How the Americas may have been settled

via Livescience, a little more regarding the new theory of how early American natives settled the New World. While it does not change the early notion of people migrating over the Bering Strait land bridge during the last global Ice Age, it certainly does modify it substantially. In short, the new idea is that the migration occurred in three phases.

The first phase was one in which people migrated into the area of the land bridge, called Beringia, around 40,000 years ago, following migratory game. While not sedentary, these early hunters more or less stayed in this region for around 20,000years as the routes through the Rocky Mountains were blocked by the substantial glaciation taking place at that time. As these glaciers began to melt and passes opened through the mountains and along the coast, people migrated south approximately 15,000 years ago. As the glaciers continued to melt, the Beringian "homeland" slipped under the sea 10-11,000 years ago. So how did the researchers reach these conclusions? DNA.

"DNA allows scientists to deduce the history of populations. For instance, mutations that all New World populations have in common with each other and no one else means they share a common ancestry, suggesting there was just one wave of migration into the Americas, as opposed to several unrelated waves. However, the molecular evidence was confusing as to when this wave of migration took place. DNA accumulates mutations over time, serving like a clock, but some DNA suggested people came to the New World about 13,000 years ago, while other sequences hinted at 30,000 or more years ago."

The long wait on the doorstep of the Americas neatly explains both the DNA evidence and the apparent lack of artifacts from the earliest time period - even if the relatively small population of this group of prehistoric people did leave any artifacts behind, they are likely now underwater. Obviously, conditions today in this region of the world make finding such artifacts a daunting task, one which very few researchers (if any) have attempted to tackle.

Shuttle Preps for Landing

via Space.com. the Space Shuttle Atlantis is preparing for a Florida landing tomorrow after a very successful ission to deliver a key European laboratory module to the International Space Station.

"Atlantis' seven-astronaut crew is due to land at 9:07 a.m. EST (1407 GMT) on a runway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., here to conclude a successful 13-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The astronauts delivered the European Space Agency's (ESA) 1.4 billion euro ($2 billion) Columbus laboratory to the ISS and swapped out one member of the station's three-person crew."

All of the mission's goals were completed successfully despite the illness of German astronaut Hans Schlegel, who missed out on one of the mission's three spacewalks. The orbiter returns American ISS crewmember Dan Tani, who was replaced on the ISS by French astronaut Leopold Eyharts.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: [talking to Alan on the balcony] The only thing to be scared of son is tomorrow. I don't live for tomorrow. Never saw the fun in it.

Larry's Back on the Bandwagon

Kudlow's issues from last week have been favorably resolved with some new numbers for both manufacturing and retail sales.

"To get a true recession reading, the production index would have to fall for 4 to 6 months in a row. That’s not happening. Despite some monthly declines over the past half year, the production reading for January was 114.2 -- exactly where it was in July and September of last year. Looking inside the January index, there was a 0.3 percent increase for consumer-goods production and a 0.4 percent rise for business equipment. Both are solid numbers.

Meanwhile, the just-released January retail sales report defied the recessionistas with a better-than-expected 0.3 percent gain. Retail sales are climbing at a 2.7 percent annual rate over the past 3 months and a 3.9 percent rate over the past year."

He alos goes on to note the very strong export numbers from December, $144 billion, and also notices that the export sector is now fully responsible for 1/3 of the US economy - Wow. While the recently passed stimulus package has a lot of issues, the temporary expensing of capital investments, along with the strong Fed rate moves hold promise for a much stronger Q2.

GM Volt Concept Car

LiveScience reports on the futuristic GM concpet car called the Volt. The interesting feature of the car is its throwback engine design - it runs on rechargable electric batteries and uses its engine to recharge them, much like old WWI and WWII submarines did before the advent of nuclear power.

"They have taken the way that the automobile industry thinks about hybrid cars, and turned it on its ear," said Michelle Krebs, editor at Edmunds AutoObserver.com. "If you don't drive far, you may never need gasoline. No other major car maker had done this." Most hybrid cars, she noted, retain a connection between the engine and the wheels, and use the electric motor to supplement the gasoline engine."

The Volt owns lithium ion batteries holding 16 kw hours of energy, powering a 120 kw motor enabling a zero to 60 time of 8.5 seconds, and allowing a driving range of over 40 miles, more than enough for most commutes, on just half the battery power. The car could be recharged in around 8 hours with a 110 volt outlet, which would you around 88 cents at the average electrical price today. With a 12 gallon tank of gasloline and a charged battery, you would have a theoretical range of 640 miles - or 53 miles per gallon. One technical hurdle yet to overcome, however, is how to disperse heat generated by the batteries, but GM is hoping to be able to have the car in its production lineup by 2010.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: What's your specialty?
Dr. Allen Konigsberg: Couples' counseling. I first saw the client and his wife together. Since the divorce I've been working with him alone.
Alan Shore: So they came to you to improve their relationship, and now one wants to kill the other. Not your best work, was it, doctor?

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: Did my client tell you that this drug is unapproved by the FDA?
Mark Harrison: Yes.
Denny Crane: Did he tell you that, ah, there could be side effects?
Mark Harrison: Yes.
Denny Crane: You were fully informed.
Mark Harrison: I was.
Denny Crane: You consented.
Mark Harrison: I did.
Denny Crane: Take it again?
Mark Harrison: Absolutely.
Denny Crane: Like the doctor?
Mark Harrison: Love him.
Denny Crane: How's your memory?
Mark Harrison: My memory's fine.
Denny Crane: What's my name?
Mark Harrison: Denny Crane.
Denny Crane: Like you mean it!
Mark Harrison: Denny Crane!
Denny Crane: What's my name?
Mark Harrison: [shouts] Denny Crane!
Denny Crane: No further questions.

Econ Watch

Larry Kudlow takes a look at the recent economic numbers at his place and finds some very disturbing trends - when Larry says things are looking bleak, you really have to worry. I know of no bigger bullhorn touting the economic positives for the current administration.

Jobs, industrial production, personal income and manufacturing and trade numbers all show a peak late last year, with mild declines from those peaks. Ouch. We may already be in a mild recessionary period. The good news is that the last two recessions only lasted 8 months - the bad news is there is an election coming up.

Historical Markets

Arnold Kling over at TCS had a nice column last week about the economic benefits of a "great power" enforcing the peace. In short, such a power, or hegemon, is necessary for the benefits of trade and exchange to take place between the peoples of the globe.

"Trade flourishes under hegemony. That is the lesson I took from Power and Plenty, a dense, arduous survey of economic history written by Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O'Rourke. In addition to the Mongol empire, they describe the increased trade under the hegemonies of the Romans, the Muslim Caliphate, and various dynasties in China and Latin America during the first millenium. Of course, the most recent example of trade under hegemony has been what Walter Russell Mead in God and Gold calls the maritime powers of Great Britain and the United States.

It makes sense once you think about it. Disparate peoples can coexist in three ways: in isolation, under hegemony, or at war. In the absence of hegemony, peaceful intercourse is an elusive ideal."

Kling notes that geopgraphic isolation has been the norm throughout most of human history, sometimes due not only to vast intervening distances between cultures but also at times through political or military reasons, such as Tokugawa Japan. This isolation generally results in economic and technological inferiority to those cultures that embrace trade and exchange. Whenever and however a major power asserts itself over a wide region, trade begins to flourish within that region, and often between regional hegemons - the hegemon(s) prevent pirates, bandits and the like from stealing a merchant's goods.

Where I disagree with the column is in the appendix, where Kling argues (fairly well, I might add) that the market economy to which we have become accustomed is a relatively recent phenomenon. He suspects that most households throughout history produced their own goods for internal use, with relatively small amounts for exchange. He also states that most people over the historical frame weren't just illiterate, but innumerate - they wouldn't be able to count or estimate much past their fingers. I would agree with this to a some degree - but depending on the time period, location and the culture in question, there would be some notable exceptions to this thesis.

He also refers to what he calls the production/plunder ratio - with few people involved in the production of goods for exchange, he believes the markets that archaeologists find in ancient cities were generally empty except when the legions came home from foreign adventures. He also believes that cities shrank dramatically in population whenever the legions weren't returning with this plunder, becoming far smaller than their geographic size would indicate. I'd agree this would certainly happen at times, but ignores that these hegemonic entities were often regional powers for quite lengthy periods, often hundreds of years. All historical polities have undergone an expansion, stability and contractionary decline phase - perhaps even our own will do so in the coming century as places such as India, China and Brazil modernize.

He believes the ratio of production to plunder is much higher in modern societies, and I would have to agree - the productivity gains over the last ten or so generations has been unprecedented. However, I wouldn't say that there were no periods in which a market economy took place before this period. He notes that urbanization is the opposing force to his thesis, but appears to believe it wasn't widespread for very long anywhere. I'd say there are several instances when it was, and we often have either the written records or the remains to prove it.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: Did something happen? Was I in the room when it happened?

