Cop Car's Beat

Blast-off into sub-orbital space - with ocean landing

Thanks to Stu for sending me the link to this video. As he has no plan to embed it on his blog, here it is on mine. Stu recommended full screen and turned-up sound for viewing. I recommend full screen (lower, far right icon); but, find that my "normal" sound level is good for me! The video is a conjunction of recordings from two different Space Shuttle launchings, by equipment mounted to one of the booster rocket assemblies in either case. 8.5 minutes

2013 Turkey Family

Each year we are visited by a family of turkey (or turkies, if you prefer) comprising the young of the year and three or four hens that tend them. The young, as this year, normally exhibit varying degrees of growth. This year, we have 14 chicks, two of which are noticeably smaller than the rest (see the one on the far right, for instance).  We can't help wonder how many chicks will make it through one year. Last year, from a start of 13 chicks, we went into the winter with 7 chicks. By spring, we can no longer tell the younger turkey from the elders. The photo was taken about one week ago, on a stormy (darkish) evening with little light; so, I'm happy that it is as good as it is. We've seen no turkey, since. 

 

My laugh for the morning

From Slashdot.org:

 Indian Army Mistook Planets For Spy Drones123

Posted by Unknown Lameron Friday July 26, 2013 @04:25PM
from the alien-invasion-fleet dept.

hackingbear writes "BBC reports that India's army spent six months watching 'Chinese spy drones' violating its air space, only to find out they were actually Jupiter and Venus. Between last August and February, Indian troops had already documented 329 sightings of unidentified objects over a lake in the border region next to China. India accused the objects being Chinese spy drones. The incident even escalated to a military build-up and a stand-off at border between the two countries.  Residents of the solar system are glad that India does not possess the capability to shoot down such high altitude objects."

Which reminds me of being awakened at 2:00am by the phone ringing. The neighbors were all excited about the UFOs above us. You surely can figure that they were observing astronomical bodies. We still, 50 years later, laugh about it.

I can't help myself

I get such a kick out of Chuck Lorre's "Vanity Cards" that I want to share. Sorry, if you don't care for the cards. If you do care for them, the archive is at Chuck Lorre Productions: The Official Vanity Card Archives. They are delightful to me!

                                            << >>

PETITION FOR IMMEDIATE CHANGE
IN THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE!

We, the undersigned, disagree with the fundamental conditions of existence, including, but not limited to, hunger, sickness, death, emotional pain, and having to get up and pee in the middle of the night.  By affixing our names to this petition we announce our dissatisfaction to whoever or whatever designed this ridiculous system and demand immediate change. 

NAME

EMAIL ADDRESS
(in case I want to try and sell you something someday, you know, a Chuck Lorre t-shirt -- or maybe a hat)

Check to agree I PETITION FOR IMMEDIATE CHANGE IN THE CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE! First Name Last Name Email Address

 

                                                          << >>

1st Posted: 12 October 2009

Getting the news from Slashdot.org

Study Questions H-1B Policies 158

Posted by samzenpuson Thursday July 25, 2013 @08:05AM
from the cutting-costs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "One of the arguments for continuing and even expanding the H1-B visa program (pdf) is that it enables highly-skilled immigrants to work in the U.S. and grow the U.S. economy. Counterarguments state that the H1-B visa program does not bring in the 'best and brightest' and is used to drive down wages, particularly in the STEM fields. This Bloomberg article, discussing pending H1-B legislation, quotes some of the salaries of current workers in the U.S. on H1-B visas: $4,800/month and $5,500/month which work out to $57,600/year and $66,000/year; only slightly higher than the average entry-level salaries of newly-graduated engineering or computer science majors."

Unique Howls Are What Wolves Use As Names61

Posted by samzenpuson Thursday July 25, 2013 @04:04AM
from the morning-ralph-morning-sam dept.

notscientific writes "Each wolf has a unique howl, which scientists can now decipher through voice recognition (audio), allowing them to identify wolves individually. The scientists developed sound analysis code that can tell which wolf is howling with 100% accuracy. Previously, pitch was used to tell wolves apart, but these only achieved a relatively low accuracy rate. This sound analysis is important because it could well give researchers the first proper way to effectively monitor wolves in the wild. Interestingly, this research comes after the recent finding that dolphins have names for one another. In the case of wolves, their howls are essentially their names."

Gotcha

Highway signs saying “Speed enforced by drones” have been spotted on Bay Area roadways. The signs are fakes according to the California Highway Patrol. (CBS)

The above was found at a CBS/SF Bay Area at the behest of Slashdot.org.

Slashdot.org has another interesting article, as follows:

Bill Gates Is Beginning To Dream the Thorium Dream45

Posted by Unknown Lameron Wednesday July 24, 2013 @04:05PM
from the bill-just-wants-a-vat-of-molten-salt dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes

"TerraPower, the Gates-chaired nuclear power company, has garnered the most attention for pursuing traveling wave reactor tech, which runs entirely on spent uranium and would rarely need to be refueled. But Terrapower just quietly announced that it's going to start seriously exploring thorium power, too."  

I have a problem with the TerraPower article, not being able to get the links to work (which may be due to heavy traffic at the sites?) One site that I can access is Smart Planet which starts with the following paragraphs.

TerraPower, the Bill Gates-chaired nuclear company, has altered the design of its so-called traveling wave reactor and has begun exploring other fission technologies as well, including thorium fuel and molten salt reactors.

The traveling wave reactor breeds fuel by burning a long cylinder of uranium that yields a “wave” of plutonium. In TerraPower’s original design, the uranium would burn like a candle, with the wave moving slowly along the cylinder.

More information on the thorium reactor is found in another Smart Planet posting which includes the following paragraph.

