Categories
volcano

Volcanic lightning

You can got a lot of extremely cool pictures out of a volcanic eruption. Giant Exploding Things That Could Kill You are always incredibly photogenic for some reason. But I think the coolest eruption pictures are the ones that involve lightning, such as this picture of the Chaitén Volcano erupting in Chilé.

Actually, I hadn’t thought about it much until I saw this article, and this interesting observation:

“The seismometers were actually picking up lightning strikes,” said McNutt. “I knew that I had to reach out to the physicists studying lightning.”

That’s just cool – lightning produced by the eruption was adding seismic noise with ground strikes.

Volcanic lightning would be a pretty interesting thing to study; the mechanism by which it forms is even less well understood than normal lightning. A possible model here at geology.com. Even more interesting is this article I found from last year, looking at the behavior of volcanic plumes.

A volcanic plume consists of a vertical column of hot gases and dust topped by an umbrella-like structure. A volcanic mesocyclone sets the entire plume rotating, causing it to spawn waterspouts or dust devils and group together the electric charges in the plume to form a sheath of lightning.

So basically, if you don’t get cooked by a pyroclastic flow or burned up by magma or simply nailed in the head by flying debris, don’t start feeling too good about yourself. The atmosphere might just try to kill you anyway.

Gosh, I love volcanoes.

Categories
for fun

Why you’re not going to get laid, mathematically

From io9: Mathematician Uses SETI Formula To Determine He Has A 0.00034% Chance Of Getting Laid

I actually found the paper highly amusing; to me it sounded like a joke that a dorky guy was having at his own expense. But I also find math jokes very funny.

Also funny, from io9’s commentary on it:

This aspiring economics researcher has made one of the most basic mistakes men make – especially men who are science fiction writers or scientists. He’s confused women with extraterrestrials.

There’s enough arguing to be done about the Drake Equation to begin with, but I think it’s a fair point to make that it’s even iffier if you’re taking it out of its context and trying to apply it to your dating life. That said, it’s still pretty amusing.

Categories
volcano

Volcano for Monday

Philippines’ Mayon Volcano to explode ‘within days’ – alert status has been moved from three to four, which means that an eruption is imminent. Five is when the volcano is actually erupting. Expect to see some pretty pictures of the full fury of the Earth unleashed soon, I’d say.

“Audible booming and rumbling sounds were first reported in the eastern flank of the volcano” Sunday afternoon, and 1,942 volcanic earthquakes were detected by the institute’s seismic network in the 24 hours to 7 a.m. local time on Monday (6 p.m. ET on Sunday), the institute said.

Yikes. Mayon is a stratovolcano, like Mount St. Helens, which means it will tend to have eruptions of the explodey variety since its magma is viscous and doesn’t allow gases to escape very effectively.

I’m kind of curious what the sulfur dioxide output it looking like for Mayon. The most recent PHIVOLCS report (from January 20) has it at 1051 tons per day. Sulfur dioxide often degasses out of magma, so a sudden jump in sulfur dioxide output is a sign that there’s a lot of fresh magma coming in to the area. Apparently its previous output was around 350-500 tons per day which makes 1051 a pretty significant jump.

For comparison, the last time Mount Pinatubo blew up (in 1991), the sulfur dioxide output went from 500 tons per day to 5000 tons per day.

Categories
awesome science fair

My first science fair

As a judge, at least. I know I did at least one science fair when I was in elementary school, which involved an extremely lame experiment that had to do with getting mold to grow on bread. I wasn’t all that excited about it. Now I can look back on my lack of enthusiasm as a wasted opportunity, but I think I turned out okay.

I was actually supposed to judge in a school science fair a couple of weeks ago. The night before was when the Stomach Virus Fairy visited me, however, and I was in no condition to go. So this was my first one.

The judging actually went differently then I expected. We were each assigned a grade, and then put in teams. I ended up being very grateful for this; a big part of judging a project is asking the kid questions about their project, and I didn’t really know where to start. My partner, Shannon, is an old hand at science fairs and knew exactly what sorts of questions were appropriate to ask the kids. I ended up being assigned to the fourth grade projects.

Looking around the room, though, there were some pretty cool projects to be seen. You could tell a lot of these kids were seriously jazzed about their experiments and had put a lot of thought and work in to it.

My personal favorites:

– A project exploring whether cats have a color preference, which included photographs of the two adorable experiment subjects, Pirate and Lucy.