Early Egyptian Farm Settlement Found

via National Geographic, the earliest settlement in Egypt showing evidence of agriculture has been found in the Faiyum area SW of Cairo. Dating back to around 5200 BC, the village shows evidence of domesticated livestock and cereal grains.

"Just centimeters beneath the modern plowed surface, in an area that had been used until recently to grow grapes, the researchers discovered evidence of structures, such as clay floors, and hearths containing homegrown wheat grain and barley.

Also unearthed were the remains of sheep, goats, and pigs—which, along with the grains, were imported from the Middle East."

The exciting part of the find is the stratigraphy is around a meter deep - meaning that archaeologists can track changes at the site over a significant period of time, perhaps as long as a couple of thousand years. Earlier finds near the site discovered evidence of agriculture, but the finds also have habitation sites, which could shed light on precisely when the livestock and grains were introduced to the area, and how tool use in Egypt may have evolved. Finds include potttery, shells, jewelry, flints, grinding stones and a very unique find - an unfired clay vessel, the first from this era to be discovered.

The other major impact of the find will be the view it gives us of Egypt's interactions with other areas of the Near East and the trade relationships between these cultures. Agricultural domestication appears to have started around 9000 BC in Mesopotamia and the "package" including both plants and animals combining with a more sedentary lifestyle began around 7000 BC. There is a new focus on discovering the routes and timelines of the diffusion of this package outside the region. The discovery of shells from the Red Sea at the site does give a slight clue that this agricultural lifestyle may have migrated overland via the Sinai, but also could have been transmitted from seafarers voyaging through the Mediterranean.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: [addressing a Canadian court] Oh, yes, mindful that abroad people tend to expect shock and awe when Yankees arrive on the scene, we shall leave you with two small but lasting words.
Denny Crane: Denny Crane, eh?

Oldest Galaxy Discovered

via Livescience, the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered an incredibly ancient and distant galaxy - likely one of the very first to form after the Big Bang that originated the universe, around 13 million years ago just 700 million years after universe began.

"Since the galaxy is so far away, its light took ages to reach us, so what we see now is a snapshot of how this galaxy looked 13 billion years ago. At that point in time, the galaxy would have been newly formed, so the new observations provide a baby picture.

"We certainly were surprised to find such a bright young galaxy 13 billion years in the past," said astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, a member of the research team. "This is the most detailed look to date at an object so far back in time.""

While the Hubble usually can't see such distant and old objects, it got an assist from an unlikely source: the huge mass of the galactic cluster Abel 1869, whose gravity acts as a giant magnifying glass by bending the light from more distant object around it. The new galaxy, called A1689-zD1, is at just the right location for this gravitational lensing to produce the maximum magnification.

Very cool.

Boston Legal Quotes

Judge Sean O'Byrne: I find it insulting to be lectured by an American about the environment.
Denny Crane: Watch it, judge, we're a superpower. Don't make us add you to the axis.

McCain's Running Mate

Jennifer Rubin at Human Events and Club for Growth President Pat Toomey (at the Wall St Journal) start the McCain Vice Presidential watch, along with a host of others at various blog spots. Among the possible candidates, there are four very general groupings:

One of the other Presidential candidates, such as Fred!, Rudy, Mitt or Mike, or even past Presidential candidate Steve Forbes - possible but thought to be unlikely. I'd have to agree, although I could see one or more being asked to serve on a McCain cabinet, particularly the first two or Forbes.

Another current or former Senator or Congressman - names being bandied about include SC Senator Jim DeMint, former TX Senator Phil Gramm, IN Rep. Mike Pence, former CA Rep (and SEC commiteeman) Chris Cox or even OH Rep. Jay Boehner. Again, I see maybe Gramm in cabinet position, while the others currently in Congress remaining in the legislative branch where they can better influence policy.

Then there are the Governors - MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty, SC Gov. Mark Sanford, MS Gov. Haley Barbour, FL Gov Sharlie Christ, and former Govs Bill Owens of CO and Frank Keating of OK. This might be the place the pick originates from, giving the ticket access to some executive level experience, with Pawlenty and the two southerners having the inside track in both placating conservatives and provide some regional balance and putting Blue/Purple states (MN, IA, WI if it's Pawlenty) into possible play. Christ is more of a dark horse possibility, and the two former politicos are fairly unlikely as well. Pawlenty is the co-chair of McCain's campaign, so he may have the inside track, but Barbour or Sanford would also be very attractive in the slot as well.

Then there is the diversity group - former MD Lt Gov. Michael Steele, former OH Lt Gov Ken Blackwell, AK Gov. Sarah Palin, LA Gov Bobby Jindal, former OK Rep JC Watts, TX Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson or Sec of State Condi Rice. Unless Obama wins the Democratic nomination, any of these appear more likely to be cabinet or agency level appointments. Jindal and Plain are unlikely due to being relativley inexperienced, Hutchinson would only be attractive if Hillary gets the nomination, and the former Lt Govs and Watts probably only make sense if the opponent is Obama, although I think highly of all of the gentlemen, particularly Steele. Condi is quite unlikely, but gives the double whammy of black and female.

It should be interesting to see what happens at convention time.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: You're one of those environmental lawyers?
Peter Barrett: Is there something wrong with that?
Denny Crane: They're evildoers. Yesterday it's a tree, today it's a salmon, tomorrow it's, "Let's not dig up Alaska for oil because it's too pretty." Let me tell you something, I came out here to enjoy nature, don't talk to me about the environment.
Alan Shore: All reality, none of it scripted

Shuttle Atlantis Finally Lifts Off

Via ScienceDaily, the long delayed flight of the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off this morning on its mission to deliver the European Space Agency's primary contribution to the International Space Station, the Columbus laboratory module.

"Columbus was onboard NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis when it lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 20:45 CET today. For this one-way trip to Earth orbit, Columbus is in the expert hands of a crew of seven astronauts, including two members of the European astronaut corps: Léopold Eyharts of France and Hans Schlegel of Germany."

The docking with the ISS is schedule for tomorrow, with the unloading of the module from the shuttle's cargo bay, along with the attendent space walk, scheduled for Sunday. Two additional space walks will conducted to commission the module. The shuttle will undock on February 16 and is scheduled to return to Earth in Florida two days later.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: [to Tara] Hello, I'm a complete stranger and I'm here to pick you up.
[notices Joe]
Alan Shore: Oh, I see, there's two of us. I'll be evens, you be odds.
Joe: You got a problem?
Alan Shore: No, actually. I just saw this fair maiden here talking to a tree trunk, and since I'm an arborist I thought I could help translate.
Joe: Here's a health tip. Walk away.
Alan Shore: Why would I do that?
Tara Wilson: All right, guys.
Alan Shore: Don't be deceived by my cushy appearance.
Tara Wilson: Excuse me. I actually am with him.
Joe: I don't care. Walk away, or I lay you out.
Alan Shore: I don't mean to be a stickler, but isn't the object to lay her out?
[Joe punches Alan]
Tara Wilson: Hey!
Joe: Oh, gee, I'm sorry, I was reaching for my wallet...
Alan Shore: I see. Allow me to reach for mine.
[walks away to the other end of the bar]
Tara Wilson: Are you all right?
Alan Shore: Fine.
[to Mike and friends]
Alan Shore: Hello, big people. Sorry to intrude, but you seem rather strapping. Here's three hundred dollars. Would you be so kind as to go hit that man down there?
Mike: [laughs incredulously] Really?
Tara Wilson: Alan!
Alan Shore: There's an extra hundred if he goes down.
Mike: You're on.
Alan Shore: Make it a good one.
Tara Wilson: Oh, for God's sakes.
Alan Shore: [Mike hits Joe; fistfight ensues. Alan gives money to Mike's friend] Here's a hundred; go help your friend.
Alan Shore: [watches the fighting] Gee, seems Joe has buddies.
[passing out money to Mike's friends]
Alan Shore: One for you, one for you. I've got plenty of them. Hit him hard, now. For you, and for you...

Husker Recruiting

Bo Pelini's first recruiting class of 28 has signed, complete list at the above link from Huskerpedia. Nine recruits out of the Lone Star state, a pair out of Bama, three from Cali, a pair from Cajun country, six in-staters, and single recruits out of FL, GA, IA, KS, MO and OH (from Cardinal Mooney High). One service rated it 21st, the other 30th. Pretty good for a staff thrown together on pretty short notice.

Pretty well rounded class on paper, but as the coach says, we won't really know until two to three years down the road. Defensively, we add a couple of corners, two or three safeties (depending on which side of the ball in-stater John Levorson of Crete lands), four or five backers, and at least three defensive linemen, although super recruit Baker Steinkuhler out of Lincoln SW may also play defense.

On offense, we signed a QB, three RBs (including Omaha Westside's Collins Okafor), three or four wideouts, a couple of TEs (including Coach Cotton's son Ben) and four offensive linemen. We also have two "athletes" on the list. Of course, these are just the 28 scholarship athletes, Coach Bo also has 30(!) in state walk-ons committed to the program - out of the 31 in-state players targetted by the staff, they closed on all but one. As the coach himself puts it, the significance of the walk-on program cannot be overstated - via an article at HuskerExtra:

"“Most of the walk-ons are coming from the state of Nebraska,” he said. “They come from towns, from areas that have a love for the state, the university and our football program. And the more people you bring into a culture that have strong beliefs about something and have a strong commitment and want-to, it’s going to make you stronger in the future.”

