I love this stuff:

Paleontologists have created detailed three-dimensional images of evolution's first multicellular creatures in their embryonic stages, some so detailed that they reveal more about the development of long-extinct creatures than scientists know about their modern counterparts

Using x-rays and computers, they're looking back through time to the beginning of complex life on Earth.

Some of the embryos exhibit hitherto unknown mechanisms of embryonic development that have since gone extinct. Others have combinations of traits that put them near the lowest branches of the animal kingdom's evolutionary tree.

"The results are truly orgasmic," said Philip C. Donoghue, a paleontologist at Bristol University in England who led the team that created the images.

Ok, he's a paleontologist, so I guess that this would float his boat.

Using the new technique, he and his colleagues have been able to create cutaways, cross-sections and, by stringing together images of embryos at different stages of development, virtual time-lapse sequences of the animals' metamorphosis.

Cartoons for the uber-brainiac.

The images show that one fossil embryo known by the scientific name Markuelia must be most closely related to a modern group of marine invertebrates known as the penis worms, based on the number of teeth it has and the way they are arranged.

Whoa. What was that again?!?!?!

...a modern group of marine invertebrates known as the penis worms, based on the number of teeth...

I've heard of snapping... uh, never mind.

Another image shows that a segmented creature known as Pseudooides had a very unusual means of assembling itself. Modern segmented animals either develop all of their segments early and then simply get bigger, or they grow by adding segments to their hind ends.

But Pseudooides added its segments in the middle, "which is really totally bizarre," Donoghue said.

And that's saying something, considering he can talk about penis worms with teeth like it's no big thang.

Posted by: Ted at 04:40 PM | category: SciTech
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Seen over at Random Nuclear Strikes:

Since 2001, they’ve been screaming ["they" means enviromentalists - RJ] that President Bush is “rolling back the Clean Air Act,” and that the resulting increase in air pollution will kill people by the thousands. Instead, every category of air pollution has fallen during the Bush years, with 2003, 2004, and 2005 showing the lowest levels of harmful ozone and particulates in the air since the monitoring of air pollution began in the 1960s.

I'm not prepared to give President Bush all the credit for this, just like I'm not willing to bash President Clinton on the subject. There's inertia in something like changing the quality of our air, and I think that we all deserve credit for being more aware of pollution and taking better care of the environment in general. Little things add up, and Americans have made a lot of little eco-friendly things a normal part of our lives. Things like changing the type of freon used in air conditioners, using non-aerosol sprays, and developing cleaner cars and fuels. Yay us!

Follow that link above for more links and details.

Posted by: Ted at 05:22 AM | category: SciTech
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1 But, but Ted - I saw this movie where this actor/scientist named Al Gore (he's actually the guy who invented the Internet) was talking about how the environment was going to kill us!

Posted by: shank at July 28, 2006 07:24 AM (+H1yK)

2 Part of the reason the level of air pollution declines is due to new cars replacing old cars. Cars made before 1980 (pre-cat converter) emit a much larger amoung of pollution. As the number of these cars on the road decline, the less pollution there is.

I'm not sure of the exact number, but something like 90% of mobile source air pollution comes from older cars.

Posted by: SH at July 29, 2006 02:16 PM (1nHnP)

3 I would like to ask SH if they have any actual proof that pre-80's cars pollute more than newer cars?That 90% number is even harder to believe.Well,perhaps in 1981 maybe.Please,no EPA or CARB bullshit,either.

