News from the World of Science, Science Fiction and Distributed Computing
Space Spin » Fermi telescope unveils a dozen new pulsars
Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:02:40 -0800
NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered 12 new gamma-ray-only pulsars and has detected gamma-ray pulses from 18 others. The finds are transforming our understanding of how these stellar cinders work."We know of 1,800 pulsars, but until Fermi we saw only little wisps of energy from all but a handful of them," says Roger Romani of Stanf...
SF Signal » REVIEW: Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:28:00 -0800
REVIEW SUMMARY: A humorous romp through the trials and tribulations of human's first contact with aliens. MY RATING: BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A first contact story like no other -- aliens finally come to Earth, but because their forms are distasteful, need an image makeover and hire a Hollywood agent to introduce them to humanity. MY REVIEW: PROS: Scalzi's...
SF Signal » Wednesday YouTube: David Bowie Sings Space Oddity
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:15:00 -0800
I thought I had seen all of David Bowie's early performances of his song "Space Oddity", but this one from 1969 is new to me. [via MilkandCookies]...
SF Signal » SF Tidbits for 1/7/09
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:08:00 -0800
John Scalzi turns the Whatever mike over to Jim C. Hines, author of The Stepsister Scheme. Los Angeles Times interviews Jane Espenson. [via Whedonesque] Emma Bull shows off the cover for her book Bone Dance. For your consideration...the Hugo Award nominations are open and SF Awards Watch is tracking the various "pimping pages" are starting appear. ...
Space Spin » Gamma-Ray burst offers first peek at a young galaxy's star factory
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:39:19 -0800
Astronomers combining data from NASA's Swift satellite, the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and other facilities have, for the first time, identified gas molecules in the host galaxy of a gamma-ray burst.The explosion, designated GRB 080607, occurred in June. "This burst gave us the opportunity to 'taste' the star-forming gas in a young galaxy mo...
Space Spin » Star light, star bright, its explanation is out of sight
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:52:35 -0800
A mysterious flash of light from somewhere near or far in the universe is still keeping astronomers in the dark long after it was first detected by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2006. It might represent an entirely new class of stellar phenomena that has previously gone undetected in the universe, say researchers.Astronomers commonly observe intens...
The Planetary Society Weblog » I am totally hooked on Scott Maxwell's new Mars Exploration Rover blog
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:57:09 -0800
Scott Maxwell is one of those many guys (and gals) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who rarely gets his name in the news but who is absolutely indispensable to the success of a space mission. I don't know what his official title is, but whatever it is, it's not as good as the colloquial name given to his position: Rover Driver. Yes, Scott drives th...
Space Spin » Cassiopeia A comes alive across time and space
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:02:20 -0800
Two new efforts have taken a famous supernova remnant from the static to the dynamic. A new movie of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows changes in time never seen before in this type of object. A separate team will also release a dramatic three-dimensional visualization of the same remnant.Nearly ten years ago, Chandra's "First Light"...
Space Spin » Dead stars tell story of planet birth
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:21:03 -0800
Astronomers have turned to an unexpected place to study the evolution of planets -- dead stars.Observations made with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveal six dead "white dwarf" stars littered with the remains of shredded asteroids. This might sound pretty bleak, but it turns out the chewed-up asteroids are teaching astronomers about the building ...
Space Spin » Hubble and Spitzer views galactic core in unprecedented new detail
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:10:37 -0800
This composite color infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. This sweeping panorama is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core. It offers a nearby laboratory for how ma...
Space Spin » Brown dwarfs don't hang out with stars
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:59:10 -0800
Brown dwarfs, objects that are less massive than stars but larger than planets, just got more elusive, based on a study of 233 nearby multiple-star systems by Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble found only two brown dwarfs as companions to normal stars. This means the so-called "brown dwarf desert" (the absence of brown dwarfs around solar-type stars) e...
Space Spin » Zeroing in on Hubble's constant
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:48:23 -0800
In the early part of the 20th Century, Carnegie astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding. The rate of expansion is known as the Hubble constant. Its precise value has been hotly debated for all of the 80 intervening years. The value of the Hubble constant is a key ingredient in determining the age and size of the universe.I...
Space Spin » Baby Jupiters must gain weight fast
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:37:30 -0800
The planet Jupiter gained weight in a hurry during its infancy. It had to, since the material from which it formed probably disappeared in just a few million years, according to a new study of planet formation around young stars.Smithsonian astronomers examined the 5 million-year-old star cluster NGC 2362 with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which ...
