Egg on Your Face?

Filed under: The Dagobah System

Can't stand these eggs.

Getty Images

Did you feel any different at 12:48 a.m. EST? Feel like the laws of physics changed?

The vernal equinox today marks the beginning of spring and is characterized by equal parts day and night. Every year, when the equinox rolls around, a rumor resurfaces. It says that you can stand a raw egg on its end today -- and today only.

Is gravity so misunderstood that it's conceivable it could change the rules on us for a single day? Even if this were true, why could only eggs stand on end? Why not eggplants? Or pickles? And why not on the autumnal equinox too?

Fact is, gravity is the same today as it always was; perhaps it just needs a better public relations campaign. You can stand an egg on its end any day of the week, month, or year. Try it. This guy sure did!

Now, go smell the flowers and celebrate spring the old-fashioned way.

Summer Ash

7:00 AM ET | 03-20-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

Astrophysicist Makes House Call

Filed under: City Living, Personal/Private, The Dagobah System

"Je quitte ma planete."

From "The Little Prince"

Sometimes you need help from an astrophysicist, and that's when you're glad for Summer Ash (aka).

Summer came to my emotional rescue this week after I read this headline in the New York Times: "Kissing the Earth Goodbye in About 7.59 Billion Years."

Maybe it was the part about how, in the end, "there won't even be fragments." Maybe it was the part where the scientists say never mind the Himalayas. Maybe it was that I'd just read Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel, The Road. Or maybe it's that we're reading The Little Prince at my house -- and no matter what he says, you can't just up and quit your planet.

Whatever caused it, I had a case of existential suffocation. And I called on Summer Ash, who's used to dealing with our universe's cold infinities, to pull me out.

Laura Conaway

9:46 AM ET | 03-14-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

Be an Astronomer for a Night!

Filed under: The Dagobah System

(Above: Stunning video of what you might see, especially if you're NOT in New York City.)

Are you a stargazer? Want to give it a try? Here's introducing GLOBE at Night, an annual initiative from the hands-on, school-based science education program Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE).

Continue reading "Be an Astronomer for a Night!" »

Summer Ash

7:09 AM ET | 03- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Good Night Moon: Summer Ash Explains the Eclipse

Filed under: The Dagobah System

Beautiful, and understandable.

Summer Ash, astrophysicist to the (radio) stars, sends this primer on tonight's lunar eclipse. She blogs regularly at Newtonianism for the Ladies, and she is so doggone cool.

Special to the BPP from Summer Ash:

Tonight, the full moon will go into shadow for approximately 50 minutes. From 10:01 p.m. to 10:51 p.m Eastern Standard Time, the moon will be fully eclipsed by the Earth when its orbit places it directly opposite the sun in our skies.

The great thing about lunar eclipses, unlike solar eclipses, is that the moon is completely harmless to stare at directly, with the naked eye or otherwise, because it "shines" due to reflected, and not direct, sunlight. I find I appreciate lunar eclipses best with no fancy equipment at all. The moon moves fairly fast across the sky and the more you magnify it, the faster it will move out of your view. However you catch it, this will be a beautiful sight to behold.

Continue reading "Good Night Moon: Summer Ash Explains the Eclipse" »

Laura Conaway

7:14 AM ET | 02-20-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Video: Satellite Watchers Watch Back

Filed under: Links From the Show, The Dagobah System, Video

Satellites watch our planet all the time, sometimes for top-secret military reasons, sometimes for reasons as quotidian as making a cellphone call possible.

Satellite watchers like Kevin Fetter and Ted Molczan watch back. Molczan told us about his extreme hobby today on the show.

Now Fetter shares the video above. The first images are of a satellite crossing the moon. The second image captures the incredibly bright reflection, or flare, from a particular type of satellite turned at an exact angle. The third set shows trios of Naval Ocean Surveillance System satellites moving across the night sky. If you like these, check out the rest on Fetter's personal site.

Laura Conaway

12:48 PM ET | 02- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

Astrophysicist Checks In: A Pair of Near Misses

Filed under: The Dagobah System

What your world looks like today

The Minor Planet Center

Got this post from our own astrophysicist to the (radio) stars, Summer Ash. She blogs regularly at Newtonianism for the Ladies -- and we're hoping to have her on the show later this week.

Special to the BPP from Summer Ash:

Wow, that was close! Did you see that?!? We had not one, but two, near misses in the inner solar system last week. Asteroid TU24 buzzed by Earth last Tuesday while Asteroid WD5 just missed Mars on Wednesday. Who knew there was so much traffic among the planets?!

