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POPSDino diversity earlier than first thought Maybe there is the idea that species including the dinosaurs were trying to deal with conditions brought about by the meteor, so many adaptations arose, but nature loves nothing more than competition, even when times are good.
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POPSEchoes of a Supernova: Spitzer Space Telescope We can't physically travel back in time (yet?) but the complete history of the universe lays before our eyes. As our technology, and understanding improves, what we can read of that history also improves, continually answering questions that we had not dreamed of just a short time ago.
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POPSAtom laser to keep spacecraft on track. Models predict that the atom laser will be 11 orders of magnitude more sensitive than light laser gyroscopes, offering measurements that could be 100 billion times more precise.
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POPSOuter-space sex For all these reasons, Logan said spontaneous sex in space could be "a little underwhelming." "It's a pretty messy environment, when you think about it," he said. "And for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. However ... I can well imagine how compelling, inspiring, and quite frankly stimulating choreographed sex in zero-G might be in the hands of a skilled and talented cinematographer with appropriate lighting and music." When the crowd tittered, Logan added, "I'm not kidding: Sex in zero-G is going to have to be more or less choreographed. Otherwise it's just going to be a wild flail."
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POPSLast shuttle flight set for May 2010 Weather permitting.Then there will be a transition to the new launch vehicles Here is a link to the NASA Constellation program page that includes details of the new launch vehicles Orion, and Ares. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/index.html
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POPSCreating insignificant events -Futuristic art Vincent Callebaut 'work was lately exhibited in Paris ; ;" To believe in the world means to create events, even insignificant ones, that gets out of control, or create new space-times, even in reduced surfaces or volumes"
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POPSMultidimensional space through art Generally for the sake of the illusion of 3 Dimensions and perspective. There are plenty of artists beside Escher that represent multidimensional space, but he does a particularly good job of it. The last stereogram at the bottom is the thinker. I ran out of characters. (you can always go to the site.) Stereograms can be annoying sometimes when you can't see what it is, and everyone else can. It can be like that, then suddenly one day a picture can jump out. It can help if you know what you're looking for. One problem with these may be looking too hard, when the eyes are probably better off relaxing.
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POPSHubble Image Collection v3.0 There is a 500mb download that contains 130 of the best images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope., each in three resolutions. There is also a list of 'goodies' on the left of the page with a range of Hubble downloads,
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POPSMusic Reduced to Beautiful Math "You can use these geometrical spaces to provide ways of visualizing musical pieces," Tymoczko told LiveScience. "These spaces give us a much better and comprehensive picture of the space of all possible chords."
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POPSThe Great Barrier Reef The individual pictures don't link, but there are larger copies at the site that also show the details of the copyright holder
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POPSNASA says German whiz kid got it wrong Sounds bizarre, NASA figures showing the chance of an asteroid strike being shown up by a boy's school project, but that was the claim made by a German newspaper. NASA seems to be taking it seriously. While they calculate, they still haven't worked how to argue with an asteroid that has made it's mind up. NASA also claim the boys figures relate to a single asteroid hit on a satellite in 2029. Looks like they both had the same answer with their decimal points in different places. Did one of them forget how many significant figures they were using ? From the figures it looks like they both
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POPSPlot of the Innermost Solar System, March 29, 2008 The plot below shows the current location of the major planets (Mercury through Mars) and the minor planets that are in the innermost region of the solar system. Just in case you thought it's lonely out there in the space ;-)
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POPSHeritage computers facing scrap heap
April 1 is the deadline. Many of the computers may be useful for research or historical purposes, perhaps to help put into some context how far Moore's Law has got us over the last 50 to 100 years To think computers started with vacuum tubes, as transistors. These aren't that old but they do take up a lot of space. Often it is discovered something is needed just after it is thrown out. Perhaps throwing it out was a reminder that something still existed, but it's easy to forget how we got here if there's no hard copy. Human memories can be very subjective. Computer memories are much more logical. The way humanity works, if we bury them now in a few years well regret we didn't wait until we had at least generated a 3D Graphics program that contains all of the information, from hardware layout and format to programs, in the one folder. It will be too late then, we'll have to be content with b/w photos, and perhaps personal descriptions. Maybe Wikki will tell us what they were like.
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POPSHunt is on for tiny diamonds in space Carbon does have remarkable properties. One of the four basic organic elements, present in any number of compounds including pure carbon compounds like graphite and Diamonds. Mainly because the atom is built like it has four plugs, and four sockets. They think according to the meteorites that there is a vast amount of carbon in interstellar dust and think it may give them clues to the way carbon molecules form, including those that are the precursors of life. Then of course there's Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? The 60s does seem to be a long time ago, and as they say, if you remember it you weren't there.
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POPSMark Shuttleworth - Space Man Of course Ubuntu/Linux is my latest preoccupation (apart from clipmarks) and when I read he was behind it, and was described as an 'Entrepreneur' so I had to find out more. There are more than a few types of 'Entrepreneur' when I saw that a few years ago he was most famous for going with the Russians to the International Space Station, (It's easy to forget much of what happened more than 7 years ago) I thought it would even have made the Russians laugh, and that isn't easy. He's involved in community projects in South Africa, concerning Education and free software, to allow greater access to learning, and computer technology. He's also been to Antarctica aboard a Russian Icebreaker.
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POPSWarships poised to shoot down satellite They say they must deal with the 'toxic propellant hydrazine I fail to see how a missile can deal with it any better that reentry Perhaps the missiles are surplus and they need to justify military spending. How much hydrazine is there? The satellite was defunct. The whole equation just doesn't add up. The cure seems to be far worse than the problem.
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POPSPaper planes to fly in space Yes they're serious - But they're not sure where they will land? Sure inspire an astronauts confidence. "If we send you off in a paper plane, make sure you take your phone-so you can tell us where you land." Reminds me of how hard it is to find a bottle thrown into the sea. What if it rains?
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POPSVMware Player:Run iso files before installation I put the url of a program that can check iso files on a hard disk in comments and another with VMplayer OS images.The clip might make more sense then I've often wondered how to check an Operating System before installing it, or even burning an iso file onto a Disk. One the main problems apart from the space, has been, after installing another operating system, in a dual boot, it can mess up the boot files of systems already loaded, if it is removed. This player allows booting of another system, or the running of an Appliance in another window without having to reboot, or partition the disks.This could have saved me a lot of trouble over the last month - at least I know more about disk partitions and boot files. They suggest 1GB of free space to give an internally booted system room. It is available for Windows, and Linux, and the site also has a range of other Virtual Appliances, both free, and commercial, is Open Source, and has a knowledge base, community, and Self-Help Support.
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POPSCanberra with first pictures of Mercury flyby Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, is working with NASA, tracking the Messenger spacecraft. The flyby was just over 24 hours prior to making this clip. (Tuesday 6am Australian daylight savings time)
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