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THE WORLD AROUND US
Mountain Views News Saturday, May 5, 2012
HUBBLE IMAGES “SEARCHLIGHT BEAMS” FROM A PREPLANETARY NEBula
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been
at the cutting edge of research into what happens to
stars like our Sun at the ends of their lives. One stage
that stars pass through as they run out of nuclear fuel is
called the preplanetary (or protoplanetary) nebula stage.
A new Hubble image of the “Egg Nebula” shows one of
the best views to date of this brief but dramatic phase in
a star’s life.
The preplanetary nebula stage is a short period in
the cycle of stellar evolution, and has nothing to do with
planets. Over a few thousands of years, the hot remains
of the aging star in the center of the nebula heat it up,
excite the gas, and make it glow as a planetary nebula.
The short lifespan of preplanetary nebulae means that
there are relatively few of them in existence at any one
time. Moreover, they are very dim, requiring powerful
telescopes to be seen. This combination of rarity and
faintness means they were only discovered comparatively
recently. The Egg Nebula, the first to be discovered, was
first spotted less than 40 years ago, and many aspects of
this class of object still remain shrouded in mystery.
At the center of this image, and hidden in a thick cloud
of dust, is the nebula’s central star. While we can’t see the
star directly, four “searchlight beams” of light coming
from it can be seen shining out through the nebula. It
is thought that ring-shaped holes in the thick cocoon of
dust, carved by jets coming from the star, let the beams of
light emerge through the otherwise opaque cloud. The
precise mechanism by which stellar jets produce these
holes is not known for certain, but one possible explanation
is that a binary star system, rather than a single star, exists at
the center of the nebula.
The onion-like layered structure of the more diffuse cloud
surrounding the central cocoon is caused by periodic bursts
of material being ejected from the dying star. The bursts
typically occur every few hundred years.
The distance to the Egg Nebula is only known very
approximately, the best guess placing it at around
3,000 light-years from Earth. This in turn means that
astronomers do not have any accurate figures for the
size of the nebula (it may be larger and further away, or
smaller but nearer).
The Hubble Space Telescope is the first major
optical telescope to be placed in space. It is named for
Edwin Hubble, a staff astronomer at Mount Wilson
Observatory, who in the 1920s used the 100-inch
Hooker Telescope—the world’s largest telescope at that
time—to measure the expansion of the Universe by
observing galaxies beyond our own.
The Hubble Space Telescope has a diameter almost
exactly the same as Mount Wilson’s 100-inch, but its
location in space—in an orbit more than 100 miles
above Earth’s atmosphere, with its image distortion, rain
clouds, and light pollution—places it on the “ultimate
mountaintop.”
Both the Hubble Telescope’s launch in 1990 and
Edwin Hubble’s work at Mount Wilson Observatory
were among the most significant advances in astronomy
since Galileo first pointed a telescope toward the sky in
1609. They changed for-
ever our perspective of the universe and our place
within it.
You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@
MtnViewsNews.com.
REVENGE FROM BEYOND THE POT
The number of accommodations
required to do something is
directly proportional to God’s
intention for you not to do it. For
example, man must wear a special
suit and breathe pressurized air
to explore the deep sea or outer
space. Therefore, we can assume
God didn’t intend for us to live in either location.
This is also true of climate zones. I love Southern
California, the weather has spoiled me for anything
cooler. Let’s compare our temperate weather to
that of, say, Ukraine. There, you have to shovel
snow before leaving leave home, use cigarette
lighters to defrost car locks, and risk vitamin D
deficiency from lack of sunlight. Clearly, cold
weather living was not in God’s original plan.
This basic concept can also be applied to food.
Take the banana. In three deft strokes you have
the thing peeled and ready to eat. Its soft texture
requires minimal chewing, making it perfect for
infants, the elderly, and everyone in between. The only precaution is to avoid slipping on the
discarded peel. Pomegranates, on the other hand, present a labyrinth of fibrous chambers
encapsulating seeds coated with delicate flesh. Eating a pomegranate is an exercise in
dexterity and patience. I can appreciate the high antioxidant value of pomegranate juice,
but isn’t that what red wine is for?
Working off the premise that the path of least resistance is the best in terms of living
conditions and food, you might be able to guess my attitude toward lobster. I believe in
veganism, but have yet to adopt that lifestyle. Occasionally I eat chicken, salmon, and
shrimp. Regarding shellfish, there’s a wide spectrum of difficulty ranging from the clam (one
hinge to open) to the lobster (a test of aquatic anatomy). Last week, my husband thought it
would be nice to have lobster for dinner, since it has been relatively cheap lately. We’ll call
our late lobster “Pat.”
