The immensity of it all still lingers...

Just some updates on what is going on on the Sourlands 8 days after hurricane Sandy.

It is SNOWING.  Many, many centimeters. We are having a freaking snowstorm, another nor'easter storm. I just heard the snowplow go by on the road outside, which is a very good sign.  (Both that it is a plow and that it is on a truck, i.e., trucks can get into the neighborhood now).

Our neighbors have their power back, it was fixed tonight.  We got internet back around the same time, which is pretty amazing.  The power and internet companies must actually have collaborated. Most likely the neighborhood is now accessible by fire trucks and the like.  They weren't this morning, but if they fixed the lines, then now, after 8 days, we can feel safer.  One road is probably still closed, but they are working on that too. Many of our neighbors do not have power yet though, because their powerlines were ripped out of their houses when trees feel on them.  It will take longer for them and I feel really sorry about all their troubles. The township has gotten lots of letters and calls from us about the situation, and it actually made a difference.  Good.

Bad news - Election results show that the two open seats on the township committee were won by the two republicans.  They won with only 50 votes more than the Democratic candidates, out of over 9000 votes cast.  Incredible. So, two more years of republicans running the town.  (Voting results for the Somerset county is here, and yes, Obama won in the county too.)  There is always The Swedish Party as an alternative for disillusioned Americans  :)
Very good news - Obama won the presidency again.  As someone said 'The republicans made sure that Obama would become a 2-term president'.  Presidents here can only be elected for 2 terms, so now he can focus on doing the right thing and not get reelected.  Like, put some bank fraud CEO's in jail, etc. :)  Mitt Romney seems to have disappeared instantaneously.  

The NJ railroad system suffered horrible losses.  Just look at the railroad bridge after the storm in the photo above (more info here).  Apparently they lost 1/3 of their locomotives and 1/4 of their passenger cars in the storm.  Imagine that.  That must be many hundreds of locomotives that are gone, so the commute to New York City will be hell for many months for many people.

I believe that the mental effects of Sandy will live on for decades in New Jersey.  People will try to be more self-sufficient.  Have more gasoline and generators ready. Get water bottles. Take weather reports seriously.  Value friends and family more.  Not trust township administrators and politicians as much.  Friends and relatives of friends of mine have lost everything.  Whole houses that washed away, and all that is left is a foundation.  Some people got their cars flooded.  Trees on roofs that cracked houses.  Horrific storm night memories, with fear of breaking windows in high-rises in NYC.  Children that lost everything.  It is just so incredibly sad, and maybe a fact of life because weather does exist and always have, but it seems so incredibly wasteful and sad.  I am sorry I am harping on on this, the hurricane I mean, but the rest of the world goes on, and we see it and are reminded about Sandy all the time.  Even if electric and internet and gasoline is soon back to normal, the New Jersey world has changed, permanently.  And so have we.

And finally, just some images to really show how big this storm was. 

(Image by NASA - more photos of Sandy from NASA here)

 

(Image by wunderground.com, a weather website)

(Image by NOAA)

Congratulations LA!

Guess who got into a competitive astrophysics summer program today!?

Here is the Cat's Eye Nebula for you!  (Image from NASA)

Venus is a tiny planet...

...when you see it in front of the sun.

Image from NASA taken today during the Venus transit from the International Space Station. Click on the image to read more about this amazing event.

I like this image too, also from NASA. 

The most farfetched advent calender ever

Count down to Christmas with Hubble telescope images: LINK


Source: Hubblesite.org

This is just amazing, I love it!  (thanks IS, for the link). The photo above is of the Crab Nebula.

Hurricane Irene from the International space station...

Hurricane Irene (NASA, International Space Station, 08/24/11), originally uploaded by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

That cloud vortex is just incredible...

Are we there yet?

Now, THIS is worth reading.  Fantastic.

This is the truth...

...but we so often forget this. 

{I don't know who made this art or took the photo, if you did and see this, then send us a note so we can give you credit. This image is all over the internet now.}

Ponderings about now and the future

Here are some thoughts I wrote down while flying on a plane recently just after reading about the last ever NASA shuttle mission taking off...  (Update and clarification - the quoted text is what I wrote myself that day on a scrap of paper, so I am quoting myself.)

