February 15th, 2011 § Comments Off § permalink
Some cool Science images:
Sun Over Earth (NASA, International Space Station Science, 11/22/09)
Image by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
The bright sun greets the International Space Station in this Nov. 22 scene from the Russian section of the orbital outpost, photographed by one of the STS-129 crew members.
Image credit: NASA
Read full caption:
spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-21/html/…
More about the Crew Earth Observation experiment aboard the International Space Station:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/experiments/CE…
More about space station science:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/index.html
There’s a new Flickr group about Space Station Science. Please feel welcome to join! www.flickr.com/groups/stationscience/
Hurricane Felix (NASA, International Space Station Science, 09/03/07)
Image by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
(From 2007) This view of Hurricane Felix was taken from the Earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS) by an Expedition 15 crewmember using a digital still camera equipped with a 28-70 mm lens set at 32 mm focal length on Sept. 3, 2007 at 11:39:56 GMT. The ISS was located at the nadir point of 20.4 degrees north latitude and 80.4 degrees west longitude, over Pickle Bank, the waters between Grand Cayman Island and Cuba. At approximately noon GMT, Hurricane Felix was near 14.2 degrees north latitude and 76.9 degrees west longitude, about 260 miles (425 kilometers) south of Kingston Jamaica, and 425 miles (685 kilometers) east of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua/Honduras border, moving west at 21 miles per hour (33 kilometers per hour). The sustained winds were 165 miles per hour with higher gusts making it a category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Image credit: NASA
Read full caption:
spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-15/html/…
More about the Crew Earth Observation experiment aboard the International Space Station:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/experiments/CE…
More about space station science:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/index.html
There’s a new Flickr group about Space Station Science. Please feel welcome to join! www.flickr.com/groups/stationscience/
Palm Island, World Island, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (NASA, International Space Station Science, 01/13/10)
Image by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
Man-made archipelagos near Dubai, United Arab Emirates are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 22 crew member on the International Space Station. The municipality of Dubai is the largest city of the Persian Gulf emirate of the same name, and has built a global reputation for large-scale developments and architectural works. Among the most visible of these developments — particularly from the perspective of astronauts onboard the ISS — are three man-made archipelagos. The two Palm Islands (Palm Jumeirah and Palm Jebel Ali) appear as stylized palm trees when viewed from above. The World Islands evoke a rough map of the world from an air- or space-borne perspective. Palm Jumeirah and the World Islands are highlighted in this view. Palm Jumeirah (lower left) was begun in 2001 and required more than 50 million cubic meters of dredged sand to raise the islands above the Persian Gulf sea level. Construction of the Palm Jumeirah islands was completed in 2006; they are now being developed for residential and commercial housing and infrastructure. Creation of the 300 World Islands (upper right) was begun in 2003 and completed in 2008, using 320 million cubic meters of sand and 37 million tons of rock for the surrounding 27 kilometer-long protective breakwater. Also visible at the lower edge of the image is another notable built structure — the Burj Tower (white rectangle at lower right and inset image). The Burj Tower — or Burj Khalifa — stands 800 meters high, and is currently the world’s tallest structure. The photograph captures enough detail to make out the tapering outline of the building as well as its dark needle-like shadow pointing towards the northeast.
Image/caption credit: NASA
Read full caption:
spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-22/html/…
More about the Crew Earth Observation experiment aboard the International Space Station:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/experiments/CE…
More about space station science:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/index.html
There’s a Flickr group about Space Station Science. Please feel welcome to join! www.flickr.com/groups/stationscience/
January 11th, 2011 § Comments Off § permalink
A few nice Science images I found:
Crescent Moon (NASA, International Space Station Science, 11/03/07)
Image by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
A crescent moon is visible in this view of Earth’s horizon and atmosphere, photographed by an Expedition 16 crewmember on the International Space Station while Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-120) was docked with the station.