We’ve done crab before. My husband is an old hand at it. But I’ve never been much good
at extracting tiny bits of flesh from bony crevices. Usually I end up with cold crab water
running down my arm as I chew and suck a leg that promises an eighth of an ounce of meat
at best. The energy expended versus the caloric returns is similar to that of a fox chasing a
rabbit --at some point it’s better to just let the thing hop away instead wearing yourself out
chasing it. I don’t care how big the crab is, I’m still going to be hungry when everything’s
said and done.
Getting back to Pat. I’ll spare you the details of his/her journey from market to plate.
Let me just say the pot wasn’t big enough to fit the thing whole, so we had to make some
last-minute “adjustments.” After cooking, we finally got Pat and its appendages on our
flimsy cutting board, and it was time for further dismemberment. Several Internet sources
described the interesting things inside the head and torso including (but not limited to)
tomalley (the liver and other digestive organs reduced to a chartreuse, semi-liquid) and coral
(lobster roe, if you are fortunate to get a pregnant Patricia instead of a Patrick). Sources say
both taste good on toast. It appears a loaf of sourdough and a toaster is enough to rival a nice
bottle of chardonnay, as far as lobster is concerned.
After a little battle in the kitchen with Pat’s tail, we finally brought out all its parts on plates
ready to eat. Pat’s tail was easy enough, because all the grunt work had been done earlier, but
the rest of it proved unwieldy. At one point, my husband asked if we had a mallet like the
ones at the seafood restaurants. No... but we had a hammer, like the kind you use to pound
nails. That’d do, he said. “That’s so unsanitary!” I protested, as he poised the bare hammer
head over one of Pat’s claws. “We’re not eating this part anyway.” he said. At the seafood
restaurants, you smash crustacean on sturdy, wooden tables. We, however, were using flimsy
TV trays. When it was my turn to demolish Pat’s other claw, I wrapped it in a dish towel and
set it on the floor. Needless to say, the tables, couch, and floor were riddled with spilt butter,
bits of flesh, and shell particles by the end of the evening. (A note to my landlord --Don’t
worry, we cleaned it all up!).
Yes, lobster is a bit more challenging, my husband admitted. Personally I think the fuss
involved in eating lobster is part of its revenge. I suppose if I were boiled alive I’d want to
get even, too!
The Information:
A Theory, A History, A Flood
The Information: A Theory, A History, A Flood, by James Gleick (Pantheon March 1,2011- 544
pages), attempts to take on the daunting task of surveying the history and development of two of the
most significant tools used by humans during our short time on this planet: information technology
(IT) and communication. While there have been many other developments that have assisted
humankind to flourish here on Earth, these two tools in particular have allowed us to organize and
coordinate action at a distance far better than any other species that has lived on this planet. The book
covers most mediums of communication used by humans, beginning with one of the earliest forms,
the talking drums of Africa. I thought the author did an especially thorough job on the analysis of
drum communication, specifically in highlighting the built-in error correction techniques used by
the drummers to ensure that the message sent rose above the noise of the communication channel to
ensure that the message received was an exact copy of what was sent. The simple concept of message
integrity still forms the basis of modern cryptography.
Next, the author takes on spoken language and our difficult transition to becoming a literate
species. This trek takes us from the earliest known human efforts at translating internal thought
into physical form to be observed and interpreted by other humans, to the latter stages of codifying
spoken language into physical form. This forms the beginnings for the programming of computing
machines and information technology as we know it.
The introduction of Charles Babbage and the difference engine is the very first look at what we
might recognize as a modern computer in its most primitive form. The author spends a great deal
of energy in demonstrating the inner workings of Babbage’s mind as he worked to produce coding
for a machine that could manipulate logical symbols. Some of his most ardent struggles consisted of
convincing a mathematical community that hadn’t the vision to see the potential the new machine
promised. This is also another in-depth look in computer programming.
Subsequent chapters cover such wide-ranging topics as Genetics, Physics (Entropy), Cybernetics
and even Memes. While these subjects may not appear to have many traits in common to the
layperson, the author endeavors to show how all of these subjects, including the very essence of our
persons, are composed of, and exist for the purpose of, the manipulation of information.
Criticisms of this book fall mainly into 2 categories; too technical and not technical enough. To
‘Information Theory’ junkies, the book does not go far enough into the meat of the science but, in
the author’s defense, the book was not meant to be yet another textbook presented for peer review.
