Eight wonders of the solar system

Oh, my. Scientific American has just put up a gorgeous interactive tour of our solar system. Using photos and recordings from our various probes, data collected by astronomers, and breathtaking images by Hugo Award-winning artist Ron Miller, the tour imagines what future explorers of our solar system will see when they go to visit eight natural wonders.

One of those wonders is Herschel Crater on Mimas, the “Death Star Moon” of Saturn. I posted on Mimas and its massive crater in February, but at that time didn’t have access to an image like this! Miller’s rendition makes me want to strap on my low grav hiking boots. Climbing that bump in the center of the crater would take some time, though — as you may remember, the peak is nearly 6 kilometers (4 miles) above the crater floor. And to get there, you’d have to climb down the crater walls first, which stand 5 kilometers (3 miles) high. But then, all the best scenic wonders involve a little effort, don’t they?

Another fascinating part of the tour is the video of sunrise and sunset on Mercury. Due to Mercury’s highly elliptical orbit and the fact that it rotates three times for every two revolutions around the sun, a visitor to this planet would need 87 Earth days to witness one Mercurian day, and that day would seem very strange indeed. Exactly how strange depends on where the visitor stands. From the point at which the video is made, the sun would rise, grow smaller, grow larger, change direction, change direction again, shrink once more and finally set.

The other six wonders include the rings of Saturn, Jupiter’s Red Spot, Valles Marineris on Mars (which makes the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the sidewalk), the geysers of Enceladus, the geysers of Triton, and the Peaks of Eternal Light on our own moon. Is it wrong of me to feel envious of the future travelers who could actually take this tour?

In the meantime, we do have our imaginations, and an ever-increasing wealth of data from our scientific exploration. Which reminds me — the Cassini imaging team has just released several new images from last month’s Mimas flyby. Says Carolyn Porco, Imaging Team Leader, “After much deliberation, we have concluded: Mimas is NOT boring. Who knew?!”

Well, we did!

If you’d like to see the latest, head over to CICLOPS (Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS — the acronym is clearly science geek humor) and click away. There are some fantastic views of Mimas and Herschel Crater, including a crater closeup in 3-D. Got your red and blue glasses at home?

The image that is causing nerdgasms all over the world, however, isn’t a photo at all. It’s a thermal map put together with composite infrared spectrometer data.

As you can see from the top row of figures, the actual daytime temperatures of this moon didn’t look anything like what scientists expected. This has sent a whole bunch of astronomers scurrying back to their desks to figure out why the heck the temperature map would look like this.

The other reason they all scurried back to their desks was to open their email clients and tell the news to everyone they knew: “Pac-Man is on Mimas!” Look at the bottom right figure — it’s even eating a dot!

And now the nerds have all the ammunition they need to argue that video games do, in fact, have a direct link to future scientific achievement.

Fucking Hell: a new German beer

Ah, the joys of language! Spiegel International reports that the EU trademark authority has approved the brand name “Fucking Hell” for a new beer and line of clothing, because the phrase doesn’t mean what native English speakers think it means. In southern Germany and Austria, “hell” is a term for a light ale. And Fucking (pronounced “fooking”) is the name of a village in Austria. Which has no brewery, and a population of around 90.

The residents of Fucking aren’t too pleased with the new trademark. They have enough trouble as it is with tourists stealing their town signs, having lost 12 or 13 already. These days they fasten their signs down with concrete, welding and rivets.

Spiegel notes, with tongue firmly in cheek, that “the Bavarian towns of Kissing and Petting have the same problem, as does the eastern German town of Pissing. But so far, there are no plans to name a beer after them.”

It’s only a matter of time.

Photo by apol3.

Breaking geek news

For the truly geeky among us, the Guardian is doing a live blog of today’s test at the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC is already (as of the November 2009 test) the most powerful collider in the world, but today’s test will break its own record by a country mile. Even at that, it’s still ramping up to a mere 50% of its capacity — 3.5 trillion electron volts (TeV) today, 7 TeV ultimately. (Or, as my southern uncle used to say, God willing and the creeks don’t rise.)

Bug love

Phidippus apacheanus, the Apache jumping spider. Posted because I have a huge crush on jumping spiders, and this one is particularly flashy. Also, it’s the colors of one of my alma maters. (Lame, I know, but I had to come up with something.)

