Winter: What makes it cold out?

<<< CAUTION: SCIENCE AHEAD >>>
Ok, this is gonna sound strange, but I'm not buying the whole explanation of what makes winter cold. Yep, this is explained in probably 4th grade science, but I've been thinking about it lately and I'm just not buying it.
Ok, first the myth...
Some people believe that winter is caused when the earth is further away from the sun. Bzzz. Wrong. In actuality, The earth is closer (only by a little relatively speaking) during the (northern hemisphere's) winter months.
So the next logical question... then why is it always colder in the winter time?
The answer, is due to the earth's tilt. The Earth is tilted 23.44 degrees. Also called the "Axial Tilt" (wikipedia here). And yes, there is a slight wobble, but we won't get into that now.
So, When we are in the summer months, the earth's top (north) is tilted towards the sun, which means it will have MORE sunlight during the daytime, and thus be warmer. Vice Versa, in the southern hemisphere, the earth is tilted away from the sun, so it has shorter days, and less sunlight - thus colder.
Summer and Winter also has to do with the angle of the sunlight hitting the earth too. During the winter, the light hits the earth at a larger angle, whereas in the summer it hits it more face on or directly. You can see some charts and illustrations on this wiki page here.
Ok, I understand all that.
But here's what I don't quite get...
Why the "extreme" temperature shifts from day to day? So for the most part, the temps can be averaged out to lets say "10-15 degrees" (I'm guesstimating). In other words, one day it might be 35º the next it could be 42º or even 28º (a 15º difference).
But as an example here, last weekend (Sat) it was around 50 degrees. I had to crack my window to get some fresh air as I was driving. Then on Sunday night, we got hit with about 8-10 inches of snow, and the temps were in the low 20's! That's a 30º difference in a matter of a day or so!
Our earth's axis sure didn't change during that time! So what caused that temp shift so drastically? To top it off, This coming Saturday, we're supposed to be back up into the 60's!
So, I want to know why or what causes these temperature shifts?
Is it simply the wind patterns? The Jet Stream? A passing rain storm/snow storm? What kind of wind pattern can shift a patch of cold air that far from the north down to the south in a matter of a few hours? Wouldn't you think it would be a fierce windstorm?
Also...
It seems the more drastic temp changes are around spring and fall, ie: if it's summer time, and a 95º day, chances are that the next day will be around 95º too, and not 75º. So why is it more windy (if that's the answer) during the spring and fall?
If anyone can point to a 4th grader who knows this answer, please do. OR better yet a web link that expains this, I'd appreciate it :)
(I tried googling it briefly, but most of the hits came up with temperature shifts due to global warming.) I'm talking about Temp shifts from day to day.

Ice on Mars!

I don't know why, but for some reason I'm excited to learn about ice on mars. Yep, WATER on another planet. I say, that I don't know why I'm excited, because, when you think about it, this sort of news doesn't directly effect my life right now. hooray, a little melted ice cube was found a gazillion miles away! I think I'm excited purely on the idea though, that this discovery will help to support the idea that there may in fact, be life on other planets! Again, that too doesn't really help my life directly, but just the idea that we are NOT alone, and there may be something else out there, is a hopeful thought for me.
But... I couldn't help but to see the humor in this recent water discovery...
So what is the evidence of this water? A before and after photo. That's it really. They still haven't done the "ice in the oven" experiment yet (which I'm not sure why?!). But, rather the above image is the only evidence of ice they have. In one photo you see some little chunks of what looks like light colored rocks. There was then a glitch in the imaging software that led to a few (days i think) lapse of time until the next photo was taken. On the second photo, the little chunks of rock/ice are missing! We didn't see them melt, we just saw a before and after photo. I can't help but think of this different possibility... rather than the little chunks of rock melting, who's to say, that they didn't sprout legs and get up and walk off?! Who says life has to abide by our preconceived notions? Remember that "Rock monster" from "Galaxy Quest?!?" :)
What if...

Science and Charity

Two youtube videos for you. (I want to blog about my experience at ignitephilly last night, so this is just a reminder to mysefl to do that.)

First the science:
I remain skeptical about this, but if it's true, it's pretty darn amazing! (note: I think it's misleading to say that "time is slowing down" - if they said your cognitive powers of perception become increased during times of stress, I would like that better).



Next up... This guy is pretty amazing (as are the nerdfighters.)

Popcorn Cellphones

Can someone tell me if this is a scam or real? I don't know enough people with cell phones to try myself!

source: via digg to this blog.

The Eagle has landed!

