Update – The oil is under the sea

by fdecomite

Giant Plumes of Oil Found Under Gulf of Mexico
[Via NYT > Science]

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.  

[More]

This is where all the oil is – still underwater. The dispersants used appear to have altered the expected properties of the oil, perhaps creating such small droplets that they are not moving to the surface.

It seems very likely that physical properties 5000 meters below the surface – where the pressure is equivalent to about 500 times that seen at the surface. No one really knows what will happen to the oil or why the plumes are forming.

But they are depleting the oxygen from the water, creating the possibilities of huge dead zones in the Gulf. It will be very ironic if the dispersal chemicals make the environmental damage from the spill much greater than if they had not been used.

[Update – Title needed to be corrected.]

Update – Breathing at altitude and our genes

by euthman

DNA clue to life at high altitude
[Via BBC News]

The ability of Tibetans to live high in the mountains may be due largely to 10 genes in their DNA, researchers say.

University of Utah researchers found 10 genes which help Tibetans thrive at heights where others get sick.

Two of the genes are linked to haemoglobin – the substance in blood that transports oxygen round the body.

[More]

These are a different set of genes than seen in other people who live at high altitudes, such as in the Andes. Intriguingly, some of the gene changes result in the Tibetans have lower levels of red blood cells. I would think that being at altitude, where there is less air to breathe, would result in more oxygen carrying capacity, not less.

Figuring out the biology of this will be pretty interesting.

[Update - wrong title got used. That has been fixed.]

Update – Creating 3-D images of the Space Shuttle

by NASA

EXTREMELY cool 3D Space Station video – taken from the ground!
[Via Bad Astronomy]

I’ve written about Thierry Legault’s phenomenal imagery of space before; with relatively modest equipment, but excellent foresight, he gets astronomical shots of surpassing beauty.

He sent me a note earlier that he had something new and cool, and he wasn’t kidding: a video of the ISS in 3D!

Coooooooool.

To see it in 3D you don’t need glasses; it’s a bit like those Magic Eye posters. Look at the video, and cross your eyes slightly to merge the left and right images into one. Then hit play (move your mouse into the frame to get the video controls). It may take you a while to get the hang of it, but it’s worth the effort! I found it easiest to do when my eyes were about 50 cm (18 inches) from my monitor; for reference, on my screen the image of the ISS is about 8 cm (3 inches) high.

[More]

I’ve written about learning to see these sorts of images cross-eyed, which is used here and also wall-eyed, which is how those old stereoscopes from the twenties were used. Who knew tricks from biochemistry would also help with astronomy.

An important difference is that wall-eyed – which is not true wall-eyed since the eyes simply look straight ahead, as though focussing at an infinite distance but you then focus close –can only work when corresponding parts of the two images are no wider apart than ones eyes. Otherwise one really will go wall-eyed trying to overlap.

So wall eyed is great for publications but lousy for slide presentations. Cross-eyed has no such limitation. The images can be easily overlapped no matter how far apart they are – well, within reason. So they are great for presentations.

How to tell if a presentation uses cross-eyed or wall-eyed? Easy. If you look at a stereogram with the wrong method, the 3-D cues we see get all confused. That is, something will appear to be in the front, but we know is in the back. Our brain tries to process the confusion and often comes up with really interesting results. One example I see with proteins is that a convex shape will appear as a convex one, except it does not rotate like a convex one.

So, it was really easy to tell that this was a cross-eyed presentation, because looking at it walleyed results in totally unreal motion. Particularly when showing the apparent rotation of the Space Station.

I hope he can get one with the Space Station attached.

[Update] I did not put up a new title before. Here is the correct one.

@neiltyson I love mashing up things with my iPad, especially astronomy

I follow Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter. Very fun and interesting astrophysicist. But since I don not always have twitter in my browser, I have Twitterriffic installed on my Mac so that while I am working, any tweets from the people I follow show up discreetly in the lower left of my display. This, whenever any of them update Twitter, I see it.

About 10 minutes ago he posted this:

Stunning thin crescent Moon this night. Aloft in the twilight western sky. Planet Venus? There too. Above the Moon, and high

Well, the Sun is not close to setting here but I went and grabbed my iPad, went outdoors and started up StarWalk. I pointed it at where the Sun is now, at 5:45 PST and took this screenshot on my iPad:

   

Right then (as seen by the clock in the upper right of the shot), the Sun, Moon and Venus were all in Taurus, Mercury is just about ready to set. I can look at the other horizon and see that Saturn, which is in Virgo. is up.

