Time lapse video of night sky as it passes over the 2009 Texas Star Party in Fort Davis, Texas.

The galactic core of Milky Way is brightly displayed.

Images taken with 15mm fisheye lens.

From the archive:

Oh! I feel it. I feel the cosmos!

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas

Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.

The experts concluded Ida was not simply a lemur but a 'lemur monkey', displaying a mixture of both groups, and therefore putting her at the very branch of the human line.

Ida: Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution

Nicholas A. Christakis & James Fowler:

We found that social networks have clusters of happy and unhappy people within them that reach out to three degrees of separation. A person's happiness is related to the happiness of their friends, their friends' friends, and their friends' friends' friends—that is, to people well beyond their social horizon. We found that happy people tend to be located in the center of their social networks and to be located in large clusters of other happy people. And we found that each additional happy friend increases a person's probability of being happy by about 9%.

Social Networks and Happiness

Messenger Photos of Mercury

I thought this was interesting -- it fits with Jared Diamond's argument about malaria.

The researchers compared that sample with modern strains to determine its mutation rate. Then they matched that rate with the 1959 sample, tracing their common ancestor to between 1884 and 1924.

The researchers surmised that the creation of colonial cities around the turn of the century was the catalyst that allowed the virus to take hold.

Jim Moore, an anthropologist at UC San Diego who was not associated with the study, said the fact that the virus could have spread unnoticed for decades is no surprise, given the mortality rates in Africa during the colonial period.

"The conditions then were horrendous in terms of how Africans were treated," he said. "People dying of AIDS would have been part of the background."

HIV dates back to around 1900, study shows - Los Angeles Times

Science Debate 2008 worked with the leading organizations listed to craft the top 14 questions the candidates should answer. These questions are broad enough to allow for wide variations in response, but they are specific enough to help guide the discussion toward many of the largest and most important unresolved challenges currently facing the United States.

There are probably many readers interested in this. Both candidates claim they will support increased funding for basic science research.

Sciencedebate 2008

Stay current on the issue. More here.

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

Research conducted by a team of North American scientist shows our solar system is special, contrary to the accepted theory that it is an average planetary system. Using computer simulations to follow the development of planets, it was shown that very specific conditions are needed for a proto-stellar disk to evolve into a solar system-like planetary system. The simulations show that in most cases either no planets are created, or planets are formed and then migrate towards the disk center and acquire highly elliptical orbits.

Why we don't know any aliens.

New Study Shows Solar System is Unique

MEXICO CITY — Scientists were fascinated by the ghostly find: a human skeleton buried in an Aztec temple with a clay, skull-shaped whistle in each bony hand.

But no one blew into the noisemakers for nearly 15 years.

When someone finally did, the shrill, windy screech made the spine tingle.

If death had a sound, this was it.

Sweet!

On another site, you'll find the MP3 file of the whistles being played, by archaeologists. [Not Safe For Life]

Aztec Whistles Of Death

Nasa has confirmed that the toilet on the International Space Station has failed, leaving astronauts in an urgent need for spare parts.

The problem lies with the fan that draws liquids into the waste chamber prior to being ejected to burn up in the atmosphere.

Damn. That sucks.

Space Station inconvenienced as toilet fails - vnunet.com