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cultural
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late June 2015 |
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Venus-Jupiter encounter dominates early evening sky (Earth & Sky) separation shrinks to less than ½ ° at end of month Mauna Kea: astronomers vs. native activists (Washington Post) Volcanoes on Venus: active or not? (Sky & Telescope) Active lava flow on Venus (ESA) New close-up views of Dione (Earth & Sky) Rosetta comet lander awakens (Sky & Telescope) but will it transmit any useful data? Frampton saga (he of the 'Argentian bimbo' fame) continues (Raleigh N&O) that's Paul, not Peter Dueling climate models for early Mars (Nanowerk) 'cold and icy' more likely than 'warm and wet'? |
Exoplanet with a tail (Hubble) Gleise 436b, a 'warm Neptune' with a comet-like evaporative tail Nature article preview Mars-sized exoplanet (Nature) smallest planet so far around a normal star Detection of an exoplanet "sunscreen layer" (Hubble) actually, stratosphere and temperature inversion.... and maybe TiO rain? Are circular orbits common for Earth-like exoplanets? (MIT) and conducive for life? |
854 new dark-matter galaxies in the Coma Cluster (Subaru) galaxies with 98+% dark matter are common in Coma Quasars: the teenage years (Hubble) how & why the peak of their SMBH feeding frenzy occurred 1 - 2 BY after the Bang Low-dust galaxies in the early universe (Sky & Telescope) which contradicts other observations another crazy theory of the universe: universe rings like a crystal glass (Earth & Sky) universe's expansion has sped up and slowed 7x in its history First generation of stars (Pop III), finally? (ESO) first galaxy ever to show both Pop III and II stars... z = 6.6, light emitted 0.9 GYr A.B. arXiv pre-pub NY Times comments Earth&Sky comments Yep, Milky Way has 4 spiral arms (NASA WISE) based on embedded star clusters NGC5813: serial SMBH erupter (Earth & Sky) |
What is really real? (Nature) new experiments probe the nature of the wavefunction |
Republicans fail reality test (Atlantic) again... and again... and again A good week for America (HuffPost) The Bad Behavior of (supposedly) Visionary leaders (NY Times) as in Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs Saving the Cows, Starving the Children (NY Times) is this the way to run India? The Politicization of the Supreme Court (Atlantic) acting like Congress? Guns and the country that loved them (Raleigh N&O) a bed-time story Life elsewhere in the universe? Are we close to finding life elsewhere in the universe? (Earth & Sky) Intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? (Earth & Sky) The Fermi Paradox (wait but why) where are they" (the aliens, that is) ----------------------- presidential candidates Scott Walker (NY Times) union buster The limits of Jeb Bush's compassionate conservatism (Atlantic) why isn't this guy running for president? (NY Times) actually, why we get (and deserve?) 'safe' candidates |
How to grade a teacher (NY Times) a story without a happy ending 50 great teachers (NPR) |
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early June 2015 |
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Chaotic rotations of Pluto's moons (Earth & Sky) with animation of Nix & Hydra The 5 visible planets in June (Earth & Sky) Venus & Jupiter getting closer in the west before sunset; Saturn up all night Photos of Cassini's last close approach to Hyperion (Earth&Sky) |
Galaxy-sized lens reveals early star formation (Scientific American) ALMA finds near-perfect Einstein ring showing star birth 2.4 BY A.B. In the beginning (Aeon) is cosmology in a creative crisis? Shock waves power Galactic jet from SMBH (Hubble) reminiscent of Star Wars' Death- Star ray.. with time-lapse video How Astronomers discovered universe's hidden light (Scientific American June 2015 issue) updating Olber's paradox |
catch up on some mind-blowing reading A Crisis in Physics? Do physicists need empirical evidence to prove their theories? (NY Times) isn't the obvious answer: yes? not to some people... think supporters of string theory, many-worlds QM, supersymmetry, and the multiverse (oh, and epicycles) and the original Ellis-Silk Nature article that prompted the question The less-traveled road to quantum gravity (Starts with a Bang) loop quantum gravity .... an interview with Lee Smolin QB-ism (Quanta) quantum bayesianism explained The particle that broke a cosmic speed limit (Quanta) ultra-high-energy cosmic rays The admiral of the string-theory wars (Nautil.us) Peter Woit, and why string theory is a gory mess Does quantum gravity need string theory? (Starts with a Bang) here are 4 other alternatives Loop quantization of Schwarschild black holes removes the hole's singularity (APS) and removes the information-loss paradox as well? Physics in 100 years (Frank Wilczek, arXiv) because he's a Nobel Prize winner? The 'penguin' anomaly (Quanta) hints of missing particles? |