"Nobody dares to think big anymore, to dream about the future of mankind.  There is no more manned space exploration, no more belief in world peace and prosperity.

Instead we hunker down, focus on our families and homes, and we distrust politicians, government, and the future.  We can pickles, grow vegetables, save money, are happy to have any kind of job at all, and become more and more disillusioned with how the world works.

We mentally run away from the scary reality of joblessness, climate and weather disasters, the latest reports of food-borne illnesses or worldly disasters by focusing on the small and the personal - update Facebook, take a photo and post it on Flickr, and write about our kids on our blogs.  Or follow 'reality' shows on TV as entertainment, shows that are as far removed from reality as you can get.  

You want a reality show?  Follow a newly graduated PhD trying to get a job.  Or a person trying to communicate with a mortgage broker or customer service rep from GE. Or survive a several day blackout during an ice storm in New Jersey, without electricity, internet, or cell phones.  Most people would despair.   

People use their iphones and other smart internet-connected toys as teddy bears and security blankets to feel relevant, safe and comfortable, but this is so far from the real truth as you can get. This need for false connectedness is like a drug that make you waste your time and not be part of the real reality.

People are desperate, disillusioned, depressed, degraded and (sometimes) deranged. Nobody, except the fools and the overoptimistic, believes that the future is better than now.  And now is not really good in the world."

So, what do we do about this?  How do we make the world a better place?  I hear people all the time say: "There is nothing we can do", "The politicians will never change anything".   But we have to do something or we are just giving up, right?  But what?  The first step is to recognize problems and then to talk about them and then do something about them.  But do what?  I don't know.  I live in a country where the common sense doesn't seem welcome among politicians anymore.

Note - the text above are about general people, not about any particular persons or families.   I am describing the realities I see, not criticizing anybody for feeling a certain way. Believe me, I understand the despairs. But maybe our motto should be "Get real" or "Be real".  That would be a good thing.

Fascinating sunrays

Tangled up Active Region [hd video], originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

Check out this video posted by NASA on Flickr. Isn't it amazing?

Our brains are lying to us

I just read this:

"the human mind is superb at seeing pattern, even when it doesn't exist, [...], and the human mind in contrast often has trouble seeing actual patterns in multidimensional space"  

[Curtis Clark on Taxacom]

...and it is so true.  Examples are sayings such as 'bad things come in three' (they don't, statistically).  Our brain is fooling us at times, and other times, we cannot just grasp the immense patterns in 3-dimensional space and time.  Just try to understand the universe...

Bits and pieces from the internet, D edition

Some more wanderings around the internet, with stops linked by D....

Dips, Chips, Wings, and Things:  It has been Superbowl Sunday here in the USA, which is something the rest of the world and certainly this household could care less about (well, AREA watched it a friends).  People (about 150 million) watch the two top football teams fight over the Superbowl award on TV, while eating snack food in enormous amounts (ALL the food magazines and food websites had special recipes just for this Sunday).  One of the most anticipated events are the special ads that are made for this event, which cost each advertiser about $3 million dollars for 1 min or so. We didn't see the Superbowl, but we did see some of the ads on the internet afterwards, and these two stood out...

Detroit: A city in northern USA ravaged by the manufacturing crisis during the last 30 years at least, and home to many famous car brands, many now defunct.  It is high crime, high unemployment, and has many social and infrastructure problems.  But it has seen a great revival, and Chrysler showed it off in their ad.
From a blogpost about the ad: "...Chrysler managed — in just two minutes — to make me cry, think, feel proud, question my Toyota, and want to hug the entire city of Detroit while screaming the lyrics to I’m Proud to Be an American. That roller coaster of emotion aside, the spot also managed to reaffirm my values and beliefs as a preservationist. " (link to whole blog post by Jason Clement on PreservationNation).  And some more about Detroit here if you like.

Darth Vader: A toddler-sized Darth Vader was the best ad during the Superbowl, I think.  Another car they (Volkswagen) wanted us to buy, but who cares? it made you laugh, especially the parody of the ad, which was online in less than an hour, I bet.  These ads are like when you went to Swedish movies and you made sure you never missed the ads in the beginning because they were fun and cool and different...and one reason you went to the movies (true!). This was before there were ads on Swedish TV channels, so the only moving ads you ever saw were at the movie theater or in newspapers and magazines.  I still remember some of the classic Swedish movie ads from 30-40 years ago. Oh, and Volkswagen's second Superbowl commercial is perfect for the entomologists! See the black beetle here.

