Show Notes: linuxunplugged.com/396

The post How Linux Got to Mars | LINUX Unplugged 396 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Show Notes/Links: linuxunplugged.com/298

The post Blame Joe | LINUX Unplugged 298 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Angela and Chris discuss all sorts of space goods that might be cool to have as well as a couple up and coming projects that are really breaking ground for space utilization to keep us all connected.

Direct Download:

HD Video | Mobile Video | MP3 Audio | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

HD Video Feed | Mobile Video Feed | MP3 Audio Feed | Torrent Feed | iTunes Feed

— Show Notes —

Main Topic:

• Luna: Bring the moon along with you | Indiegogo
• Planetary Glass Set | ThinkGeek
• Star Trek Enterprise Projection Alarm Clock | ThinkGeek
  +Jupiter Solar Spinning Globe | ThinkGeek
• I Heart Pluto T-Shiirt | SnorgTees
• Caelus Cubesat Bringing Revolutionary technology to space. by Sakarias — Kickstarter
• Lantern: One Device, Free Data From Space Forever | Indiegogo
  +Dans Space Van – Tour & Webcast | Indiegogo
• Pornhub Space Program – SEXPLORATION | Indiegogo

Email angela@jupiterbroadcasting.com your computer based PORN SKIT! Yes, write your own potentially horribly geeky porn skit and email it in. Send in a pic and/or link and IRC nick.

WTR

• Check out Technology For Connection | WTR 43 | Jupiter Broadcasting
• Follow WTR on twitter: www.twitter.com/heywtr
• Email WTR: wtr@jupiterbroadcasting.com

Follow Jupiter Broadcasting

• See more pics: https://instagram.com/jupiterbroadcasting#
• Sign up for Jupiter Signal: www.bit.ly/jupitersignal
• Unfilter is on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/unfilter
• Tech Talk Today is on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/jupitersignal

— Find the FauxShow! —

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefauxshow
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/angerz
• G+: https://www.gplus.to/fauxshow
• Subscribe to Jupiter Signal: https://www.bit.ly/jupitersignal
• Jupiter Radio: https://jblive.info
• Affiliates Firefox Extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/jupiterbroadcasting/
• Affiliates Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bjekemhblnilimncanbehhjijdpjgimj
• Donations: https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/donate
• Shows & Shownotes: https://original.jupiterbroadcasting.net/show/fauxshow/

The post Space Goods | FauxShow 225 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at an exoplanets atmosphere, HIV killing bee venom, ancient sundials, viewer feedback, spacecraft updates, Curiosity news, and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Audio | OGG Audio | Video | Torrent | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | OGG Feed | Video Feed | Torrent Feed | iTunes

Support the Show:

[asa]B00BEZTMQ8[/asa]
[asa]B009SPZ11Q[/asa]

Show Notes:

