Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Forty-four More Planets Beyond Our Own Solar System: Four Have a Year of Less Than 24 Hours

63 comments:

  1. <<< Peach season is here in Colorado. . .

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  2. The link above to "10th observing campaign of the NASA K2 mission" doesn't work.

    Congrats on the peaches and your peachy daughter. How much longer is her stint in Ethiopia? I recently ordered my first malaria test on a patient in 15 years of practice. She recently returned from India and was worried that that was the cause of her fever. I was sure it wasn't, but since she had a lot more experience with the disease than I did, I ordered the test anyway. Fortunately, it was negative.

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    1. I'm guessing WW meant this this link, which has a link to a 25 page pdf download filled with tables, graphs, Greek letters, footnotes and other science-y stuff.

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    2. Thanks, eco! I'm glad someone (Cornell, in this case) believes in making academic papers freely available.

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    3. jan, I fixed it. Thanks for letting me know.

      This latest malaria prevention position lasts until October 1. She will decide if she wants to stay another year soon. Her original idea was to stay until 45 was gone from office.

      Glad your patient did not have malaria.

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    4. I didn't even notice it was Cornell - now I know where my tuition money went.

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    5. Thanks for the Cornell link, eco.

      Are you a reunion-going alum?

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  3. Congratulations to Zoe on the big 25 (the last birthday where anything good happens - car insurance goes down). Leo's are the best.

    Curious - everyone seems to be dressed for cooler temperatures, something I don't associate with Kenya, even with Nairobi's mile high attitude and altitude.

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    1. eco, Zoë is in the highlands of Ethiopia.

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    2. Yeah, that was the mile high thing (even a bit higher than Denver, nyeah!). But the daytime temps are mid-70's this week....

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    3. Thanks for the good wishes for the quarter century milestone for Zoë. She's always been a fiery Leo.

      Maybe they have to keep the warehouse cool to optimize the anti-malarial supplies (?).

      You are correct, it is in the 70's F there this week.

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    4. You're probably right about the cooling.

      For what it's worth, the client I was meeting with this past weekend was a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana 50+ years ago. Given the stories he tells I think those were some of the best years of his life.

      I hope Zoë is reflecting happily and proudly 50 years from now.

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    5. Every Peace Corps volunteer I’ve met has waxed longingly and lovingly about their service. I imagine Zoë will, too. I hope the program is still thriving in 2068!

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    6. I merely hope civilization is surviving in 2068. But that's probably too negative.

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    7. Me, too.

      The Peace Corps is likely JFK’s most rewarding legacy. I am glad he took that executive action in 1961.

      Every time I mention Zoë’s service to someone new, there’s a universally very positive reaction. The PC gave all of us parents a “Proud parent of a Peace Corps Volunteer” car decal. That has started dozens of conversations.

      I hope 45 leaves funding alone. With an annual budget of $398 million, it doesn’t make a big dent, anyway. I am happy that they cover all health and dental care costs for volunteers.

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  4. I tried to read the paper in The Astronomical Journal, but was stopped by their paywall. So I went to Livingston's web site, but he, too, wasn't offering more than the abstract. And that from a guy who lifted his own thumbnail portrait from a public-domain copy of a Frans Hals portrait (of another John Livingston)!

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    1. Try my link above, 15 blessed pages of geek speak, 3 pages of references, and 6 pages of tables, in addition to the ones in the text.

      I'm going to watch Wheel of Fortune now.

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    2. Ha! I might have gone the J. L. Seagull route ;-)

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  5. As Jimmy Durante said, "Everybody wants to get into the act!" Today's featured list on Wikipedia.

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    1. From that illustration, it looks like they are watching us. . .

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    2. I hadn't known that Fomalhaut b had a real name. I'll skip the obvious fire-breathing flying lizard and add BANDWAGON to that other list.

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    3. Which is a plumbing fixture and which a fellow cantina patron?

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    4. I'll credit Star Wars for occasionally having extraterrestrials that don't have two arms and 2 legs, and are within the limits of human height. Though never for important characters (except Jabba).

      Contrast Star Trek, which most often didn't even try to disguise the human-ness of folks from other worlds. Dialogue I always wanted to hear on Star Trek:
      Kirk: Bones, remember that blonde nymph from Rigel 5 we had on board? Well, I've got this funny itch....

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    5. Excuse me? Ever hear the line, "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it"? "I'm a doctor, not a stonemason!"? What about Borg, Gorn, Horta, Organians, Tholians, not to mention Tribbles? And you can't spell LGBTQ without Q!