I just love technology.

Passing the iPad around – a new addition to my workflow

by Richard Gayle

The totally novel thing I have been able to do with my iPad is to pass it around. If I have a great paper or download a nice picture on my laptop during a meeting, it is a real pain to show everyone else. Either turn the laptop around so they can squint at the screen or try and pass a laptop around.

But this last week, I moved a detailed outline from Word to Pages and then put it on my iPad. After a little editing, I was ready for the meeting where I could hand my iPad to others and let them look at the outline, without needing a projector or any other device.

I could talk and they could easily follow.

This has been the most exciting addition to my workday – I can show someone an example of what I am talking about, an example they can interact with. This presents all sorts of possibilities.

People just love to hold the iPad. They enjoy interacting with it; we love to manipulate things. I hand it to them and let them look at the piece of work I want them to. I can talk, they can interact and often come up with questions that they just would not if I was standing up giving a presentation.

What I now want is the ability for me to beam a Pages document to someone else with an iPad and Pages. That way, when we all have iPads, I can simply come into a room, squirt my work directly to their iPads and then start the presentation, without having to set up a projector.

That would be cool.

[Listening to: Mexico from the album "King of the Surf Guitar" by Dick Dale and His Del-Tones]

[Listening to: Blind Eye from the album "The Magician's Birthday" by Uriah Heep]

My iPad Workflow

by Richard Gayle

So, I have had my iPad for a couple of weeks and am getting a better handle on what I can do with it.

First, it is not yet a replacement for my laptop. That is not too surprising. My laptop is based on very mature type of OS – the Mac GUI has been around for 26 years now – and pretty mature software – the iWorks package are several years old and they are probably the newest of my major applications. Word and Office are decades old. I figure that the iPad apps will get much closer to their more mature cousins in a few update cycles. We have already seen one for Pages, Keynote and Numbers, with actual improvements and addition of features, not just bug fixes.

My normal laptop workflow uses a lot of Keynote, Word and Excel files. So my main concern has been how well this translates to the iPad. So far, reasonably well if you stick to pretty simply things. Keynote, Pages and Numbers for the iPad do not yet come up to the level that their laptop versions do. But they work pretty well in a pinch and in settings where pulling out a laptop may not be useful.

For example, I was as a forum on Wednesday put on by Xconomy that had normal theater seating. No way could I use a laptop there. And even if I could, no access to a plug meant my laptop would die before the forum ended. A netbook would have been perilously perched on my lap.

But I could easily put my iPad on my lap. And there was free WiFi. So I tried to tweet the forum, which worked pretty well, as you can see. Of course, using Twitterriffic for the iPad made it a really nice experience. Composing Tweets was easy but also following everyone else who was using the forum’s hash was a lot of fun. And the added space on the iPad meant the words were large enough to easily read.

While I adjust my workflow to meet what the iPad is capable of, it is really great to see a new setting where I can still work. And during boring talks, I can get some work accomplished without having a huge laptop sitting unsteadily on my lap.

Car trouble – for those who asked

My 2001 Subaru decided to give me a scare. I treated it really nicely on Monday, washing it and cleaning it and waxing it. Then I went out to it on Wednesday morning at it did not start. The battery was completely gone, the engine simply clicked and nothing on the dash lit up.

Luckily it was in a easy place to get my other car close. I pulled out my really expensive set of jumper cables that I have had for a very long time and was able to easily jump start the car. It idled with no problem. But I took the other car to the appointment.

When I got home, the Subaru started fine and held the charge fine but there was a bad ground loop buzz on the AM radio dial that kept time with the engine revolutions. So, while I figured the battery might be gone, this made me worry it could be something else with the electrical system.

Of course, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were pretty booked days, so I did not have a lot of time to waste. I called and made an appointment to bring it in on Friday, hoping the electrical system was not grounding out somewhere. That could be a pain to track down.

On Friday, the car started fine and acted quite nicely. No problems at all and after spending some time at the shop, and an exchange of some cash, I got it back. It was only a dead battery. Everything else is fine.

So it was mainly just a big pain in the butt. At least it did not conk out a long way from home. Nor did I have to tow it anywhere.