Exoplanet Atmosphere

• A team led by an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, has found hints of ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and acetylene in an exo-planets’ atmosphere in the sharpest spectrum ever obtained of an extrasolar planet
• Searching for Exoplanets
• In the past, astronomers inferred the existence of exoplanets and their gases by looking for subtle changes in the light streaming from the planet’s star
• Now, with improved instruments, a team has detected light coming directly from a planet light-years away
• The data have high enough resolution to reveal not only the presence but the abundance of carbon monoxide and water in the planet’s atmosphere
• Such information could shed light on how the planet formed
• Studies could also reveal the presence of life on a distant planet, but this planet’s size and orbit have already ruled it out as a habitable world
• The System
• In 2008 the first image of a multi planet system outside the solar system, showing three gas giants orbiting the star HR 8799
• The results suggest the HR 8799 system is like a scaled-up Solar System
• HR 8799 is about 130 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Pegasus
• The planets are scorching hot, making them bright enough for astronomers to detect directly
• In 2010, the researchers imaged a fourth planet around HR 8799, a new study focused on one of these planets, HR 8799c.
• HR 8799c
• Five to 10 times as massive as Jupiter, HR 8799c sits about eight times farther away from its star than Jupiter does from the sun
• Because of that great distance, the astronomers could block the star’s light and record infrared light
• Even with water present on this world, it is incredibly hostile to life
• Like Jupiter, it has no solid surface, and it has a temperature of more than a thousand degree
• The Studies
• Because different gases absorb and emit light in distinct ways, the team could identify carbon monoxide and water but found no methane, which scientists had thought might be present.
• In another new study researchers simultaneously collected infrared light from the atmospheres of all four planets
• The chemistry of each planet varies different from anything in our own solar system
• Although the teams looked at different wavelengths of light, which pick up different types of molecules, the two studies appear consistent
• By peering at just one planet, one team obtained more detailed data that allowed the researchers to get a sense of how much carbon and oxygen is in HR 8799c’s atmosphere
• Knowing the ratio of carbon to oxygen in the atmosphere may reveal how the planet formed
• Planetary Formation Theories
• Astronomers have two competing theories of how planets arise from the disk of gas and dust encircling a young star
• In the gravitational instability model, some of the gas and dust suddenly clumps and collapses, simultaneously creating a planet’s core and atmosphere
• In this scenario, the chemical composition of a planet should match that of its star
• In the other model, known as core accretion, planets are built in two-steps
• First, material from the disk accumulates into a core, later the core captures gases swirling in the disk to form an atmosphere.
• In this case, the carbon-to-oxygen ratio of the planet may differ from the star because the accretion of cores may deplete the disk of certain elements
• What This Planet\’s Data Tells Us
• Compared with its star, HR 8799c appears to have slightly more carbon relative to oxygen, suggesting the planet originated via core accretion
• It is surmises that when the disk around HR 8799 formed, water froze into particles of ice, the bits of ice then collided to form the planet’s core, leaving behind little water vapor, and therefore less oxygen, when the planet accumulated its atmosphere later on
• Other researchers are not convinced by this conclusion saying “We don’t really understand planetary formation enough to make a strong case either way,”
• The Future
• Either Way the data from both new studies may help astronomers refine their simulations of planetary formation
• Not that astronomers have directly imaged planets around three distant stars researchers are poised to capture light from many more planets
• Project 1640, is looking for Jupiter-sized planets around some 200 stars
• “Ultimately, with better instruments, people will be able to use these methods on Earthlike planets.”
• Multimedia
• YouTube Remote Reconnaissance of Another Solar System | AMNHorg
• Video Clip Nearby Stars with planets| AMNHorg
• Video Clip HR 8799 System| AMNHorg
• Further Reading / In the News
• Exoplanet Atmospheres Provide Clues to Solar System Formation | UniverseToday.com
• Distant planets\’ atmospheres revealed | Atom & Cosmos | ScienceNews.org

— NEWS BYTE —

Bees Against HIV

• Nanoparticles carrying a toxin found in bee venom can destroy human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while leaving surrounding cells unharmed
• What it Does
• Bee venom contains a potent toxin called melittin that can poke holes in the protective envelope that surrounds HIV, and other viruses
• The new study shows that melittin loaded onto these nanoparticles does not harm normal cells, because added protective bumpers to the nanoparticle surface
• When the nanoparticles come into contact with normal cells, which are much larger in size, the particles simply bounce off
• HIV, on the other hand, is even smaller than the nanoparticle, so HIV fits between the bumpers and makes contact with the surface of the nanoparticle, where the bee toxin awaits
• The advantage of this approach is that the nanoparticle attacks an essential part of the virus\’ structure. In contrast, most anti-HIV drugs inhibit the virus\’s ability to replicate.
• Drawbacks
• This anti-replication strategy does nothing to stop initial infection, and some strains of the virus have found ways around these drugs and reproduce anyway.
• Where it does work, because it attacks the inherent physical property of HIV, theoretically, there isn\’t any way for the virus to adapt to this treatment
• The potential for using nanoparticles with melittin as therapy for existing HIV infections, especially those that are drug-resistant
• Other Uses
• The hope is that in places where HIV is running rampant, people could use this gel as a preventive measure to stop the initial infection
• Since melittin attacks double-layered membranes indiscriminately, this concept is not limited to HIV.
• Many viruses, including hepatitis B and C, rely on the same kind of protective envelope and would be vulnerable to melittin-loaded nanoparticles
• In addition to antiviral therapy, the paper\’s senior author has shown melittin-loaded nanoparticles to be effective in killing tumor cells.
• Further Reading / In the News
• Nanoparticles loaded with bee venom kill HIV | MedicalXPress.com