Yep, I do believe the man "gets it". And on a related note, I bought tickets to the Spring Game for the first time in my life - five days after seeing my first NU hoops game at Devaney on Saturday. While the gridiron will always be #1, I do believe it's time for me to step up and support the program better now that the four year nightmare is over. It could be time to catch a game the Hyamarket Park as well this year.

Boston Legal Quotes

Brad Chase: I outrank you.
Alan Shore: And I'm such a slut for authority.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: [overhearing two co-workers having an argument] You two have had sex!

Run Down on New Astronomical Observatories

Space.com has the rundown on the latest astronomical telescope projects being planned or built over the next decade. Despite all the recent progress in such matters, we're still actually very early in the process of building our knowledge of our system, other solar systems and the beginnings of the universe. All of the proposed projects would result in imagery that makes those gathered from the Hubble look like black and white TV.

"Just the names of many of the proposed observatories suggest an arms race: the Giant Magellan Telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope, which was downsized from the OverWhelmingly Large Telescope. Add to those three big ground observatories a new super eye in the sky, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013.

With these proposed giant telescopes, astronomers hope to get the first pictures of planets outside our solar system, watch stars and planets being born, and catch a glimpse of what was happening near the birth of the universe."

Current telescopes are limited into how far in the past they can peer to about 1 billion years. The new projects will be so powerful they will be able to study the early formative years of the universe only a couple of hundred million years after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.

Two technical breakthroughs have completely redefined how such telescopes are designed and built. The first is adaptive optics, which allows astronomers to "tune" telescopes to adjust for atmospheric distortion created by the Earth's atmosphere -something which would have been impossible before the advent of economical high speed computing, which provides the capability of making the hundreds of adjustments per second necessary. The second is in how the actual mirrors are built. Instead of building a single large mirror, many small mirrors are built and pieced together. Astronomer Jerry Nelson of Hawaii's Keck observatory got the idea from seeing the tiled mosaics of ancient Greek and Roman baths.

The current single mirror Keck telescope is the world's largest at 10 meters. All of the new projects will dwarf it. The bigger the mirror, the more light that can be gathered and further back in time we can examine. The American/Australian Magellan project is planning an 80 foot telescope in 2016 to be located at Las Campanas, Chile at a cost of $800 million. Another joint project, this one American/Canadian , the 30 Meter Telescope, (Nelson is working on this one) is planning a 98 foot observatory with 492 mirror segments (some of the best current segmented Earth telescopes have 36) costing $780 million for 2018 but has not yet decided on a site. Not to be outdone, a European project destined for Chile (exact location to be determined) is planning a monster 138 foot (reduced from 328 feet!) for 2018 as well with a price tag around $1.17 billion.

Then there is the Hubble replacement.



This is the $4.5 billion James Webb Telescope, an 18 mirror segmented telescope 2 1/2times the size of its predecessor. Planned for launch into deep space 900,000+ miles from Earth in 2013 by NASA, the Webb will carry four different scientific instruments. Interestingly enough, it too will utilize adaptive optics due to the extreme temperature variations in the cold of space. The Webb's mirror will face the cold of space and be shielded from the sun by the remainder of the spacecraft, called the bus, where the control mechanisms will reside. (Images courtesy of NASA)



We are almost certainly going to learn more about the universe in the next decade or two than we have in all of human history.

US Navy's Newest Weapon

via Livescience, the US Navy has produced and tested a devastating new weapon: the rail gun. Such weapons use electromagnetic energy instead of gunpowder as a propellant, allowing a muzzle velocity of seven to eight times the spped of sound and a range of 230 miles versus a conventional naval big gun range of 23 miles. An additional advantage is that the weapon uses kinetic energy rather than explosives to provide its destructive impact, making the deployed warships much safer for the crew. Theoretically, the weapon will provide a speedy precision strike weapon from extreme ranges without the possibility of bringing defensive missile weaponry to bear, such as in the case of a cruise missile.

"I never ever want to see a Sailor or Marine in a fair fight. I always want them to have the advantage," said Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead. "We should never lose sight of always looking for the next big thing, always looking to make our capability better, more effective than what anyone else can put on the battlefield."

The Navy plans to deploy the weapon on warships during the next decade, hopefully by around 2018. If I recall correctly, one of the warships it is planned to be installed on is the next generation "stealth" DDG destroyer design. (After checking, yes it is).

More on the weapon here can be found at Military.com, condensed below.

The current test version of the weapon is a 32 megajoule weapon, the most powerful ever built to date, with a 64 megajoule weapon being planned for deployment. One of the weapon's teething issues is the tremendous amounts of electricity required for firing, 3 million amps for the test weapon and 6 million for the one planned. The planned electrical propulsion system on the DDG would have a capacity of 72 megawatts, and the planned 64 megawatts weapon would require 16 megawatts to fire, requiring the vessle to slow down in order to fire. Another issue is the need for high end material breakthroughs to prevent the gun's barrel and conductive rails from being shredded after repeated firings by the high velocities generated .

Cool stuff if we can get it out of development and into the field.

Boston Legal Quotes

Judge Brian Stevens: Motion for continuance is denied.
Denny Crane: You know what I'm going to do, Brian, just to show you there are no hard feelings? I'm going to sleep with your wife

Habitable Zones More Extensive

via Astrobiology, a new look at both our own world and exoplanets like those found in the Gliese system have caused researchers to expand the habitable zone found around distant stars. In effect, previous searches for planets with liquid water ignored the latitudinal variation that effects temperature so much here on Earth. Adding in effects like hydrothermal vents, volcanic activity and tidal forces, and the distance in which liquid water could range on a distant world could more than double.

"In old models of planetary conditions, average global temperatures provided approximate figures. For example, the Earth is said to have a mean global temperature of 15°C. This simplification is useful for mathematical modelling but doesn’t reflect reality. We know that some places on the Earth are much hotter and others colder. There’s also great variability in temperatures during different seasons. The latitude of continents dramatically influences temperature as well. Consider that Africa is hotter than Antarctica, even though they’re on the same planet. Professor Siegfried Franck of the Potsdam Institute realised that such variations on a planet could change our views on habitable zones.

Franck and his team devised equations to take into account temperature variations caused by the latitude of continents. They found that areas of frozen worlds could be habitable even though they are far from their parent stars. “Our result was that if we investigate this latitudinal dependence, the outer edge of the habitable zone can be extended a remarkable amount,” says Franck."

To use our own system as an example, liquid water could exist under the right conditions on a planet up to twice as distant as the Earth is from the Sun. Therefore, hardy types of biological organisms (such as extremophiles found in the Artic and Antarctic regions on Earth) could exist on frozen worlds far from their parent stars, such as the Gliese system, where a pair of large "super Earths" exist just inside the habitable zone of their star. Such organisms might hibernate for long periods until temperatures raise for brief periods in the planet's orbit or local conditions activate the creatures.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: Massachusetts is a blue state. God has no place here.

Boston Legal Quotes

Al Sharpton: [bursts into the courtroom] Sorry I'm late, Judge, I'll make this quick...
Alan Shore: [buts in] And subtle!
Judge Harry Hingham: [to Sharpton] Who the Hell are you?
Al Sharpton: [Continues without pause] ... The image of Santa Claus has been crafted for hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of years. We're supposed to be in a different day. Give the world a black Santa Claus, let the people have an African-American come down the chimney bearing joy and good will!
Alan Shore: [whispers to Sharpton] Gay, not black.
Al Sharpton: The prejudice against gay people must stop. We all say we're for gay rights. We all say we accept homosexuality. But give a gay man a hug, sit in his lap?
Judge Harry Hingham: [Interrupts] Who is this man?
Al Sharpton: [Continues without stopping] Let the bells of tolerance ring out this Christmas. Let people open their minds as they open their presents underneath the tree. We need your mind, judge, today. Let the gay man be my brother, be your brother, be the school teacher, be the construction worker. Give the world a gay Santa Claus, God Almighty, God Almighty, God Almighty! Leave out the cookies and milk this Christmas Eve for a holly, jolly homosexual, God Almighty!
Alan Shore: And cut!
[Applause ensues]

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: Now, Alan, if all else fails and you think you've lost... pretend you've won! Works for our president.

Shuttle Scheduled for Feb 7 Launch

via ScienceDaily, NASA has announced a new scheduled launch date for the delayed Atlantis shuttle mission for Feb. 7 to deliver the European Space Agency Columbus laboratory module. The new module is by far the most important European contribution to the station and will be the cornerstone of their operations on the ISS.

"Atlantis is now scheduled to lift off from launch pad 39-A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida at 14:45 Eastern Standard Time (EST) / 20:45 Central European Time (CET).