– A project about the power of suggestion (regarding things like pareidolia) where the hypothesis was (paraphrasing a little): “Using the force of my personality and their trust in me, I will cause people to give me the answers I suggest.”

And then of course, the project that ultimately won first place for fourth grade. All of us noticed the project board right away because it looked super good and professional. After our first two kids, Shannon and I stopped and looked at the board a little closer and noticed that the experiment was about the way non-Newtonian fluids react to pressure. Both of us immediately thought, “We so hope we get to talk to this kid.”

We did! We’re so lucky. The kid, named Roger, that did the experiment has got to be the most well spoken fourth grader I’ve encountered in my life. Hell, he was more coherent and well-spoken than a lot of the kids I’ve met at college. Shannon quizzed him unmercifully about his experiment, and it became very apparent that he was deeply interested in what he’d done, and that he also really understood the subject matter. The part that really just blew me away was when he talked about the two non-Newtonian fluids he used – ketchup and water mixed with corn starch. We asked him why the two fluids had reacted so differently when he tried to stir them quickly, and he told us that he’d been confused about that at first, then had done more research and discovered that the ketchup must be a shear-thinning non-Newtonian fluid, while the water with corn starch was a shear-thickening non-Newtonian fluid. And then explained the basics of what shear force is.

Sometimes I really worry about the future, particularly seeing the hit science often takes in public schools. Meeting kids like Roger – and pretty much everyone who had made it to the district-wide fair – gives me hope for the future. There are still boys and girls out there that are really interested in science and excited about exploring the world around them.

One of the other incredibly cool things that I just have to share – at the beginning of his discussion, I asked Roger why he’d decided to do this experiment. He told me that he’s a huge fan of the Myth Busters and had seen them run across the water/corn starch fluid in their episode about ninja. And that the third phase of his experiment, where he put the different liquids in to a speaker cone to see how they reacted to loud music, he’d seen on The Big Bang Theory and thought it looked really cool, so he wanted to try it himself.

I hope wherever they are, Adam and Jamie and Bill Prady are feeling a big warm fuzzy. There are amazing little kids like Roger out there watching and being inspired to try out the science. That’s surely something to be proud of.

Categories
conspiracy theory stoopid

More HAARP conspiracy nuttiness

Chavez says US ‘weapon’ caused Haiti quake

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez Wednesday accused the United States of causing the destruction in Haiti by testing a ‘tectonic weapon’ to induce the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country last week.

And:

Venezuelan media have reported that the earthquake “may be associated with the project called HAARP, a system that can generate violent and unexpected changes in climate.”

The absolute breadth of the stupid leaves me almost speechless. Almost.

I’d love to know exactly how people think an atmospheric research facility – even if we’re nice and allow the conspiracy nuts the notion that HAARP can somehow effect climate via it interaction with the atmosphere, which it can’t – can manage to effect the Earth’s crust, 10 km below the surface and almost a hemisphere away. You know, we think the atmosphere is pretty awesome, probably because we couldn’t live without it. But let me break it to you – tectonic forces really don’t give much of a shit what the atmosphere is doing. In fact, it’s really the tectonics that get the final say on what the climate is doing, not the other way around.

Otherwise, what kind of tectonic “weapon” are we proposing? Secret injection well that’s putting highly pressurized fluid in to the fault to lubricate it? Nah, too plausible. Underground atomic explosions? These are the sorts of things people would tend to notice.

It makes my brain hurt. But we also know that conspiracy nuttiness of this variety requires no plausible mechanism. And in this case, not even a vague understanding of geology.

Categories
geeky stuff

Taking a moment to geek out for a good cause

DriveThruRPG, my favorite source of non-paper tabletop RPG books, is running a donation fund for Haiti, aimed at Doctors Without Borders. They’re matching all donations. Even better, if you donate a measly $20, you get an absolutely stunning number of PDFs as a thank you. The list of books is 12 pages long.

Now, most of the books on the list left me with a profound feeling of “meh” since I’m ridiculously picky about my RPGs. However, one of the books you get is the core book for the Serenity RPG, which is my second favorite game of all time to run. (The first being White Wolf’s Werewolf in any of its “garou” rather than “forsaken” formats.) That alone is worth the price of admission, if you’re selfish enough that you require more for your $20 than the warm, fuzzy feeling that you’re helping out a good cause.

I’m looking forward to adding my Serenity PDF to my RPG book collection. It’ll feel right at home since I also own two paper copies of the book as well. But you can never have too much Serenity.

