| New Fault Lines in Mountaintop Coal Debate Both sides in the mountaintop removal mining debate are hardening their positions, taking their cases to Washington -- and to the courts. feeds.nytimes.com |
Starwatch: Mercury at its best Mercury, that most elusive and smallest of planets, is about to put on its best morning show of 2010 for starwatchers at our latitudes. Our diagram plots it in the eastern pre-dawn twilight, with its swelling dot-size indicative of its growing brightness. Brightening rapidly, it doubles in luminosity from magnitude 1.5 yesterday morning to mag 0.8 tomorrow. The pace drops, though, with the planet reaching mag -0.1 on Saturday and -1.1 by the month's end. It stands farthest W of the Sun, 18°, on Sunday when the diagram shows it as a shade over 10° high and almost due E 30 minutes before sunrise. In fact, Mercury rises more than 90 minutes before the Sun from Wednesday until the 25th, so we have a decent window in which to glimpse it before it is overwhelmed by the twilight.Because of that twilight, it is easier to spot through binoculars though it should become readily visible to the naked eye as it brightens. Not far away is Leo's leading star Regulus which is a good deal fainter at mag 1.4 and climbs from 6° above-right of Mercury tomorrow to twice this distance by the 22nd.Don't be misled by the growing brightness of Mercury into thinking that it is drawing close to us. In fact, it came closest (94m km) as it slipped through inferior conjunction between the Sun and the Earth 10 days ago. Tomorrow it lies 119m km away, its 4,879km globe appearing 8 arcsec across and 24% sunlit if viewed telescopically. It is 7 arcsec wide and 50% illuminated on the 20th, shrinking to less than 6 arcsec and 86% on the 30th.Not that Mercury is an easy telescopic subject. For many years, indistinct views through the turbulent air near the horizon gave astronomers the impression that Mercury's day was the same as its year – 88 Earth-days. In fact, we now know that a day on Mercury lasts for 176 Earth-days or two Mercury-years. Flyby inspections by Nasa probes, Mariner 10 in 1974/5 and more recently by Messenger, show a heavily cratered surface beneath the flimsiest atmosphere imaginable. Temperatures vary from some 400C directly facing the Sun to a cool -190C during the long night. Hundreds of lengthy cliffs called lobate scarps cross the surface, suggesting that Mercury has contracted over time – it is only recently that a handful of similar scarps, of similar origin, have been recognised on our Moon.Mercury is far from the only planet of current interest. We can hardly miss Jupiter which dominates our E sky at nightfall and climbs well up into the S by the middle of the night. Next Monday it reaches its closest opposition since 1963 when it shines at mag -2.9 and is 50 arcsec wide. It is worth a look, too, for Uranus which binoculars show as a relatively dim star of mag 5.7 just 1° NW (two Moon-breadths above-right) of Jupiter this evening, moving to 1.4° NE of Jupiter by the 30th. Alan Pickupguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Survival tips: what to do if an animal attacks you If it's a monkey, talk football, if it's an elephant play dead … and other helpful ploysThanks to a plucky woman from Frenchtown, Montana, we now know how to deal with at least one animal menace. Attacked at home last week by a 90kg black bear, she sent it lumbering back into the night simply by throwing a courgette at it. Local police described this as "improvising". The vegetable-projectile approach will probably fend off all sorts of creatures. But if you don't fancy putting it to the test, here are some alternatives.Hungry monkeys: You could simply give the macaque your Magnum. Failing that, try the "open-mouth threat" – make an O with your mouth, lean forward and raise your eyebrows. Then back away slowly. If that doesn't work, open a can of beer and talk about football (they're a bit more afraid of men than of women).Killer bees: Africanised honeybees aim for your mouth and nose first. So pull your top up over your head, then run, run, run away. Don't give up too soon – they've been known to chase victims for more than 400 metres. If possible, shut yourself in a car or building. Diving into water won't help – they'll wait till you come up for air.Crocodiles and alligators: Whatever some idiots tell you, crocs and gators cannot run faster than racehorses. On land, even humans have a good chance of outpacing them. Forget anything you've heard about zigzagging – just leg it. If the reptile gets you into its mouth, don't waste time trying to pry its jaws open. Stick your thumb or finger into its eye. The pain and shock should make it release you.Sharks: If it's trying to take chunks out of your boat, hit it with a paddle or a pole. The vulnerable spots are the eyes, gills and snout. If you're in the water, you may be able to escape by rapid changes of direction. Sharks are not very manoeuvrable. If you're in its mouth, do not play dead. Eyes, gills, snout, remember.Elephants: Plan A: Climb a tree, first making sure it's big enough that it can't be pushed over. Plan B: Play dead in the hope that Jumbo will get tired of tossing your body around.Animal behaviourAnimalsUnited StatesPhil Daoustguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Podcast: Nobel prizewinner Andre Geim, and the science of incest The 2010 Nobel prizes have been awarded and Britain has done rather well (two out of three ain't bad). The pod and a couple of special guests take an extended look at the three science categories.Nobel prizewinner Andre Geim joins us on the line from Manchester University to tell us why he's just been awarded this year's Nobel prize for physics for his work on graphene. He's the first person to get both a Nobel and an IgNobel award. He's also famous for levitating frogs! To help us dissect the physiology or medicine prize, which was awarded to Professor Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe for pioneering IVF (in vitro fertilisation), one of Professor Edward's former students Professor Martin Johnson tells us about their work and how controversial it was at the time. He's just written a paper about it. We also discuss the parallels with today's science funding crisis. Professor in biophysics Astrid Graslund helps us get our head around the chemistry prize for a clever technique for building the carbon backbones of complex organic molecules which has become invaluable in drug design. It's all down to palladium catalysis.In the coming weeks, Guardian Science will be presenting two videos a week from the Newton Channel. We play a snippet from our first one, in which Professor Brian Cox takes us underground at Cern for a quick look around the Large Hadron Collider. Keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook feeds to be alerted to when the next videos go online. Steve Jones is presenting the first of UCL's lunch hour lectures this year, 'Incest and Folk-dancing: why sex survives'. Believe it or not, the editing is meant to sound like this!We were very disappointed that this week's panellists, the Guardian's Nell Boase and Observer science editor Robin McKie, failed to get the recognition they deserve from the Nobel committee for their sterling work in science communication.WARNING: contains two instances of strong language! See if you can spot them ... Check out our shiny new science front page and meet our crack team of science bloggers:The Lay Scientist by Martin RobbinsLife and Physics by Jon ButterworthPunctuated Equilibrium by GrrlScientistPolitical Science by Evan Harris Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science. Email scienceweeklypodcast@gmail.com. Guardian Science is now on Facebook. You can also join our Science Weekly Facebook group. Listen back through our archive.Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).Alok JhaAndy DuckworthRobin McKieNell BoaseIan Sample guardian.co.uk |
Study reveals why the leopard got its spots Rudyard Kipling was right: leopards and other big cats have had to change their spots in order to survive. abc.net.au |