Docking with the ISS is scheduled for Saturday 9 February at 12:23 EST (18:23 CET). Landing is currently slated to take place at KSC on Monday 18 February at 09:57 EST (15:57 CET)."

German astronaut Hans Schlegal will take part in two of three space walks on the mission connecting the module, and French astronaut Leopold Eyharts will take part in activating the module during his extended mission at the station. Interestingly enough, the module will be monitored from a German facility near Munich over the life of the station.

Boston Legal Quotes

Gil Furnald: I just like wearing women's clothes sometimes. It's not a sexual turn-on, it just feels right sometimes.
Denny Crane: So basically you're a sicko.
Gil Furnald: I'm not sick.
Denny Crane: Lighten up, man. So what, you got caught in a skirt? That what you're saying?
Gil Furnald: My employer found out, and, yes, I got fired. They asked me a lot of questions, like whether I'm gay.
Denny Crane: Well, are you? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Asteroid Making a Close Earth Pass

via Astrobiology, a recently discovered near Earth asteroid called 2007 TU24 is making a very close pass (334,000 miles) past our lovely blue orb early tommorrow morning (2:30 AM Central), going by just outside the Moon's orbit of 250,000 miles. it was discovered last October by the NASA sponsored Catalina Sky Survey. The Jet Propulsion Lab has acquired imagery of the asteroid, which is around 800 feet in diameter.

""This will be the closest approach by a known asteroid of this size or larger until 2027," said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near Earth Object Program Office. "As its closest approach is about one-and-a-half times the distance of Earth to the moon, there is no reason for concern. On the contrary, Mother Nature is providing us an excellent opportunity to perform scientific observations."

While there is no danger to the planet, it might be noted that the impact of such a object on Earth would cause consderable regional damage and would likely have a substantial global impact as well.

Dinosaur Killer Made Quite a Splash

via ScienceDaily, a new analysis of the Chicxulub crater off Mexico's Yucatan penninsula, shows the asteroid impact that formed it 65 million years ago landed in much deeper water than previously thought. The asteroid is thought to be the major factor in the KT Extinction event which eliminated an estimated 70% of life on Earth. The amount of water vapor released into the atmosphere from the impact is now estimated to be 6 1/2 times greater than initially theorized, and that the sediments at the impact site contained far more sulfur. Sulfur released from the site would have caused an even deadlier result in two ways - by altering climate due to the cooling effect caused by sulfate aerosols and generating acid rain.

"The greater amount of water vapor and consequent potential increase in sulfate aerosols needs to be taken into account for models of extinction mechanisms," says Sean Gulick, a research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics at The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences .

An increase in acid rain might help explain why reef and surface dwelling ocean creatures were affected along with large vertebrates on land and in the sea. As it fell on the water, acid rain could have turned the oceans more acidic. There is some evidence that marine organisms more resistant to a range of pH survived while those more sensitive did not.

Gulick says the mass extinction event was probably not caused by just one mechanism, but rather a combination of environmental changes acting on different time scales, in different locations. For example, many large land animals might have been baked to death within hours or days of the impact as ejected material fell from the sky, heating the atmosphere and setting off firestorms. More gradual changes in climate and acidity might have had a larger impact in the oceans."

Gulick's original intent was to determine the asteroid's trajectory, which he hoped would lead his team to the locations where the most extreme consequences of the event would be found, but instead found that the conditions at the impact site itself had more to do with the resulting extinciton event.

McCain's Record & ACU Ratings

Randall Hoven at The American Thinker examines the McCain record inlight of the widely touted 82 career American Conservative Union rating for the Senator. What is particularly interesting to me is that I was thinking about the same issue myself over the weekend. In short, an 82 rating is not all that good - solid conservatives are usually in the 90s.

"It puts Senator McCain in 39th place among senators serving in 2006, the latest year for which the ACU has its ratings posted online. For that most recent year in particular, McCain scored only 65, putting him in 47th place for that year. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), for example, scored 64 and 75, respectively, in 2006."

Any Republican comparable to Ben Nelson is pushing the envelope for liberalism. McCain has gotten far more libeal the longer he has served in the Senate - his pre 1998 rating is 88, while it is a 74 since that point.

Hoven analyzes each vote where McCain differed from the ACU position from 1998 through 2006 (48 votes), and finds that many of these votes (16, or 1/3) were quite close - the swing of even a pair of senators might have altered their outcome. The major issues of disagreement were taxes (15 votes alone), the environment (5), campaign finance reform (10) and lately immigration (3, all from 2006).

In ranking all the Senate Republicans since 1998, McCain score rates him on the far left wing of the party, with only four Northeastern Republican Senators with lower scores (Chaffee, Collins, Snowe, and Spector). Obviously, McCain is from reliably conservative Arizona, and his peer from that state, John Kyl, has a lifetime rating of 96.9, so one has to wonder who he is actually representing - himself? It obviously isn't his constituents.

Hoven repeats a line regarding McCain that is quite telling - "As someone remarked, McCain is like a baseball player who gets all his hits after two outs and no one on base, and all his outs with men in scoring position."

Boston Legal Quotes

Judge Harry Hingham: A ho-mo-sexual? That's where we're at now? Santa Clauses being played by ho-mo-sexuals?
Alan Shore: [mockingly] I believe "homosexual" is one word, judge. But to avoid confusion, let's say "gay".

Will the Ice Caps Really Melt?

Much has been made of the possibilities of the polar ice caps melting due to "global warming", and the consequences (dramatic rise in sea levels, coastal flooding, millions of people displaced) have been described in dramatic detail as a rationale for taking "action". However, an engineer recently looked into the possibilities of the caps actually melting at The American Thinker (as claimed by a certain former vice president) and found the math involved....rather fuzzy.

As the engineer, Jason Schmidt puts it:

"Al Gore's claim that ocean levels will rise 20 feet thanks to global warming seems to ignore the laws of thermodynamics. I am no climatologist, but I do know about physics. Anyone who has ever spent time in a temperate climate following a snowy winter realizes that when the air temperature rises above 32°F the snow and ice do not melt immediately. We may experience many balmy early spring days with temperatures well above freezing while snow drifts slowly melt over days or weeks. Similarly, lakes and ponds take some time to freeze even days or weeks after the air temperature has plunged below zero. This is due to the latent heat of freezing/melting of water, a physical concept long quantified in thermodynamics.

That aspect of basic physics seems to have been overlooked by climatologists in their alarming claims of dramatic and rapid sea-level rise due to melting of the Antarctic ice caps and Greenland glaciers. But of course, we have learned that models predicting global warming also failed to take account of precipitation, so overlooking important factors ("inconvenient truths") should not cause much surprise anymore. The scientific data necessary to calculate the amount of heat necessary to melt enough ice to raise ocean levels 20 feet is readily available on the internet, and the calculations needed to see if polar cap melting passes the laugh test are surprisingly simple. Nothing beyond multiplication and division, and because we will use metric measures for simplicity's sake, much of the multiplying is by ten or a factor of ten."

He then goes about to step us throught the math involved in both raising the atmoshperic temperature of the Earth 5 degrees centigrade and the math involved in heating the ice caps to melt, and finds a rather large discrepancy.

"Heat needed to raise the temp of the atmosphere 5° C:
~2.5 x 10 to the 19th power kJ (kilojoules)

Heat necessary to melt ice to achieve 20-foot sea-level rise
~7.4 x 10 to the 21st power kJ

There is a difference of 300* between these two figures. Even if I am wrong by an order of magnitude, there is still an enormous difference. This does NOT mean that ice caps have not melted in the distant past nor that ice-age glaciers have not grown to cover much of the northern hemisphere; it simply means that the time scales involved to move sufficient quantities of heat to effect such melting or freezing occur over what we scientists commonly call "geological" time scales, i.e. hundreds of thousands and millions of years.

Even if sufficient heat is trapped in the atmosphere to raise it the maximum value predicted by anthropogenic "global warming" alarmists (5°C) over the next 100 years, hundreds of times more heat energy must be imparted into the ice-caps to melt sufficient ice to raise sea-levels the catastrophic levels prophesied by Al Gore.

I humbly submit that this might constitute a flaw in his equations."

Ooops.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: Because we're friends, I'm gonna tell you something nobody else knows. I'm homophobic.
Alan Shore: [deadpan] I'm stunned.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: You know what I miss most about our country, Denny? Not the loss of our civil rights so much as our compassion, our soul, our humanity.
Denny Crane: Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh. Soul, that's a religious thing. State... church... it's unconstitutional for the United States to have a soul.
Alan Shore: Apparently. We seem to be becoming a mean people. Learned Hand once said, "Liberty lies in our hearts, and once it dies there, no constitution can save it."
Denny Crane: Just once I wish you'd quote a Republican.
Alan Shore: I want a kindler and gentler nation.

