Monday Science Links

This week's sciency goodness:

• Phil Plait, at Bad Astronomy, has another of his lists, ten things you don't know about black holes: Ah, black holes. The ultimate shiver-inducer of the cosmos, out-jawing sharks, out-ooking spiders, out-scaring… um, something scary. But we’re fascinated by ‘em, have no doubt — even if we don’t understand a whole lot about them. But then, that’s why I’m here. Allow me to be your tour guide to infinity. Or the inverse of it, I suppose. Since it’s Halloween this seems appropriate… and my book Death from the Skies! just came out, and there’s lots of ways a black hole can destroy the Earth. Mwuhahahaha.


• AstroProf blogs about the coming of winter on Mars and the death of Phoenix: The Sun rises and sets. That’s a fact of life that is an everyday occurrence to most of us. But, for much of the Phoenix lander’s life on the surface of Mars, sunrises and sunsets didn’t happen. At a Martian latitude of 68° 13′ N, the Sun does not set near the summer solstice. But, earlier this year, Phoenix got to experience sunrises and sunsets. While that might be interesting to us humans, it is a problem for a solar powered spacecraft. At night, Phoenix has to rely on its batteries. Since the solar panels were providing more power during the day than the spacecraft needed to operate, the extra power was used to charge the batteries. Unfortunately, those days are now long gone. With each passing day, the Sun appears further south in the Martian sky. Come December, the Sun will be on the Martian celestial equator. That will be the Martian Autumnal Equinox. On that day, the Sun will shine for half of the day. But, already, Phoenix is having difficulties.


• Lee at Cocktail Party Physics talks about paper - yes, paper: Even though I'm a science geek, you've probably noticed I have a few other interests, like science fiction and poetry. One I haven't talked about much here is my love of paper, which follows naturally from my love of books. Books, for people like me, are not just media to convey knowledge or entertainment; they're objects of beauty in and of themselves. It's not just the binding that makes books artistic objects, either. The paper the text is printed on can be a sensual delight too. Fine cotton rag paper has a great texture, doesn't turn brittle the way wood pulp paper does because it's generally acid-free (the acid is why your old paperbacks are yellowing and falling apart), and holds ink beautifully as well, especially when mechanically printed with plates or lead type (rather than, say, laser or inkjet printed). But most paper is also far stronger than you'd suspect, for a reason that might surprise you: its water content.


• And then blogmate Jennifer offers us bioluminescence in the ocean with gorgeous photos, too: And now, it is time to move on to actual science -- remember science? I've been completely immersed in the stuff of late, and finally have time to write about it. Just prior to the NASW meeting, I was in Boston for the annual Industrial Physics Forum (my bloggy musings-for-hire can be found here), focusing this year on frontiers in imaging ("from the cosmos to nano"). I especially enjoyed the session on marine and terrestrial imaging, perhaps because it's not something I write about very often. Or maybe it's just because two of the talks were about fluorescent coral and other examples of bioluminescent ocean creatures, each featuring lots of pretty pictures. That always livens things up a bit. A couple of years ago, I blogged about Bob the Hawaiian Bobtail squid...


• And we finish up with Kim at All My Faults Are Stress-Related picking her Halloween costume: the scariest possible geologic costume: I think I would have to go with liquefaction. There's an earthquake, the ground turns to quicksand, buildings and people sink into the ground, and then the sand solidifies around you so you can't breath.