Design in old biological diaramas at The Biological Museum (Biologiska Museet) in Sweden - how about a nice chair in the middle of the forest with a bear?  Quite great, unexpected, and fun! I bet this old-fashioned museum are getting some new visitors based on this exhibit. Look at the last picture too, it shows the museum building from the outside in its great national-romanticism glory around the end of the 1800s. I think it is supposed to be reminiscient of an old, old stav church from Western Scandinavia.

Drag something new around your arm:  "Sixteen ways to use your arm now when watches are obsolete"  My favorite was the small game trophy and the cross stitch, which is yours?

And, there is more Dust in the world than ever.  

The scale of the universe

This is just enormously cool:  link

Around the Solar System by The Big Picture

New images from our Earth and the space surrounding us, by Boston.com here. For everybody but especially for LA.

horizon and islands - update from NJ

horizon and islands, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Friday night post from New Jersey - the boys in the family are watching a hilarious 1980s movie, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, which I tried to watch but gave up on, all the homemade pizza is gone (either eaten or in the fridge for lunch tomorrow), my virus-infected computer might be rescuable (yeah!), and I have been uploading some more photos from the Sweden trip here in the kitchen while listening to the excessive and funny sound effects of the banzai movie.

Here is the ocean, as it looks when you look eastwards toward Finland from the Gävle area in Sweden. Those islands are Swedish, not Finnish :)  I had lunch here with my family, looking out over the ocean and thinking about infinity and space...

Outside the heat is on, it is probably around 25 degrees Celsius still and humid, and the grasshoppers and katydids are still going crazy with their noises. We have caught 7 mice in 48 hours inside our house and there are still many more to catch - that is what happens when you let your inside cats move outside...

Yesterday and the day before we saw migrating dragonflies here at home - there is a species here that migrates like a bird or monarch butterflies.

Mornings are turning cool, finally, and it is time to plant garlic and spinach for harvest next year. It is far to the first frost night, but the owls are howling their noses off at night, especially during the full moon the last couple of nights.

Bits and pieces

Maybe life in Earth started between thin sheets of mica ('glimmer' in Swedish).  I remember pulling thin sheets of muscovite (muskovit) mica apart at some of the old mines we visited when we were kids, thinking they were like layered bendable glass. I was told that in previous times people had used mica as 'windows' on their woodstoves for that reason, but I am not sure if it is true.  Scientists don't know if the mica theory is true either, but it is certainly a fascinating hypothesis that the first cells developed between thin mica layers. Read more here...

This is what global warming looks like. = now. (the link is to a pdf, check out the map on the second page.  Scary.)  And today's climate is getting more and more similar to Ordovician climates.

In the beginning, we were all wanderers... (Carl Sagan tribute)

Happy Birthday, LA and the Earth...

Congratulations on Earth Day, and congratulations to LA with a vision of the Biggest Bang there ever was, maybe... or have there been many big bangs?  The universe is amazing.

Timeless image?

Now, THIS is beautiful! "The beautiful hourglass-shaped nebula Sharpless 2-106 shines with brilliant colors in this new image from the Gemini North telescope." Read more here.

Pandora is heaven for biologists

Over the Christmas break I saw the 3-D movie Avatar with the kids, and loved it. OK, I admit, I only saw it because I was told that Sigourney Weaver played a botanist. But, it turned out to be a really good movie.

But what surprised me most was that they must have employed some real biologists to work on the movie (see article here). Animals, fungi, and plants were based on shapes and forms that exist on Earth, just in new compositions, combinations, and colors. Take a spiral algae from the ocean and put it on a tree branch in the rain forest. Aquatic hydra colonies are becoming branched fungi. Animals are still vertebrates, but are hexapods instead of tetrapods.