Well, not the "Eagle" but rather the Phoenix! I just watched the landing on both CNN, and live on the web on NASA TV. Oddly enough, there was about a 30-40 second delay from the "live" internet feed in comparison to the CNN feed.
And, what was also cool about this event...
Nasa went all "web 2.0" in providing live Twitter updates too! I just checked the feed and took two screen shots. One of the other persons that I follow on twitter is named "apelad" who is a great cartoonist. His comments in with the twitter feed were pretty funny too :)

Small side note: I've really been enjoying twitter lately. I've found some good people to follow, and it's a neat thing to be able to see what's going on in their lives no matter how mundane - or in the case of nasa - FAR from mundane!

In a few hours we "SHOULD" have new images coming in! Then it's 90 days of science (maybe longer). One of the goals of this mission is to perhaps find ice (aka water) which if anything like earth - where there is water, there is usually life.

If you can't read the above image you can click the image and it should open in a larger window.

New animal discovery

So... you thought you've seen it all huh? You've been to the zoo, you've watched "Animal Planet", maybe even read a few magazines like National Geographic, but then along comes the news this morning, that a new mammal has been discovered in Tanzania.
I gotta say, it's a cute and creepy looking bugger... When I first saw it, my impression was that there was some connection to a bat. But is actually related to an elephant (among others).
I think discoveries like this are amazing. It's a nice reminder to say "there is stuff out there that we don't know yet." Which for me, is good news.

Tech Tags: sengi Tanzania mammal animal bbc galen+rathbun elephant+shrew

Nikola Tesla

Small book review here...
Tesla - Man out of time. (google books)
I just finished this book a couple days ago (YAY! I actually FINISHED a book! That's rare for me).
Overall I enjoyed the book and liked learning about a Nikola's life. I have two small complaints... The author got stuck in a loops about 3/4 way through the book. Tesla was troubled with financial problems through-out his life. The author kept bringing this up after every new topic she discussed. It got to be cliché after a while and I could predict when she was going to start talking about how difficult he had it. At the same time she would talk about him being impecciably dressed, eating at fine restaurants, living in an expensive hotel, etc... so I never fully understood the whole "financial troubles" part. Unless it was just that, he would get large amounts of money, then just spend it all til he was broke, but he always seemed to have an income. My other complaint is that I wish a little more time was spent explaining some of his inventions and patents. The book tended to treat a lot of stories like "mystical secrets" which does make for interesting reading, but after it was over, I wish I could say that I learned more specifics about his inventions.
Bottom line: REALLY interesting guy this Tesla was. History has tended to have swept him under the carpet for some reason. Tesla made some WILD claims at times, but mixed in with those wild claims were also wild truths, so it's difficult (like with many geniuses) to separate the fantasy from fiction. One other thing that I found interesting, was the government conspiracy part late in Tesla's life (well, after he died I guess). The book just briefly touched on this, and I bet that would have made for additional interesting topics.
OH, and in case you are worried, the book is not very technical at all. It won't explain what electricity is and all that. It's more about the man and his life than a technical explanation.
Check it out.
For a good overview of Nikola Tesla - Good ol' wikipedia to the rescue :)
You can also see some of Tesla's original patents via google's patent search engine! Google rocks! I wonder if the sketches in these patents are from Nikola himself.

Tech Tags: nikola tesla nikola+tesla AC+DC electricity genius edison margaret+cheney

OC MPMM

Magnets and wheels - oh my!
(note: there is a lot of buzz that this may be a hoax - or it may not be)

Tech Tags: mpmm perpetual+motion alsetalokin nikola+tesla magnets wheel nonperpetual steorn

intelligence?

So this morning I woke up to my NPR radio and heard them talking about this new study that some scientist from Japan did. It determined that Chimpanzees have an incredible memory and here's the kicker... it's better than our human memory! These chimps out performed human test subjects hands down. The interviewer said he saw the video and was amazed. I found the story here on BBC and I have to say, I too am amazed! (note: I had some problems getting the video to play on my mac, but eventually it worked.)
I've not read the full scientific report, but I have to wonder, how much practice did these chimps have? ie: I've played video games before and with practice you can get pretty good at these things. I wonder if the chimps just got really good at playing this particular game as compared to a human, or if they had equal time to learn. I know I'm grasping for straws aren't I? :)
But then the interviewer asked a question that has had me thinking on it off and on all day... He said something to the effect of "does that mean that chimps are more on an equal playing field with us humans?" In other words (this is my interpretation), lets say that these chimps have superior memory... does that mean we should be treating them better? ie: No dressing them up in funny costumes for entertainment, commercials, movies, circus, etc... What "right" do we as humans have to claim domination over another species? Does it just come down to might = right? I'm skating into dangerous territory here as a meat eater... Just because a cow may have a lousy memory, or limited intelligence, does that mean we can farm these beasts and slaughter them? Yes, I know it's in the Bible, but still. It just doesn't seem right.
Well, that's enough to think about for today. I think I'll have a salad for dinner tonight :)

surfer dude = genius!