Republican Nomination

Earlier this week, my preferred candidate, Fred Thompson withdrew from the presidential race. He had been almost every conservative blogger's favorite (with a few notable exceptions) even before announcing. Thompson's late entry (compared to others running) and anti-establishment stance, which put him in an early hole with the media establishment (from which he never recovered, and in fact, hit pieces on him have still been appearing all week), inspired a great deal of enthusiasm online and among many conservative activists. His detailed policy papers and formidable debate performances also served the conservative cause well, forcing the other, more moderate candidate's policies on several issues to the right in response.

As I've posted last week, my next choices are Rudy Guiliani and Mitt Romney, who I would rate as about equal, but substantially less appealing. The current front-runner and media darling, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee are even less appealing, representing far more centrist and populist impulses. McCain owes his status primarily to independent voters from open primary states; Huckabee is supported almost entirely by fundamentalist values voters.

Steven Stark has an interesting piece at RCP concerning Thompson, given the state of the race, and he has an interesting historical parallel - the election of 1920, when a dark horse candidate emerged from the convention to not only take the nomination but the presidency - Warren G. Harding.

"If McCain loses in Florida, the Republicans may well be headed to a deadlocked race and convention. And history teaches us that the likeliest candidate to emerge in that scenario is someone like Warren G. Harding: the prototypical, less-than-stellar candidate to which conventions turn when the going gets rough. This year's Harding? Believe it or not (are you sitting down?), despite the fact that he's withdrawn from the race, is Fred Thompson."

Harding ran quite poorly in 1920 - the leading candidates were a California senator, the governor of Illinois, and a retired Army General, Leonard Wood. However, none of them received the majority of delegates, and Harding had two distinct advatanges - he looked presidential, and he hadn't generated any significant antagonisms from the various party candidates or their supporting interests. This year, Fred Dalton Thompson also fits this mold. As Stark points out, Huckabee and Guiliani aren't likely to be the nominee unless they can get a delegate majority, which appears impossible at this point. McCain is strongly opposed by the both the party establishment and conservatives, and Romney is (for whatever reason) intensely disliked by the other candidates, despite strong support in some quarters, such as National Review and columnist/blogger/talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, leading it questionable that he could gather any support at the convention either.

That leads us to a brokered convention, and the emrgence of a consensus candidate, like 1920, that is everyone's second choice - Fred. Cross your fingers.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: [walking through a crowd of reporters] dennycranelaw.com. Pictures, bios, hobbies. I once captained my own spaceship. Muli-talented.

The Future Army - Effective or Not?

A military officer takes issue with some of the Army's plans for the future fighting force in the Armed Forces Journal. He advocates a different approach than what is being forcast, and has some powerful emprical arguments from past engagements to make his point. The future weapon systems of the Army force call for a much lighter and leaner force composition, using netcentric communications to call in lethal force from standoff distance. The good major believes the "new" approach to warfare ignores some basic tenets of the profession - such as the fact that there are times when all your nifty tools might not work as well as advertised.

"But given the current state of technology, the probability of future development in nations across the globe, and a historical perspective on the performance of new and emerging technologies in the past, does this theory stand up to rigorous examination? I argue that it does not. Aside from a near-faith-based, unsubstantiated belief in the efficacy of technology to do anything and everything imaginable, one of the primary factors upon which this assessment is based is its failure to give proper consideration to the capabilities of the future enemy force."

In short, the Army plans to reduce both the survivability of the force and the number of ground vehicles in the force, replacing many of these with pilotless airborne drones - ignoring the fact that these vehicles may encounter weather conditions that preclude their deployment, and the experience we have encountered in the current campagns in which we are adding armor to our existing vehicle inventory, despite facing a technically much inferior enemy today than we are likely to face in the future (say a large populous nation located in East Asia). Another item this officer takes issue with is the planned elimination of the heavy divisional cavalry squadron (quite dear to my heart, since I served in one) which allows for ground based reconaissance when conditions prevent air based recon, and also allows for some serious toe-to-toe butt-kicking if needed, with 27 tanks and 41 Bradleys.

His recommendations, which go far beyond the above mentioned issues (really, read the whole article, it is quite worth the read):

"To summarize, the following nine changes and additions should be made to the Defense Department modernization program:

1. Improve the armored protection of our armored fighting platforms.

2. Increase the ability of reconnaissance forces to fight for information in a degraded mode.

3. Implement a counter-UAV and space-defense program.

4. Return air defense to the tactical formation in recognition of improving threat capabilities.

5. Expand our air transport fleet to enable rapid strategic and operational movement and maneuver.

6. Improve the ability of land forces to engage in operations worldwide via fast sealift and sea basing.

7. Field significant numbers of advanced fighter aircraft to ensure air superiority.

8. Strengthen missile defense.

9. Place an increased emphasis on training the force in light of emerging capabilities with a focus on the realities of ground combat."

Can't say I disagree with any of his arguments.

Distant Stellar Collision?

From ScienceDaily, astronomers have discovered a very odd object orbiting a brown dwarf known as 2M1207A. The object, known as 2M1207B (those astronomers are awfully clever with those names, aren't they?) is about the size of Saturn, but many of its charateristics do not match up. The system itself is very young, around 8 million years old, but the planet is far too warm, at 2400 degrees F, than it should be.
Conversely, given that temperature, it should be up to 10 times more bright than observations show it to be. The only hypothesis that answers the contradiction is that the object has suffered a cosmic collision in the recent past. If true, it would be the first such recently collided object we have ever observed.

"The planets in our solar system assembled from dust, rock, and gas, gradually growing larger over millions of years. But sometimes, two planet-sized objects collided catastrophically. For example, the Moon formed when an object about half the size of Mars hit the proto-Earth. If planet formation works the same way in other star systems, then 2M1207B might be the product of a collision between a Saturn-sized gas giant and a planet about three times the size of Earth. The two smacked into each other and stuck, forming one larger world still boiling from the heat generated in the collision."

Observations on the object will continue which could confirm the theory, including a surface gravity calculation from a spectrum analysis, which could give us the answer within a year or so. Even if 2M1207B's odd characteristics are not the result of a collision, astronomers believe we will discover many such objects with the next generation of space and Earth based telescopes being planned or built.

Hydrothermal Sea Vents Different than Theorized

A new study of the mid-ocean ridge system running throughout the Earth's oceans has given the researchers studying them a bit of a surprise. The study, the first of its kind, shows these deep ocean hydrothermal sea vents are much different than was expected.

"The hypothetical image of a hydrothermal-vent system shows water forced down by overlying pressure through large faults along ridge flanks. The water is heated by shallow volcanism, then rises toward the ridges' middles, where vents (often called "black smokers," for the cloud of chemicals they exude) tend to cluster. The new images, from a 4-kilometer-square area show a very different arrangement.

The water appears to descend instead through a sort of buried 200-meter-wide chimney atop the ridge, run below the ridge along its axis through a tunnel-like zone just above a magma chamber, and then bubble back up through a series of vents further along the ridge."

The interest in these vents comes from the fact they have an important contribution to both the study of planetary geology (they bring to the surface many interesting and valuable minerals from the Earth's interior, such as gold, as well as drive the Earth's plate tectonics system) and these vents also create areas of superheated water which have unique life forms generally classified as extremophiles, which have given us new insights into the possible areas in which life might exist on other planets.

This particular Pacific system appears to show the seawater entering into the system from a series of small cracks rather than a large fissure and that it processes much more water than believed - as much as a billion of gallons of water a year. It may also contribute insight on ocean currents, whether or not the life forms found around the vents relocate or not and how they might transport themselves, as well as how heat and chemicals are cycled throughout the deep ocean and mineral deposits form in these areas.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: [several lawyers from the firm are squeezing past a throng of reporters] Denny Crane, Trix are for Kids... Denny Crane, coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: Objection, your Honor. You can't preface your second point with "first of all."

Republican Delegates Counts

RCP is tracking the delegate counts for the presidential nominations. Through Saturday, Romney leads with 59, Huckabee has 40, McCain 36, Fred 5, Ron Paul 4, and Guiliani one, which goes to show you how far we have to go in the primary/nomination process. 1,191 delegates are needed to gain the party's nomination.

The real interesting thing is how the different states decide their delegate counts -the next big state up, Florida on Jan. 29th, is a winner take all state and has 57 delegates, half its normal allotment due to the party penalty (that may or may not end up being imposed at the convention) for moving up its primary date. (Maine votes today for its 21 delegates). Thus, the winner in Florida is likely to take the lead in the delgate count and should get a big boost in momentum for the 22 state bonanza on Feb. 5th. Another factor is that this is the first "closed" primary - only registered Republicans will be able to vote. Current polling in FL has John McCain with a very slight lead (23-20%) over Rudy, who has oriented his entire campaign on the state. Romney and Huckabee are right behind in the high teens, with Fred trailing just under double digits.

Other winner take all states having primaries on the 5th, and their delegate counts -New York (101), Missouri (58), Arizona (53), New Jersey (52), Utah (36), Connecticut (30), Montana (25) and Delaware (18). You have to figure NY and NJ in the Rudy camp, AZ for Mac, and Utah and Conn. for Romney. There are another 700 delegates available in the other states on the 5th as well, which are likely to be split up at least between four candidates. There are a little over a thousand delegates available after Super Tuesday as well.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: [referring to a book about parasites found on salmon] This book, "A Stain Upon The Sea" it's all about these sea lice.
Denny Crane: Interesting.
Alan Shore: They call them cling ons.
Denny Crane: Did you say Klingons?