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Worlds Oldest Egyptian Sundials

• Telling Time in Ancient Egypt
• During archaeological excavations in the Kings\’ Valley in Upper Egypt a team of researchers found one of the world\’s oldest ancient Egyptian sundials
• During this year\’s excavations the researchers found a flattened piece of limestone (so-called Ostracon) on which a semicircle in black color had been drawn
• The semicircle is divided into twelve sections of about 15 degrees each.
• A dent in the middle of the approximately 16 centimeter long horizontal baseline served to insert a wooden or metal bolt that would cast a shadow to show the hours of the day
• Small dots in the middle of each section were used for even more detailed time measuring
• It was found in an area of stone huts that were used in the 13th century BC to house the men working at the construction of the graves, possibly used to measure their work hours
• The division of the sun path into hours also played a crucial role in the so-called netherworld guides that were drawn onto the walls of the royal tombs
• These guides are illustrated texts that chronologically describe the nightly progression of the sun-god through the underworld.
• The sundial could also have served to further visualize this phenomenon.
• Multimedia
• Image Ancients Egyptian sun dial | Phys.org | Credit: University of Basel
• Further Reading / In the News
• One of the world\’s oldest sun dial dug up in Kings\’ Valley | Phys.org

— VIEWER FEEDBACK —

ESTCube

• Karl Sakrits
• Estonia is sending up their first satellite, a CubeSat, made by University students to test the electric solar wind sail
• CubeSat
• The CubeSat standard for nanosatellites was followed during the engineering of ESTCube-1,
• The CubeSat standard has three different sizes corresponding to size 1U, 2U and 3U. Base side lengths are the same but height is 2 to 3 times bigger than 1U CubeSats
• Mass is also set in CubeSat standard, the highest possible mass for 1U CubeSat is 1300 grams, 2U CubeSat 2600 grams and 3U CubeSat 4000 grams
• CubeSat base side length must be 100.0 +/- 0.1 millimeters and satellite height must be 113.5±0.1 mm
• Purpose
• Although its main purpose was to educate students, the satellite does have a scientific purpose.
• On board of the satellite is an electric solar wind sail (e-sail) which was created by a Finnish scientist Pekka Janhunen, which will be the first real experimentation of the e-sail
• Subsystems
• ADCS – attitude determination and control system, determines and modifies satellite\’s alignment
• CAM – onboard camera for taking pictures of the Earth and the unreeled tether
• CDHS – command and data handling system, the satellite\’s main onboard computer
• COM – communications system for up- and downlinks
• EPS – electrical power system, provides electrical power for the satellite
• PL – payload, the satellite\’s experiment module, that contains the tether and everything else related to the experiment
• STR – satellite\’s structure
• Solar Wind Sail
• 10 meters of e-sail 50 to 20 micrometers thick wire of high-technology structure so-called Heytether will be deployed from the satellite.
• The deployment of the Heytether can be detected by decrease of the satellite\’s speed of rotation or by a on-board camera
• To control the loaded solar wind sail elements interaction with the plasma surrounding the earth and the effect it has on the spacecraft spinning speed the spacecraft has two on-board nanotechnologic electron emitters/gun
• The electron emitters are connected to the e-sail element and by shooting out electrons it loads the e-sail element positively to 500 volts
• The positive ions in the plasma push the e-sail element and have an influence on the satellites rotation speed
• The effect of the e-sail is measured by the change in rotation speed
• The camera is used to take a picture of Earth and the successfully deployed Heytether.
• Mission
• ESTCube-1 will be sent to orbit by the European Space Agency\’s rocket Vega in spring of 2013
• Half an hour after the satellites deployment from the start capsule satellites antennas will be opened and radio transmitter and important subsystems will be switched on
• The first days or weeks will be used to test the satellite and set it to work on full capacity
• They will then orient the satellite so the on-board camera will be faced to earth so that they can try to take a picture of Estonia