This post was just up over on the reddit page and it caught my attention...
"Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything"
It's a really cool story - I can see John Cussak staring in the movie version of this! :)
nutshell... This guy who lives the "surfer" lifestyle also has a degree in physics. He's apparently been thinking a lot while waiting to catch a wave, because he has come up with a new "theory of everything". I used to know more about this physics stuff, but it's been a while so I'm a little rusty... As I understand it... Physics have certain laws that nature seems to obey, example: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Light behaves a certain way, etc... Well, since "forever" these scientists have been trying to tie all of these laws into one. Which is pretty tough since we still don't really know what gravity is yet that is a pretty big player.
Garrett Lisi (the surfer dude) has tied it to something that I had never heard of before called the "E8". I'm gonna have to look into this more because it sounds really fascinating!
The above graphic is supposed to represent this E8. Reminds me of a mandala.
Cool stuff going on here!

Tech Tags: physics science theory+of+everything e8 garrett+lisi

Mapping life

Some time ago I learned about the "Long Now Project."
I have to admit, I've kinda forgotten about it. Well, someone must had dusted off their email subscription database, because I've gotten 2 emails from them in the last week or so. This mornings was really interesting (and a tad scary). There are hints of "science fiction" in this blog post, but as with most "real science" there always is.
I'll put the blog post in a nutshell for you with two cut and pastes...

Thus discoveries like the one last month of an
entire bacterial genome inside the DNA of a fruitfly is exploding the
old tree-of-life models of evolution. The emerging map replaces gene
lineages with gene webs.

and

Likewise new maps of brain function are raising questions such as,
“Can we model the brain, can we download it, can we transplant it,
can we reboot it?” Prostheses such as robotic arms used to be driven
by muscle signals, but now they are being controlled directly from
the brain.

It's a short blog post so I encourage you to go check it out here.
(Rats... I tried uploading a photo of a fruitfly, but bloggers photo upload option is down again. Seems I have more problems with their photo uploader.) To see some fruit flys click here.

Tech Tags: Juan+Enriquez Mapping+Life Long+now science dna

Electricity from Air?

Just a quick post - Cause ITS FRIDAY!!!
-
I just found this link over on the digg site about a new start-up company that claims it can produce small battery chargers that uses the "ambient" energy in the air. There is a much better explanation of it over on the news site, but it sounds almost too good to be true. A little like Steorn (Which I'm still waiting for the big announcement). If this thing is real and it can be marketed successfully it will be awesome. In a nutshell (as I understand it). You plug this small transmitter into the wall, that gathers the ambient energy, then broadcasts it to the small battery which then recharges itself. So no more plugging your cell phone, or portable phone, or ipod into a "dock" now you just have to be in the same room as your transmitter and the device will recharge. Really cool! Man, imagine if this thing could be scaled up... So your new electric car could simply be recharged by sitting outside your house.

tags technorati : science technology electricity powercast steorn

Wired Rocks

I just have to send out kudo's to Wired Magazine today. I've been a long time subscriber... I think I started around issue 4. It's had it's ups and downs, periods where I disliked it because it seemed to be purely corporate run (still has shades of that), but every now and then they nail it. I am into this month's magazine and reading the article(s) about what we don't know (put together by John Hodgman) You can read the articles here online. It's mind numbing/expanding stuff.
Then today I sign on to check wired news and see this article - this is amazing! I hope some information is gathered that will push these machines to becoming open source.
So, thank you wired for all the thinking you've made me do and putting it in an entertaining format.
PS> I like the new design and layout.
PS2> Yes, I still have a tinge of spite for wired though, for stealing so much from Mondo 2000.

