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2-Year Study of Polar Changes Set to Begin
By ANDREW C. REVKIN, The New York Times, February 26, 2007
Scientists from more than 60 countries are preparing to fan out around the North and South Poles in an ambitious two-year effort to understand the vital, shifting dynamics of ice, oceans and life at the ends of the earth.
With a budget of about $350 million spread over more than 120 projects, researchers will camp on drifting Arctic Ocean sea ice and trek to largely uncharted Antarctic mountains.
They will use gliding underwater robots, giant icebreaking ships, satellites and other technologies to explore polar climate, biology, geology and ocean chemistry, and they will undertake physics and astronomy studies that can be done only at the poles.
A central goal of the effort — called the International Polar Year despite its two-year timetable — is to clarify the role of greenhouse gases and global warming in the rapid changes that are already occurring at both poles.
( Read More )
A quasi-crystalline Penrose pattern at the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan, Iran.
In Medieval Architecture, Signs of Advanced Math
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, February 27, 2007
In the beauty and geometric complexity of tile mosaics on walls of medieval Islamic buildings, scientists have recognized patterns suggesting that the designers had made a conceptual breakthrough in mathematics beginning as early as the 13th century.
A new study shows that the Islamic pattern-making process, far more intricate than the laying of one’s bathroom floor, appears to have involved an advanced math of quasi crystals, which was not understood by modern scientists until three decades ago.
The findings, reported in the current issue of the journal Science, are a reminder of the sophistication of art, architecture and science long ago in the Islamic culture. They also challenge the assumption that the designers somehow created these elaborate patterns with only a ruler and a compass. Instead, experts say, they may have had other tools and concepts.
( Read More )
Spacecraft Closes In for a Look at Jupiter, With Pluto Next on the List
By WARREN E. LEARY, The New York Times, February 27, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — The New Horizons spacecraft, launched from Earth by NASA some 13 months ago, is moving in for a close encounter with Jupiter on Wednesday that should let it test its suite of instruments before being flung off toward the distant target of Pluto and its trio of moons.
The half-ton, atomic-powered robot craft is to make more than 700 observations of Jupiter and its four largest moons by June. A period of high-intensity observations began last Saturday and will peak after the craft makes its closest approach to Jupiter on Wednesday, passing 1.4 million miles from the center of the giant planet.
Jupiter’s gravity will accelerate the spacecraft by 9,000 miles per hour, flinging it toward Pluto at 52,000 miles per hour. Even with the speed boost, which knocks off three years of travel time, New Horizons will take eight more years to reach the Pluto system for a close-up look in July 2015, when Pluto will be 3 billion miles from Earth, a distance requiring almost four and a half hours for a radio signal to pass between them.
( Read More )
Christopher Peterson of the Glen Canyon Institute in the Escalante River in Utah. A high-water mark remains, halfway up the rock wall.
That ‘Drought’ in Southwest May Be Normal, Report Says
By CORNELIA DEAN, The New York Times, February 22, 2007
The Colorado River Basin is more prone to drought than had been thought, a panel of experts reported yesterday, and as the climate warms and the population in the region grows, pressure on water supplies will become greater.
The severe droughts the region suffered in the 1990s and early 2000s would not stand out in the record of the last few centuries, the panel said, and the future presents “a sobering prospect for elected officials and water managers.” The panel said residents of the region should prepare for more frequent and more severe dry spells, and “costly, controversial and unavoidable trade-offs” in water use.
( Read More )
By ANDREW C. REVKIN, The New York Times, February 26, 2007
Scientists from more than 60 countries are preparing to fan out around the North and South Poles in an ambitious two-year effort to understand the vital, shifting dynamics of ice, oceans and life at the ends of the earth.
With a budget of about $350 million spread over more than 120 projects, researchers will camp on drifting Arctic Ocean sea ice and trek to largely uncharted Antarctic mountains.
They will use gliding underwater robots, giant icebreaking ships, satellites and other technologies to explore polar climate, biology, geology and ocean chemistry, and they will undertake physics and astronomy studies that can be done only at the poles.
A central goal of the effort — called the International Polar Year despite its two-year timetable — is to clarify the role of greenhouse gases and global warming in the rapid changes that are already occurring at both poles.
( Read More )
A quasi-crystalline Penrose pattern at the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan, Iran.
In Medieval Architecture, Signs of Advanced Math
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, The New York Times, February 27, 2007
In the beauty and geometric complexity of tile mosaics on walls of medieval Islamic buildings, scientists have recognized patterns suggesting that the designers had made a conceptual breakthrough in mathematics beginning as early as the 13th century.
A new study shows that the Islamic pattern-making process, far more intricate than the laying of one’s bathroom floor, appears to have involved an advanced math of quasi crystals, which was not understood by modern scientists until three decades ago.
The findings, reported in the current issue of the journal Science, are a reminder of the sophistication of art, architecture and science long ago in the Islamic culture. They also challenge the assumption that the designers somehow created these elaborate patterns with only a ruler and a compass. Instead, experts say, they may have had other tools and concepts.
( Read More )
Spacecraft Closes In for a Look at Jupiter, With Pluto Next on the List
By WARREN E. LEARY, The New York Times, February 27, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — The New Horizons spacecraft, launched from Earth by NASA some 13 months ago, is moving in for a close encounter with Jupiter on Wednesday that should let it test its suite of instruments before being flung off toward the distant target of Pluto and its trio of moons.
The half-ton, atomic-powered robot craft is to make more than 700 observations of Jupiter and its four largest moons by June. A period of high-intensity observations began last Saturday and will peak after the craft makes its closest approach to Jupiter on Wednesday, passing 1.4 million miles from the center of the giant planet.
Jupiter’s gravity will accelerate the spacecraft by 9,000 miles per hour, flinging it toward Pluto at 52,000 miles per hour. Even with the speed boost, which knocks off three years of travel time, New Horizons will take eight more years to reach the Pluto system for a close-up look in July 2015, when Pluto will be 3 billion miles from Earth, a distance requiring almost four and a half hours for a radio signal to pass between them.
( Read More )
Christopher Peterson of the Glen Canyon Institute in the Escalante River in Utah. A high-water mark remains, halfway up the rock wall.
That ‘Drought’ in Southwest May Be Normal, Report Says
By CORNELIA DEAN, The New York Times, February 22, 2007
The Colorado River Basin is more prone to drought than had been thought, a panel of experts reported yesterday, and as the climate warms and the population in the region grows, pressure on water supplies will become greater.
The severe droughts the region suffered in the 1990s and early 2000s would not stand out in the record of the last few centuries, the panel said, and the future presents “a sobering prospect for elected officials and water managers.” The panel said residents of the region should prepare for more frequent and more severe dry spells, and “costly, controversial and unavoidable trade-offs” in water use.
( Read More )