• They will rotate the satellite on an axis with a speed of 1 revolution per second
• The E-sail element will deploy from the satellite by a centrifugal force and will confirm the deployment via the on-board camera
• Then they will activate the electron emitter and loading the e-sail, measuring the e-sails and Lorentz force by satellites revolutions per second
• If possible they will use the negatively charged e-sail to take the satellite off orbit and burn it in the earths atmosphere
• Should everything go perfect the mission could be completed within a few weeks to a month
• Communication
• Communicating with the satellite will be held by two International Amateur Radio Unions three registered frequencies [437.250 MHz, 437.505 MHz]
• The maximum possible connection speed is 19,200 bits per second, only to be used when the satellite has been given a specific order
• Important satellite parameters will be transmitted every 3 to 5 minutes, and periodic but slow communication can be done on a telegraphic signal
• A 9600 baud connection speed and AX.25 standard is used, a slower communication frequency which allow a maximum of 25 kiloherz bandwidth, fast connection will only be used when the satellite has been given a specific
• Software
• FreeRTOS on the satellite\’s Command and Data Handling System and camera module
  TinyOS on the satellite\’s communication module
• Financing and costs
• This option is the cheapest possibility to send a satellite into orbit is offered by European Space Agency
• Estonia is an associated member of ESA most of the launch expenses (about 70,000 euros) will be covered from Estonian member fee for educational expenses
• The total expense, with launch cost, for the project are approximately 100,000 euros
• Multimedia
• YouTube estcube dissection2 | taavi torim
• YouTube Packing ESTCube-1 for shipping. Tallinn TV Tower 21.1.2013. | AjattaraQuad
• ESTCube.eu | Video Library
• Twitter
• ESTCube @ESTCube
• Further Reading / In the News
• ESTCube.eu

— Updates —

Space Shuttle Atlantis

• The plastic wrap protecting the Space Shuttle Atlantis from construction debris and will be unveiled to the public at the FLorida Kennedy Space Center Visitor complex in June 2013 in its new 90,000-square-foot home
• The Layout
• The payload bay doors will be carefully opened and the Canadian built remote manipulator system (RMS), or robotic arm, will be installed and extended
• Atlantis is mounted on steel pedestals 30 feet off the ground, at 43.21 degrees, simulating the ‘in flight’ tilt when it\’s orbiting Earth and approaching the International Space Station (ISS).
• With the tilt, the nose rises 26.5 feet above the ground and the portside wingtip sits only 7.5 feet from the floor, the opposite is 87 feet from the ground
• Next to the Atlantis will be a high fidelity full scale replica of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope
• Multimedia
• Space Shuttle Atlantis wraped in plastic shrink-wrap | UniverseToday.com | Credit: Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
• Further Reading / In the News
• Atlantis Exhibit | Kennedy Space Center
• Plastic Wrapped Shuttle Atlantis Slated for Grand Public Unveiling in June | UniverseToday.com

— SPACECRAFT UPDATE—

SpaceX’s Grasshopper Hops Higher

• GrassHopper
• Grasshopper stands 10 stories tall and consists of a Falcon 9 rocket first stage tank, Merlin 1D engine, four steel and aluminum landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure
• The goal of Grasshopper is to eventually create a reusable first stage for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which would be able to land safely instead of falling back into the ocean and not being usable again
• On March 7, 2013, the vertical and takeoff and landing (VTVL) vehicle, rose 24 stories, 263 ft / 80m, hovered for approximately 34 seconds and then landed safely, and more accurately than ever before
• Previous Tests
• This is Grasshopper’s fourth in a series of test flights, with each test demonstrating exponential increases in altitude
• September 2012 | Flew to 8.2 ft / 2.5 meters
• November 2012 | Flew to 17.7 ft / 5.4 meters
• December 2012 | Flew to 131 ft / 40 meters
• Multimedia
• Ring of Fire | spacexchannel
• Further Reading / In the News
• SpaceX Grasshopper Takes a Leap Into a \’Ring of Fire\’ | UniverseToday.com

