia’s forests as its feedstock. Phase 1 of the plant is scheduled to complete construction in 2008 with a production capacity of 20 million gallons a year.

“We are thrilled to receive this permit and anticipate the construction of many plants throughout Georgia and the Southeast using wood waste to make ethanol,” said Mitch Mandich, CEO of Range Fuels. “With Independence Day on July 4, we are excited to begin the march toward independence from our country’s reliance on fossil fuel.”
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"The Department is pleased that the country is one step closer to making the widespread use of cellulosic ethanol a reality," U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman said. "This furthers the President's goal of deploying clean, renewable energy into the marketplace, and we are eager for the results of Range Fuels’ work, and the work of the other biorefinery grant recipients, to help increase energy security and enhance economic growth."

Range Fuels is at the forefront of new proprietary technology for producing cellulosic ethanol. While most domestic ethanol production requires corn as a feedstock, Range Fuels' proprietary process does not. The country’s ability to make corn ethanol is limited by the agricultural land available to grow it. The latest estimates predict that corn ethanol can only produce up to 15 billion gallons per year. On the other hand, the U.S. Department of Energy, in their joint report with the USDA, has identified over one billion tons of biomass annually that could be converted to biofuels, like ethanol. Range Fuels’ technology can transform all of this biomass, including wood chips, agricultural wastes, grasses, and cornstalks as well as hog manure, municipal garbage, sawdust and paper pulp into ethanol. The company has already successfully tested close to 30 types of biomass for producing ethanol.

Image Credit: Range Fuels

The company’s technology completely eliminates enzymes which have been an expensive component of cellulosic ethanol production. Range Fuels’ thermo-chemical conversion process, the K2 system, uses a two step process to convert the biomass to synthesis gas, and then converts the gas to ethanol. In addition to the ability to process a broad range of potential biomass feedstock, the K2 system benefits from a modular design.
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The company selected Georgia for its first plant based upon the abundance of forest refuse and the renewable and sustainable forest industry. The state has demonstrated great stewardship of its forest lands and environmental sensitivity. The forests of Georgia can support up to 2 billion gallons a year of cellulosic ethanol production.

Range Fuels, with Governor Perdue, announced plans to build the plant on February 7 of this year.
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Technology

Range Fuels has invented a two-step thermo-chemical process to produce cellulosic ethanol. Even if these words are foreign to you, the positives are sure to resonate: the process is self-sustaining, produces virtually no waste products, emits very low levels of greenhouse gases, and produces high yields of clean ethanol.

A Design Driven by Efficiency
Our focus on efficiency goes beyond how we produce ethanol – it also extends to where we produce it. Our distributive design lets us bring systems to sources where biomass is most plentiful, instead of having to transport biomass to a central processing site. This reduces transportation costs and related transportation fuel consumption. Our modularity also allows the system to grow as more biomass becomes available. Simply adding another module – which is easy to ship and install – immediately doubles the output. We put our systems where they are needed, in just the size that is needed.

Nature’s Way
Our entire approach is based upon the invention of eco-friendly technology. The best evidence of this is that we produce more ethanol per energy input than competing technologies. Nature likes this. Especially since everything going in is plant and waste material that serves no useful purpose. We call this conversion "waste to value," and this thrust is what motivates us to keep working our hardest.

Our Two-Step Thermo-Chemical Process

Step 1: Solids to Gas
Biomass (plant matter) that cannot be used for food and currently serves no useful purpose, such as agricultural waste, is fed into a converter. Using heat, pressure, and steam the feedstock is converted into synthesis gas (syngas), which is conditioned before entering the second step.

Step 2: Gas to Liquids
The conditioned syngas is passed over a catalyst and transformed into alcohols. These alcohols are then separated and processed to yield a variety of liquid products, specifically ethanol of a quality suitable for use in fueling vehicles.

Image Credit: Range Fuels

A Simple Process
Because Range Fuels’ process utilizes a thermo-chemical process, it relies on the chemical reactions and conversions between forms that naturally occur when certain materials are mixed under specific combinations of temperature and pressure. Other conversion processes use enzymes, yeasts, and other biological means to convert between forms.

