Tuesday 24 February 2015

Veil Nebula Case For The iPad Mini

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: international, astronomy, space, nasa, hubble, telescope, gift, outer space, deep space, star

Supernova discoveries are reported to the International Astronomical Union's Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, which sends out a circular with the name it assigns to it. The name is the year of discovery, immediately followed by a one or two-letter designation. The first 26 supernovae of the year are designated with a capital letter from A to Z. Afterward pairs of lower-case letters are used: aa, ab, and so on.[36] Since 2000, professional and amateur astronomers find several hundreds of supernovae each year (572 in 2007, 261 in 2008, 390 in 2009). For example, the last supernova of 2005 was SN 2005nc, indicating that it was the 367th[nb 1] supernova found in 2005.[37][38] Historical supernovae are known simply by the year they occurred: SN 185, SN 1006, SN 1054, SN 1572 (Tycho's Nova) and SN 1604 (Kepler's Star). Since 1885 the letter notation has been used, even if there was only one supernova discovered that year (e.g. SN 1885A, 1907A, etc.)—this last happened with SN 1947A. "SN", for SuperNova, is a standard prefix. Until 1987, two-letter designations were rarely needed; since 1988, however, they have been needed every year.

»visit the Nasaworld store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

SOHO sees something new near the sun: Comet survives close encounter

more »

An unusual comet skimmed past the sun on Feb 18-21, 2015, as captured by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO.

via Science Daily

Zazzle Space Exploration market place

Baking and Coating Substitutes for Frying Food

original post »

It looks, feels and tastes fried, but a baked coating developed by the University of Arkansas System Division

The post Baking and Coating Substitutes for Frying Food has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Vintage Astronomy, Phases of the Moon with Sun Print

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: vintage, moon, sun, celestial, sky, nostalgic, retro, earth, nostalgia, americana, antique celestial

Vintage illustration astronomy and celestial design featuring the different phases of the moon around the earth and the sun in a dark night sky.

»visit the YesterdayCafe store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

Kicking oil companies where it hurts: How to make fossil fuel divestment smarter

Science Focus

original post »

One of the most focused endeavors of the broader fight against climate change is the movement to demand divestment from fossil fuel companies. Specifically focused on institutional investors, divestment activists have been pressuring pension funds, university endowments, and others with significant holdings in the oil and gas sector to sell those shares (or bonds). This is a multi-pronged effort to raise awareness about how these industries fuel climate change, to divert that capital to low- and zero-carbon resources, and to deter future investment in oil and gas exploration.

As part of that campaign, February 13 and 14 have been designated Global Divestment Day(s), with hundreds of events organized by activist groups. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund — the largest in the world, built from the country's oil and gas wealth — has announced it would sell holdings in coal and mining companies that, in its estimation, represent an unacceptably high degree of climate-related investment risk. The fossil fuel companies under target are pushing back, with ad campaigns focused on the important role their products play in the global economy.

With these events as a backdrop, a new report from the American Security Project (ASP), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, casts a critical eye on the divestment movement. The report offers a sensible reminder of what fossil fuel divestment can and cannot do.

While divestment aims at supply-side solutions (trying to starve fossil fuel companies of the capital to fund new exploration and exploitation of reserves), it is beyond the scope of the divestment movement to address the demand side of the equation. Unlike the divestment in Big Tobacco (from which the current movement draws inspiration), coal, oil, and natural gas are not discretionary goods; they are critical to the global economy. Oil companies are not lying when they say people will still need to buy oil over the next 15 to 20 years. Replacements may be available on the horizon (paging Elon Musk), but supplying them at scale remains a challenge.

The financial impact of divestment also tends to be overstated. The ASP report and similar efforts, such as the Stranded Assets Programme at Oxford University, have demonstrated that complete divestment of university endowments from these holdings would, in the long run, have a negligible financial impact on the bottom lines of fossil fuel companies. Money would still flow into company coffers.

What's more, the universities and other organizations that divest could reasonably be accused of violating their fiduciary duty by forgoing money-making investments. That calculation will likely change as renewable-energy investments grow, especially with the proliferation of green bonds, but that market is still far from making steady gains year over year.

While the ASP report puts fossil fuel divestment in its proper place, it leaves open the question of whether the movement can be taken in a direction that is more useful to goals that both activists and analysts share.

Take the example of the Norwegian divestment. Its decision was not to divest from all fossil fuels. Instead, it is taking a measured approach that tries to identify the riskiest assets — and sell only those. Call it "divestment lite" — taking the well-intentioned motives behind divestment and deploying it in a much more targeted and tailored way. It will keep some assets that may be valuable in the intermediate term, but still send a signal to the market and public at-large that changes need to be made.

The ASP report rightfully points out one of the benefits of holding stocks in the first place: shareholder activism. To better leverage their activist network, fossil fuel divesters should follow the Norwegian model, focusing on the low-hanging fruit of coal, tar sands, and oil companies that are inadequately preparing their own businesses for future climate risk. Conversely, they should test the sincerity of companies such as Shell, and explore how to best work with them when their CEO says the oil sector needs to be more constructive in the debates over climate change solutions. Shell has been responsive to shareholder accountability efforts in the past, according to Reuters.