Via.

Wallpaper Monday

The Painted Hills are an oft-photographed part of Oregon, yet if you were to ask, you’d probably find that 95% of Oregonians have never seen them in person. They’re accessed via a gravel road off a highway in a lonely part of the state, and the nearest town has a population of 175. (On its web site, the town optimistically refers to itself as a “city.”) The next nearest town of any size — meaning, more than 10,000 people — is about an hour’s drive away.

You have to want to see the Painted Hills. They are not on the way to anywhere, unless your destination is the remote and splendid beauty of eastern Oregon. (Which, by the way, I can highly recommend as a destination.) They’re part of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, which is a paradise for geologists, archaeologists, naturalists and general nature or science geeks of any stripe. But you don’t have to be a geek to appreciate this area. You just have to enjoy gorgeous scenery.

US/Portugal culture: hugs and kisses

I was browsing my hometown paper the other day and stopped on this eye-catching headline:

Out-of-control hugging leads to ban at Portland’s West Sylvan Middle School

A ban on hugging? Sure enough:

The hugs were out of control at West Sylvan Middle School.

Students could not pass each other in the hallway without a hug, the principal said. The girls were hugging one another all the time. Kids were late to class because of the hugs.

Classes would end, middle schoolers would eye a classmate at the other end of the hallway, “they’d scream, run down the hallway and jump in each other’s arms,” Principal Allison Couch said.

It was, Couch said, a virus of hugs.

So the principal banned hugs on the school campus in late February.

This got me to thinking about the very different cultural attitude that Americans and Portuguese have towards hugs and kisses. We Americans generally don’t get physical in our greetings, unless we’re saying hello to a relative or good friend we haven’t seen in a while. We prefer a fairly large bubble of personal space, and get uncomfortable when this space is breached. That’s why a sudden outbreak of hugs draws attention at a school, because it’s against the cultural norm (which is precisely why it would appeal to teenagers). Many of the hugs at this middle school were not a gesture of friendship. For instance, one 7th-grade boy found himself being hugged by two 8th-grade girls, whom he knew did not like him. The hugs were meant to be mocking. Others were meant to incite a sexual response, as girls hugged boys to see how quickly they could arouse them. Some students felt uncomfortable with the rampant hugging, but didn’t know how to say no when everyone else was doing it. Which makes this the first time I’ve ever heard of hugging being subject to peer pressure.

That peer pressure would be much harder to apply here in Portugal, because the physical boundaries are so different. The Portuguese have a slightly smaller personal space bubble than Americans, but more importantly, they breach it all the time — with kisses, not hugs. And those kisses can incorporate an entire language of silent meaning.

For instance, if my friend introduces me to another friend, the appropriate response would be to lean forward for two air kisses while touching cheeks — first my right cheek, then my left. (Yes, there is an order to this, and if you get it wrong you look like an idiot.) Though the cheek press feels hugely personal to an American, it’s actually the most impersonal greeting in the Portuguese kiss lexicon.

If I’ve already met that friend, or if I’m greeting someone I haven’t seen in a while, then I can add the additional intimacy of grasping the other person’s shoulder or upper arm during the kiss.

The next step up in intimacy would be to lightly rest my hands on the other person’s hips. That’s for a good friend.

For a good friend or relative I haven’t seen in forever, we might reach out to each other, clasp hands tightly, and use that grip to pull each other in for the kiss. In this instance, the cheek press is usually much more firm, and I might actually turn my head to plant a real kiss on the cheek. This is the level at which hugs can also be incorporated. The Portuguese do share this in common with Americans — hugs are most often at the upper level of intimacy.

Then there’s the snob kiss — that’s when two people share a kiss only on one side. This is limited to people who consider themselves too socially elevated to engage in the more common dual kiss.

All of these rules apply for women greeting women, women greeting men, and men greeting women. For men greeting men, a handshake will do. Unless the greeting is between family members, in which case kiss rules apply — but only for certain family members! Uncles and nephews, for instance, or grandfathers and grandsons, but not between cousins.