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    6. I did say "most often". Granted Star Trek was done on the cheap, so they had that limitation. Even with better budgets, Borg are just humans in high tech gizmo suits. Though we have 63 million Borg among us.
      - I always thought Gorn would fit well in a 1950's Japanese Godzilla movie. And they acknowledged the need for a translating gizmo. Seemed odd that a slow and clumsy critter could build a space ship.
      - Horta was a rare exception of a communicating non-human alien, though "her" dialogue was somewhat limited, at least they recognized that not all aliens spoke excellent English
      - 20 years ago I had a client who would have made an excellent Organian: bearded, philosophical, very mellow. A Marin psychologist, makes sense.
      - Tribbles was a great episode, though they also had limited dialogue, mostly purring at Uhuru and screeching at Klingons.
      - I think the worst was the "baby" character from “The Corbomite Maneuver,” - the actor was 7, the teeth are appalling.

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    7. And it turns out that Spock never actually said, "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it," exactly. That came from Star Trekkin'. But, close enough.

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    8. What I do find surprising on Star Trek, given the prevailing respect-for-all-life vibe, is everyone's tolerance of carnivory. Racht are people, too, my friend.

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    9. It adds a new dimension to Carnival Cruises (in space?).

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  6. Something so poignant about bringing your granddaughters along to do permafrost research:

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/08/news-arctic-permafrost-may-thaw-faster-than-expected/

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    1. I was a little disappointed to see those irregular polygons instead of our signature hexagons.

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    1. Any chance of combining gum with straw to make building material? Should be right up your alley, eco!

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    2. A whole lotta ew. My friend made this artwork (above) from his daughter’s chewed gum under a shelf in her room. She was at camp for a week and he made the display rather than, ahem, chewing her out.

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    3. Chewing gum in the nude sounds fraught with issues. That urinal detector in the elevator is not number 1 on my list. . .

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    4. Yeah, I especially don't like the idea that if the guy in the elevator with me decides to pee, the doors automatically lock me in there with him!

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    5. Yes, if that happens, urine lots of trouble.

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    6. But I like the part about it being illegal to feed pigeons. Unless it's to peregrine falcons.

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  8. Rosalind Franklin never got her just desserts, but at least Jocelyn Bell Burnell is acknowledged in her lifetime.

    For some reason this musical diddy springs to mind, although it was earlier.

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    1. How wonderful that Jocelyn Bell Burnell is passing on her $3,000,000 prize to award scholarships to physics students. She also has a great attitude about NOT getting the Nobel Prize.

      eco, the Telstar music is great! Thanks for the link.

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    1. Paul, this is fun. I am thinking Yooper for Upper Peninsula. I doubt they will be classified as other than sodalite-rich syenites, but it's the stuff of rock hound dreams--a rock with a cool nickname. {See also "angelite" for anhydrite.}

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    2. Incorporating sodalite (Yooper or otherwise) into a bar counter at a nightclub would be awesome.

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  10. Lithophones at the Great Sand Dunes! >>>

    https://www.cpr.org/news/story/are-these-mysterious-great-sand-dunes-stones-musical-when-you-hear-it-you-believe-it

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    1. Just because striking an object produces a tone, it doesn't mean that's what it was used for. Those look more like dildoliths to me.

      Now, if she'd found a bunch of them wired up together like the Great Stalacpipe Organ, that'd be a different story.

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    2. Glad to see from your thumbnail that Maizie finally got a haircut.

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    3. Haha.

      The kindergartners tried to find that polar bear a new home after all the icebergs melted and the sea level rose.

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    4. I wonder how they'd do in Antarctica? (The bears, not the kids.)

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    5. I just realized that dildoliths are already available from Goop.

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    6. The GSD lithophone story just played on NPR.

      Take that, Steely Dan!

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  11. Researchers for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority found over 200 dead crows near greater Boston recently, and there was concern that they may have died from Avian Flu. A bird pathologist examined the remains of all the crows, and, to everyone's relief, confirmed the problem was definitely NOT Avian Flu. The cause of death appeared to be vehicular impacts.

    However, during the detailed analysis it was noted that varying colors of paints appeared on the bird's beaks and claws. By analyzing these paint residues it was determined that 98% of the crows had been killed by impact with trucks, while only 2% were killed by an impact with a car.

    MTA then hired an Ornithological Behaviorist to determine if there was a cause for the disproportionate percentages of truck kills versus car kills.

    The Ornithological Behaviorist very quickly concluded the cause: when crows eat road kill, they always have a look-out crow in a nearby tree to warn of impending danger.

    The scientific conclusion was that while all the lookout crows could say "Cah", none could say "Truck."

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    1. Oh, good. I was hoping for that.

      I am also hoping to get a new post out soon, perhaps even today.

      Where has eco been this week?

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  12. New post on "'Permafrost' and Thermokarst" is now up.

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