Posted by: Russ at August 02, 2006 11:34 PM (K33HX)

4 Here's a bit of interesting reading for y'all from C N W Marketing research:http://www.cnwmr.com/ Click the link on the home page titled ust to Dust Energy report. Caution this is a huge 5 mb/500 page Word file.It is the results of an exhaustive 2 year study on the actual,total energy consumption of every auto sold in America.This includes everything from mining and transporting the ore to recycling costs in dollars per mile.Sorry Ted but your Maybach topped the list at $11 and change per mile.Most so called "energy efficient" hybrids didn't fare much better.Like I have said before the whole hybrid thing is just a feel good stunt for old hippies,ignorant libs and politicians looking for pretty MPG numbers to throw around.Don't bank on so called "fuel cell" engines either.An inconvinient truth about them is that even though their final by product is pure water they can potentially do more harm than good via the proxy of moving around of all of that hydrogen.A massive leak or other accident would be very bad.Last time I checked this was very bad for the ozone layer.Yet Hillary demands that 2.5 million of these things be on the road before 2020.Can she guarantee no wrecks,leaks or other accidents?Hell even the amount leaked during fill ups would be huge.See what I was saying about ignorant libs?or old hippies?or pretty numbers?Well she just about covers the whole field,huh?Perhaps she will just have us be like the Republic of jersey where they consider gas pumping to be too complicated to be done by untrained professionals.Seriously!That's why there are no self serve pumps in Jersey.Oh,the joys of pesantship!
Now as soon as I can find the mag article I've been looking for(and the name of the patent holder) I'll let you in on the EPA scam behind Freon vs. R-12.Hint:Freon was more "environmental friendly".

Posted by: Russ at August 03, 2006 12:11 AM (K33HX)

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"When I die, I'm donating my body to science fiction."

A while back I saw a television program about something that makes such perfect sense, but is so utterly revolting, that you want to retch and say 'doh!' at the same time.

There's a forensics research lab in Tennesee where they study human remains. I'm not talking about sterile anatomy and such, although some of that is done. This facility takes donated bodies and examines them as they decompose within the framework of an outdoor crime scene. In other words, they bury them in shallow graves, or cover them with leaves, or toss them into small streams, or wrap them loosely in a tarp. And leave them there. Then they watch and take notes. And by doing this under controlled conditions, law enforcement can better determine the facts when partially or wholly decomposed bodies are discovered.

Fascinating stuff, but not for the squeamish. The website is user-friendly, meaning it doesn't look like a documentary of "The Making of 'Jason the SlasherCamp Chainsaw Cannibal'". It's all rather polite actually. Positively mature.

Posted by: Ted at 08:12 AM | category: SciTech
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A month or so ago I crunched the screen on my trusty iPAQ. Having become rather dependent on the beastie, I let the family talk me into buying myself a new one (they ain't cheap).

I selected a very nice model with a hardcover to prevent a replay of the screen crunch and then managed to salvage 95% of the software and data on my old PDA.

But something odd was happening. The new device would completely run out of battery power overnight while just sitting on the desk. In two hours, untouched in my briefcase, it would drain up to 60% of the battery power. Problem was, it wasn't consistent, and the randomness was making me a little crazy. I could've taken it back for exchange, and at one point talked to them about just getting a new battery. But it just didn't *feel* like a battery problem. I was also hesitant to hand it over again because I'd spent quite a bit of time reloading software and setting options to make it work exactly the way I wanted it to.

Gradually I started to recognize a pattern and confirmed it a week ago. For some reason, ActiveSync would fire up on its own as if it were on a timer to check email and do other tasks, and it would sit there and run like hell, accomplishing nothing while sucking the life out of the battery. I could go in and end the task, but a short while later it would be sitting there running again.

Today I found the answer. On a bulletin board was a note about a bug in Windows Mobile5 that causes the exact problems I was seeing. There was a workaround included (no patch available yet), and after implementing it (it's not terribly kludgy) I've been monitoring the battery status to see if the problem is solved. So far, so good.

Now, this isn't entirely Microsoft's fault. I gather from my reading that HP (and Dell too) both implemented Windows Mobile5 in kind of an odd way which caused this to be a problem. There are all kinds of detailed explanations out there to be found with a couple of google searches, but my mainframe mind couldn't grasp all the concepts and terminology. We're talking real geek-speak.

Anyway, tentative thanks to those folks who actually know how this crap works at the nuts-and-bolts level. Keep your fingers crossed.

