SBS World News just announced a news flash that Iran claims to have launched a space rocket. They said no other details were available.
See Update 4 – they didn’t it turns out..
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Category Archives: Science
Mature Male Colossal Squid Landed in New Zealand
The BBC is reporting that a Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni) has been caught by a New Zealand trawler in Antarctic waters:
Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said the squid, weighing an estimated 450kg (990lb), took two hours to land in Antarctic waters. […] Local news said the Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni was about 10m (33ft) long, and was the first adult colossal squid landed intact.
Know Your Rights – Satellites Crashing Onto Your Property
After a bit of stochastic web-enabled research (( i.e. random searching looking for the conclusion of this case triggered by catching up on a story of Rich’s. )) I found this little piece of information from the UNSW Law Journal that everyone should bookmark away just in case they need it..
But what is the legal position in relation to damage caused by the return to Earth of a space object such as Mir? Are there any rules in place to cover such an eventuality? Under what circumstances would Russia have been responsible at international law for any such damage? What would be the extent of its liability? How is damage to be measured and what procedures (if any) are in place to facilitate compensation claims and to arrive at a determination of responsibility and its consequences? Once a determination is made, is it a legally binding and enforceable decision?
Just remember where you read it when you need it.. 😎
Chillies are old news..
..about 6,000 year old news in fact!
Archaeologists in Ecuador have found evidence that chillies were used in cooking more than 6,000 years ago. […] The team of scientists who made the discovery in a tropical lowland area say the spice must have been transported over the Andes to what is now Ecuador as the chillies only grew naturally to the east of the mountain range.
The BBC also has a nice chilli recipe site which includes recipes for chocolate and chilli ice cream and chocolate chilli crème brûlée!
Did the IPCC Underestimate Sea Level Rise ?
New Scientist has a rather interesting report on how the IPCC may be a little too conservative in their estimates of sea level rise due to climate change.
Previous estimates of how much the world’s sea level will rise as a result of global warming may have seriously underestimated the problem, according to new research.
This is because a new study, by Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, has been published in the journal Science which uses empirical data and computer models rather than relying solely on computational techniques. It apparently matches measured sea level rises very accurately and the New Scientist report goes on to say:
For a given amount of warming, Rahmstorf says, the rise in sea level “could well be twice as much as was so far expected, based on the last IPCC report”.
What does that mean in reality ?
At the top of the range of possible temperature rises estimated by the last IPCC report, the rise could be as great as 140 centimetres by 2100. That would be bad new for cities like London and New York, which lie close to sea level, and would leave them facing an increased risk of devastating storm surges. Even the lowest predicted temperature rises would cause a 50 cm rise, Rahmstorf says.
Keep your lifebelt handy..
China Destroys Satellite in Weapons Test ? (Updated)
An interesting news article from the BBC, it is believed that the Chinese military did an anti-satellite weapons test against an old weather satellite of theirs and successfully destroyed it with a surface launched ballistic missile.
The report said that a Chinese Feng Yun 1C polar orbit weather satellite, launched in 1999, was destroyed by an anti-satellite system launched from or near China’s Xichang Space Centre on 11 January.
There is the usual outrage over the test, but I do wonder whether they would have said anything if it was the US who had done the same..
Update: China has confirmed that this test took place.
Smoke 1 – Comet 0
Donna and I went out tonight to see if we could see Comet McNaught, but the smoke haze from the bushfires meant it was obscured. 🙁
The BOM is forecasting clearer conditions tomorrow (asides from possible thunderstorms) so that might work out – though it will be 39°C!
Drowned Indian Island Was Occupied
It would appear that my earlier blog about the missing islands in the Bay of Bengal was wrong on one count when I wrote:
Fortunately the two Indian islands that have disappeared in the Bay of Bengal do not appear to have been inhabited
as the UK’s Independent Newspaper is reporting that:
The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.
The article is a bit strong on the hyperbole though, saying:
Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India’s part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.
Factually correct, but sadly I’m not convinced that it’s one of the most apocalyptic predictions..
SuperComputing 2006 Review
Doug Eadline’s excellent ClusterMonkey site has a very good (and very large) review of SC’06 called “SC06 – Tampa: Where did all of the nightlife go?” by Jeff Layton about what was (and wasn’t) there to see.
If you’re into HPC & clusters go check it out (no mention of grid stuff going on there though).
Dysfunctional Techno-habits
New Scientist has a nice little article called “Just can’t get e-nough” about habitual problems some people get from using the Internet.
The web in particular has opened up a host of opportunities for overindulgence. Take Wikipedia. Updating the entries – something anyone can do – has become almost a way of life for some. There are more than 2400 “Wikipedians”, p 36 – you know where to look it up if you don’t know what it means – who have edited more than 4000 pages each (“see Confessions of a Wikipediholic”, below). “It’s clearly like crack for some people,” says Dan Cosley at Cornell University in New York, who has studied how websites such as Wikipedia foster a community. To committed Wikipedians, he says, the site is more than a useful information resource; it’s the embodiment of an ideology of free information for all.
Favourite terms – crackberry and cheesepodder (( someone who goes hunting for those cheesy old numbers for their iPod )) . 🙂