— CURIOSITY UPDATE —

• Analyzing the Drill Sample
• Curiosity obtained her first drill sample and passed that sample on to her onboard analytical lab instruments, called CheMin and SAM
• These powerful instruments can tell about what minerals are present in these rocks and whether they contain the ingredients necessary to sustain life as we know it.
• When the rover science team combine the data from remote sensing and contact science instruments from CheMin and SAM, we get a picture of an ancient watery environment, which would have been habitable had life been present in it.
• At that site of Opportunity rover, the sedimentary rocks record evidence of an environment that was only wet on a very intermittent basis, and when it was, the waters that were there were highly acidic, very salty, and not favorable for the survival of organic compounds.
• CheMin instrument, tells us that the minerals that are present in this lakebed sedimentary rock at John Klein are very different from just about anything we\’ve ever analyzed before on Mars and was deposited in a freshwater environment
• The SAM instrument is telling us that these rocks contained all of the ingredients necessary for a habitable environment
• The science team found carbon, sulfur and oxygen, all present and a number of other elements in states that life could have taken advantage of.
• Image Mosaic
• The mosaic of images from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA\’s Mars rover Curiosity shows Mount Sharp in raw color as recorded by the camera.
• This mosaic was assembled from dozens of images from the 100-millimeter-focal-length telephoto lens camera mounted on the right side of the Mastcam instrument
• Raw color shows the scene\’s colors as they would look in a typical smart-phone camera photo, before any adjustment.
• White-balancing helps scientists recognize rock materials based on their experience looking at rocks on Earth
• White balancing yields an overly blue hue in images that have very little blue information, such as Martian landscapes, because the white balancing tends to overcompensate for the low inherent blue content.
• Multimedia
• YouTube Curiosity Rover Report (Mar. 15, 2013) | Rover Hits Paydirt | JPLnews
• Image Galleries at JPL and Curiosity Mulimedia
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• March 23, 2001 : 12 years ago : Mir destroyed : The Russian space station, Mir, ended 15 years in orbit by burning up in Earth\’s atmosphere as the way chosen to end its life. Mir, launched in 1986, had far exceeded its original planned five year lifespan. The Russian government decided in Oct 2000 that its poor condition could no longer justify the expense to maintain its use. A docked Progress tanker had been remotely commanded by mission controllers to fire rockets and lower its orbit and cause re-entry into the atmosphere. The debris that did not burn up during reentry fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean at the planned target zone between New Zealand and Chile. For safety, airlines had rerouted Pacific flights in anticipation of the event, and ships had been warned earlier

Looking up this week

• Keep an eye out for …
• Jupiter | sunset – Evening | High in the SW at sunset, moving to the W sky later in the evening. To its lower left is Aldebaran, and to the lower right are the Pleiades

• Saturn | ~ 11pm local (DST) | Rises in the E-SE, moving to the high in the S sky by early morning

• Further Reading and Resources

• Sky&Telescope
• SpaceWeather.com
• StarDate.org
• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au
• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org
• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz
• AstronomyNow
• HeavensAbove

The post Exoplanet & Bee Venom | SciByte 86 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We take a look at olympic science, an innovative writing technique, morse code, music, an update on the Red Bull Stratos mission, spacecraft update and as always take a peek back into history and up in the sky this week.