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: [listening to the news on TV at the office] That's Bernie!
Tara Wilson: Who?
Alan Shore: The little skillet-welding client from last week, he's whacked another one. He promised me he wouldn't.
[knocks on Bernard Ferrion's front door repeatedly]
Bernard Ferrion: [open's door] Alan.
Alan Shore: [walks inside] What have you done now?
Bernard Ferrion: There's a awful lot of excitement.
Alan Shore: I saw, both live and on the news. You've been flaying again with your frying pan, haven't you, Bernard?
Bernard Ferrion: I never meant for it to happen.
Alan Shore: I am very disappointed. I gave you a terrific speech last week, Bernie, appealing to the kind inner you. It was wonderful - poignant, even, and how you have completely mooted it by committing murder again.
Bernard Ferrion: I never meant to kill her!
Alan Shore: Well, what? You just went over there to make an omelet and things got out of hand?

Older Stars Forming New Planets

via ScienceDaily, astronomers have discovered two odd stellar system in which new planets are forming around two different stars that actually quite old.

""This is a new class of stars, ones that display conditions now ripe for formation of a second generation of planets, long, long after the stars themselves formed," said UCLA astronomy graduate student Carl Melis, who reported the findings today at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas.

"If we took a rocket to one of these stars and discovered there were two totally distinct ages for their planets and more minor bodies like asteroids, that would blow scientists' minds away," said Benjamin Zuckerman, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and co-author of the research, which has not yet been published. "We're seeing stars with characteristics that have never been seen before."

The stars are BP Piscium, 200 light years form Earth in the constellation Pisces, and TYCHO 4144 329 2, in the constellation Ursa Major. Both stars have the standard cloud of dust and gas surrounding them, a characteristic of young stars, which form small stellar bodies called planetesimals, which later tend to clump together to form planets. They also exhibit high infared light emissions like many younger stars. However, in the case of these two stars, things did not add up, as both stars spectroscopic analysis showed much smaller amounts of the element lithium (which stars burn up as they age) than should be the case for a relatively young star. The lithium signature for BP Piscium is seven times less than a normal young star of similar mass. Other spectral measurements also indicate these stars are much older than they initially appeared as well. Conversely, their infared emissions are also at an unusually high level for a mature star.

Both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory have been making and will continue to make observations of the two systems along with other Earth based telescopes, and astronomers are seeking other examples of older stars exhibiting the same characteristics.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: You left me, Shirley. Women don't leave Denny Crane. And for a secretary!
Shirley Schmidt: It was the Secretary of Defense

Unusual Double Binary System Found

also via NG, a University of Hawaii astronmer has discovered a very unusual double binary system in the constellation Aquarius 166 light years from our solar system. The four stars all reside within an area smaller than the orbit of Jupiter in our own system.

"University of Hawaii researcher Evgenya Shkolnik reported another odd finding: a unique quadruple star system that packs four stars into a region smaller than the orbit of Jupiter. The stars are grouped into two closely spaced pairs, 12 and 50 million miles (20 and 80 million kilometers) apart, respectively.

"It's really quite amazing that four stars all orbit each other at this distance," Shkolnik said. It's not possible for all four stars to have formed that closely together, she said. Rather, they must have formed at greater distances and then spiraled together as interstellar gas slowed their orbits."

While certainly very rare, the system isn't one of a kind. In my trip to Kitt Peak observatory in 2006, we observed a similar double binary system in the constellaiton Lyra, but the two pair of stars in that system are much further apart. This system's stars probably drifted together into their uniquely close paired cosmic gravity dance within 100,000 years of forming.

Plate Tectonics on Exoplanets

via National Geopgraphic, a new Harvard study theorizes that our planet is on the small side of rocky worlds where plate tectonics operates. Plate tectonics, the theory which describes the "drift" of continental landmasses on the Earth's crust, is believed to play a large role in keeping the planet sutible for life.

"Tectonics—the continent-shifting forces that build mountains and fuel volcanoes—recycle Earth's crust by drawing it underground, where it melts and later re-emerges as magma, pointed out Diana Valencia of Harvard University. That helps keep carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere more or less stable, as excess gas is removed from the atmosphere by reacting with fresh rocks in a process called "weathering." The carbon dioxide is later returned to the atmosphere via volcanic gases."

This makes it more likely that we will find a terrestrial counterpart in our search for habitable worlds elsewhere, given that it's easier to find large worlds than small ones. Larger worlds are more likely to have warmer interiors, producing the convection currents in the planetary mantle responsible for the cracking of the planetary crust into interactive segments. On Earth, it is thought that the process is enhanced by the amount of liquid water in our planetary oceans. Large planets with water might have continental plates moving up to ten times faster than our planet.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: You know I'm not about to go to Texas and not ride the mechanical bull, Chelina. That would be like going to Los Angeles and not sleeping with Paris Hilton.

Early Results, Thoughts on Presidential Race

I've been meaning to comment a bit on the Presidential race, which has been an interesting see-saw, with first one candidate then another appearing to be the front runner for each party.

On the Democratic side, I am a bit undecided about the race, since the only candidate I had any respect for (Bill Richardson) is pretty much out of it and could be a likely Veep for whichever of the other candidates eventually wins out. None of the leading Democrats running have any significant experience, with only Hillary having served more than one Senate term. Of course, she hangs her hat on 8 years as First Lady, but she had no real official policy making or advisory position in the administration, with the lone exception of Healthcare Reform, which was a bad idea that went no where, and on which she apparently feels strongly enough to emphasize again in her candidacy. As several pundits have pointed out, being someone's wife (even in a close relationship, which I tend to believe isn't the case with the Clintons) doesn't automatically allow the spouse to presume the husband's professional role.

As far as Obama and Edwards go, both are not only even more ridiculously underqualified than Hillary, they both appear to be woefully ignorant of even the basic tenets of sound economic policy. Don't even get me started on their foreign policy views, I want to keep this short.

On the other side of the aisle, we have several candidates that appear to have the requisite experience to lead the nation, but almost all of them have some flaws. While I generally vote Republican, I don't always, and there are a couple of these candidates for which I would have to seriously question casting a ballot.

Governor Mike Huckabee has executive experience, and appears to be a good pro-life Christian gentleman, but has some very odd policy positions for a Republican - he's anti-free trade, raised taxes in his state considerably, and is almost Carteresque in his foreign policy views. Yet he won Iowa and is running pretty well nationally.
My grade for him is an F.

John McCain has a wealth of experience in the Senate, has voted to control spending, is a genuine (rather than make-believe) war hero, and has the type of foreign policy and miltary experience that makes him an attractive candidate - however, there is that Freedom of Speech thing, the judges deal, the immigration issue, the fact he has voted against tax cuts and several other issues that make me question whether or not you can call him a Republican - indeed, there has been talk that he might switch parties at some points in the past - perhaps even as John Kerry's running mate. While not as bad as Huck, he definitely leaves alot to be desired, grading him a C- only for taking a principaled stand on the war, which is the definitive national issue. Many fellow bloggers dislike him even more than I. McCain is the current front runner right now with a win in New Hampshire, running well in Michigan, South Carolina and nationally.

Mitt Romney has not only government executive experience, but private sector experience as well. He is also proposing many of the right things on economic policy, social issues, and immigration - but on all those issues, his position has "evolved" since beginning his career in the political process. Simply put, I have to doubt the veracity of those beliefs, and I also have to question whether or not we want to have a wealthy candidate giving at least the appearance of trying to buy an election with his vast personal fortune. While he cut taxes, he raised regulatory and licensing fees in Massachussets, and his commitment to the 2nd Amendment is questionable to say the least. While probably better than McCain in general, and definitely better than Huckabee, I have to barely pass him with a C+.
Romnye finished second in both Iowa and NH, and is running nose to nose with Mac in Michigan.

This leads us to Mayor Rudy Guiliani, which I strongly considered early in the race, and whom I have heard speak personally at one of those odd business seminars that they stage on occaisson. I liked what I heard, then did some research. There is a lot to like about the Mayor, particularly on the economic front, and he has a strong law and order reputation. You have to also make the case he would make a strong foreign policy stand. Some of his social views are questionable, but those aren't factors I consider strongly. However, he does have some troubling issues, starting with (again) the 2nd Amendment, and you have to wonder about how strong his commitment to stopping illegal immigration really would turn out to be if elected. He passes with a B- due to getting the biggest issues (war/foreign policy & the economy) right, but mostly blowing it on much of the rest, particulary 2A. Rudy's been pretty invisible in the early states with the idea of focusing on Florida next week.