Space Spin » Dawn Journal December 30, 2008
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:20:54 -0800
Having fulfilled all of its assignments for 2008, the Dawn spacecraft has been unusually quiescent recently. While its operators on faraway Earth have no shortage of work, the probe patiently coasts in its orbit around the Sun, awaiting a brief encounter with Mars on February 17, which will steer it into a new orbit.On October 31, Dawn completed ne...
SF Signal » REVIEW: The January Dancer by Michael Flynn
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:28:00 -0800
REVIEW SUMMARY: It seemed to have all the elements of entertaining space opera, yet failed to be compelling. MY RATING: BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Multiple factions pursue a strange but powerful artifact. MY REVIEW: PROS: Flynn's poetic prose; the opening chapters were awe-inspiring. CONS: Too many factions; political back story weighed it down. BOTTOM LINE:...
SF Signal » Sci Fi Channel Finally Promotes Sci Fi Wire
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:20:53 -0800
The Sci Fi Channel's news page, Sci FI Wire, has finally gotten a site of it's own. It's about time! For all the complaining we do about their programming, I've been seeing good things happening to their web presence over the last several months. Even before it was spun off, SciFi Wire had started engaging in more "blog-like" items, which is to sa...
SF Signal » 9 Trailer
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:13:04 -0800
Once upon a time, Shane Acker created a short film called 9. Well, now he is working on a feature-length adaptation called, appropriately enough 9. Check out the trailer: Wow, I really like the way this looks, as if Tim Burton got a hold of Oddworld. That may not be the most accurate assessment, but it's the first thing that popped into my head wh...
SF Signal » SF Tidbits for 1/6/09
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:08:40 -0800
Over at Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine, Joe R. Lansdale reads from "Dirt Devils" from his upcoming collection Sanctified and Chicken-Fried: The Portable Lansdale. Wyrdsmiths interviews Joshua Palmatier (The Vacant Throne). David Brin is (hopefully) featured on the History Channel's two-hour special First Apocalypse (a.k.a. What Really Killed th...
SF Signal » Tube Bits for 01/06/08
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:06:04 -0800
While LOSTmas is still two weeks away (Jan. 21st), ABC has screened the two hour premier for critics and BuddyTV has two words for LOST fans: Shih Tzus. How does this furry little yappy dog figure into the dense mythology? Tune in on LOSTmas to find out! ExpressNightOut lists all the things that make Battlestar Galactica great. I can't say I disagr...
SF Signal » Orbit Introduces the $1 eBook
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:45:00 -0800
From an Orbit press release:Orbit - in partnership with a number of major ebook vendors - has launched an innovative promotion offering one ebook for sale each month at the introductory price of $1.00. At the end of the promotional month the cost of the ebook returns to its standard price and a new book will be offered at the discount. Details of t...
SF Signal » TOC: The Year's Best Science Fiction #26 edited by Gardner Dozois
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:00:30 -0800
Editor Gardner Dozois has posted the table of contents for The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection, slated for a June 2009 release:"Turing's Apples" by Stephen Baxter (Eclipse 2 edited by Jonathan Strahan)"From Babel's Fall'n Glory We Fled" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's, February 2008)"The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi (Fast ...
The Planetary Society Weblog » Astronomy Cast is broadcasting press conferences from the AAS meeting
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:59:48 -0800
I just found out that the good people of Astronomy Cast are broadcasting the press briefings at this week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach via Ustream. Go here to watch the live press briefings; today's schedule is below, and you can watch the Astronomy Cast LIVE website for the schedule of press briefings later this wee...
The Planetary Society Weblog » Dawn Journal: Conjunction junction
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:10:48 -0800
Here's our monthly checkup with the Dawn mission, contributed by Marc Rayman, the mission's Project System Engineer. Thanks Marc! --ESL by Dr. Marc D. Rayman Dear Dawncember30ths, Having fulfilled all of its assignments for 2008, the Dawn spacecraft has been unusually quiescent recently. While its operators on faraway Earth have no shortage of work...
SF Signal » Robocop Likes Fried Chicken
Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:22:00 -0800
You know, I always pictured Robocop as a grilled chicken kind of cyborg... [via Poe TV]...
SF Signal » Books Received: January 5 2009
Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:20:00 -0800
Here's a list of the stuff we received this past week. ...