The audience is the modern person living in a technologically-advanced society and attempts to
explain how we got here. For the non-Information Theorist reader there is plenty to grab on to in
this book, as long as one remembers not to get too intimidated by the science that is necessary to
explain the concepts presented by the author. The well-detailed 50-page notes section is a nice guide
for keeping tracking of the many concepts, quotes and characters that traverse the pages of this book.
Highly enjoyable reading for the geek in you or in your life.
BIRD BRAIN BRILLIANCE
I remember as a kid hearing
the term “birdbrain” often used in
a derogatory manner, directed at
someone who’d just done something
really stupid or absent-minded.
To me, it seemed like a rude thing
to call someone, but unlike many
other words that we kids could have
used to convey the same sentiment,
birdbrain was one we knew we
could get away with in front of
the adults. The teasingly taunting
term, “birdbrain” is assumed to
have been derived from a similarly
insulting moniker, “bird-witted”,
which dates back to the early 1600’s.
The earlier, original term was used
to describe a person with what we
might call today, ‘attention deficit
disorder‘, presumably applicable
because a bird appears to lack focus
when flying to and fro in rapid
motion, with no apparent direction.
Ironically, in reality, this notion
could not be further from the truth.
The presumptuous premise
behind the use of the ill-mannered
idiom, “birdbrain” is based on the
human‘s erroneous perspective
that birds have proportionately
small brains, and appear to lack
intelligence. In applying that
thoughtless theory to calling
someone a birdbrain indicates that
a person who acts foolishly must
have a small brain like a bird, and
therefore he must be stupid. The
remarkable irony behind the use
of the term “birdbrain”, lies in the
fact that birds are far-and-away
more focused than the
average human believes
or perceives. As a matter
of fact, some species of
birds are even considered
to be among the most
intelligent wild creatures
in the animal kingdom,
and certain species of
birds possess some amazing brain
capabilities that God apparently
did not see fit to instill in the
human being. I’m not talking about
instinctual behaviors only, I am
referring to scientifically proven
facts about the biological properties
of a bird’s brain that equate to
higher intelligence as we humans
define it.
The most blatantly obvious
example of ‘bird brain brilliance’
was proven through an experiment
conducted by animal psychologist,
Irene Pepperberg at Harvard
University. Doctor Pepperberg
purchased an ordinary pet-store
parrot that she named “Alex“ (a
cute, catchy acronym for Aviary
Language EXperiment), and
went right to work, teaching and
observing him. By the end of the
experiment, Pepperberg wrote
in her book, Alex & Me that Alex
could identify 50 different objects
and recognize quantities up to 6;
that he could distinguish 7 colors
and 5 shapes, and understand the
concepts of “bigger”, “smaller”,
“same”, and “different”, and that he
was learning the concepts of “over”
and “under” when he passed away
on September 6, 2007. Yes, it is
true that a parrot will sometimes
simply mimic sounds and words
with no knowledge of what they
mean, but they are also capable
or learning a wide vocabulary of
terms and concepts with a complete
understanding of what they mean
and how to appropriately respond
to them.
In case the brain power of a parrot
does not convince the average
human that a bird’s brain, though
indeed small, is yet brilliant, a
particular very remarkable trait
possessed by the pigeon is enough
to turn any human green with
intelligence envy. What might that
be, you say? Well, I’ll tell you. The
pigeon has an internal GPS (global
positioning system) inside his ‘tiny
little’ bird brain. The results of a
recent study conducted by Drs. Le-
Qing Wu and J. David Dickman
was published in Science, the
world’s leading journal of original
scientific research (April 26, 2012),
describing the fact that “neuronal
responses in a pigeon’s brain stem
show how single cells encode
magnetic field direction, intensity
and polarity - qualities that are
necessary to derive an internal
model representing directional
heading and geosurface location.”
To put it in a nut shell, the pigeon
possesses a unique neural substrate
for a vertebrate magnetic sense. In
other words, a bird-brained pigeon
is capable of finding any location
he wishes to find on the earth’s
surface without having to strap on
a Tom-Tom! Now run and tell that,
Getting, Parkinson and Easton! Oh,
and by the way, that thoughtless
theory about birds lacking focus
and direction? It goes right out
the window when it comes to the
common park pigeon.
So, the next time you are tempted
to call someone a birdbrain when
they’ve done something stupid,
think again. In fact, our seemingly
flighty feathered friends have truly
got it going on when it comes to
brain brilliance!
Happy Tails
by Chris Leclerc
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