Monday Science Links

This week's science:

• Over at Starts With a Bang! Ethan talks about the Hubble and its special cameras: As I write this, the Space Shuttle Atlantis has just blasted-off a few hours ago, headed for the Hubble Space Telescope. It's hard to believe that Hubble's been up there for more than 19 years now, and has helped revolutionize our understanding of the Universe, from measuring the Hubble constant to discovering Dark Energy. It continues to dazzle us even today. While you can read about the servicing mission that's going on here, I'm going to focus on saying goodbye to one special instrument this week: WFPC2. (If you want to sound like an astronomer, it's pronounced WHIFF-pic-too.)


• At Skulls in the Stars is an explanation of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyworld: During our visit to Walt Disney World, the new wife and I made sure to hit all the classic rides in the Magic Kingdom: Pirates of the Caribbean, The Tiki Room, The Haunted Mansion, even It’s a Small World (though, alas, not Space Mountain, which is under renovations until November). The Haunted Mansion is one of my favorites, with its classic Gothic ghost story atmosphere and dark sense of humor. As a child, I was terrified of the essentially harmless attraction. This trip, as a professor of optics, I was delighted to not only see the clever special effects, but deconstruct them — to “peek behind the curtains”, so to speak. I suppose some would think that this peek would “ruin the magic” or “unweave the rainbow“. For me, though, I find it a joy to see how people’s ingenuity can lead to wonderfully fun, even beautiful, attractions. The Haunted Mansion is filled with clever applications of very simple optics, and I can’t resist explaining one of them. SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU FEEL THAT UNDERSTANDING HOW AN ATTRACTION WORKS RUINS IT, DON’T READ ANY FURTHER.


• Phil at Bad Astronomy offers ten things you don't know about Hubble: On April 24, 1990, the Space Shuttle Discovery roared into space, carrying on board a revolution: The Hubble Space Telescope. It was the largest and most sensitive optical-light telescope ever launched into space, and while it suffered initially from a focusing problem, it would soon return some of the most amazing and beautiful astronomical images anyone had ever seen. Hubble was designed to be periodically upgraded, and even as I write this, astronauts are in the Space Shuttle Atlantis installing two new cameras, fixing two others, and replacing a whole slew of Hubble's parts. This is the last planned mission, ever, to service the venerable 'scope, so what better time to talk about it? Plus, it's arguably the world's most famous telescope (it's probably the only one people know by name), and yet I suspect that there are lots of things about it that might surprise you. (He too has astonishing photos...)
  


• On the lighter side of science, Diandra at Cocktail Party Physics talks about the optics of fixing things: You learn a lot about people from their offices. My office is a barely controlled state of chaos, which pretty much mirrors the rest of my life. The Rocket Scientist is the only faculty member I've ever known who keeps coasters in his office (and requires their use). I'll let you figure out what a coaster fetish tells you about RS - I have my own theories, but (ignoring for the moment the fact that we work for a public university and all our furniture is laminate) there actually are really good reasons for one to use coasters. The cool liquid in glass condenses water from the air onto the glass. The water rolls down the glass onto the wood table and produces a white ring that doesn't wipe off. Removing that ghastly mark of shame requires esoteric cleaning approaches, like a warm iron applied to a towel over the damaged area or rubbing with toothpaste. But these fixes usually work only when the damage is confined to the top layer of the finish. Most real wood furniture is stained - pigment is absorbed into the wood fibers and the solvent (the stuff in which the pigment is suspended) evaporates. The furniture is then coated with something to protect the finish. Back in the day, they used penetrating oil, which is absorbed into the very top layers of the wood, and/or coated the whole thing with a paste wax (sort of like like the plastic that covers certain types of cheeses). The final layer is a barrier between the wood and the elements, but the finish can also affect the appearance of the furniture.


• And over at the Sandwalk, Larry Moran looks at the three theories on the origin of life: There are several competing hypotheses about the origin of life. Most people know about the Primordial Soup scenario; that's the one where complex organic molecules are created by spontaneous chemical reactions. Over time these complex molecules, such as amino acids and nucleotides, accumulate in a warm little pond and eventually they come together to form proteins and nucleic acids. The RNA World scenario is similar except that nucleic acids (RNA) are thought to form before proteins. For a while, RNA molecules are the main catalysts in the primordial soup. Later on, proteins take over some of the catalytic roles. One of the problems with the RNA world hypothesis is that you have to have a reasonable concentration of nucleotides before the process can begin. The third hypothesis is called Metabolism First. In this scheme, the first reactions involve spontaneous formation of simple molecules such as acetate, a two-carbon compound formed from carbon dioxide and water.

Enjoy!