SF Signal » SF Tidbits for 1/5/09
Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:06:00 -0800
Suvudu has 5 Questions for Alan Campbell, author of Scar Night and Iron Angel. Mike Brotherton interviews Jim C. Hines, author of The Stepsister Scheme. Free Fiction [courtesy of QuasarDragon]The Winter 2009 issue of Subterranan Online has begun posting fiction, starting with "Clinic" by Kris Nelscott.@Project Gutenberg: "A Fine Fix" by R. C. Noll ...
SCIFI.COM » SCIFIWire has relaunched.
Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:00:00 -0800
SCIFIWire has relaunched. We've got a bigger, better, expanded site with amazing new content, as well as the fantastic news you've already been reading! Please re-subscribe here: http://scifiwire.com/rss.xml and let us know what you think!...
SF Signal » F&SF Changes Publishing Schedule
Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:29:00 -0800
Gordon Van Gelder, Editor/Publisher of The magazine of fantasy & Science Fiction, has announced that they will be changing the monthly publishing schedule from monthly to bi-monthly:The March 2009 issue will be the last monthly issue. Starting with the April/May 2009 issue, we'll be publishing one issue every two months. Each issue will be 256 page...
SF Signal » Sunday Cinema: Thunderbirds (2004)
Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:15:00 -0800
When The Hood (Ben Kingsley in his finest non-pacifist role) finds and invades International Rescue's secret base and traps most of the Tracy family, only young Alan Tracy and his friends can save the day! ...
Space Spin » A change of seasons
Sat, 03 Jan 2009 07:58:00 -0800
Summer turned to autumn for the Phoenix Mars Lander on December 26, 2008. This image, taken on December 21 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the lander during the last waning days of northern hemisphere summer.The image was acquired at 15:31 Local Mars Time when the sun wa...
The Planetary Society Weblog » Five Years of Spirit on Mars
Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:15:43 -0800
On January 3, 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit landed on Mars, and I was with the science team at JPL when it happened! I can't believe it's been five years since the successful landing. I chose the anniversary as the topic of my first podcast for 365 Days of Astronomy (follow that link to download it). Below is a transcript of my podcast --...
SIMAP » Untitled
Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:00:00 -0800
The BOINCSIMAP team wishes all partipants a happy new year. Thank you for supporting our project and helping to keep the largest database of protein similarities and protein features up-to-date....
Space Spin » Cassini ISS images - December 29, 2008-January 2, 2009
Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:33:53 -0800
The following new images taken by the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) on the Cassini spacecraft are now available:Helene Attends Dione (Released 29 December 2008)The small moon Helene leads Dione (not shown) by 60 degrees in the moons' shared orbit.Fingerprints of the Shepherds (Released 30 December 2008)The F ring and outer edge of the A ring can ...
Space Spin » Mars Odyssey THEMIS images - December 29, 2008-January 2, 2009
Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:31:17 -0800
The following new images taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft are now available:Channel (Released 29 December 2008)This small channel system is located on the outer rim of Sytinskaya Crater.Volcanic Vent (Released 30 December 2008)The volcanic vent and related flows in this image are located in Elysiu...
» First prime of 2009
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:55:00 -0800
Congratulations to zed, the discoverer of PrimeGrid's first prime for 2009 in the Proth Prime Search project: 15*2^483098+1. Unfortunately, it was just a double check. The first "new" prime of 2009 was found by Vato, again from the Proth Prime Search project: 835*2^483718+1. ...
The Planetary Society Weblog » A Moon Among Stars
Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:17:29 -0800
I just walked outside and looked up -- it's now dusk in Los Angeles -- and saw a crescent Moon above a brilliant Venus in a lavender sky. Utterly beautiful. I managed to find Jupiter in a part of the sky that was still yellow with sunset, but couldn't see Mercury. Hopefully all of you will have paused after sunset during whatever festivities you're...
The Planetary Society Weblog » The Year in Pictures: 2008
Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:08:12 -0800
I have, at long last, posted my annual roundup of some of the most significant images from 2008. This year's selection process was interesting; I wound up with an unusual number of pictures that were actually pretty low resoluion -- not so suitable for posters -- but which seemed to me to be important landmarks of events in planetary science this y...
The Planetary Society Weblog » I spotted Mercury last night!
Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:35:31 -0800
Last night -- actually I guess it was the night before -- I was wheeling out of the grocery store with my daughter and my mother, and I looked up and pointed out the brilliant beacon of Venus to both of them. The skies in Los Angeles are too bright to contain many stars, but the city lights can't ever drown out Venus as long as it's high enough in ...