The Minor Planet Center knew. While both Earth and Mars escaped the events of last week unscathed, near-Earth objects are an actual concern that might one day pose a true danger. As of today, according to scientists there, the inner solar system looks like what you see on the left. The center updates this plot daily; it's hard not to look at it and realize that the statistics may not be in our favor in the long run.

Continue reading "Astrophysicist Checks In: A Pair of Near Misses" »

Laura Conaway

12:54 PM ET | 02- 6-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Spoiler Alert: Super Bowl Winner Below

Filed under: Sports, Stuff We Love, The Dagobah System

Back in the day, I used to simulate NFL games before they happened using a sophisticated piece of software called Madden '93 on my Sega Genesis supercomputer. It was a glorious time, a sad time. Now a crafty young emulator has taken it way back in the day to the Nintendo game Tecmo Bowl, and Tecmo-ized the entire playoffs.

Second half of this year's Super Bowl is here.

Ian Chillag

9:07 AM ET | 02- 1-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

TED Pass Going for Big Bucks on Ebay

Filed under: The Dagobah System

The TED conference happens next month. Since it's an invite-only event, most of us won't be going. But somebody is putting his VIP pass up on ebay. Current price? More than $33,000.

It's not just a pass to the conference. You also get to have lunch with Meg Ryan.

My favorite part? You have to sign a waiver agreeing not to be annoying and try to sell your products and/or services to other TED attendees.

By the way, the ticket is being sold with the blessing of TED. The proceeds go to charity.

Tricia McKinney

7:03 PM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

Look Out Below! Spy Satellite Falling to Earth

Filed under: The Dagobah System

Got this from our own astrophysicist to the (radio) stars, Summer Ash. She blogs regularly at Newtonianism for the Ladies.

Special to the BPP from Summer Ash:

Heads Up, Earth!
The Return of Chicken Little
The Sky Is Falling, the Sky Is Falling -- U.S. Spy Sat to Splat

That last one is my favorite, and it's the only real headline -- used by Satnews Daily. But it's all real news, of a sort. A large U.S. spy satellite really has lost power and is now falling back to Earth.

Continue reading "Look Out Below! Spy Satellite Falling to Earth" »

Laura Conaway

7:41 AM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

Corrected by an Astrophysicist. Dang.

Filed under: The Dagobah System

Got this amazing correction from astrophysicist to the (radio stars) Summer Ash:

BTW, I know I'm a day late, so maybe someone else caught it, but I have a correction for Thursday's show. During the ramble, Bill Wolff was talking about the story with a quadrillion pennies that would reach to Saturn and he incorrectly said that they would melt. Could you inform him that space is cold, not hot? I just looked into this a bit and it appears that metals exposed to the vacuum of space actually undergo a "cold-weld" effectively bonding together without the aid of a bonding medium. This doesn't happen on Earth because the surfaces are oxidized, but in a vacuum, if the oxide films on the surfaces of the pennies were cleaned off, they would not return and the surfaces at which the pennies touched would effectively weld together. So I guess you might have a solid rod of pennies from here to Saturn, but thanks to the cold, not heat, of space.

Laura Conaway

10:04 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Astrophysicist Checks In: Playing with Mercury

Filed under: The Dagobah System

Rising.

Courtesy of Summer Ash

Our own beloved astrophysicist to the (radio stars), Summer Ash, sends a primer on the MESSENGER spacecraft's dance with Mercury. You can get more Summer on her blog, Newtonianism for the Ladies.

Special to the BPP from Summer Ash:

No, not the quicksilver kind. That will make you batty. I'm talking about the planet Mercury. NASA has a playdate with the first rock from the Sun coming up on Monday the 14th, its first in more than 30 years. The spacecraft MESSENGER (an acronym for mouthful called MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) will flyby Mercury on Monday on its way to eventually settling into orbit around the planet in 2011. Why isn't it going into orbit now instead of doing a flyby of its supposed target you may ask? Welcome to the world of gravity assists. You may think that gravity always keeps your feet on the ground, but in the case of cruising through the solar system, it can also give you a swift kick in the pants, metaphorically speaking of course.

Since its launch on August 3. 2004, MESSENGER has rendezvoused with Earth once and Venus twice. After dashing past Mercury on Monday, it will fly by the planet three more times over the next four years before finally dropping in to orbit it once and for all. While this sounds like a long and winding road all over the inner solar system (and it is), believe it or not, it is also the most efficient and therefore the cheapest route.