Posted by: Ted at 06:17 AM | category: SciTech
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The European aviation consortium Airbus has hit some serious turbulance over its new A380 super-jumbo. Parent company EADS staked its future on the A380, to the tune of 11 billion Euros in development costs. Now major investors are bailing, causing the value of EADS stock to drop by a third in just one day.

What's the problem?

The electrical systems are described as "a shambles" and "hundreds" of problems remain unresolved. The aircraft is so overweight that the landing gear cannot safely handle the load. To compensate, weight is being trimmed wherever possible. Embarrassingly, a wing snapped off during stress testing because of the reduced thickness of the metal.

And of course, all this redesign-on-the-fly means that paying customers have to wait longer for their aircraft.

Just nine of the $300m double-decker whales will be delivered next year instead of 20 to 25, with a backlog of delays and penalty clauses cascading through the decade.

At a minimum, the blunder will cut profits by €2bn over four years, the company admitted yesterday.

But that's not the end of their troubles. Also taking a hit is their "new" mid-range A350, which is based on an older model airframe. So far they've gotten orders for less than half needed for break-even. The head of Emeriates Airlines likes the A350, but says:

"Unfortunately for Airbus, two things happened: Boeing came up with an even better plane and the price of fuel went through the roof."

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner (which I first talked about here) is higher-tech and more fuel-efficient, which has recently become a much bigger factor in purchasing decisions.

The economic impact of the super-jumbo also reaches areas you wouldn't normally consider:

The wake turbulence from the A380 may be such a threat to other aircraft on take-off and landing that the International Civil Aviation Organisation is imposing a barrier of 10 nautical miles, twice the distance for a Boeing 747.

The rule, temporary at first, changes the cost calculus for airports such as Heathrow, which depend on constant traffic flow for profit margin.

Even the German author of a book on Airbus is down on the A380:

"The A380 may have a future as a cargo freight plane."

Thanks to Transterrestrial Musings for the pointer, in a post on a semi-related subject.

Posted by: Ted at 11:39 AM | category: SciTech
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To those who snickered when I mentioned that I program in COBOL on a mainframe computer, I offer up the following:

main.frame ( 'mAn-"frAm noun): An obsolete device still used by thousands of obsolete companies and government entities, serving billions of obsolete customers and obsolete constituents, making huge obsolete profits for obsolete shareholders, and this year's obsolete models run twice as fast as last year's.

Posted by: Ted at 11:20 AM | category: SciTech
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Over at Pratt Hobbies blog, Doug has put up a picture of himself and his son Brian. Brian was my co-timer during the Team America finals.

Meanwhile, for the true tech-geek out there, check out this mashup of Google Maps that lets you track the orbital positions of satellites as well as letting you know when and where they'll appear in your sky over the next 48 hours. Tres cool! Kudos to Dick's Rocket Dungeon for the info and pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 09:14 AM | category: Space Program
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NASA creates some wicked cool animated mission videos, and the best I've seen was a version where someone added a background soundtrack of Lenny Kravitz' Fly Away.

This version is pretty good though, set to Nine Inch Nails Sunspots. Check out NIN to Mars.

Here's another, which leaves the original NASA audio intact. It's longer too, not edited down to fit a particular song.

Posted by: Ted at 07:52 AM | category: SciTech
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From a news story about future trends in sex:

A field dubbed "teledildonics" already allows people at two remote computers to manipulate electronic devices such as a vibrator at the other end for sexual purposes.

"People who use it are just blown away," [*snicker* - RJ] said Steve Rhodes, president of Sinulate Entertainment, which has sold thousands of Internet-connected sex devices over the past three years. "This is not something that just the lunatic fringe does."

"The Iraq war...was kind of a boom for our company."

Teledildonics. Rocket Jones, on the cutting edge once again.