Feedstock Flexibility
The Range Fuels process accommodates a wide range of organic feedstocks of various types, sizes, and moisture contents. This flexibility eliminates commercial problems related to fluctuations in feed material quality and ensures success in the real world, far from laboratory-controlled conditions.

Tested and True
Range Fuels’ technology has been tested and proven in bench and pilot-scale units for over 7 years. Over 8,000 hours of testing has been completed on over 20 different non-food feedstocks with varying moisture contents and sizes, including wood waste, olive pits, and more. This technology will be used in our first facility planned for a site near Soperton, Georgia.

Range Fuels K2 Process Graphically Explained Here>>

Curious Cephalopod Capture Creates Controversy

An unidentified sea creature, termed an "octosquid," was found last week off Keahole Point on the Big Island. Image Credit: Honolulu Star Bulletin

Curious Cephalopod Capture Creates Controversy

On a day when “Live Earth – The Concerts For A Climate In Crisis” is trying to bring awareness to the perils of the Earth going through its process of climate transition from cooler to warmer to cooler again … we see this item here while riding on this blue orb shaped as an Oblate Spheroid and discover that humankind never has ALL of the answers.

This new discovery is a cephalopod combination never before seen. This animal found off of the coast of the big island, Hawaii, appears to be a cross between an octopus and a squid (as if that might even be possible) may very well represent a new species of mollusk.



Excerpts from the Honolulu Star Bulletin -

Curious creature caught off Keahole Point
The animal, dubbed an "octosquid," is found off the Big Isle
By Brittany P. Yap / byap@starbulletin.com - Thursday, July 5, 2007

It's a squid, it's an octopus, it's ... a mystery from the deep.

What appears to be a half-squid, half-octopus specimen found off Keahole Point on the Big Island remains unidentified today and could possibly be a new species, said local biologists.

The specimen was found caught in a filter in one of Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority's deep-sea water pipelines last week. The pipeline, which runs 3,000 feet deep, sucks up cold, deep-sea water for the tenants of the natural energy lab.
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According to Richard Young, an oceanography professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the specimen tentatively belongs to the genus Mastigoteuthis, but the species is undetermined.
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Jan War, operations manager at NELHA, who termed the specimen "octosquid" for the way it looked, said it was about a foot long, with white suction cups, eight tentacles and an octopus head with a squidlike mantle.

The octosquid was pulled to the surface, along with three rattail fish and half a dozen satellite jellyfish, and stayed alive for three days. According to War, the lab usually checks its filters once a month, but this time, it put a plankton net in one of the filters and checked it two weeks later.

The pitch-black conditions at 3,000 feet below sea level are unfamiliar to most but riveting to scientists who have had the opportunity to submerge. The sea floor is full of loose sediment, big boulders and rocks, and a lot of mucuslike things floating in the water, which are usually specimens that died at the surface and drifted to the bottom.

"It's quite fascinating," War said. "When you get below 700 feet, it's a totally different world. Lots of fish have heads like a fish and a body like an eel. There are fish floating in a vertical position, with the head up, and don't move unless they're disturbed."
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"It's a beautiful squid. It's a gorgeous ruby red color," Christopher Kelley, program biologist for the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory, said. "We really enjoy these little mysteries that come up."
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In October, NELHA will be checking its deep-sea pipelines, something that usually happens every eight to 10 years, because it is worried that something might have happened to them during the earthquakes in October.

"If it's a new species, (NELHA) would like to name it," War said. "But that is sort of the honor of whoever classifies it."
Reference Here>>

For while most zebra-horse crossbreeds sport stripes across their entire body, Eclyse only has two such patches, on its face and rear. Image Credit: Daily Mail

So what do you think? Is it a half & half creation as in a half Horse and half Zebra mating ... or is this creature a new species altogether?

Hydroxymethylfurfural - A Substance For The Ages

Scientists have discovered the most effective method yet to convert glucose, found in plants worldwide and nature’s most abundant sugar, to HFM, a chemical that can be broken into components for products now made from petroleum. Image Credit: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Hydroxymethylfurfural - A Substance For The Ages

Oil has become the root substance of our modern society. The compounds not only fuel our automobiles, they are the building blocks that form plastics and chemical compounds that make modern life easier.

