Dawn to Dusk: Video of Hurricane Sandy

NASA released this video of Hurricane Sandy from first light until night on October 28th and October 29th. There is no sound in the videos, but I find it interesting to watch the hurricane as it spins and moves. I hope you find this interesting, too.

Pluto Moons Threaten NASA Probe

In a completely unexpected move, Pluto's moons recently began to threaten a NASA probe.  NASA launched New Horizons seven years ago, to travel across the solar system to study Pluto.  Everything looked okay, but now researchers and scientists wonder about all the debris left behind the moons and in Pluto's orbit.  After all, New Horizons, traveling at over 30,000 mph, can be either crippled or destroyed by something as small as a grain of sand.

Is this debris just a happenstance?  Or is there something more sinister going on?

Some people wonder if Pluto feels as though he's getting treated as a secondhand planet in the solar system.  Neptune led a protest group, saying "Look, I'm not saying that certain planets treat Pluto badly. But when Earth discovered his last two moons they couldn't even give them proper names. I'm just sayin'."

Neptune then released his controversial "Moon Discovery Timeline", which we present here in a simplified form:

1976 - Charon
2005 - Hydra
2005 - Nix
2006 - Pluto gets sucker punched demoted to a dwarf planet.
2011 - S/2011 P 1
2012 - S/2012 P 1

After the release of the timeline, the protesters began to sing, "I'm Your Moon" and "Kumbaya".

Freaky Friday News: October 12, 2012

An artistic rendition of 55 Cancri e, the Diamond Planet
Credit:  Haven Giguere 

Hello!  Welcome to today's edition of the freaky news of the week.

• First up, it's a story about a man and his car.  In December 2010, a 31-year-old man in southern Germany went out drinking for the night.  When he woke up in the morning, his car was gone.  He searched and he searched, then he reported the loss to the local police.  Fast forward to this week, and vióla!  The police find the car, parked about 4 km (or about 2.5 miles) from where the man thought he left it.  
• Moving on to space, SpaceX's Dragon capsule flew up to and docked with the International Space Station successfully this week.  So begins the next chapter of our journey into space.
• Also in space, scientists think Voyager I traversed the heliopause, the boundary between our heliosphere and the rest of the universe, earlier this year and is now the first man-made object outside our entire solar system.  As a Star Trek fan, I wonder if this is the first step towards the making of V-ger.  

  

  Artistic drawing of what happened with Voyager I.
  Credit:  NASA/JPL-Caltech

• My last bit of space news is rather expensive.  Scientists think they found a planet that's twice as big as earth and has approximately 8 times the mass, with a third of the planet being composed of diamond (see the picture at the top of the post).



Credit: www.FreeClipArtNow.com

• In health news, the November issue of Consumer Reports contains an investigation into arsenic and rice products.  Sadly, there is measurable amounts of inorganic and organic arsenic in a variety of rice products, from rice baby food to instant rice to rice cereals (such as Rice Krispies and Rice Chex).  Currently, the FDA neither measures nor limits arsenic in foods, though three members of Congress have stated their intentions of changing this.  Regardless, I strongly urge you to read this article and check out your kitchen.  (In January, Consumer Reports found arsenic in grape and apple juices - you can find that report here.)  
• A women in Minnesota lobbed the first lob in what is certain to be the legal blitz over the contaminated injections of pain medication.  I cringe over this lawsuit, because I wonder if it is truly necessary.  If the pharmaceutical company that created and sent out the shots steps up and pays for everyone's medical bills and compensates people for lost wages (if necessary - some companies already pay people sick leave), then why sue them?  The woman who filed the lawsuit doesn't even know if she is contaminated; she is suing them preemptively. Ugh.
• This story does have a funny tangent.  Governor Scott of Florida accidentally gave out a phone number to a sex hotline when attempting to give out a number for people to call for more information about meningitis. 
• Apple got its hand caught in the metaphorical cookie jar.  Instead of designing a new interface for the clock in iO6, they stole the design of the Swiss Federal Railways station clock, a national icon in Switzerland.  For people who doubt this statement, I've included a picture of the Apple clock and the Swiss clock so you can make your own comparisons.

  

  Apple iO6 Clock vs Swiss Railways station clock

  By the way, I find this amusing and infuriating because Apple sued Samsung because Samsung's cell phones have rounded corners. Simultaneously, Apple goes out and steals a design that's been patented since 1944. Talk about hypocrisy.
• My last story contains a nominee for the Darwin Awards.  A 32-year-old man in Florida, Eddie, won a bug eating contest, then promptly passed out and died.  No one knows why, since the other contestants are okay.  What do you think?  Darwin award nominee or simple tragic accident?         

A Google A Day Keeps the Neurologist Away...

...at least if the current theories on stopping dementia are correct.

Yesterday, I discovered a new game from Google called A Google a Day.  If you go to the website, it will look like a regular Google search page on top, but there is a separate section on the bottom.  Every day, starting on December 1st, Google puts up a new question in the bottom section.  The point of the game is to use Google search to find the answer to the question.  If you guess wrong, click on "Hint"and the game offers you hints.  If you just cannot find or figure out the answer, click on "Full Answer" and the game tells you not only the answer, but also the search terms used to find the answer.

I realize that Google wants to help people increase their Google fu*, but I find this particular game, well, fun.  I love learning new information, and so far I have learned something interesting about the Muppets, NASA, and crocodiles in Europe.

The only problem I've encountered is the question "Today you turned 35 on earth. How old would you be on Earth’s twin planet? (Disregard the extra days from leap years.)" You see, this question does not say what unit they want the answer in, years or days, which is important because on Earth's twin planet a day (as defined by one rotation around its axis) is longer than a year (a rotation around the sun).  The answer needs to be in years, for those of you who do this question.

Other than that one problem, I have loved going to A Google a Day and discovering a new nugget of knowledge.  For those who want to stop dementia or just get better at Googling, I hope you enjoy this as well.

* Google fu is the geek term describing a person's ability to use Google to find information.