Posted by: Ted at 06:19 PM | category: SciTech
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Mark Oakley hadn't posted anything for quite a long time, which is understandable since he's busy working for one of the original X-Prize challengers. They're still in business, because being the first to do it (Rutan) doesn't necessarily count for anything more than historical recognition (is the Wright Aircraft Corporation still around?).

Anyway. TGV Rockets is hiring.

Related to that, check this out from RocketForge:

You don't steer the elephant, you just drive around him in your new car.

Posted by: Ted at 11:57 AM | category: Space Program
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Not the frozen planet way out yonder, nor the Disney dog.

Project Pluto, which I talked about a couple of years ago, mostly in the context of the ramjet engine that was to be it's source of power.

For those needing a refresher, Pluto was to be a nuclear powered cruise missile, capable of Mach 3 at treetop level, dropping nuclear warheads in its wake. There were serious, ah, problems shall we say, with the concept. It was possible, but eventually people asked if it was desirable.

Thanks to Ghost of a Flea, we have a new link to a nicely detailed history of Project Pluto. Fascinating stuff.

Posted by: Ted at 11:10 AM | category: SciTech
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When I was growing up, I had this cool poster on my bedroom wall that showed the Sun and nine planets in their orbits around her, along with the mysterious asteroid belt. All neat and orderly.

Too bad it's not quite that simple any more:

Scientists no longer are sure what a planet is and how many reside in our system.

The International Astronomical Union, a worldwide alliance of astronomers, has been struggling for about two years to agree on a definition for planets. Three proposed definitions are being studied, but a decision isn't likely until spring, according to Robert Williams, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

So Pluto, which most of us were taught as the ninth planet, may lose that status. Then again, maybe not.

"The discovery of the Kuiper Belt in the 1990s has given Pluto a place to call home, with icy brethren to call its own," said Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in an e-mail.

"The Kuiper Belt is the largest structure in the solar system," Stern said recently. "We used to think Pluto was a misfit," he added. Now Earth and the other inner planets are the oddballs.

Depending on what definition of "planet" is chosen, our solar system may have as few as eight (demoting Pluto) or as many as seventeen (!!!) planets. Astronomers have already discovered a body larger than Pluto in the Kupier Belt.

The largest and most distant of the ice dwarfs is nicknamed Xena after the television warrior princess. Discovered in 2003, it's 1,600 miles across and 20 percent bigger than Pluto is. Xena has a moon of its own, named Gabrielle after the TV Xena's sidekick.

These bodies haven't been assigned official names yet, which is why you see whimsical designations like Santa (which has a moonlet named Rudolph), Easter Bunny, Orcus, Quaoar, Ixion, Buffy and Sedna.

Even asteroids have been discovered with their own moonlets, and at least four moons in our system are geologically active.

What a wonderfully messy and chaotic neighborhood we live in.

Thanks to Chris Hall for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 12:10 PM | category: Space Program
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Remember a while back when I wrote about rocket racing?

Check this out. Rutan is involved, so you know they're serious.

Posted by: Ted at 06:49 PM | category: SciTech
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There's this village in Austria that sits between a tall hill and an even taller mountain. The village of Rattenberg was built there in the 1300's as a defense against marauders.

Problem is, the mountain completely blocks the sunlight from November to February. The population has been dwindling in recent decades, at least partly because of the long months without direct sunlight.

The solution: 30 heliostats, essentially rotating mirrors, mounted on a hillside to grab sunshine off reflectors from the neighboring village of Kramsach.

An Austrian company is hoping to use this project as a showpiece to point to. They're going to eat the planning costs (more than a half a million $US), and the EU is going to foot half the bill (2.4 million $US).

In the Tyrol region of the Alps alone, about 60 communities suffer the same fate in winter as Rattenberg. Peskoller says about six other towns in Austria and neighboring Switzerland have expressed interest.

The technology requires pinpoint beaming, and even the most modern mirrors have slight distortions and are vulnerable to strong winds.

Peskoller says those problems can be compensated for. But it would take a mirror the size of a football field to light up all of Rattenberg, "and we cannot cover the mountain with mirrors to bathe the whole town in light," he said.