Categories
hoax volcano

Diappointed that it’s not the end of the world?

I know I’ve complained about this before. And I know it can’t possibly be getting on my nerves as badly as it might get on the nerves of the scientists at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. But still, is it me, or does Time magazine’s short article come across as just a little disappointed that we’re not all in danger of imminent fiery death? I think the question mark at the end of the article’s title (“Nothing to Fear?”) is what does it.

Yellowstone is in a very tectonically active region, whether or not there’s a giant magma monster lurking below the surface, ready to leap out and kill us all. From the YVO:

Although some quakes are caused by rising magma and hot-ground-water movement, many emanate from regional faults related to crustal stretching and mountain building. For example, major faults along the Teton, Madison, and Gallatin Ranges pass through the park and likely existed long before the beginning of volcanism there. Movements along many of these faults are capable of producing significant earthquakes.

It’s not a surprise to see things still shifting and re-shifting in the area. Admittedly, the whole thing could blow out in a massive steam explosion tomorrow and make life extremely unpleasant for anyone in the immediate area, but it is also important to note that tectonic activity in Yellowstone doesn’t necessarily mean that something’s going on in the magma chambers or even the hydrothermal system.

And while I’m spending my afternoon complaining about things, I’d just like to say: A balloon boy documentary? Please, no.

Categories
texas scares me

Because Joe McCarthy needs better press

Conservative Vision Ascendant In Latest TX History Textbooks Draft; Gingrich, Schlafly Back In; because what social studies text books need is more emphasis on the positive cultural contributions of the NRA. No, really. I’m not even making this up.

Of course, the best bit come from TPM’s previous post on this topic:

In a note to curriculum writers last fall, McLeroy encouraged them to “read the latest on McCarthy — he was basically vindicated.”

Um… no. He really wasn’t. McCarthy was a horrible human being on a witch hunt and ruined a lot of innocent lives. Unless by reading the latest, you mean by one of well-known historian1 Ann Coulter’s vicious screeds, and in that case… still no. What planet is McLeroy living on anyway?

“The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation. But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan–he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.”

Oh. That planet.

Text books are important, and what’s in them is important as well. If you’ve never read Lies My Teacher Told Me, I cannot recommend it enough. Whether or not you buy the author’s political stance, his points regarding the presentation of history and how easily manipulated it is range from thought-provoking to terrifying.

1 – Yes, I was laughing as I typed this. Well, more like giggling. Possibly in a manner reminiscent of Joseph McCarthy.

Categories
conspiracy theory feminism links science-based medicine

A handful of links

Abortion and breast cancer: The manufacturversy that won’t die – Orac takes a look at this steaming pile of BS. I remember the last time the awful people with the giant mutilated fetus posters were making life miserable on campus, they were pushing this claim. And seemed very puzzled that I was angry they were actively lying to people.

Cruise ships still find Haitian berth – this is certainly one messy issue to think about. On the one hand, there’s the utterly squeamish thought of people being on vacation (and eating their bbq) that close to a disaster site. On the other hand, there’s the aide, the promised proceeds, and at least some money being put in to the Haitian economy. My brain’s chasing itself in circles just thinking about this.

Science project prompts SD school evacuation – from the department of *facepalm*.

The student will not be prosecuted, but authorities were recommending that he and his parents get counseling, the spokesman said. The student violated school policies, but there was no criminal intent, Luque said.

I know, right? Kid wants to play with science and engineering outside of school. There MUST be something wrong with him. Ugh.

Is Refusing Bed Rest a Crime? – This story made me so very, very angry. I understand that there is something of a public interest in babies being born healthy. That said, it’s not your goddamn body, and being pregnant doesn’t mean you give up your fundamental rights as an adult human being. Seeing women treated like public incubators with no rights really scares the crap out of me.

Haiti, HAARP, and conspiracy theorists – an excellent roundup from BoingBoing about the new nutty conspiracy theories about how HAARP somehow caused the earthquake in Haiti, since it’s a death ray. Or something. Mmm, I love the smell of crazy in the morning.

Categories
volcano

Your volcano for Monday

Sorry, like last week, it’s a non-explodey one. Still, this makes me happy; the Valles Caldera is being considered for inclusion in the National Park System. I visited the Valles Caldera during my last field class, and it’s a beautiful area. Making it in to a national park would certainly help maintain that beauty. I even took pictures.