Everything is connected, like a large Gaia, and luminous, like feelings and neurons showing of light. Of course, as a botanist, I can't help think about what they didn't change. Tree trunks and branches are the same, fern leaves and palm stems are just like on Earth - someone needs to do some biometric studies to see if this is likely (especially since humans can't breath the air, but everything else can). But I think it is more a fact of that it is easy to create large masses of green with palm and fern leaves, they are so easily fractalized and scaled up or down.

Seeds that swim like fluorescent jellyfishes in the air - gorgeous!







Of course there was lots of violent action, bad people vs. good people, story lines from Fern Gully, Pocahontas, Save the Earth, Greenpeace, the Iraq War crazy president we finally got rid off, and grassroot heroes. But the real take-home message was: Life is beautiful. That Sigourney Weaver is a botanist is just mentioned once ('she is famous, she write THE flora of Pandora"), but science and biodiversity is portrayed in an unusually accurate way. You can read more about this aspect in this great article in New York Times. (And here is a kind-of-stupid article as a contrast.)

The universe is in our blood

Galaxies, from the Hubble telescope (photo: NASA)

I grew up with the synth-pop band Adolphson & Falk in the 1980s in Sweden, and even if I have loved their music from the beginning I never really realized until recently how scientific and astronomic it is. After seeing the nebulas, stars and galaxies last night, this is suddenly put in some perspective. I think there is life on Mars! What do you think?

Some lyrics from the song 'Vidare' [Further] on the album 'Med rymden i blodet' [With the universe in our blood]

Vi söker efter ljus igenom teleskopen. [We look for lights through the telescopes]
Vi letar efter liv där andra solar rår. [We search for life where other suns rule]
Vi sänder ut ett rop och lyssnar efter ekon. [We send out a shout and listen for echos]
Vi sträcker ut vår tro så långt det nånsin går. [We stretch our belief, as far as possible]
Vi drivs att finna svar, att se igenom illusioner, [We are driven to find answers, see through illusions]
att sträva mot en gräns i en oändlighet, [to aim for a border in an infinity]
att lösa varje del av universums ekvationer [to solve all parts of the universe's equations]
för att stilla för en stund vår vetgirighet. [to calm for a moment our quest for knowledge]
Vi söker vidare, [We seek further,]
vi vill inte stå kvar [we don't want to be left behind]
med en syn på vår omvärld [with a view of our world]
som är begränsad och smal. [that is restricted and narrow]
Vi vill se vidare [We want to see further]
förbi kända perspektiv. [behind known perspectives.]
Vi har rymden i blodet. [We have the universe in our blood.]
Den är en del av vårt liv. [It is a part of our life.]
Likt äventyrens skepp som besegrat oceaner, [Like the explorers' ship that conquered oceans,]
sänder vi vårt hopp på en hoppfull färd. [we send our hope out on a hopeful quest.]
Vi låter tanken sväva runt i galaxernas banor [We let our thought float around in the orbit of the galaxies]
och letar kunskap om oss själva i varje främmande värld. [and look for knowledge about ourselves in every foreign world.]
För även du och jag består av stoft från en stjärna [Because even you and I, consist of dust from a star]
liksom varje planet som snurrar okänd och skymd. [like every planet swirling unknown and hidden.]
Fast vi är ljusår från varann står vi varann så nära, [Even if we are light years apart, we are so close,]
för vi är alla barn av en och samma rymd. [because we are all children of the one and same universe.]

They also made songs about standing radio waves, binary numbers, etc. ... :) I can't find this song on youtube, but there is another one, Krafter vi aldrig känner ["Powers we never feel", about gravity]. This reminds me a lot of Harry Martinsson's Aniara, written in the 1950s, a classic long poem about a starship looking for a new planet after humanity has destroyed the earth. I grew up reading science fiction (Asimov, Heinlein, etc.), and with the new data about methane on Mars and water on the moon I am starting to think we are coming full circle... Science is really an amazing thing and we are living in really interesting times.

What we did tonight...

We saw...

The Pleiades (Plejaderna), the photo above (source: Hubble telescope, NASA), The Orion Nebula, Mizar and Alcor, twin stars in the Big Dipper (Karlavagnen), The Andromeda Galaxy, and the Beehive Cluster, with a 12-inch telescope at the department of Astrophysics at Princeton University. It was a great night! My favorite was the Orion nebula.