Corn and other plant material, when distilled to make Ethanol, have been heralded as the replacement for gasoline for our cars but what if we were able to use plant material for more … much more.

Well, scientists at the The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland Washington is a US Department of Energy (DOE) government research laboratory, have released an article to the journal, Science, that describes just this breakthrough.

Scientists have discovered the most effective method yet to convert glucose, found in plants worldwide and nature's most abundant sugar, to Hydroxymethylfurfural - HMF, a chemical that can be broken into components for products now made from petroleum.

Excerpts from press release issued from The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) -

Scientists get plastic from trees
Submitted by Vidura Panditaratne - PNNL - Fri, 2007-06-15

The researchers at PNNL-based Institute for Interfacial Catalysis, or IIC, took a giant step closer to the biorefinery when they directly converted sugars ubiquitous in nature to an alternative source for those products that make oil so valuable, with very little of the residual impurities that have made the quest so daunting.

“What we have done that no one else has been able to do is convert glucose directly in high yields to a primary building block for fuel and polyesters,” said Z. Conrad Zhang [Chief Scientist - Institute for Interfacial Catalysis, Pacific Northwest National Lab], senior author who led the research.

That building block is called HMF, which stands for hydroxymethylfurfural. It is a chemical derived from carbohydrates such as glucose and fructose and is viewed as a promising surrogate for petroleum-based chemicals.

Glucose, in plant starch and cellulose, is nature’s most abundant sugar. “But getting a commercially viable yield of HMF from glucose has been very challenging,” Zhang said. “In addition to low yield until now, we always generate many different byproducts,” including levulinic acid, making product purification expensive and uncompetitive with petroleum-based chemicals.

Zhang, lead author and former post doc Haibo Zhao, and colleagues John Holladay and Heather Brown, all from PNNL, were able to coax HMF yields upward of 70 percent from glucose and nearly 90 percent from fructose while leaving only traces of acid impurities. To achieve this, they experimented with a novel non-acidic catalytic system containing metal chloride catalysts in a solvent capable of dissolving cellulose.

The solvent, called an ionic liquid, enabled the metal chlorides to convert the sugars to HMF. Ionic liquids provide an additional benefit: It is reusable, thus produces none of the wastewater in other methods that convert fructose to HMF.
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“This, in my view, is breakthrough science in the renewable energy arena,” said J.M. White, IIC director and Robert A. Welch chair in materials chemistry at the University of Texas. “This work opens the way for fundamental catalysis science in a novel solvent.”

The chemistry at work remains largely a mystery, Zhang said, but he suspects that metal chloride catalysts work during an atom-swapping phase that sugar molecules go through called mutarotation, in which an H (hydrogen) and OH (hydroxyl group) trade places.
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“The key is to take advantage of the open form to perform a hydride transfer through which glucose is converted to fructose.”

Zhang’s next step is to tinker with ionic solvents and metal halides combinations to see if he can increase HMF yield from glucose while reducing separation and purification cost.

“The opportunities are endless,” Zhang said, “and the chemistry is starting to get interesting.”
Read All>>

Stick-Pin Tour & Travel Planning Made Easy

The Brooklyn Museum exhibition Graffiti looked at graffiti as a phenomenon of modern urban life. During the exhibition, June 30 - September 3, 2006, we invited the Brooklyn and Flickr communities to share their photographs of existing graffiti and/or murals around the borough of Brooklyn. This photograph of Brooklyn-area graffiti was submitted by a community member. Image Credit: Flickr

Stick-Pin Tour & Travel Planning Made Easy

People love to photograph their travels, especially in this digital age. Increasingly, people are posting their travel photos on photo posting portals like Flickr, SmugMug, & Everytrail … and, what is really cool, adding locater tags along with GPS data to the photos they upload.

What makes this really cool is that it is much easier to plan a tour in a particular travel destination tailored to ones specific interests. It’s easy - just type in a few tags into the Google, Flickr, SmugMug, and etc. search window and behold locations one can plot to create a tour of ones interest.

