Um, and I have to again praise my trust Panasonic Lumix LX-3 camera for being so freaking awesome.

Click here to see the whole set on flickr, where you can zoom into thhttp://Spacewater.us/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=752e full size huge originals too.

Italian scientists have developed a new “wood-derived bone substitute” that promises to be better than ceramic or metal implants. They start with a block of wood like red oak, burn it until the block is essentially charcoal and then coat the substance with calcium.

The “bone” takes about a week to produce at a cost of around $850. And while it’s not quite as cool as titanium, the spongier structure handles natural impact better, and other bones prefer the calcium carbon mix to space shuttle alloys.

So much for my awesome robot legs. [Discovery]

From Astronomy Picture of the Day .

Diamonds in a Cloudy Sky
Credit & Copyright: Óscar Martín Mesonero (OSAE), SAROS Group
Explanation: Cloudy skies over Wuhan, China hid the delicate solar corona during July’s total eclipse of the Sun. Still, the Moon’s silhouette was highlighted by these glistening diamonds as the total eclipse phase ended. Caused by bright sunlight streaming through dips and valleys in the irregular terrain along the Moon’s edge, the effect is known as Baily’s Beads, named after Francis Baily who called attention to the phenomenon in 1836. The dramatic appearance of the beads at the beginning or end of a total solar eclipse is also known as the Diamond Ring effect. In this remarkable image, a small, pinkish solar prominence can also be seen along the edge, below the diamonds.

A giant, anvil-shaped cloud bubbles up towards the Earth’s stratosphere, looming over West Africa.

The amazing formation would be invisible to anyone on the ground and would even be obscure from a regular passenger jet since they can reach up to 75,000ft.

But astronauts captured the astonishing picture from hundreds of miles up as they orbited the globe on the International Space Station.

Anvil clouds are formed mostly from ice and normally form in the upper parts of thunderstorms. They get their shape from the fact that rising warm air in thunderstorms expands and spreads out as the air bumps up against the bottom of the stratosphere.

Streaks of snow are often seen falling out of the edges of anvils. This light snow usually evaporates as it falls through the relatively dry air surrounding the upper part of the thunderstorm.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day.

The Milky Way Over Devil’s Tower
Credit & Copyright: Wally Pacholka (TWAN)

Explanation: Was Devil’s Tower once an explosive volcano? Famous for its appearance in films such as Close Encounters, the origin of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, USA is still debated, with a leading hypothesis holding that it is a hardened lava plume that probably never reached the surface to become a volcano. The lighter rock that once surrounded the dense volcanic neck has now eroded away, leaving the dramatic tower. High above, the central band of the Milky Way galaxy arches across the sky. Many notable sky objects are visible, including dark strands of the Pipe Nebula and the reddish Lagoon Nebula to the tower’s right. Green grass and trees line the foreground, while moon-illuminated clouds appear near the horizon to the tower’s left. Unlike many other international landmarks, mountaineers are permitted to climb Devil’s Tower.

We way well break another major record….the high low temperature record…which until now has been 69F. Will know in a few hours whether that record is gone.

Probcast is still going for over 100F tomorrow…and Thursday as well.

One unusual aspect of this heat wave…and something that has made it feel much worse….is the humidity. Dewpoints are very high for around here…generally in the 60sF and in some places close to 70F. Feels like an east coast summer. Dewpoint is a good measure of the amount of moisture in the air (much better than relative humidity which varies during the day as temperature changes). More moisture in the air makes us feel warmer by lessening our ability to evaporate water from our skin (sweat) and the moisture partially blocks the infrared radiation leaving the surface….thereby keeping the temperatures up.

Anyway, this is a very serious weather event, and the National Weather Service has upped their predictions to the century mark. People don’t think about heat waves in the same vain as storms, but heat kills more people around the world. So drink lots of liquids and check on the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable. Another risk is for kids in sports camps, where heat prostration can strike even the young. I am going to bike to work as usual, but will go early and my route is in the trees.

Go to Source

Ever wonder why projector systems and televisions doesn't use laser illumination? It isn't for safety reasons, and it isn't for efficiency reasons—laser diodes have efficiencies ranging from 30 to 50 percent. No, the problem is green light. We have red laser diodes, and blue laser diodes turned up nearly 15 years ago. But green—where the heck is the green laser diode?

A group of Japanese researchers have answered that question: in our lab. Yes, they have the first “true green” laser diode. It doesn’t work that well yet but, based on past history, expect rapid progress from here and commercial laser diodes before the end of next year.

Go to Source

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060316/ap_on_sc/pi_prodigy;_ylt=AivbVtP9k3GuBZDkfZ_4ckes0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-

give your favorite math whiz a big high five today for being so awesome. not as awesome as the aforementioned kid, but still pretty awesome.

…and a happy birthday to Sea-Spam irregular Olaries!!

You wimps are way to chicken to visit this link. I bet anything that your Huggies®** are too tight even to click on the link. There’s no way you could outscore me on this. I ruled this test.

Go on, I dare you to take it. What’s that? Afraid? That’s what I thought.

Go and measure yourself against… The Competitiveness Index!

_{** If you dare actually to click on this link, beware the image on the front page of the site. That is not one woman, but two. Yes, it’s two pregnant women, sliced into pieces and digitally edited together to appear ‘more leaning back’ and ‘more freakin gravid,’ ‘n stuff. Personally, I think it’s disturbing.}

House of Representatives that is, as in, the Utah State House of Representatives that voted down a bill that “would have required teachers to issue a disclaimer to their students saying that not all scientists agree about evolution and the origin of species.”

My favorite quote from the article:

“If the creationists can’t win in a state as conservative as Utah, they’ve got an uphill battle,”

Read about it at the New York Times.

Space.com reports that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) arrives March 10th!

You can imagine how freakin excited I am. From the article:

MRO totes powerful instruments that can investigate every level of Mars: From underground layers to the top of the planet’s atmosphere.

For one, the Mars-bound spacecraft is hauling the most powerful telescopic cam­era ever sent outward to scan another planet. That gear can spot rocks the size of a small desk.

MRO will chart water-related deposits in areas as small as a baseball infield. The Italian space agency supplied the mission with a radar designed to probe for buried ice and water.

Also, a weather camera will monitor the entire planet daily, while an infrared sounder is assigned the duty to gauge atmospheric temperatures and the movement of water vapor.

JPL’s Graf said that MRO will return more data than all previous Mars missions combined.

Read about it at Space.com

http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/20/adidas-clima-techfit-olympic-powersuits/

Either way, this is hella cool tech!

This is the kind of thing that makes me think that promise of jetpacks for everyone might not be such a distant dream after all! And it’s cheap too, check out the article.

http://www.space.com/news/060216_spaceport_update.html

http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/02/17/1357253.shtml

Full motion STAMPS!! I mean, seriously, that’s COOL! 12 frames on one stamp…

Thanks to Engadget on this one!

http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/16/first-full-motion-stamp-out-in-the-netherlands/

So Nasa decided spiders are the way to go. Apparently, this is only 1/4th the size of the final product, and they may even develop a “web” deployment system… and they don’t mean intarweb.

So, a giant robot spider 4 times the size of the one in the picture is going to be crawling on the outside of space craft and space stations to fix stuff… Let’s just hope they don’t decide to come back to Earth.

Linky! http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er_er/html/spider/index.html