So Lichtlabor plans to create about a dozen "hot spots" - areas not much bigger than a front yard scattered through the town, where townspeople can gather and soak up rays. The mirrors would also reflect at various times of day onto building facades to show daylight slowly turning to dusk.

Interesting idea. More here (minimal registration required).

Posted by: Ted at 04:23 AM | category: SciTech
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I feel like hell, which means that y'all get to listen to me rant. And boy, did I find a doozy.

Let's start with this headline:

Sea farmers struggle to save kelp from predatory urchins

Cool. I think I like sea farmers. All high-techy and stuff, feeding the hungry millions in our world. Check out this promising start to the story:

Not many farmers wear wet suits to work. But Tom Ford isn't running your average ranch. Instead of a tractor, he drives a motorboat. And rather than chase away insects and rodents, he fights off prickly sea urchins.

But something starts to smell fishy in the very next paragraph, when you find out that Tom's "farm" is all of one acre. Seems that Tom, along with other biologists in Southern California, are struggling to restore the great kelp forests to the coastal waters of Southern California.

Now, I don't have a problem with that, because kelp is an incredibly useful plant, as the story goes on to explain. It provides fish with an underwater habitat that allows them to thrive in great numbers and even when it washes up on shore it's a boon for beach critters like crabs and birds.

I bet those bastard humans have destroyed it, right?

But in the last 50 years, frequent episodes of warm-water El Nino have devastated kelp, which thrives at lower temperatures. California and Alaska are the only two places in the Northern Hemisphere where giant kelp grows.

Oops. Maybe not.

Scientists say humans also are to blame for kelp's demise because they pollute the ocean and overfish the urchins' natural predators--lobsters, sheep-head fish and sea otters.

Sorry about that. I forgot to provide a warning about the obligatory "it's all our fault" paragraph. I guess I should feel bad, because I do love to sit down to a nice sea otter steak. Sheep-head fish? Not on any menu I've ever seen.

But we're fighting back. According to the story, they've spent millions of dollars in their effort to restore the kelp beds. Results?

Only two acres of kelp were restored in Southern California from 2001 to 2004, say environmental groups that spent $2.5 million in state and federal grants.

But it's hard work. Here's how the intrepid "sea farmers" (translation: tree-huggers) fight back:

Armed with a rake and mesh satchels, he and volunteers purged the area of purple, red and white urchins--bagging 25,000 last year alone.

Got that? They artificially manipulate an ecosystem in a wholesale and arbitrary manner, because they're like, you know, protecting the environment. The paragraph after that even includes a gratuitous and totally unsubstantiated scary anecdote.

So far, we've learned that they've spent millions of dollars fighting the ecological effects caused by a cyclical change in the environment of an entire hemisphere. In three years, they've restored two acres of kelp forest, at a cost of over one million dollars per acre. They've also destroyed hundred of thousands of living creatures during that time, because they're not the "right" kind. Ok, I'm assuming that they destroyed them, because if they just collected them and then dumped them into another area, then that's two different places where they've drastically altered the ecosystem. Which way is better?

This quote just seals it:

"If you go into a kelp forest, the place is swarming with fish," said Paul Dayton, a marine ecology professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "Take out that kelp and the fish won't go extinct, but they'll be much rarer because they don't have the habitat. ... We should protect it just on the grounds that it's for our grandchildren.

These people are supposedly scientists. Why do they righteously insist on preserving a single snapshot of the living, evolving, ever-changing world we live in?

I swear, if environmentalists had been around at the beginning of the universe, they'd have protested against God himself for destroying all the nothingness when he created the world.

Posted by: Ted at 12:15 PM | category: SciTech
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1 Predatory sea urchins - are those like sea-going versions of some Dickensian pre-adolescent pickpocket?

