What Is The 200 Year Mystery of Epsilon Aurigae?

Check out the latest findings to answer the 200 year old questions baffling astronomers.

Artist rendition of Epsilon Aurigae

From Denny: For a couple of centuries now astronomers have been baffled by the star Epsilon Aurigae (pronounced EP-si-lon au-RYE-gee). They have been frustrated to discover the reason why the brightness of the star always dims for about a two year period. The star's light fluctuates regularly in a cycle of about 27.1 years.

In the winter sky this time of year look up to see Polaris and to the northeast The Big Dipper. Now track along to Capella and just to the right of that is Epsilon Aurigae and it's quite faint. We are in that dim cycle for the star from 2009 to 2011.

Astronomy: Meteorite Grains Divulge Earth's Cosmic Roots

From Denny: A short article from the folks over at Science Daily. It seems like every few years there comes along a group of scientists telling us the Universe is either older or younger than previously thought. Who said Nature's laws are written in stone? Our maybe it's just our understanding is in a fluid state...

Pair of the grains Image via Wikipedia

Here's an excerpt:

"The interstellar stuff that became incorporated into the planets and life on Earth has younger cosmic roots than theories predict..."

"Heck and his colleagues examined 22 interstellar grains from the Murchison meteorite for their analysis. Dying sun-like stars flung the Murchison grains into space more than 4.5 billion years ago, before the birth of the solar system. Scientists know the grains formed outside the solar system because of their exotic composition."

For the rest of the article just click on the title link.

Brain: The Technology of Mind Reading

Animation of an MRI Brain Scan Image via Wikipedia

From Denny: Published last fall in Nature - and their academic snooze writing decoded by Psychology Today - come most curious findings from an fMRI study of human brain activity. It seems science is on the outside edges of being able to read your mind!

Right now researchers have been able to learn what a subject is looking at as long as it is a photo of a scene in nature. "Using fMRI, the investigators acquired a template response from each subject's visual cortex and then used this template to "decode" the brain's response to novel images," says Psychology Today.

How were the investigators able to decipher to a high degree of accuracy what the subjects were viewing? Using a computer algorithm they scanned the visual cortex of the subject. Basically, it came close to mind reading with a 92% accuracy.

In the experiment all the algorithm was required to do was look at the known brain activity and then proceed to choose from a known set of images to determine which one was the best match. The algorithm did not take the brain activity and then reconstruct what the subject was actually seeing - there is a difference here. If there was a large image library maybe some day the computer just might be able to do this reconstruction process and practically "read minds."

Written by Denny Lyon

Astronomy: A New Push to Turn Off the Lights in 2009

"Astronomers are fed up. One fifth of the world's population cannot see the Milky Way because street lamps and building lights are too bright. So scientists are mounting a new campaign, called Dark Skies Awareness, aiming to reduce light pollution as part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy.

"Reducing the number of lights on at night could help conserve energy, protect wildlife and benefit human health," astronomer Malcolm Smith of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile wrote in a commentary Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Smith points out that billions of dollars of light is needlessly shined into the sky each year. Beyond the waste of money and energy, this light is blocking people's view of the heavens.

"Without a direct view of the stars, mankind is cut off from most of the universe, deprived of any direct sense of its huge scale and our tiny place within it," Smith wrote.

Plus, lights confuse and harm wildlife. For example, millions of birds in North America die every year because their migration patterns are disrupted by errant light. And baby sea turtles hatched in the sand often mistakenly head toward cities, instead of the sea, because they are lured by artificial lights.

Preliminary research even suggests that light at night is harmful to human health, potentially reducing the normal production of melatonin in our bodies, which suppresses cell division in cancerous tissue."

By Clara Moskowitz

From Denny: Like a lot of people I'm all for conserving energy and not wasting it needlessly. When we vacationed in Greece a few years back we were astonished at how many stars we could see in the sky with the naked eye. Talk about feel cheated when we got back home to America and suburbia! I've often wondered if turning out the city lights could boost our ability to see the skies in more detail.

What I didn't know is how excessive light during the night hours may be the reason for the increase in cancer this generation. That's a sobering thought! Even if it is only part of the problem it is significant to consider changing.

soul on a sunbeam

soul on a sunbeam
Originally uploaded by sapaho

...I pick the prettiest part of the sky and I melt into the wing and then into the air, till I'm just soul on a sunbeam. ~ Richard Bach

The Artist Soul

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."

- Henry Ward Beecher

Photo by WTL photos @ flickr

Quote

"We are all in this together; one person's hunger is another's duty." - Bill Moyers May 2007

Photo by linda yvonne @ flickr