When I first moved here, I didn’t know any of this. The whole air kiss thing was incredibly awkward and I never knew what to do with my hands. Plus I didn’t know you weren’t actually supposed to kiss the person unless you were quite intimate. Oops. It makes sense when you think about it, though — how can two people kiss each other on the cheek at the same time? It’s anatomically impossible, hence the air kisses.

The Portuguese understand that we Americans are weird about kissing, so they will generally offer to shake your hand instead. If you want to instantly raise yourself in their estimation, give them a proper kiss and you’ll see an appreciative smile when you pull back.

After living here for three years, the Portuguese ease of intimacy has long since worn down my American reticence, and I count that as a positive influence of their culture. Humans are a social species, and holding ourselves apart as we Americans do can lead to an unfortunate discomfort with even basic physical contact. Which is why the hugging at Sylvan Middle School could reach the level of a major behavioral issue, warranting administrative interference and a school-wide ban. I really can’t see that happening over here.

Note: While attempting to find an image of an air kiss to illustrate this post, I stumbled across a British “instructional video” on how to air kiss. It’s a hilarious representation of the Brit view of continental European air kisses. I’m going to have to try calling out “Darling!” next time. (Click the image to go to the video.)

Fire and ice

Striking footage of the volcano currently erupting in Iceland:

The haunting music is a perfect accompaniment.

Via Slog. I don’t know how that group finds these things — when they first posted it, the video had all of 500 views and no comments.

How to end a territorial dispute

India and Bangladesh have been arguing for years over the ownership of a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal. That issue has now been resolved. Diplomacy? No — global warming. While everyone was busy arguing, the water level in the Bay of Bengal has been rising. The disputed island is now underwater.

US health care: retirees need $250K

For my European readers: If you think the US health care reform creates a system approaching anything in Europe, this Associated Press article might change your mind.

Relief to seniors facing high prescription drug costs is one of the first changes to come under the new health care overhaul. But ultimately that won’t offset the relentless increase in retirees’ medical expenses.

A couple retiring this year will need a quarter of a million dollars, on average, to cover medical expenses in retirement, according to a study to be released Thursday by Fidelity Investments.

The study is based on projections for a retiring couple of 65 years of age, covered by Medicare, but without subsidiary insurance from former employers. It assumes a life expectancy of 82 years for men and 85 for women.

I’m guessing that a significant percentage of the $250K comes from end-of-life care, which is where the valve opens and money pours out like water through a fire hose. However, further down the article I learned that the estimate does not include one of the biggest potential end-of-life expenses: long term care, such as living in a nursing home. For that, you need to tack on an additional $85,000.

Now you know why retirement frightens so many Americans.

Collective beauty

What happens when 185 voices from 12 countries are combined on 243 tracks into one virtual choir?

Something truly beautiful:

If you’ve time and the bandwidth, I highly recommend that you go straight to the YouTube page and watch this in at least 480p, so that you can see the faces. These are not made up and costumed performers, but people sitting at their computers in their homes and offices, contributing their voices to a result they could not hear until the video was posted.

Eric Whitacre, the person behind this virtual choir experiment, announced the project in a July 2009 entry on his blog:

I’d like to take the virtual choir a step further, and see if we can really start to make some delicate, nuanced music together. Our goal this time will be to sing with unified dynamics, vowels, and cutoffs, and to use only a conductor and a piano reduction as our guide.

First, I’ll record a conductor track this week, with me conducting and a friend playing the reduction on the piano. I’ll also record a separate video where I’ll discuss the piece, and try to illustrate a few musical concepts that everyone should try to achieve while performing their individual parts.

Charles Anthony Silvestri will post a video talking about his translation of the text. He’ll also speak each of the words with pure, perfect Latin vowels.

Then, Scottie will make individual part videos, one side of the screen showing the sheet music for the part you’ve selected to sing (soprano, alto, tenor, or bass) and one half of the screen with my conductor track.

If you’re interested in auditioning for the soprano solo, you’ll just post a video of the first eight measures of the piece, singing the solo in measures 5-8. We’ll choose our favorite and it will appear in the final video.

Many of those video auditions are also on YouTube (look in the Related Videos column). I think the ability to make such a magnificent whole out of many little parts like these is one of the most extraordinary aspects of the human mind.

Via Sullivan.