Then we have the best of the bunch, someone that I have supported from day one (and even before he announced) - Fred Thompson. On issues, he is pretty spectacular, giving us detailed (and excellent) policy positions on foreign policy, rebuilding the military, illegal immigration, tax policy, spending, entitlement reform, judges, and the 2nd Amendment, issues on which he is almost always spot on. The one minor weakness is his orignal support for McCain-Feingold, which he has since labelled as a well-intentioned mistake, which I can readily accept in exchange. His support for tax reform, an optional Flat Tax and cut in the corporate tax rates (along with a host of other tax proposals) is simply outstanding economic policy. Another important philosophical tenet of Fred's is his support for Federalism and the Constitutional rights of states and their citizens to decide some issues for themselves, reigning in the reach of the national government, which is simply icing on the cake in my view.

I have to grade Fred the only A of the mainstream candidates, (although I would give Congressman Duncan Hunter a solid Honorable mention grade of B) and I will openly state I've given him more of my hard earned dollars than any candidate in my entire life. I generally have given $10-15 contributions in the past. While not be any means a wealthy person, I've contributed far over that to Fred in both single contributions and in sum total hit a figure well into three digits.

Can he win? I don't know, he put a lot of effort into Iowa garnering third there, and has picked South Carolina as his next big effort and raised over $1 million to campaign strongly there. The last Rasmussen poll showed him 4th behind McCain, Huckabee and Romney but moving up four points into a statistical tie for 2nd at 16%, evidently drawing support from Huckabee, who dropped five points from the previous poll. Michigan votes today with McCain and Romney neck and neck, I'm not sure what Huckabee's strategy is, while the Mayor's has long been to focus on Florida to stop the other candidates' momentum, generate his own and move on to Super Tuesday.

If nothing else, it will prove to be an intersting race on both sides.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: You have a job to do, and so do I. Yours is to sell socks and suspenders. Mine is to cross examine people like you and crush them.
[indicates to Denny Crane]
Alan Shore: This man here would fire me if I didn't.
Denny Crane: Denny Crane.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: Shirley? What about senior partners? There would be nothing wrong with me, lusting, say, after... you? Would there?
Shirley Schmidt: Go subscribe to National Geographic. Make a list of the places you'll never get to visit. Add to that list, Schmidt.

Kling on the Fair Tax

Arnold Kling at TCS Daily looks at the Fair Tax, which proposes to replace the Federal Income tax with a consumption based national sales tax. Kling has proposed a similar idea himself in the past, but has some issues with the proposal as it stands today. One thing proponents like to tout is that you get your entire paycheck with no taxes taken out, which sounds like a good deal until you dig into a bit further.

First, the advatanges of such a plan, as Kling sees it:

"Potential advantages include reduced complexity, weaker incentives to lobby for tax breaks, and stronger incentives to save. Potential drawbacks include difficulty raising revenue and major shifts in the tax burden relative to the current system."

The Fair Tax proposal is to tax all purchases, even those made by government agencies, at a rate the proponents claim is 23%* (see Kling's note below), with the exception of educational costs. There is also a exception for repurchased goods, even big ticket items such as houses and cars, so only newly produced items and services would be subject to the tax. The tax would replace all Federal taxes, including the payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. The personal tax exemption would be $2352 for adults and $732 for children. One thing he doesn't examine is that the plan calls for the government would send a check to those making under a certain income figure (or maybe it was everyone) to defray living costs - but I haven't seen how that would be implemented.

"(*The FairTaxers quote a 23 percent rate. If a boombox costs $100 and I pay a $30 sales tax, then to me that is a 30 percent tax. What the FairTaxers are saying is that if I have to lay out $130 for the boombox and $30 of that is taxes, then I am paying $30/$130 = 23 percent in taxes. This is consistent with the way we think of income taxes--if you earn $130 in income and pay $30 in taxes, then you think of your tax rate as 23 percent. However, it is not the way we typically think of sales taxes.)"

Kling compares the Fair Tax with his own proposal and finds it wanting in several regards, but suffice it to say that it is lacking - for example, the exemptions from his own plan for a family of four would be $20,000 versus $6288 under the Fair Tax, and he also believes proponents are ignoring the transistion costs, which might puts the real rate as high as 45%. But one biggie he points out is that the vast majority of the current income tax revenues come from the upper end of the income distribution; the top 10% of income earners, those making over $104,000 a year, contribute 70% of the income tax revenues. As he puts it:

"The problem with a consumption tax is that the top 5 percent of earners do not consume at the same rate that they earn income. As a result, the government cannot abolish the income tax without sacrificing hundreds of billions in revenue from the subset of high earners who also are high savers. To make up for this loss, the middle class has to be socked with either higher taxes or fewer entitlements."

A while back the Skeptical Optimist looked at the proposal and pointed out another huge issue: if I have money in my savings account that I've already been taxed on from the current income tax regime, why should I pay another tax when I spend it after the Fair Tax is implemented? I've seen no good answer from the Fair Tax proponents on this one.

Kling goes on to make a more practical middle proposal, one in which you flatten the income tax to three rates: zero for those earning under $100,000, 10% for those between $100-150,000, and 35% over that figure, abolishing the payroll tax and institute a national sales tax at a rate of around 20%, with all future tax adjustments being address on the sales poriton only. This would certainly make tax payers sensitve to the cost of new govenrment programs (as well as the politicians elected by the taxpayers).

Interesting discussion, but I'm still not sold - either way, both systems are fairly complicated, and the transition is likely to be messy. I'm still drawn to a much more appealing proposal that has been empirically shown to work to unleash the engine of economic growth - the Flat Tax.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: How can you ban red meat?
Dominick Ryan: Well, they've got a whole campaign, they're going to go with it. They plan to promote Summersport as the seafood capital of the world.
Denny Crane: We're carnivores. When the pilgrims landed, first thing they did was eat a few Indians.
Dominick Ryan: [Shirley and Dominick stare at him] Is there anything we can do?
Shirley Schmidt: We'll get an immediate TRO.
Denny Crane: I'll argue it myself. Ban red meat. That cannot pass Constitutional mustard.
Shirley Schmidt: The word is "muster", Denny, but you're right, the law lacks condiments.

Goose Elected to Hall, Going in as a Yank

The Goose finally got elected into Baseball's Hall of Fame, on the ninth season since he became elegible. For whatever reason, the electors have something against relief pitchers, but the recent election of Bruce Sutter may have paved the way for Goose and others. Goose is going in as a Yankee, where he saved about half of his 300+ career games and around 1/3 of his 1500 punchouts. Gossage was nearly elected last year but just missed.

"This is from my heart," said Gossage, now 56, who was elected with nearly 86 percent of the vote on his ninth attempt on the ballot. "I had the privilege and the honor to play for nine different teams in the big leagues, and I loved every moment on every team. Playing in San Diego and turning around baseball in that city for the first time holds a warm spot in my heart. We turned that city on.

"But I grew up in Colorado and [members of] my family were huge Yankees fans. And then getting to play for the Yankees was kind of an out-of-body experience. Putting on the pinstripes did something for me that no other team did. I don't mean to take anything at all away from all the other ballclubs, but getting to play for them and the success we enjoyed there both personally and as a team [was outstanding]."

Managing great Dick Williams, Gossage's manager at San Diego from 1984-87, was also elected to the Hall. Williams goes in as an Athletic, where he won two World Series titles in 1972 and 1973. Their 1984 SD club was the first in that franchise's history to make the playoffs. Boston's Jim Rice was almost elected as well, with almost 73% of the voters putting him on their ballots, just missing the 75% threshold for election. 20 balloters would need to add him to their slates next year, which is likely to occur.

Energy Prices & Washington DC

Dr. Arthur Robinson take the American voter to task for complaining about high energy prices - after all, we elected the idiots that are causing the problem in the first place. This might be the most clear headed piece of writing I've seen in a number of months of energy issues.

"If American voters are disgruntled about fuel and electricity prices, they should look in their mirrors. These prices have been determined entirely by the politicians whom they have sent to Washington -- politicians who now want voters to believe that oil companies, futures speculators, Arab producers, Chinese consumers, and natural resource shortages are responsible.

Moreover, these politicians are increasingly promoting the false claim that Americans should not use energy anyway because this is bad for the planet. Of all the current contenders for the Presidential nominations of both parties, only two -- Ron Paul and Fred Thompson -- have failed to parrot this idiot brainchild of Al Gore and the United Nations."

The good doctor points out the only reliable abundant forms of energy on which all of our wonderful technology depends are nuclear power and fossil fuels, and we import $500 billion in fossil fuels from people that aren't really very friendly towards us, and we also pay to a pretty high price in dollars and the blood of our military members to protect our access to these sources of energy.

So why don't we produce more of the enrgy we need ourselves? I've been asking myself that question for a long, long time. Answer: Private energy producers face a very unfavorable business climate her in the US.

"This stagnation has been caused by United States government taxation, regulation, and sponsorship of litigation, which has made the U.S. a very unfavorable place to produce energy. Moreover, the U.S. government has spent vast sums of tax money subsidizing inferior energy technologies for political purposes."