The voter fraud lies (The Hill) despite the lack of fraud evidence, GOP still wants fewer voters and the hoops one NC woman had to jump through (Raleigh N&O) How the Middle East fell apart (Stratfor) and how it traces back to the fall of the USSR Science Fear, not facts, support GMO-free food (NY Times) Ag companies pander to consumers' misinformation 5 things we still don't know about water (Nautil.us) e.g., how many kinds of ice and liquid water exist? DNA deciphers modern Europeans' roots (NY Times) they arise from only 3 groups of arrivals ---------------------- The Science of 'Jurassic World' (Time) more accurately, the absence of science "I enjoyed the absurdity of it" (Washington Post) 2 Smithsonian paleontologists review J.W. Yes, Jurassic Park's bad dinosaur science still matters (io9) ------------------------ Black-Hole Hunters (NY Times) as has become typical of recent NYT 'science' articles, a lot of fluff and personality... not much science .... unless you click on the tidbits here --------------------------- The try-hard generation (Atlantic) Fareed Zakaria defends the millenials How the rest of America is paying for the ''Texas miracle" (Washington Post) low state services (e.g., health care, wages) are paid for by the rest of us (in the amount of $ we send them in food stamps and other welfare Is China building an empire? (Quartz) an attempt to frighten us into action or just frighten us, period? Why patronizing Uber, Lyft, etc is a terrible idea (Atlantic) unless, of course, you think their 'employees' should be without basic rights Why Inequality matters (Atlantic) and it is inequality, not mobility, that's the problem War Why Americans believe they can win wars (Aeon) and why it's not likely Why has America stopped winning wars? (Atlantic) because it's a superpower in a peaceful world ------------------------- |
Technology alone can't fix schools (Atlantic) it just magnifies inequality |
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late May 2015 |
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9 instruments chosen for future Europa mission (Earth&Sky) Sea salt on Europa? (Earth & Sky) color of Earth-lab irradiated frigid sea salt matches Europa's fractures New Horizon's first photos of Pluto's tiny moons (Earth & Sky) |
Lop-sided explosion of SN 1987A (Earth & Sky) with shock-wave simulation and even more questions More evidence for distinguishable dual pathways to a type I supernova? (Sky & Telescope) mass transfer from a companion vs. total merger with the companion |
Most luminous galaxy in the universe? (NASA WISE) due to a growth spurt in the central black hole? |
Why Bernie Sanders matters (LA Times) Technology and the future NC fights for its right to do Time-Warner's bidding (Indy Week) Legislature sues to prevent cities from developing their own fast, cheap broadband How to stay focused in a digital world (Atlantic) if one's primary relationship is with screens, sociopathy and psychopathy are likely results 'The robots are coming, the robots are coming' (Huff Post) the problem is that technology isn't translating productivity gains into human worker gains The big meh (NY Times) time to scale back technology hype ------------------------------ I's time for a living wage in NC (Raleigh N&O) how do we expect min-wage workers to support a family of $15,000 per year? It's time for the government to stop spying on Americans (Raleigh N&O) |
On Education, what NC deserves (Raleigh N&O) a lot more than it is getting The Cost of an Adjunct Professor (Atlantic) not only to the poorly-paid adjuncts, but also to the students they teach (did you know that half of all US college profs are adjuncts?) Negatives of NC charter schools keep adding up (Raleigh N&O) but the legislators aren't paying attention Magnifying impact of great teachers (Raleigh N&O) bottom line: pay experienced teachers much more NC's disturbing charter-school trend (Raleigh N&O) they're not real options for the poor The end of NC's teaching fellows program (WUNC) the last of their kind graduate this month |