Tech Tags: wired wired+magazine thought science technology

science not so good

I've recently been in a small email "debate" with a friend of mine regarding global warming. I don't recall who "started" it (I think I did, because I mentioned that I had seen Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth). Well, he's a fan of the Glen Beck Show, and I guess he falls in the religious right category. At one point he said something about not all scientist agree that us humans are the cause of global warming... I was a bit shocked because everything I had read/heard/seen said the opposite. So I started to go online to try and find some "facts" to support my side... and to my surprise, I'm finding it very difficult. I thought this would be easy, I started with the obvious... I went to Al Gore's website on AIT and they had a "science" tab... but when I clicked on it it was very lame. There were 4 general facts, then about 6 predictions... Sorry, predictions are not science! The bullet points had footnotes, but no links... if you wanted to know more or find the source yourself, you had to search the web. Shame on you Al. All you scientists out there... make a website with facts, and easy navigation about global warming. By eliminating the claims like "some scientists disagree with Al Gore" (which may technically be true if there are 2 people out there in the world) you'll help the cause much more. I'm trying to keep a running list of the websites I stumble upon for my facts and figures. Once I figure it out and organize it, perhaps I'll post it here so someone might find it via a google search.
In a related post... I've been visiting the website worldchanging.com and when I thought of finding proof for global warming I went to this site to maybe make a post in the forums asking for help... surprise... there is no forum. The website talks about people like "us" coming together, yet they don't even have a message board? I emailed the suggestion to them, but did not receive a response, or even an email telling me they got my suggestion.
I'm trying to keep the debate away from politics, and more on the science, but it is more difficult than I thought. I respect my fiends opinion but I wonder how the two of us can have opposite views on this subject of global warming.

Tech Tags: global+warming Al+gore Inconvenient+truth science

2007 is here!

Well, hope you survived the new year celebrations. I did, though just barely... We had a few bottlerockets go astray that ended up doing a loop which brough the flying projectiles rather close to our heads! Not to mention exploding near a parked car! But all is fine. I brought in the new year also by drinking wine instead of beer, so my two glasses of wine I hope are going to bring me a mellow 2007. (I had a Benziger Syrah red wine that was pretty good.)

ok, I have a few random websites I want to post here.
This one is about an article in the Washington Post about how spies are posting their secret messages out in the open (encrypted of course). I can't remember if I blogged on this topic before, but I was caught up in this for a day or two about 6 months or so ago. There was an advertisement on Craigslist (that had been pulled after it became popular) that was a mysterious ad that said to call a toll free number. When you called it was a strange sounding voice that would repeat a series of numbers. Kinda creepy. When I read that some people were speculating that these were possible messages to spies, I stopped snooping around the internet. Next thing the M.I.B. will be showing up, and I'll be locked away in a cell trying to say "But I saw it on Craigslist!"

I was complaining previously about 2006 being fraught with diebold, and possible fraudulent e-voting machines. Well, we're not even into day two of 2007 and there are new reports coming in about how a Judge in Florida has stompped out a request for a candidates attempt to read the source code of the machines used in the election that they lost. Turns out the Judge ruled in favor of the company saying that their "trade secret" code is more important than a little thing called "democracy". The Techdirt article has some interesting comments too. One has got me curious because it says we are not in a "democracy" but a "republic" and that I have to know figure out what the difference is. I tried reading a wiki article today at lunch but I got lost and confused. Just google "Democracy vs Republic" and you'll see what I mean.
Here's another article over on aol.com that has another recap of the judges ruling.

Lastly (for now anyway)...
I have thought about this in my head many times... Just today I find an article that apparently I'm not the only one! (which shocks me a little). How do airplanes fly? I know... the answer that is always given is pretty simple. (a wing has a curved surface on the top, and that when wind rushes over the longer top surface it creates a "vacuum" above the wing, thus creating LIFT, which PULLS an airplane up.) Well... I'm not buying it. I don't agree with this. I think the reason a plane flys is much more simple... It is the air that is underneath the wing that PUSHES the plane up. I'm not denying that the lift part exists, but I don't think that force is strong enough. Well, here is an article that talks a little more about this (and probably more eloquent than I can).
Here's a quote that should peak your interest:
How can aviation be grounded in such a muddy understanding of the underlying physics? As with many other scientific phenomena, it's not always necessary to understand why something works to make use of it. We engineers are happy if we've got enough practical knowledge to build flying aircraft. The rest we chalk up to magic.

Well, enjoy the beginning of your 2007.

Tech Tags: evoting, democracy, republic, flight, science, physiscs, lift,

Cornstarch!

Who knew cornstarch could be this much fun! I've been hearing rumbles of cornstarch recently on the internet as being able to create this semi-fluid-like substance that changes properties. Then a few days ago, I happened to catch "Late night with Dave Letterman" where he had some school kids showing their science projects. One of the kids had a swimming pool full of water and cornstarch. Basically it is a liquidy-soupy like substance when mixed to the right consistency BUT because the cornstarch particles are so tiny, when the surface of the "liquid" is interacted with in a sharp way (example running across the pool) it changes to reflect a hard non-liquid surface. Kooky huh? Well, just the other day I found this video online and it's really cool! It shows what this cornstarch and water does when it intereacts with a set vibration. (not sure what he has it hooked up to that vibrates it). I would image a speaker might be able to produce similar effects. Check it out! The "fingers" at the end are amazing and creepy at the same time.

Tech Tags: cornstarch science experiment creepy