Space Spin » Mars rovers near five years of science and discovery
Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:18:11 -0800
NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity may still have big achievements ahead as they approach the fifth anniversaries of their memorable landings on Mars. Of the hundreds of engineers and scientists who cheered at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 3, 2004, when Spirit landed safely, and 21 days later when Opportunity followe...
The Planetary Society Weblog » Another longevity milestone for Spirit and Opportunity
Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:03:33 -0800
We're getting close to the fifth anniversary of the landings of Spirit and Opportunity, but was we approach that milestone, we're passing another. I've been told that as of yesterday, Spirit and Opportunity have operated on Mars for a combined length of time that is longer than the combined number of sols that the twin Viking landers operated. Toda...
SIMAP » Untitled
Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:00:00 -0800
New Workunits: the calculation of similarities and features of approx. 400.000 new sequences, that were imported from protein databases into SIMAP in december, will start in the morning (UTC) of december 31st....
The Planetary Society Weblog » ANSMET Blogs: Finally in the field and bagging lots of meteorites
Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:57:53 -0800
Over the holidays I've been lax in posting the Antarctic Search for Meteorites blogs, so today I caught up on nearly two weeks' worth. My delay turned out to be beneficial, as there were still several days of waiting around McMurdo for most of the team until they and all their equipment finally arrived at their field campsite on December 23. It was...
The Planetary Society Weblog » From the "playing with particle accelerators" department
Mon, 29 Dec 2008 09:38:15 -0800
Thanks to ilbasso over at unmannedspaceflight.com for posting a link to this cool video showing what happens when you point a particle beam (a small one) at a Webcam. And before you get too excited, the Webcam doesn't blow up or anything -- but what happens is quite educational! What you see is lots of little white "snow" dots appearing on the vide...
Space Spin » MESSENGER approaches three billion miles, enters fourth solar conjunction
Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:29:54 -0800
On December 26, the MESSENGER spacecraft will have traveled three billion miles since its launch, marking somewhat more than 60 percent of the probe's journey toward its destination to be inserted into orbit about Mercury."That MESSENGER's odometer reading has reached another major milestone reminds us of the long and complex route that our spacecr...
» Fermat Divisor
Sun, 28 Dec 2008 10:45:00 -0800
Congratulations to Eric Ueda, the discoverer of PrimeGrid's first Fermat divisor in the Proth Prime Search project: 651*2^476632+1 Divides F(476624). It is only the 6th found Fermat divisor of 2008 and 270th overall. It is the 8th largest Fermat divisor in Chris Caldwell's The Largest Known Primes Database. For more information, please see this for...
» AP26 Search
Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:50:00 -0800
PrimeGrid has added a new prime search project, an Arithmetic Progression of 26 primes. An arithmetic progression of primes is a sequence of primes with a common difference between any two successive numbers in the sequence. For example 3, 7, 11 is an arithmetic progression of 3 primes with a common difference of 4.To participate, go to your PrimeG...
» Primorial Prime Search
Thu, 25 Dec 2008 23:00:00 -0800
PrimeGrid has added a new prime search project, the Primorial Prime Search. These primes are of the forms p#+1 and p#-1. It enters the Project Staging Area first as a manual sieving effort. Once sufficient depth has been reached, a primality testing effort will begin.For more information, please see this forum thread. ...
» 2008 Challenge Series
Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:40:00 -0800
PrimeGrid's 2008 Challenge Series has concluded. Congratulations to SETI.Germany as the top team and lennart SM5YMT as the top individual. They are the winners to PrimeGrid's inaugural 2008 Challenge Series. For a list of other top finishers, please see this forum thread. ...
» The Winter Solstice Challenge
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:10:00 -0800
The results are in for the Winter Solstice Challenge. Thank you for your patience. The margin of victory is 0.055%. Congratulations to WilliamWallace as the top individual and BOINCstats as the top team. For more information, please see this forum thread. The crowning of the top overall finishers in PrimeGrid's 2008 Challenge Series is next. ...
POEM@HOME » Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:00:00 -0800
Merry Christmas and some nice winter holidays to all you volunteers. Looking back at 2008, we had a very busy year with the CASP participation, the many successful competitions on POEM@HOME and the regular folding simulations. Thank you for making this possible. Hopefully 2009 will be another exciting year for protein folding....