The planning and search process is pretty simple because the work is done through the meta-data travelers are eager to provide for being able to find and identify the photo they took to share with others they know … the extended benefit is everyone else’s gain.

Excerpts from The New York Times via CNET News.com -

Snapshots that do more than bore friends
How sharing your family vacation photos online can help others discover a place through your travels.
The New York Times - By Michelle Higgins - Published: June 9, 2007, 11:42 AM PDT

Few sentences in the English language are more dreaded than this seemingly innocent offer: "Oh, I must show you the pictures from my vacation." Who wants to see endless shots of a friend lounging by a pool or in front of a monument, or -- worse yet -- their kids doing the very same things?

But, of course, those very same shots can be extremely useful when researching your own trip. How big is that pool? What, exactly, does the room at that five-star hotel you're thinking of booking look like? What's the crowd like at the so-called hot restaurant? It's good to have documented evidence from someone who has been there.
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Through a technology called geotagging, users can add GPS data to their pictures, which can then be plotted on a digital map. This not only allows users to see exactly where a photo was taken, but, when uploaded to an Internet map, users can also quickly browse a trove of photos that were taken nearby, providing a kind of scattershot collage of a place.

For example, people planning a trip to Cancun can use Google Earth, a free mapping software, to zoom in on Cancun's crowded hotel zone and click on dozens of candid photographs, from the lounge chairs at the Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach hotel and the pool at the Omni Hotel & Villas, to snapshots of less crowded beaches and the nearest mall.

Plotting photos on maps also allows trip planners to "see" the terrain before booking a trip. On Everytrail.com -- which lets users upload geocoded photos from their favorite hiking trails, biking routes and sailing trips -- visitors can check out sights along a specific driving route in Namibia, or examine trail conditions on a hilly bike route near Palo Alto, Calif.
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“Gowanus” - This photograph of Brooklyn-area graffiti was submitted by a community member. The Brooklyn Museum exhibition - Graffiti. Image Credit: Flickr

For example, fans of graffiti can search the word, "graffiti," and "New York City" at Flickr.com/map, and pull up photos of freshly painted tags, all plotted with pushpins on a clickable Yahoo map. A search for "Dumbo Brooklyn graffiti," for example, finds some 99 photos, including the infamous "Neck Face" tag, spray-painted on a brick warehouse at Jay and Front Streets in Brooklyn. Try finding that in a guidebook.

"Dumbo Brooklyn graffiti" – Photo of screenshot search for tourpoint locations. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (MAXINE)

Geotagging photos brings a whole new level of context to the image, said Andy Williams, general manager of SmugMug.com, a photo-sharing site. "After all," he said, "pictures are flat." But the real reason geotagging is getting so popular, he added, are the bragging rights involved. "We want people to know the cool places we've been," he said. "And this is a cool way to show off."
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The steps needed to geotag photos are admittedly somewhat geeky.
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To streamline the process, several camera makers have released models that are GPS-ready, with either a built-in device or a special accessory. But they tend to be geared toward professionals and are expensive.
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Once your photos are plotted geographically, others can discover a place through your travels.
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Web sites are increasingly embracing geotagging as a way to draw users. Last month, Google announced plans to acquire Panoramio.com, a photo-sharing site with more than two million images that allows users to integrate photos into Google Earth. And as photo-sharing continues to evolve, travel Web sites are recognizing how valuable images can be when users essentially act as free contributors and submit their own pictures.

Zoomandgo.com, a travel review site, recently redesigned its site around photos and videos submitted by travelers. A team of four people spent months "geocoding" thousands of hotels and attractions so that user photos can be displayed on digital maps. A new social-networking feature also allows users to create their own travel profiles, connect with like-minded travelers, and swap tips through photos.

"Facebook meets Frommers" is how Jonathan Haldane, the founder of Zoomandgo.com, described it. Before the social-networking feature went up, he said, users spent about eight minutes on the site, mostly reading or posting hotel reviews. Now, he said, users spend an average of 18 to 19 minutes, sending messages to each other and browsing through photos and videos.