Continue reading "Astrophysicist Checks In: Playing with Mercury" »

Laura Conaway

12:58 PM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Knot Theory: Why Everything Tangles

Filed under: The Dagobah System

They're bound to tangle.

From Newtonianism for the Ladies

Summer Ash, astrophysicist to the (radio stars), sends a primer on why your Christmas lights are going to tangle -- no matter what.

--Special to the BPP from Summer Ash

On the Mathematics of Christmas

Post-Christmas, actually. Time for all that glitters, sparkles, blinks and sings or dances at the flip of a switch, to be packed away until next year. Time to wonder just how it is that Christmas lights to tie themselves in knots no matter how hard you try to outsmart them.

Each year, you open the box to find a tangled mess, right? And after each Christmas, possessed with renewed determination, you scheme to store them more carefully this year, convinced you have finally come up with a fool-proof system. So maybe you roll each strand in a loop around your elbow and then lay it carefully in a box, or you return each rolled strand to its original box, or perhaps you wrap each one in tissue paper, secure them all with a rubber band, twist tie, or God forbid, even a scrunchy. Then next Christmas rolls around, and you retrieve the box full of lights only to open them and discover a twisted, tangled mess, taunting you.

Good news!...sort of.

Continue reading "Knot Theory: Why Everything Tangles" »

Laura Conaway

7:00 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Tonight: Rudolph the Red Planet

Filed under: The Dagobah System

When worlds collide

Summer Ash/Newtonianism for the Ladies

Summer Ash, astrophysicist to the (radio) stars, sends this shot of eggnog from the heavens, where the galaxy is staging a Christmas Eve special. Or something.

Special to the BPP from Summer Ash:

Last Monday, we had our closest approach to Mars. However, orbital mechanics gives us something else to celebrate this holiday season as Earth, Mars, and the sun will all align on Christmas Eve. If the holiday weather is in your favor for a clear night, you should be able to see it fairly high in the sky, somewhat near the just past full moon, glowing reddish-orange. And you shouldn't have to look to hard, because it will easily outshine the stars.

This alignment is called "opposition," as Mars will be directly opposite in the sky from the sun with respect to Earth, or more simply Earth is directly between the sun and Mars, and it happens roughly once every two years. Tonight's date between Mars and Earth happens because both planets take a different amount of time to orbit the sun. Earth takes 365+ days and Mars takes approximately 687 days. Therefore, Earth moves faster in it's orbit and gradually "laps" Mars in the race around the sun. The approach and subsequent passing of Mars is what occurs every two years.

Continue reading "Tonight: Rudolph the Red Planet" »

Laura Conaway

12:02 PM ET | 12-24-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

Solstice 101: Scientist Misses Her Seratonin

Filed under: The Dagobah System

Greetings, Earthlings trapped in darkness. Summer Ash, astrophysicist to the (radio) stars, has generously lent us her smarts. Ash is hanging out at a little college in Cambridge, England, where they know from the winter solstice.

Ash shares this lesson from her blog, Newtonianism for the Ladies.

-- Special to the BPP from Summer Ash:

The winter solstice comes tonight. The shortest day and the longest night of the year. I, for one, am ready for daylight to make a comeback.

Did you know that the word solstice come from the Latin for sun (sol) and standing still (sistere)? The solstice is when the sun stands still.

Well...that isn't exactly what happens, but I can see how the ancients might have seen it that way.

 

The sun actually moves a lot in our sky. In addition to tracing out a path across the sky from sunrise to sunset, the height of the sun at midday also changes throughout the year. The winter solstice, in the general sense, marks the day when the sun is the lowest in the sky during midday. However, in astronomical terms, the winter solstice is the exact moment when Earth's axis is tilting farthest away from the sun.

From Astronomy 101, you may remember that our axis is tilted 23.5 degrees from vertical with respect to the plane of the Solar System. You may also be familiar with the North Star, right?

Continue reading "Solstice 101: Scientist Misses Her Seratonin" »

Laura Conaway

8:54 AM ET | 12-21-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Middle School Kids Write Story on Twitter

Filed under: The Dagobah System

If you know about Twitter already, skip to the next graph. If you don't, take this on faith: Twitter's a website that lets an infinite number of people make really small contributions to a never-ending stream of content. And that's the best way I can describe it today.

Check out this story being written on Twitter by -- so it says -- middle schoolers. Latest addition, as of 12:43 Eastern:

I see a light turn on in a window. My eyes lock with a young woman holding a baby. She screams and I start to run.