Reactors that use liquid thorium fuel - rather than today’s solid uranium - would be valuable sources of clean industrial heat as well as generating electricity, Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak told the Thorium Energy Alliance Conference earlier this month.

(Another) something that I did not know

As a child, in our small community (under 300 people), I knew at least two women who had visible goiters, usually caused by iodine insufficiency. I never knew the other effects that may have accompanied the visual presentation. Slashdot.org has a posting concerning the effect of iodine insufficiency on IQ.

US Gained a Decade of Flynn-Effect IQ Points After Adding Iodine To Salt215

Posted by Soulskillon Tuesday July 23, 2013 @07:17PM
from the you're-saying-we-could-have-been-dumber? dept.

cold fjord writes "I wish it was always this easy.  Business Insider reports, 'Iodized salt is so ubiquitous that we barely notice it. Few people know why it even exists. Iodine deficiency remains the world's leading cause of preventable mental retardation. According to a new study (abstract), its introduction in America in 1924 had an effect so profound that it raised the country's IQ.  A new NBER working paper from James Feyrer, Dimitra Politi, and David N. Weil finds that the population in iodine-deficient areas saw IQs rise by a full standard deviation, which is 15 points, after iodized salt was introduced.... The mental impacts were unknown, the program was started to fight goiter, so these effects were an extremely fortunate, unintended side effect.'"

In addition, I found more information at Oregon State University's Linus Pauling Institute in an article on Iodine at their Micronutrient Information Center webpage.

Deficiency

Iodine deficiency is now accepted as the most common cause of preventable  brain damage in the world. The spectrum of iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) includes mental retardation, hypothyroidism, goiter, and varying degrees of other growth and developmental abnormalities (1, 4). WHO estimated that over 30% of the world’s population (2 billion people) has insufficient iodine intake as measured by urinary iodine excretion below 100 micrograms (mcg)/liter (5); urinary iodine is an indicator of iodine status. Moreover, an estimated 31.5% of school-age children (6-12 years old) worldwide (266 million total children) has insufficient iodine intake (5). Major international efforts have produced dramatic improvements in the correction of iodine deficiency in the 1990s, mainly through the use of iodized salt in iodine-deficient countries (6). Today, 70% of households in the world use iodized salt (7). For more information on the international effort to eradicate iodine deficiency, visit the Web sites of the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (ICCIDD) or the WHO.

Finally, the Mayo Clinic website's page on goiter alerted me to the fact that too much iodine may also cause goiter! It says, "Although it's uncommon, getting too much iodine sometimes leads to goiter. If excess iodine is a problem, avoid iodine-fortified salt, shellfish, seaweed and iodine supplements."

Image courtesy of Findley Chiropractic

This is not an endorsement of Findley Chiropractic of which I have no knowledge.

If you are feeling the heat

July 21, 1983    "The world's lowest temperature is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at -89.2C (-129F)." [I inserted the minus signs which had been omitted. CC]

This tidbit from 30 years ago is by courtesy of Dates in History. (It is Stu's fault that I had visited that website this morning.)

Something is all wrong, here.

I've always felt that mosquitos had it in for me, personally; so, I had to go read this article!

Why are some people mosquito magnets?

By Lisa Collier Cool
Jul 15, 2013

If you feel as if every mosquito in a 50-mile radius has you locked in its sights, while your friends are rarely bitten, you could be right. Up to 20 percent of us are highly alluring to mosquitoes—and scientists have discovered some surprising reasons.

“Both your metabolism and your unique body chemistry—which is as distinctive as a fingerprint—play an important role in determining whether or not you’re a mosquito magnet,” says University of Florida entomology professor Dr. Phil Koehler. “Also, there’s evidence that your degree of attractiveness to mosquitoes can change over time.”

Here are some intriguing discoveries about why some of us are particularly tasty targets for the tiny vampires:

Mosquitos prefer blood type O

[I am type A.]

Beer drinkers beware

[I dislike even the smell of beer. I had three swallows of a beer on my 40th birthday. Surely the effects haven't lingered this long?]

Watch out for the full moon

[Huh? Mosquitos, chiggers, any other meat-biting bugs love me any day, any time!]

Keep your socks on

[Oh, please - my feet don't stink!]

Mosquitos know if you’re expecting

[It's been 51 years since...and "they" are still coming at me!]

Running won’t help you

[I don't run, although I do work in the yard; but, the mosquitos don't seem to care whether I'm working or sitting in the shade.]

Like vampires, they prefer dark clothes

[Knowing this, I stick to light colored clothing when outside. Do they care? Nyet!]

If you want more information about the various pieces of advice, follow the link in the title, please.

How do you fare?

Warnings emitted by volcanoes?

Researchers Find Some Volcanoes 'Scream' At Increasing Pitches Until They Blow44

Posted by samzenpuson Monday July 15, 2013 @01:19PM
from the call-of-the-volcano dept.

vinces99 writes "Swarms of small earthquakes often precede a volcanic eruption. They can reach such rapid succession that they create a "harmonic tremor" that resembles sound made by some musical instruments. A new analysis of an eruption sequence at Alaska's Redoubt Volcano in March 2009 shows the harmonic tremor glided to substantially higher frequencies and then stopped abruptly just before six of the eruptions. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Volcano Observatory have dubbed the highest-frequency harmonic tremor at Redoubt Volcano 'the screams' because the episodes reach such high pitch compared with a 1-to-5 hertz starting point. Alicia Hotovec-Ellis, a University of Washington doctoral student in Earth and space sciences and an author of two papers examining the phenomenon, has created a 10-second recording and a one-minute recording that provides a 60-times faster representation of harmonic tremor and small earthquakes."

 

To see velocity spectograms and other charts, see Strongly gliding harmonic tremor.