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early May 2015 |
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Enceladus' geysers are actually curtains, not jets (Earth & Sky) similar to lava curtain eruptions in terrestrial volcanoes It's time to go to Europa (Scientific American) duh Ice cap on Pluto? (Earth & Sky) New Horizons is 11 weeks away from Pluto Messenger crashes Mercury (Sky & Telescope) why is Mercury so dark? Messenger's 5 most important Mercury discoveries (NY Times) ice, lava, shrinkage, depressions, and the weird magnetic field... with pictures Amazing comet images from Rosetta (Scientific American) very un-comet-like |
X-rays at the galactic center: a stellar graveyard? (Sky & Telescope) white dwarfs? neutron star pulsars? black holes? who knows Found?: the missing link between supernovae and γ-ray bursts (Earth & Sky) finally, a solution to the missing γ-ray bursts |
First visible- light spectrum from an exoplanet (Earth & Sky) and from the very first exoplanet, 51 Peg |
Dark-matter globular clusters in Centaurus A? (ESO) globular cluster masses are higher than expected 2-Mega-cyr gas halo found around Andromeda galaxy (Hubble) 1000x more massive than previous measurements A massive galaxy forming stars only 0.67 BY years after the Bang (Earth & Sky) most distant galaxy yet seen, at z = 7.73, only 100 MY old Best circumstantial evidence that black holes exist (Sky & Telescope) a diminished surface brightness is the clue An early-universe water puzzle (Harvard CFA) youngest molecular clouds (109 yrs A.B.) have virtually no oxygen but just as much water as now |
Can wormholes entangle the black-hole paradox? (Quanta) quantum entanglement is responsible for spacetime continuity? (sadly, they're not joking) Gluons (Scientific American, May 2015 issue) understanding the ties that bind us |
Make the rich panic (truth.dig) "We live in a political system that has legalized bribery" What the TPP fuss is all about (NY Times) and why currency manipulation is or is not relevant (Vox) a 'defense' of "free trade" (NY Times) or at least how wealthy corporations see it An alternative account of the bin Laden killing (Seymour Hersh, London Review of Books) appears to have factual problems (Vox) A Court finally rules NSA searches unconstitutional (NY Times) How to revive the American Dream (Elizabeth Warren & Bill de Blasio) invest in science, education, & infrastructure ... expand social security and raise the minimum wage ... plus a few more things Overkill (Atule Gawande, New Yorker) America's epidemic of unneccessary health care Collapse of the world's largest herbivores (Science) goodbye to the hippos, rhinos, zebras, & elephants? Millenials 5 good reasons to hate milennials (Washington Post) Millenials want a work-life balance. Their bosses don't get it. (Washington Post) Whole Foods finally figuring out milennials (Washington Post) ------------------- Growing up in the Research Triangle area? Don't Do It!! (NY Times) and if you have to, at least grow up in Chatham County (the link above should sense and personalize your computer's zip code) Inequality IS a Choice (NY Times) with 6 ways to reduce it... yet Congress is set to cut funds for food stamps and reduce taxes for multi-millionaires How US newspapers would cover Baltimore if it had happened abroad (Washington Post) "asylum (needed) for America’s ethnic black minorities" ? Entire history of the world in a single chart (Slate) ok, a big chart Why isn't Math more mysterioius? (Aeon) and 8 other views about math The jobs that drive people to drink or drugs (Washington Post) mining (for drink) hoteliers/restauranteurs (for drugs)..... educators are 2nd to the bottom of both lists... and who believes that? |
Duke commencement speech boring? (Raleigh N&O) too bad... focus attention on actions, not words Dear class of 2015: You're in big trouble (Wall Street Journal) a typically laughable WSJ opinion piece: 'college grads are suffering because unpaid internships by uber-rich companies have been banned by the government' What's the point of a professor? (NY Times) have they become just accreditors? What's the point of op-eds about professors? (Washington Post) Republican war on science gets worse (New Yorker) new plan to gut Earth Sciences research |