Direct Download:

MP3 Download | Ogg Download | Video | YouTube

RSS Feeds:

MP3 Feed | Ogg Feed | iTunes Feed | Video Feed

Support the Show:

   

Show Notes

Olympic Science

_{Credit: International Olympic Committee for 2012 Summer Olympics}

• Measuring times
• Time is measured in 1,000th of a second that has to be that close to both actual time and consistent
• Races are started by electronic starter guns, with starting blocks that indicate when a runner reacts faster than humans can respond, making the runners re-start the race
• More than 2,000 digital frames a second aid the timing system for the most accurate and precise system possible
• For longer racing event with a lot of competitors RFID, Radio Frequency Identification, attached to shoes or bicycles allow accurate timing and tracking for each competitor
• Technology
• Some Long Jumpers utilize stereoscopic cameras, from BMW, to measure speed and angles of launch
• Swimmers usitize fluid dynamic measurements so that they can train and compete in the most aerodynamic way as possible to
• Runners can also use treadmill technology that provides support to minimize the weight of the athlete affecting the legs by creating a pressure bubble that can support part of the athletes weight
• The Olympic pool utilize a number of different technologies to minimize waves including adjustable depth, gutters along the edges of the pool and lane lines
• Mechanical engineers analyze top athletes to be able to both help athletes improve their technique and expand knowledge that could help provide information to be used for people with movement disorders, it can also used design more realistic and stronger robotic arms
• Changing Technology Rules
• The LZR Racer Suit is a line of extremely high-end swimsuits manufactured by Speedo using a high-technology swimwear fabric composed of woven elastane-nylon and polyurethane.
• Swimmers wearing the LZR suit at the 2008 Beijing Olympics consisted of : 94% of all swimming races won, 98% of all medals won, and 23 out of the 25 world records broken
• By 24 August 2009, 93 world records had been broken by swimmers wearing a LZR Racer
• These results prompted FINA to reevaluate suit policies making the LZR banned for use in competitions
• Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) is the International Federation (IF) recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for administering international competition in the aquatic sports
• **Oscar Pistorius
• South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius is the first double-amputee athlete to compete at the Olympics.
• Pistorius is competing in the regular olympics using prosthetics Carbon fiber spring-like prosthetics designed for sprinter
• Although the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) deemed him ineligible for the 2008 Summer Olympics based on the belief that he held an unfair advantage further scientific studies have shown he hold no advantage or able-bodied athletes
• Safety Equipment
• Safety headgear in different for each sport it will be used in dependent upon the specific needs for the sport
• Helmet safety foam comes in both the stiff and flexible to maximize the needed protection and comfort
• Paralympics
• Paralympic wheelchairs are specifically designed for each sport. With designs for speed, mobility, toughness, etc.
• Of Note
• A google search for “London 2012 _” will show a display of the schedule and results of competition on the right side of the window
  Multimedia
• Video Gallery Science Of The Summer Olympics: Engineering In Sports | Science360
• Social Media
• London 2012 @London2012
• Further Reading / In the News
• 2012 London Olympics official page
• Science Of The Summer Olympics: Engineering In Sports | Science360.gov
• Fina extends swimsuit regulations | news.bbc.co.uk
• High-Tech Swimsuits: Winning Medals Too | time.com
• Fast Times: Speedo, Like Michael Phelps, Goes For World Domination in an LZR Suit | The Wall Street Journal: Sports
• Phelps secures his place in the history books after landing his eighth gold medal! | Speedo.com
• Best Inventions of 2008 | TIME

— NEWS BYTE —

Writing with your eyes

_{Credit: YouTube channel h2so4hurts | Credit: Lorenceau et al., Current Biology}