Posted by: buckethead at October 14, 2005 01:13 PM (ztNrs)

2 Just imagine the smog and environmental devastation caused by the Big Bang!

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at October 14, 2005 01:22 PM (UquFN)

3 I smell sequel! Sebastian as Fagin:

"Under the sea.
Under the sea.
Everything's better,
When you bring leather
wallets to meeeee."

Posted by: Ted at October 14, 2005 01:24 PM (+OVgL)

4 wait a second, you said they are "fighting the ecological effects caused by a cyclical change in the environment of an entire hemisphere".

But previously you post that "Scientists say humans also are to blame for kelp's demise because they pollute the ocean and overfish the urchins' natural predators--lobsters, sheep-head fish and sea otters.".

Which is it, cyclical change, or change caused by human pollution and overfarming?

Posted by: Oorgo at October 14, 2005 03:56 PM (lM0qs)

5 Oh wait, you're saying El Nino caused the cyclical change right? What exactly caused el nino and the warming of ocean waters, dare I say... pollution and global warming? Oh I know you love those words, face it, you know you do.

Posted by: Oorgo at October 14, 2005 03:58 PM (lM0qs)

6 LOL El Nino has been around longer than man, my friend. Those pesky laws of thermodynamics, don't'cha know.

Posted by: Ted at October 14, 2005 04:05 PM (+OVgL)

7 I like making haphazard guesses based on non-fact, I learned that ability from your President.

Posted by: Oorgo at October 14, 2005 04:30 PM (lM0qs)

8 But they're doing it for the children.

cogito penuriosus oorgo sum bardus

Posted by: chris hall at October 14, 2005 05:13 PM (laRRX)

9 I bet you're talking about WMD. Ignore the fact that they found them. Not heaping stockpiles of them, but some were discovered.

I won't mention that I don't cheat people out of money, and that maybe I could learn something from your current government. Glass houses, my friend.

Posted by: Ted at October 14, 2005 05:26 PM (+OVgL)

10 well played sir! Touché

Posted by: Oorgo at October 14, 2005 05:43 PM (lM0qs)

11 Oh and Chris, c'mon... if you call me an idiot in a language that takes me 20 minutes to translate, I call you pretentious.

Posted by: Oorgo at October 14, 2005 05:55 PM (lM0qs)

12 Seems t'me that trying to change a place into someplace that doesn't change is kinda neurotic.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at October 14, 2005 10:24 PM (I1rgZ)

13 Save the Sea Urchins!!!!! Stop Ecologists Now!

Posted by: Susie at October 15, 2005 12:11 PM (a0oF7)

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A successful test of space elevator hardware.

“We’re not a PowerPoint company anymore … we’re a hardware company.” -- Michael Laine, president of the LiftPort Group

In less than a month, NASA's Ames Research Center in California will host the First Annual Space Elevator Competition. Every day, the future gets closer to reality.

Thanks to Transterrestrial Musings for the pointer.

Posted by: Ted at 12:04 PM | category: Space Program
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Via Mozongo News:

Electronics Boutique will offer in store game downloads for your Series 60 or Windows Smartphone via a Bluetooth kiosk that will recognize your Bluetooth enabled cell phone and prompt you for a paid download. Free media will begin being offered in December with the paid games beginning to be offered in January . . .

Not that I'd use the service, but the idea is a natural.

Posted by: Ted at 05:48 AM | category: SciTech
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Nikon has introduced two digital cameras with built-in WiFi capabilities, allowing you to immediately transfer your pictures to a PC or to a printer.

Posted by: Ted at 07:49 AM | category: SciTech
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Need a list of today's technologies that were predicted in Science Fiction?

Thanks to Owlish for the pointer.

(cue Supertramp...)

Posted by: Ted at 06:07 AM | category: SciTech
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For those reading the PDA version of Rocket Jones (as opposed to those us 20th Century deskbound dinosaurs), I've done some tinkering with the templates and added Eric's routine to now allow comments.

It should be easier to read, and I'd appreciate any feedback you'd care to give. Danke.

Posted by: Ted at 06:09 AM | category: SciTech
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