Comet ISON, SECCHI images

SOURCE: http://secchi.nrl.navy.mil/sccimages/

Comet ISON: Your Half-time Report

I sit writing this at 38,000 feet as I head out to Kitt Peak to join my fellow CIOC-ers Matthew and Casey for perihelion observations of Comet ISON, and I find myself having an early moment of reflection.
When I first heard about comet ISON and its sungrazing orbit in September 2012, I though, "this sounds promising, but there's a long time between now and perihelion, and anything could happen. I'm not going to get excited over this one just yet." In January 2013 I found myself at a meeting in Washington DC in which ISON was discussed and the representative from NASA Headquarters recommended that maybe the science community orchestrate an observing campaign centered on the comet. Having lived through a similar event before with the observing campaign to support the NASA Deep Impact mission, Dr. Casey Lisse volunteered to lead the effort and immediately tapped a couple of attendees on the shoulder, myself included, to join the Campaign team.
I've never been involved in something like this, so I really wasn't certain what to expect of the Campaign or of the comet. What has unfolded is simply beyond any expectation I could ever have had.

SOURCE: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2013/1126-comet-ison-your-half-time-report.html

UPDATE: http://www.space.com/23591-comet-ison-visibility-naked-eye.html

ThreeJS: Particle System and Raycaster

Selecting particle in ParticleSystem [wikipedia] using Raycaster [wikipedia].
Using ThreeJS.r58.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42803030/threejs_sample/webgl_particlesystem_raycaster.html
(Credit: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42803030)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4253186/three/examples/webgl_interactive_particles.html
(Credit: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4253186)

Nazca Lines, And Mountain Top Removed

Read More: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread878494/pg1

Read more: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread878494/pg3

Government must take over Fukushima nuclear cleanup

Recent weeks have seen increasingly concerned calls, from within and without Japan, for the Japanese government to take a direct role in managing the multifaceted crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The most recent opinion poll shows 91 percent of the Japanese public wants the government to intervene.

The Economist calls Fukushima a “nightmare,” and the editors of Bloomberg deem it “ground zero” for the Abe government. Tepco’s handling of the stricken plant continues to be a litany of negligence and error, raising grave doubts over whether the company is up to the incredibly difficult and important task of decommissioning the plant. While it may be politically inconvenient for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to accept, it is time to intervene and take over the plant before it is too late.

Government must take over Fukushima nuclear cleanup | The Japan Times

Researcher controls colleague’s motions in 1st human brain-to-brain interface

University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.

University of Washington

University of Washington researcher Rajesh Rao, left, plays a computer game with his mind. Across campus, researcher Andrea Stocco, right, wears a magnetic stimulation coil over the left motor cortex region of his brain. Stocco’s right index finger moved involuntarily to hit the “fire” button as part of the first human brain-to-brain interface demonstration.

Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco’s finger to move on a keyboard.

While researchers at Duke University have demonstrated brain-to-brain communication between two rats, and Harvard researchers have demonstrated it between a human and a rat, Rao and Stocco believe this is the first demonstration of human-to-human brain interfacing.

“The Internet was a way to connect computers, and now it can be a way to connect brains,” Stocco said. “We want to take the knowledge of a brain and transmit it directly from brain to brain.”

Source and Read more: http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/08/27/researcher-controls-colleagues-motions-in-1st-human-brain-to-brain-interface/

Don’t Fly During Ramadan

A couple of weeks ago, I was scheduled to take a trip from New York (JFK) to Los Angeles on JetBlue. Every year, my family goes on a one-week pilgrimage, where we put our work on hold and spend time visiting temples, praying, and spending time with family and friends. To my Jewish friends, I often explain this trip as vaguely similar to the Sabbath, except we take one week of rest per year, rather than one day per week.
Our family is not Muslim, but by coincidence, this year, our trip happened to be during the last week of Ramadan.
By further coincidence, this was also the same week that I was moving out of my employer-provided temporary housing (at NYU) and moving into my new apartment. The night before my trip, I enlisted the help of two friends and we took most of my belongings, in a couple of suitcases, to my new apartment. The apartment was almost completely unfurnished - I planned on getting new furniture upon my return - so I dropped my few bags (one containing an air mattress) in the corner. Even though I hadn’t decorated the apartment yet, in accordance with Hindu custom, I taped a single photograph to the wall in my bedroom — a long-haired saint with his hands outstretched in pronam (a sign of reverence and respect).

Read more full article here: http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-during-ramadan

Understanding Radiation: Becquerels and Sieverts

We now know about radiation, half lives, and radiation types. Next, let’s take a look at the units used to talk about radiation levels. The units we hear most often in the news at the moment are becquerels and sieverts.Radiation can damage our bodies by breaking the chemical bonds in our cells. The amount of damage done depends on how much radiation we are exposed to. This in turn depends on how much radioactive material is present in our environment, our food and so on. So it is important to have some way to talk about amounts of radiation. This is what the unit becquerel is for.

Full Article: http://tsukubascience.com/en/understanding-radiation-becquerels-and-sieverts/