Image credit: NASA
Read full caption:
spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-16/html/…
More about the Crew Earth Observation experiment aboard the International Space Station:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/experiments/CE…
More about space station science:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/index.html
There’s a new Flickr group about Space Station Science. Please feel welcome to join! www.flickr.com/groups/stationscience/
You can also get Twitter updates whenever there’s a new image:
www.twitter.com/nasa1fan
City Lights, France-Italy Border (NASA, International Space Station Science, 04/28/10)
Image by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
City lights at night along the France-Italy border, Europe are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 23 crew member on the International Space Station (ISS). The brightly lit metropolitan areas of Torino (Italy), Lyon, and Marseille (both in France) stand out amidst numerous smaller urban areas in this dramatic photograph. The image captures the night time appearance of the France-Italy border area between the mountainous Alps to the north (not shown) and the island of Corsica in the Ligurian Sea to the south (top). The full moon reflects brightly on the water surface and also illuminates the tops of low patchy clouds over the border (center). This image was taken by an ISS crew member at approximately 11:55 p.m. local time when the station was located over the France-Belgium border near Luxembourg. Crew members orbiting Earth frequently collect images that include sunglint, or sunlight that reflects off a water surface at such an angle that it travels directly back towards the observer. Sunglint typically lends a mirror-like appearance to the water surface. During clear sky conditions reflected light from the moon can produce the same effect (moon glint) as illustrated in this view. The observer was looking towards the southeast at an oblique viewing angle at the time the image was taken; in other words, looking outwards from the ISS, not straight down towards Earth.
Image/caption credit: NASA
View original image/caption:
spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-23/html/…
More about space station science:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/index.html
There’s a Flickr group about Space Station Science. Please feel welcome to join! www.flickr.com/groups/stationscience/
December 21st, 2010 § Comments Off § permalink
Some cool Science images:
Science Project 1974
Image by The Rocketeer
In 8th Grade, I invented a safety feature for electrical outlets. It uses an attachable magnet that goes on the male plug (and stays on the plug when you unplug the appliance) and a magnetic reed switch inside the electrical outlet. The current doesn’t turn on inside the outlet until a magnetic field is present. That keeps kids with forks or knives poking into the outlet from being electrocuted.
I won 1st place in Physical Science at the school and the Regional Science Fair that year. I didn’t get to go to State because I was only in 8th Grade. If I had been a Freshman, I would have been invited to go to State competition.
My Dad commissioned a law firm in 1975 to do a patent search. They found in Argentina (U S Patent 3,868,160), someone had a similar invention that used a magnet and two others (No. 3,846,598 and No. 3,699,285) that used the ground prong to push the circuit into a closed state and one other (No. 3,596,019) that was just like my idea except it used a pin attachment on the plug to turn on the circuit in the outlet. Another similar invention was a power cable coupler (Patent 3,496,500) intended to be used in marine environments that had a sliding collar with a magnet in it that matched a reed switch inside the coupler housing and actuated it after the cable was plugged in and locked. I never saw those items on the market. The lawyer said otherwise it was a perfectly patentable idea.
Other ideas I’ve had but other people patented first:
Legos with batteries, wires, lights and motors inside and put together to form a circuit. I have a rejection letter from Samsonite (the owner of Lego products at the time). Now Lego is selling my idea.
Dental Floss Picks (I came up with this idea in the mid ’70′s too, but didn’t do anything with it)
GPS Enabled Polaroid Cameras (now Ricoh has announced a GPS Enabled Digital Camera)
Urinal Toy (pee on a sensor and get a high score)
I have a couple more ideas that I haven’t seen patented yet… but can’t afford the process of getting the patent! It is frustrating waiting too long and seeing your ideas make someone else money.
Are there any other frustrated inventors out there?
Eye on Science
Image by jurvetson
I just love this. My Hawk Eye macro got published in Science, thanks to Creative Commons licensing.
Prof. Fernald from Stanford wrote a fascinating article on a topic that has intrigued scientists for many years – how did divergent species converge in their evolution of eyes – what Darwin called an “organ of extreme perfection.” The physics of light have constrained solutions to collecting and focusing light to eight basic types of optics, seen in this chart (with imaging based on shadows on the left, refraction in the middle, and reflection on the right). Eyes have evolved independently at least 40 times.
Looking back, eyes matter. Image-forming eyes appeared in 6 of the 33 extant metazoan phyla, and these 6 now account for 96% of the known species.
It reminded me of my earlier flickr ramblings on the complexity of birds’ eyes, – with their wider color spectrum and multidimensional color space. Photographers should give a shout out of respect to dem birdies.
And how about the tadpoles rewiring their visual pathways when they become frogs and move from prey to predator.
While on the topic of being awestruck by biology, check out this video for a modern example… a graphic simulation of a white blood cell… starting in the bloodstream, then through the double layer cell wall, to uncover a “cirque du cell” of lipid transport proteins, DNA synthesis, and ribosomes assembling proteins from RNA code strings.
