Learning

How many ways can you say the same thing? The writer for the Yahoo! News’ “The Sideshow” may be trying to answer that question when he tells us that penguins have wings and wing-like flippers and they are swimmers and aquatic and they are flightless and they don’t take to the skies: And he’s so fond of Mr. Speakman’s words that he repeats them for your benefit: Perhaps if the writer had read what he wrote, he’d notice the repetition. Perhaps if the writer had read what he wrote, he’d notice the repetition. Filed under: Department of Redundancy Dept. Tagged: editing, Eric Pfeiffer, proofreading, redundancy, repetition, The Sideshow, Yahoo!, Yahoo! News

From a view of the devastating Oklahoma tornado from space to the Milky Way shining over a state park, don't miss these amazing space photos of the week.

An artist’s conception of the SS Cygni system, with a red dwarf star’s material being pulled on to a nearby white dwarf. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF If you’re a semi-serious amateur astronomer, chances are you’ve heard of a variable pair of stars called SS Cygni. When you watch the system for long enough, you’re rewarded with a brightness outburst that then fades away and then returns, regularly, over and over again. Turns out this bright pair is even closer to us than we imagined — 370 light-years away, to be precise. Before we get into how this was discovered, a bit of background on what SS Cygni is. As the name of the system implies, it’s in the constellation of Cygnus (the Swan). The pair consists of a cooling white dwarf star that is locked in a 6.6-hour orbit with a red dwarf. The white dwarf’s gravity, which is much stronger than that of the red dwarf, is bleeding material from its neighbor. This interaction causes outbursts — on average, about once every 50 days. Previously, the Hubble Space Telescope put the distance to these stars much further away, at 520 light-years. But that caused some head-scratching among astronomers. Hubble Against Earth’s Horizon (1997) “That was a problem. At that distance, SS Cygni would have been the brightest dwarf nova in the sky, and should have had enough mass moving through its disk to remain stable without any outbursts,” stated James Miller-Jones, of the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Perth, Australia. Astronomers call SS Cygni a dwarf nova. When comparing it to similar systems, astronomers said the outbursts happen as matter changes its flow speed through the disc of material surrounding the white dwarf. “At high rates of mass transfer from the red dwarf, the rotating disk remains stable, but when the rate is lower, the disk can become unstable and undergo an outburst,” stated the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. So what was happening? A star’s distance is measured by observing a slight shift in position that occurs, from Earth’s perspective, on opposite sides of our planet’s orbit. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF To again look at the distance of the star, astronomers used two sets of radio telescopes, the Very Large Baseline Array and the European VLBI Network. Each set has a bunch of telescopes working together as an interferometer, allowing for precise measurements of star distances. Scientists then took measurements at opposite ends of the Earth’s orbit, using the planet itself as a tool. By measuring the star’s distance at opposite sides of the orbit, we can calculate its parallax or apparent movement in the sky from the perspective of Earth. It’s an old astronomical tool used to pin down distances, and still works. “This is one of the best-studied systems of its type, but according to our understanding of how these things work, it should not have been having outbursts. The new distance measurement brings it into line with the standard explanation,” stated Miller-Jones. And where did Hubble go wrong? Here’s the theory: “The radio observations were made against a background of objects far beyond our own Milky Way Galaxy, while the Hubble observations used stars within our galaxy as reference points,” NRAO stated. “The more-distant objects provide a better, more stable, reference.” Source: National Radio Astronomy Observatory © Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: binary star system, parallax, red dwarf, ss cygni, white dwarf Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

A Sicilian priest gunned down by the Mafia 20 years ago outside his home in Palermo was beatified in a seafront ceremony.

Rita Ora is usually rocking a cool and chic look, so we were shocked to see her wearing this odd green and leopard print combo at Radio One's Big Weekend Festival in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.More...