• The low down
• People “locked in” by paralyzing disorders have long relied on blinks or facial twitches to build sentences one letter at a time
• Jean Lorenceau of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris may have a new technology might allow people who have almost completely lost the ability to move their arms or legs to communicate freely
• Significance
• Eye-writing technology tricks the neuromuscular machinery into doing something that is usually impossible: to voluntarily produce smooth eye movements in arbitrary directions
• Smooth pursuit, this eye motion is different from saccadic motion, in which we rapidly shift our eyes to, say, skim lines of text or scan a crowd
• Smooth movements are normally impossible to control those movements smoothly in any direction
• Lorenceau found by accident with another experiment that he was able to learn to do so.
• To determine if other people could learn to do this he designed his own reverse-phi display with 200 disks that switch between black and white and are projected on a gray background.
• When we see two images that are the photographic negatives (dark to light & light to dark) in rapid succession our brain sees the object in the image moving away from the negative image
• This gives us the impression of motion when there is none
• Over three 30-minute sessions, he was able to trained six volunteers
• For the volunteers, who couldn’t see what they were writing, it was like writing with a pen that had run out of ink
• Although some participants had a harder time of learning to control their eye movements than others by the end of the sessions most could freely draw legible letters and numbers
• Of Note
• This technology might also help to improve eye movement control in people with certain conditions such as dyslexia or ADHD and/or for experts, such as athletes or surgeons, whose activities strongly rely on eye movements
• Now working on a better version of his eye writer, tests should start next year
• Multimedia
• YouTube Writing in Cursive with Your Eyes Only | h2so4hurts
• YouTube Reverse Phi Motion | porrophagus
• Further Reading / In the News
• Writing in cursive with your eyes only | MedicalXPress
• Write to Me Only With Thine Eyes | ScienceMag.org

— TWO-BYTE NEWS —

Morse Code in space

_{Credit: fit.ac.jp}

• The low down
• Satellite is a 10 cm cube, weighing 2.9lb [1.33kg]
• The main mission of the satellite to demonstrate the high speed transmitter
  developed.
• It can send a jpeg VGA-picture(480×640) within 6 seconds, and will write messages in the night sky with Morse code as
• The beacon signal is a standard Morse code CW signal starting with “HI” with telemetry data following
• Multimedia
• YouTube Deployment of small satellites from the ISS and F–1 CubeSat mission version 2 | FSpacelab
• Further Reading / In the News
• FITSAT–1 (NIWAKA) : A Small Artificial Satellite Developed at the Fukuoka Institute of Technology
• Tiny Japanese Satellite Will Write Morse Code Messages in the Sky | Space.com

Musical Variety

• The low down
• The Million Song Dataset is a freely-available collection of audio features and metadata for a million contemporary popular music tracks.
• The songs come from nearly 45,000 artists with only 2,650 songs released between 1955 and 1959 and 177,808 songs released between 2005 and 2009.
• Quantitative analysis for this study examined three aspects of those songs; timbre, pitch, and loudness of nearly half a million songs
• Timbre accounts for the sound color, texture, or tone quality
• Pitch roughly corresponds to the harmonic content of the piece, including its chords, melody, and tonal arrangements
• Timbral variety peaked in the 1960’s and has been in steady decline to the present day and implies a homogenization of the overall timbral palette, which could point to less diversity in instrumentation and recording techniques
• While it may be no surprise that music has gotten louder the same notes and chords that were popular in decades past are popular today
• Musicians today seem to be less adventurous in moving from one chord or note to another, instead following the paths well-trod
• Of Note
• The Million Song Dataset, huge as it is, may not provide a representative slice of pop music, especially for old songs
• The database draws on what’s popular now, as well as what has been digitized and made available for download
• The older digitised music may not be the same that people enjoyed when those songs first came out.
• Million Song Dataset