But though travel sites are embracing the flood of user-generated photos, the quality can vary. A Flickr search for the W hotel in New York City, for example, turns up a mix of candid room photos and pictures of friends eating pizza
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Zoomandgo.com, which pays users a nominal fee for relevant photos, says it vets every submission.
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Panoramio, on the other hand, has a devoted online community that tends to self-edit, and post photos only of places rather than people.
Reference Here>>

Blue Areas On The Red Orb

Smooth bluish areas on a Martian crater floor could be ponds, according to two scientists. The area is approximately 1 square metre – Image Credit: Ron Levin (as appeared in article, New Scientist)

Blue Areas On The Red Orb

A deeper analysis of the images taken on Mars surface (JPL website) stir the debate on whether there is standing water … puddles of water on Mars.

In a report to be published in the journal IEEE Xplore, R. L. Levin and Daniel Lyddy detail their investigation of possible liquid water ponds on the Martian surface (2007 IEEE Aerospace Applications Conference Proceedings, paper #1376).

Through stereoscopic reconstruction of the images captured by the Mars Rover, Opportunity, Lockheed engineers were able to highlight surface details that just might prove the existence of water on Mars.

Excerpts from the New Scientist –

Mars rover finds "puddles" on the planet's surface
By David Chandler - NewScientist.com news service - 15:33 08 June 2007

The report identifies specific spots that appear to have contained liquid water two years ago, when Opportunity was exploring a crater called Endurance. It is a highly controversial claim, as many scientists believe that liquid water cannot exist on the surface of Mars today because of the planet’s thin atmosphere.

If confirmed, the existence of such ponds would significantly boost the odds that living organisms could survive on or near the surface of Mars, says physicist Ron Levin, the report's lead author, who works in advanced image processing at the aerospace company Lockheed Martin in Arizona.

Along with fellow Lockheed engineer Daniel Lyddy, Levin used images from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's website. The resulting stereoscopic reconstructions, made from paired images from the Opportunity rover's twin cameras, show bluish features that look perfectly flat. The surfaces are so smooth that the computer could not find any surface details within those areas to match up between the two images.

The imaging shows that the areas occupy the lowest parts of the terrain. They also appear transparent: some features, which Levin says may be submerged rocks or pebbles, can be seen below the plane of the smooth surface.

Smooth surface - The smoothness and transparency of the features could suggest either water or very clear ice, Levin says.

"The surface is incredibly smooth, and the edges are in a plane and all at the same altitude," he says. "If they were ice or some other material, they'd show wear and tear over the surface, there would be rubble or sand or something."
His report was presented at a conference of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and will be published later this year in the institute's proceedings.
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Speedy evaporation? - Levin and other reasearchers, including JPL's Michael Hecht, have published calculations showing the possibility of "micro-environments" where water could linger, but the idea remains controversial.

“The temperatures get plenty warm enough, but the Mars atmosphere is essentially a vacuum," says Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, developer of the Mars rovers' mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometers. That means any water or ice exposed on the surface evaporates or sublimes away almost instantly, he says.
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If there were absolutely no wind, says Christensen, you might build up a stagnant layer of vapour above a liquid surface, preventing it from evaporating too fast. “The problem is, there are winds on Mars… In the real world, I think it's virtually impossible," he told New Scientist.

Simple test - Levin disagrees. He says his analysis shows that there can be wind-free environments at certain times of day in certain protected locations. He thinks that could apply to these small depressions inside the sheltered bowl of Endurance crater, at midday in the Martian summer.

He adds that highly briny water, as is probably found on Mars, could be stable even at much lower temperatures.

Although the rover is now miles away from this site, Levin proposes a simple test that would prove the presence of liquid if similar features are found: use the rover's drill on the surface of the flat area. If it is ice, or any solid material, the drill will leave unmistakable markings, but if it is liquid there should be no trace of the drill's activity.
Reference Here>>

Hear This! Converting Waste Heat Into Electric Power

University of Utah physicist Orest Symko demonstrates how heat can be converted into sound by using a blowtorch to heat a metallic screen inside a plastic tube, which then produces a loud tone, similar to when air is blown into a flute. Symko and his students are developing much smaller devices that not only convert heat to sound, but then use the sound to generate electricity. The devices may be used to cool electronics, harness solar energy in a new way, and conserve energy by changing waste heat into electric power. Image Credit: University of Utah

Hear This! Converting Waste Heat Into Electric Power

It sounds like magic but it is really science.