There is so much new Interesting Stuff this week that I can't post it all. If something you sent is missing, it may turn up next week or the next although never any promises. “BETTER ME THAN A CHILD” That is how an astonishly brave woman named Ingrid Oyau-Kennett explained taking her life in her hands when she engaged two alleged murderers in conversation last week. Certainly you know about the gruesome hacking attack last week on a British soldier in broad daylight on a busy street. It is an unspeakable kind of murder. But amazing good things can happen too. Ms. Oyau-Kennett first determined that the victim was dead then chatted with the two attackers, keeping them in the vicinity and calm until police arrived. Here is her account of the conversation: You can read more of her story at Huffington Post. JAW-DROPPINGLY WONDERFUL In the aftermath of the devastating tornado last week in Moore, Oklahoma, Barbara Garcia was explaining to a TV reporter that her beloved dog appeared to have been taken by the storm. Then, right there on camera, a small miracle happened. Watch. You can read a transcript of the interview on the YouTube page. MORE BAD NEWS IN OKLAHOMA And all the American plains states, not to mention all of us. As The New York Times reported this week: ”Portions of the High Plains Aquifer are rapidly being depleted by farmers who are pumping too much water to irrigate their crops, particularly in the southern half in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. "Levels have declined up to 242 feet in some areas, from predevelopment — before substantial groundwater irrigation began — to 2011. On this map, the darker the color, the farther the water table has sunk (larger image here). I find this terrifying. You can read the story here. LIBERACE BIOPIC ON HBO Any American in the age group that reads this blog certainly remembers how diamond-encrusted Liberace captured television audiences many decades ago when we were young. Tomorrow night on HBO, Behind the Candelabra will premier. It is the story of a 1970's love affair between two lonely men, Liberace and his much younger lover, Scott Thorson. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the movie stars Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as Thorson. The film is being broadcast on HBO apparently because a distributor could not be found in the U.S. However, Behind the Candelabra has been playing in theaters in England and Europe without difficulty. Here is the trailer that was screened there: There is a well-done review of the film in the Los Angeles Times. PING PONG FOR ELDERS ONLY Here is another new movie titled, Ping Pong, a documentary about eight players from five countries, all 80 and older, who travel to Outer Mongolia to compete the 2012 Table Tennis Championship there. Some notes from the press release: Les D’Arcy is a living legend. At 89 years old, he’s obviously not received the memo about slowing down, and is going for gold, literally...A seven time world champion, he still lifts weights to train – something he’s been doing for decades, after surviving a sickly childhood. “Of course compared to some, Les is a spring chicken. Australian legend Dorothy DeLow is 100, and finds herself a mega celebrity in this rarefied world. She’d better watch out though – Texan Lisa Modlich is fifteen years her junior and is determined to do what it takes to win her first gold.” Here is a trailer: The film is having a limited theatrical run in the U.S. next week only (from 27 May to 4 June) and only in selected cities. You can find a list of those cities here. Ping Pong is making the film festival circuit in the U.S. this summer and is expected to show up on DVD and cable providers' video-on-demand beginning 10 September. THE STORY OF EARTH IN TWO MINUTES Claire Jean sent this video that is beautiful and uplifting and then frighteningly sad. MY NEW FAVORITE NAME On Bedford Street where I lived in Manhattan, there was for a time a lovely little French bi

The author playing with his cool lab toys. Chris Lee This story was originally published as a series of four articles. Although the series will continue, we thought that a revised compilation would make better reading for those who haven't read the whole series. One of the great untold stories in science is the process of science itself. I don't mean stories about what scientists have discovered and what those discoveries tell us; we (and many others) cover those every day. I also don't mean stories about the pure joy of discovery and the excitement of finding out that everything you thought you understood was total nonsense. We cover that here at Ars occasionally, and there are plenty of books on the subject if you're hungry for more. What's missing is the background for these stories of discovery. How do you take an idea from its beginning as a casual musing all the way through an actual research program? What's involved in that process? How do you sort out the good ideas from the bad and choose what to pursue and what to abandon? That's the story I want to tell. Read 91 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Mexican activist Maria Elena Borquez says the fence is a symbol of hostility.

The weekly – SHOW AND TELL is on the Adafruit Industries Google+ page! at 9:30pm ET We will be asking all the folks in the +Limor Fried (ladyada) show-and-tell circle to re-add themselves to the +Adafruit show-and-tell circle shortly. Please post a comment on the Adafruit page to be added! Make sure you add Adafruit to your circles first!

ASK AN ENGINEER – 10PM ET! SATURDAY 5/25/2013! What is “Ask an engineer”? From the electronics enthusiast to the professional community – “Ask an Engineer” has a little bit of everything for everyone. If you’re a beginner, or a seasoned engineer – stop in and see what we’re up to! We have demos of projects and products we’re working on, we answer your engineering and electronics questions and we have a trivia question + give away each week. Previous chats can be viewed at http://www.adafruit.com/ask Chat details! Visit our new “Ask an Engineer”section on Adafruit at 10pm ET, Saturday nights Or visit our Ustream page For old schoolers, you can use IRC, you’ll need a Ustream log/pass, check out the Ustream IRC how-to here We are #adafruit-industries6796 on IRC server chat1.ustream.tv Watch the show with an iPad, iPhone or Android phone! And don’t forget, 30 minutes before the show we’re doing our weekly show-and-tell. If you are on Google+ and want to join, just add/follow +Adafruit’s page and post a comment so you can be added to the show and tell circle. At 9:30pm ET you will see a link to the hang out. Just keep your mics muted until we call on you and have your project ready. For those who just want to watch, you’ll be able to watch it live on Ustream here and we usually have a recorded version posted later.