Bonus: BPP Twitters.

Laura Conaway

12:41 PM ET | 12-17-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

No, Really, I Didn't Search for Ryan Gosling's Home Address

Filed under: The Dagobah System

Ask.com could be the obsessive-compulsive searcher's best friend. The fifth-largest search engine is trying to carve out a niche by using--gasp!--privacy as a marketing tool. The company is introducing AskEraser a feature that will let you get rid of your search history. The engine also says it only holds on to IP addresses or cookies that might possibly be used to link them back to searches for 18 months.

Some note, it's not a perfect system, but it seems for now you can go ahead and search for stores that carry Kwell. Your secret is safe.

Alison Stewart

12:45 PM ET | 12-12-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

In the Year 2000: A Look at Yesterday's Future

Filed under: The Dagobah System

For my contribution to the Most today, I talked about an article in today's New York Times science section about driverless cars. The article points out some of the less obvious benefits of the technology, including the following:

When a freeway filled with human drivers is operating at full capacity...the cars actually occupy less than 10 percent of the road's surface area. The rest is empty space between cars. Smart cars could be grouped more closely together, doubling or tripling the road's capacity, as engineers have demonstrated by running a platoon of driverless Buicks, spaced just 15 feet apart, at 65 m.p.h. down Interstate 15 near San Diego.

But the best thing about this article is that it turned me on to hilarious video content. (Why read things when you can look at talking pictures instead?) The piece references other times in history when we've been told that driverless cars are just around the technological bend, including at the 1939 World's Fair. General Motors had a "Futurama" exhibit that looked ahead, way ahead, all the way to the year 1960. It's pretty classic...

Part One

Part Two

Dan Pashman

8:17 AM ET | 12- 4-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

BSG Blows Producer's Frakkin' Mind

Filed under: The Dagobah System

It's been eight long months since Battlestar Galactica (BSG) fans had anything new to play with.

That all changed this weekend.

On Saturday, the SciFi Channel debuted Battlestar Galactica: Razor, a made for TV movie that follows the disturbing side-story of the Battlestar Pegasus.

I am a huge BSG fan, so I've been flipping out about the movie all weekend. In fact, I was so totally geeked out by it that Alison said, "Why don't we talk about it on the show tomorrow."

And I said, "Okay." Because I do whatever Alison tells me to do. (Also because I'm totally geeked out by it.)

So we called up one of the executive producers of the show, David Eick, to talk about why they decided to make this movie (which is hard to follow if you're not a BSG fan) and to talk a little about his new show, Bionic Woman.

We'll air the interview on tomorrow's show, and he'll reveal who the last cylon is!

Okay, no he won't. But it's still a good interview.

If you've never seen BSG, you'll need a primer. So here's what you need to know ahead of tomorrow's interview: Humans created robots called 'cylons' to do their dirty work. Cylons turned on humans, they go to war with each other. An armistice is reached. Cylons leave to someplace far away. Humans set up a space station for diplomatic relations, but don't hear from them for 40 years. Then, one day, they make contact. They've evolved to look just like humans and they damn near wipe out all of humanity in a nuclear genocide. This fan-made video recap picks up as the destruction begins:

Matt Martinez

3:03 PM ET | 11-26-2007 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post

Come On and Zune, Zune, Zune-ah, Zune.....

Filed under: The Dagobah System

OK, so the media quivers every time Apple makes a big announcement, but what about the Jan Brady of MP3 players, Microsoft's Zune? I'm not shilling for the company, but maybe, just maybe, today's release of the Zune 8GB player -- which supports MP3, WMA, playback video and an FM tuner -- deserves a little play.

From PC Magazine:

The new players and updated Zune Marketplace are worthy competitors to Apple's dominant iPod and iTunes combo (and even best the Apple offerings in many ways).

The original Zune was released exactly a year ago tomorrow and never got close to the iPod -- Apple shipped 10.2 million of them just last quarter.

No one is crying for Microsoft, Zune's maker...maybe just a little equal time.

Alison Stewart

11:40 AM ET | 11-13-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

I, for One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords

Filed under: The Dagobah System

Tartan Racing takes to the streets.

While the rest of you were probably out enjoying your weekend, I was sucked into watching hours and hours of the webcast of the DARPA Urban Challenge--a road race involving robotic vehicles trying to navigate real traffic conditions in a suburban environment. Why was it so cool to watch SUVs drive down suburban streets? Because nobody was at the wheel! It was seriously mesmerizing.