The University of Utah Physics Department has developed a way for devices to take wasted heat derived from everyday processes and through converting the heat to sound … one can then convert the sound to usable electricity.

The US Army is interested in funding this research activity because it is interested in taking care of the wasted heat from radar operations in the field, and also producing a portable source of electrical energy which one can use in the battlefield to run electronics.

The process utilizes two steps with processes called "thermoacoustic prime movers" and "piezoelectric" devices.

Excerpts from Science Daily (the story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Utah) -

A Sound Way To Turn Heat Into Electricity
Science Daily, June 4, 2007

University of Utah physicists developed small devices that turn heat into sound and then into electricity. The technology holds promise for changing waste heat into electricity, harnessing solar energy and cooling computers and radars.

"We are converting waste heat to electricity in an efficient, simple way by using sound," says Orest Symko, a University of Utah physics professor who leads the effort. "It is a new source of renewable energy from waste heat."

Five of Symko's doctoral students recently devised methods to improve the efficiency of acoustic heat-engine devices to turn heat into electricity. They will present their findings on Friday, June 8 during the annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center hotel.

Symko plans to test the devices within a year to produce electricity from waste heat at a military radar facility and at the university's hot-water-generating plant.
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Symko expects the devices could be used within two years as an alternative to photovoltaic cells for converting sunlight into electricity. The heat engines also could be used to cool laptop and other computers that generate more heat as their electronics grow more complex. And Symko foresees using the devices to generate electricity from heat that now is released from nuclear power plant cooling towers.

How to Get Power from Heat and Sound

Symko's work on converting heat into electricity via sound stems from his ongoing research to develop tiny thermoacoustic refrigerators for cooling electronics.
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In 2005, he began a five-year heat-sound-electricity conversion research project named Thermal Acoustic Piezo Energy Conversion (TAPEC). Symko works with collaborators at Washington State University and the University of Mississippi.

The project has received $2 million in funding during the past two years, and Symko hopes it will grow as small heat-sound-electricity devices shrink further so they can be incorporated in micromachines (known as microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS) for use in cooling computers and other electronic devices such as amplifiers.

Using sound to convert heat into electricity has two key steps. Symko and colleagues developed various new heat engines (technically called "thermoacoustic prime movers") to accomplish the first step: convert heat into sound.

Then they convert the sound into electricity using existing technology: "piezoelectric" devices that are squeezed in response to pressure, including sound waves, and change that pressure into electrical current. "Piezo" means pressure or squeezing.

Most of the heat-to-electricity acoustic devices built in Symko's laboratory are housed in cylinder-shaped "resonators" that fit in the palm of your hand. Each cylinder, or resonator, contains a "stack" of material with a large surface area -- such as metal or plastic plates, or fibers made of glass, cotton or steel wool -- placed between a cold heat exchanger and a hot heat exchanger.

When heat is applied -- with matches, a blowtorch or a heating element -- the heat builds to a threshold. Then the hot, moving air produces sound at a single frequency, similar to air blown into a flute.

"You have heat, which is so disorderly and chaotic, and all of a sudden you have sound coming out at one frequency," Symko says.

Then the sound waves squeeze the piezoelectric device, producing an electrical voltage. Symko says it's similar to what happens if you hit a nerve in your elbow, producing a painful electrical nerve impulse.
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Devices that convert heat to sound and then to electricity lack moving parts, so such devices will require little maintenance and last a long time.
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Symko says the devices won't create noise pollution. First, as smaller devices are developed, they will convert heat to ultrasonic frequencies people cannot hear. Second, sound volume goes down as it is converted to electricity. Finally, "it's easy to contain the noise by putting a sound absorber around the device," he says.
Read All>>