— Updates —

Red Bull Stratos dives again

_{Red Bull Stratos}

• Last time on SciByte
• Meteorites & Lasers | SciByte 38 – Skydiving at the orbital extreme [March 20, 2012]
• The low down
• On July 25, 2012, Baumgartner completed the final milestone before his attempt of jumping from 120,000ft [36,500 meters]
• The test launch had twice been delayed due to bad weather
• Significance
• The helium-filled balloon for this test flight was over four times as large as the one that carried Baumgartner for the first test flight in March and took about 90 minutes to reach the desired altitude
• Baumgartner rode his specially-made pressurized capsule via the helium balloon and jumped from an altitude of over 29,455 meters (96,640 feet),
• He was in freefall for 3 minutes, 48 seconds, reaching speeds of 862 km/h (536 mph), then floated down on his parachute for about 10.5 min
• Of Note
• He landed in the New Mexico desert, just about 15 minutes by helicopter from his launch site
• His final jump will break the current jump record held by Joe Kittinger a retired Air Force officer, and Baumgartner’s current adviser and mentor, who jumped from 19.5 miles [31.5 km] in 1960.
• There is no official date for the record-setting attempt, since it is subject to favorable weather conditions and critical post-jump assessments of the capsule and equipment
• For his final jump he hopes to not only break the sound barrier with his body, but also break the record for the longest freefall
• Multimedia
• YouTube VIDEO : Felix Baumgartner’s Test Jump Teaser
• YouTube VIDEO :Jump testing in Roswell New Mexico – Red Bull Stratos
• YouTube VIDEO : The Capsule – Red Bull Stratos 2012
• Social Media
• Red Bull Stratos @RedBullStratos
• Further Reading / In the News
• Home | Red Bull Stratos
• Skydiver Baumgartner Takes Test Jump from 30 kilometers | UniverseToday.com
• Skydiver Leaps from 18 Miles Up in ‘Space Jump’ Practice | Space.com

— Spacecraft Updates —

Curiosity Rover lands on Sunday … stay tuned next week for more

• Next time on SciByte …
• Next week’s SciByte will be 2 days after the landing, expect me to say a few things
• The low down
• NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter will relay near real time signals the moment that NASA’s Curiosity rover touches down onto the Martian surface
• Multimedia
• [NASA TV online live coverage of Curiosity landing](https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov or www.nasa.gov)
• Social Media
• Curiosity Rover @MarsCuriosity
• Further Reading / In the News
• Mars Science Laboratoty, Curiosity rover
• GetCurious
• T Minus 9 Days – Mars Orbiters Now in Place to Relay Critical Curiosity Landing Signals | UniverseToday.com

SCIENCE CALENDAR

Looking back

• August 1, 1774 : 238 years ago : Oxygen : Joseph Priestley, British Presbyterian minister and chemist, identified a gas which he called “dephlogisticated air” – later known as oxygen. Priestley found that mercury heated in air became coated with “red rust of mercury,” which, when heated separately, was converted back to mercury with “air” given off. Studying this “air” given off, he observed that candles burned very brightly in it. Also, a mouse in a sealed vessel with it could breathe it much longer than ordinary air. A strong believer in the phlogiston theory, Priestley considered it to be “air from which the phlogiston had been removed.” Further experiments convinced him that ordinary air is one fifth dephlogisticated air, the rest considered by him to be phlogiston

Looking up this week

Keep an eye out for …

• Wed | Aug 1 | Full Moon

• Wed | Aug 1 | Before Dawn | Jupiter will the the

• Fri | Aug 3 | Evening | The Summer Triangle approaches its greatest height. Face east and look almost straight up after nightfall. The brightest star there is Vega. Toward the northeast from Vega (by two or three fist-widths at arm’s length) is Deneb. Toward the southeast from Vega by a greater distance is Altair.

• Before Dawn | Jupiter & Venus are in the East they are now about the distance of you pinky finger to your pointer finger stretched out at arm’s length, 14*. Venus is the brighter of the two to the lower left, making Jupiter the higher of the two.

• Before Dawn | Betelgeuse, the red giant star, is still to the lower right of Venus by about the same distance apart as Jupiter and Venus

• At Dusk | Mars & Saturn are low in the west-southwest. Saturn is above Spica, by about three finger widths are are nearly the same brightness

• Further Reading and Resources

• More on what’s in the sky this week

• Sky&Telescope

• SpaceWeather.com

• StarDate.org

• For the Southern hemisphere: SpaceInfo.com.au

• Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere : astronomyonline.org

• Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand : rasnz.org.nz

• AstronomyNow

• HeavensAbove

The post Olympic Science & Red Bull Stratos | SciByte 56 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.