Today Alison caught up with the winner of the Challenge, Professor William "Red" Whittaker of Carnegie-Mellon. He led the winning team, Tartan Racing, to victory on the back of a souped-up Chevy Tahoe nicknamed "Boss."

Professor Whittaker told Alison what he's planning to do with the $2 million prize money. Hint: his next project is out of this world.

Tricia McKinney

3:34 PM ET | 11- 5-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Astronauts Stage Zero-Gravity Halloween

Filed under: The Dagobah System

Yargh. . . I'm docking your station.

From NASA's live cam.

Whatever day it is in space, it's Oct. 31 here. Astronauts on board the space shuttle Harmony are noting the arrival Halloween. The guy up there is either a pirate or a vampire, but he's supercool in any case. Give the camera time to cycle back--it moves from the control room to various parts of the shuttle.

I guess he was tired of showing up to Halloween parties dressed as an astronaut.

MJ Davis

1:30 PM ET | 10-31-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Apple Is the New 'Star Wars'

Filed under: The Dagobah System

The man, the system, the debit card. . .

So it has come to this: I've turned into the guy who woke up this morning exclaiming, "It's here! The day Leopard is released!" Sure, I had to produce a radio show today, but that was secondary to how geeked out I am about getting Apple's latest update of OS X. Shout it with me, "Time Machine! Finder with Cover Flow! Quick Look! Stacks on the desktop!" I am a walking, talking -- and now blogging -- commercial. I am just hours away from heading to the Apple store on Fifth Avenue here in New York to buy it. Then, I am going to take it home and install it and love it and play with it and stay up with it all night. Yeah, that's my Friday night.

Me and everyone like me: we're the new Star Wars fanatics, we wait on line for hours for a software update. Unfortunately for civilians, we're not as easy to spot as someone in a Boba Fett costume. How many dork nerd people are as excited about this as I am? Cuz I'm in a sea of "I Don't Care" here at BPP headquarters. Maybe all us "enthusiasts" can meet up for an installation party later tonight, watch old Steve Jobs presentations, and reminisce about the Newton. Ahhh, the Newton...

Matt Martinez

12:04 PM ET | 10-26-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

Powering Down For A Day

Filed under: Inside The BPP, The Dagobah System

Good morning everyone. We are offline today -- no morning meeting, no podcast. We're having a staff retreat, which is basically us ordering Chipotle burritos and asking ourselves, "If this show were a tree, what kind of tree would it be?"

More tomorrow...thanks for checking in.

Matt Martinez

9:04 AM ET | 06-14-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Watch Out Jeff Foxworthy...

Filed under: Election 2008, The Dagobah System

There's a new funny man on the block and gosh darn if he doesn't look an awful lot like New Mexico Governor and Presidential Candidate Bill Richardson:

Two things surprised me about the ads:

1.) They're actually pretty amusing.
2.) They're actually pretty effective. (In the sense that they made me think about Bill Richardson for 60 seconds, which hadn't really happened to me before. Ever. In my life.)

The spots got us wondering, why is it so rare for candidates to use humor in their ads?

"Humor has its pros and cons," says Evan Tracey of TNS Media Intelligence, a company that helps campaigns hone their political ads. "Funny works when you want to get noticed (but) jokes are only good the first time you hear them - they become progressively less funny the more you hear or see them."

And the proof is kind of in the pudding. For instance, Wes Clark tried to bring the funny with an Outkast reference when he was running for President back in 2004, and even though the ad made a lot of people laugh, it clearly wasn't enough. (I think Andre 3000 actually got more votes than Clark in the Georgia primary.)

Mark Putnam is a partner at Murphy Putnam Media -- the people behind the Richardson ads. He says, "I don't think it's that the traditional ads don't work anymore. I think here we had a unique intersection of a candidate's record, personality, and his status in the race, and it really was a great way to showcase how much he's done in his career and at the same time give people a feel for him. Voters are always hungering for something that captures their attention and imagination, that's something that's been true from the beginning."

One thing to watch out for though if you are a candidate trying to use humor, make sure the joke's not on you:

Alas, Christopher Knight did not win that spot on the Rockingham County Board of Education, but he does have an awesome fake Light Saber to remind him of his time as a candidate.

And what about the guy in this Dos Equis ad? I mean, he's not officially running for anything, but can you imagine if he was? I think he could maybe win Emperor of The World or something.

Luke Burbank

2:28 PM ET | 05-10-2007 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post