To the extent that the fight against climate change demands changes in a wide variety of consumer behaviors, fossil fuel divestment will have a role to play, even if its most vehement supporters may exaggerate its impact in order to rally support. Identifying better strategies for divestment campaigns will be a crucial factor in ensuring their effectiveness.

 
#science 
 » see original post http://theweek.com/articles/539059/kicking-oil-companies-hurts-makefossil-fuel-divestment-smarter
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Life might have gotten a boost from tiny pores in hot rocks

Science Focus

original post »

Humans have created a huge number of myths to account for the presence of life on Earth. It's only recently, however, that researchers have been able to investigate how the conditions on a primordial Earth could have generated molecules critical to life, such as proteins and DNA.

We've made lots of progress when it comes to understanding the chemistry that can create things like the individual bases of RNA, and shown that long RNA molecules can catalyze a variety of chemical reactions. But there's still a gap between the two; specifically, researchers haven't identified conditions that would allow individual RNA bases to condense into long chains that could potentially be catalytic.

Now, researchers have found conditions that would favor the replication and presence of longer nucleic acid sequences. They turn out to be remarkably simple: heat dissipation across an open rock pore. This sort of environment would have likely been widespread in the hot early Earth due to the presence of porous volcanic rock.

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

 
#science 
 » see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/DdBYkYd1Bkw/
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Rediscovering spontaneous light emission

Science Focus

original post »

Berkeley Lab researchers have developed a nano-sized optical antenna that can greatly enhance the spontaneous emission of light

The post Rediscovering spontaneous light emission has been published on Technology Org.

 
#physics 
 » see original post http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechnologyOrgPhysicsNews/~3/E6PYnvh-pzg/
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Unusual Plumes Above Mars

more »



Zazzle Space Gifts for young and old

Glowing Stellar Nurseries RCW120 Room Stickers

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: nebulae, gstlnrsr, breathtaking astronomy images, star nurseries, star clusters, ionised gas clouds, galaxies and stars, starfield rcw120, european southern observatory, star forming regions, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A fantastic astronomy picture featuring a colour composite image of RCW120.

It reveals how an expanding bubble of ionised gas about ten light-years across is causing the surrounding material to collapse into dense clumps where new stars are then formed.

The 870-micron submillimetre-wavelength data were taken with the LABOCA camera on the 12-m Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope. Here, the submillimetre emission is shown as the blue clouds surrounding the reddish glow of the ionised gas (shown with data from the SuperCosmos H-alpha survey). The image also contains data from the Second Generation Digitized Sky Survey (I-band shown in blue, R-band shown in red).

more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: gstlnrsr

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

NGC 602 bright stars Cover For The iPad Mini

Here's a great iPad case from Zazzle featuring a Hubble-related design. Maybe you'd like to see your name on it? Click to personalize and see what it's like!


tagged with: nasa, space, astronomy, shuttle, hubble, bright, star, starry, blue, nebula

NGC 602 is a young, bright open cluster of stars located in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. Radiation and shock waves from the stars have pushed away much of the lighter surrounding gas and dust that compose the nebula known as N90, and this in turn has triggered new star formation in the ridges (or "elephant trunks") of the nebula.

»visit the Nasaworld store for more designs and products like this
The Zazzle Promise: We promise 100% satisfaction. If you don't absolutely love it, we'll take it back!

New insight into how rubber is made could improve tires, reduce air pollution

original post »

People have been making rubber products from elastic bands to tires for centuries, but a key step in

The post New insight into how rubber is made could improve tires, reduce air pollution has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Nanotubes self-organize and wiggle

original post »

The second law of thermodynamics tells us that all systems evolve toward a state of maximum entropy, wherein

The post Nanotubes self-organize and wiggle has been published on Technology Org.

 
#materials 
See Zazzle gifts tagged with 'science'

Vintage Astronomy, Celestial Star Planisphere Map Poster

Here's a great poster featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: antique, constellations, retro, americana, nostalgia, nostalgic, vintage illustration, celestal map, star chart, astronomy, antique celestial

Vintage illustration astronomy and celestial map or star chart image featuring an antique planisphere of the constellations of the southern night sky including some signs of the zodiac by English mathematician and physician Thomas Hood (1556-1620). Created in 1590.

»visit the YesterdayCafe store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize with size, paper type etc.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place

The Cats Eye Nebula - Awesome Space Images Wall Decor

Here's a great wall decal featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, star nurseries, nebulae, tcenebnch, cats eye nebula, dying star, red giant evolution, stellar evolution, stars, hubble chandra images, nasa

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A gorgeous design featuring a composite image of the Cat's Eye nebula from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.
This famous nebula represents a phase of stellar evolution after a star like our Sun runs out of fuel. In this phase, a star becomes an expanding red giant and sheds some of its outer layers, eventually leaving behind a hot core that collapses to form a dense white dwarf star. A fast wind emanating from the hot core rams into the ejected atmosphere, pushes it outward, and creates the graceful filamentary structures.
more items with this image
more items in the Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series

image code: tcenebnch

Image credit: NASA/Chandra www.nasa.gov

»visit the HightonRidley store for more designs and products like this
Click to customize.
via Zazzle Astronomy market place