We possess 25% of the world coal supply, and coal can be economically converted into petroleum at a cost far lower than current world oil prices, and we have far more coal than the Saudis have oil. Instead, the US government has prevented the development of these alternate technologies and the exploitation of our own energy reserves and the construction of new nuclear plants for two generations. Instead, we subsidize the liquification of our food supply and legally mandate its use in the form of ethanol.

Doc does give some credit to the current administration in trying to jump start our nuclear industry, but Congressional opposition has stopped anything significant from occurring so far. Just one additional 10 reactor nuclear plant in each of the 50 states would generate enough electricity to replace all the enrgy we currently import, and allow us to EXPORT another $300 billion in electricity to other nations. The cost of such a program would be about $1 trillion - the same approximate amount of the annual US trade deficit. Even better, this cost wouldn't necessarily have to be born by the US taxpayer.

"Moreover, these plants could be constructed without the expenditure of any tax money. Simple legislative repeal of the taxes, regulations, and incentives to litigation with which our politicians have hindered nuclear power development is all that would be necessary. The domestic hydrocarbon industry could be similarly revived.

All government subsidies of energy industries should be repealed, which would save the tax payers money and end damaging political distortion of the free market. There are many ideas concerning innovations in energy production. While nuclear and hydrocarbon solutions are the only practical methods for solving America’s immediate energy problem, future developments may provide additional methods. The worst possible means by which to encourage these developments, however, is for politicians and bureaucrats in Washington – who are obviously clueless about energy technology --to choose technology and supervise development by means of tax subsidies."

Amen.

The Mysterious Outer Solar System

Livescience examines the outer reaches of the solar system and finds a lot of rather interesting questions that we can't yet answer. First of all, Kyper Belt objects (the area of the solar system outside the orbit of the planet Neptune out to about 100 AUs) have a variety of colors, which indicate that their composition varies a great deal - far more so than the objects found in the asteroid belt, for example.

A very mysterious color labelled "ultra-red" matter exists on about half of all Kyper Belt objects and objects known as centaurs (KBOs that have recently moved between the orbits of Neptune and Jupiter). This matter is not found closer to the Sun, suggesting it is unstable at higher temperatures, and might even consist of organic molecules. We simply don't know right now what this stuff might be.

Another interesting item is that theoretical calculations seem to indicate there should be a LOT more stuff in the Kyper Belt. What happened to most of the objects out there? Over 99% of the mass that we think should be there - isn't. There are a couple of theories, or perhaps our best calculations are way out of line.

"One conjecture suggests when Saturn and Jupiter shifted their orbits roughly 4 billion years ago, their gravitational pulls slung Kuiper belt objects out of the solar system. Another says the Kuiper belt objects pulverized themselves to dust, which then was swept away by the sun's radiation."

Then there is the Oort cloud, which lies out even further - a fifth of the way to Alpha Centauri, our nearest solar neighbor, in fact, 100,000 AUs. We've never directly seen a Oort cloud object except the comets that come into our system from all directions, which infers the cloud is spherical, but there are also short period comets (like Halley's comet) whose orbits don't jibe with the Oort cloud being shaped like this - Halley's orbit around the Sun suggests there is an "inner" Oort cloud shaped like a doughnut.

There is also the rather contentious debate the scientific community has been having regarding planets that was kicked off by the discovery of large KBOs such as Eris and Sedna. Pluto wound up being "demoted" from a planet to a "dwarf" planet; the former asteroid Ceres and the recently discovered (by Caltech astronomer Mike Brown) Eris have joined it, but Brown and others think there may be as many as 200 other dwarves in the belt, and if you get out into the further reaches of the belt, 100 AUs or more, a object the size of Mars might be lurking around.

We still have alot to learn here on Earth as well, but a couple of future observatories might begin to shed some light on these questions. Two projects, Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System) and the LSST (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) are being planned within the decade.

Supreme Court Hearing Vote Fraud Case

John Fund at the Wall St. Journal discusses the Indiana Voter ID law being challenged in the US Supreme Court by liberal groups.

"Supporters say photo ID laws simply extend rules that require everyone to show such ID to travel, enter federal office buildings or pick up a government check. An honor system for voting, in their view, invites potential fraud. That's because many voting rolls are stuffed with the names of dead people and duplicate registrations--as recent scandals in Washington state and Missouri involving the activist group ACORN attest.

Opponents say photo ID laws block poor, minority and elderly voters who lack ID from voting, and all in the name of combating a largely mythical problem of voter fraud."

Both sides have their points to make - while Indiana elections appear to have been well run and doesn't have any evidence of fraud occurring, (one rationale the liberal challnegers use to justify their case) just the possibility should be enough, in my view, for the court to uphold the lower court ruling in the state's favor. I find the liberal argument that such laws depress minority and poor voter turnout to be pretty specious, and in this case any voters without valid ID can cast provisional ballots. Such voters would then have ten days to go a a clerk's office to either show ID or sign an affadavit attesting to their identity. It will be interesting to see how the case is decided when the court releases them in June. My take is that they will likely let the lower court ruling stand.

Boston Legal Quotes

Alan Shore: Denny, I refuse to shoot you.
Denny Crane: You... Democrat! Protesting war and banning guns. If you Nancys had your way, nobody would ever shoot anybody! And then where would we be?"
Alan Shore: "Where would we be...”

How Bo Came to NU the First Time

HuskerExtra has the story of how Frank Solich, smarting from a subpar 7-7 season, went about looking for a new defensive coordinator to replace Craig Bohl after the 2002 season.

"How did Pelini go from a Green Bay Packers linebackers coach to the toast of Nebraska? The short version: Solich called Monte Kiffin of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Kiffin called Pete Carroll of the USC Trojans. Carroll told Kiffin: “Monte, you could not find a better guy than Bo. He’s enthusiastic and he’ll get players to play for him.”

Solich explained that he wasn't necessarily looking for an NFL coach, but he wanted to keep the process simple, interview two or three cnadidates, and thought Kiffin, with ties to the program, would be able to point him toward some talented coaching assistants. Kiffin in turn asked his former Defensive Coordinator Pete Carroll for advice, and Carroll, in turn mentioned a guy he'd worked with in San Fransisco, and whom he had hired as an assistant when Carroll was hired at New England - Bo.

Solich also looked at Bud Foster of Virginia Tech and John Tenuta of Georgia Tech, ultimately deciding on Pelini over Tenuta for his 2003 DC, while Carroll inteerestingly enough wound up with a job at USC. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Mars Rovers - 4 Years and Still Going Strong

via Livescience, this month is the 4th anniversary of the landing of both the Mars rovers. At the time, NASA researchers expected the golf cart sized robotic explorers to last just 90 days.

"We never thought we'd still be driving these robots all over Mars," said Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist at Texas A&M University and member of the rover science team. "We joked about driving Opportunity into Victoria Crater, but now we're there, and we're looking at doing even more science. Each day they still work is an amazing one."

The rovers have traveled nearly 12 miles on the Martian surface and collected over two hundred thousand images. More than 100 scientific studies on the planets past have been compiled due to the data sent by the rovers. The most important discovery of the rovers has been the findings of evidence of water on Mars, at least at some point in the past, and probably still found deep underground.

Martian weather has proven challenging to the explorers, with a massive dust storm obscuring the Martian sky and covering their solar arrays with a particularly sticking dust that limited the light reaching the arrays by 96%. The rover Spirit has an additional problem; with one of its front wheels jammed, it has been forced to drive backwards into a winter "resting" position facing northward to gather energy from its solar panels on a rock outcrop named Home Plate, but is still making observations. Sister rover Opportunity, on the other hand, has much cleaner panels and is currently activley exploring Victoria Crater on the red planet.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: May I express a thought, because I so rarely get one, and I should preface this by saying that I'm so far up the ass of big business I view the world as one giant colon.

Shuttle Launch Delayed Further

MSNBC reported last week that the shuttle launch delayed by a fuel sonsor glitch ahs been pushed back until at least January 24 if not further.

"Deputy shuttle program manager John Shannon said the mission to the international space station is off until at least Jan. 24. “Everything has to go exactly right for us to make the 24th,” he said."

If delayed further into early Febuary, a launch could be complicated by the planned launch of a Russian Progress cargo vehicle to the ISS. Current docking rules at the station prohibit a shuttle docking while another vehicle is linked to the station. The shuttle would likely have to launch before January 26 for both mission to proceed without conflict. The issue with Atlantishas already impacted the scheduled Feb 14th launch for the next mission being flown by Endeavor, which was to have delivered a Japanese built lab module to the ISS. NASA procedures mandate a five week period between shuttle missions.

Bo Doubters Need to Chill

Apparently some fans have spouted off about the number of decommits from the initial recruiting list being compiled from the previous regime. The Nebraska State Paper's Sam McKewon is telling the Husker naysayers (back on the 19th of Dec) to relax and give the new coach the benefit of the doubt, and lists the repairs our new coach has to conduct, and how it appears he's going about it. Of course, people might chill out now that Bo has a NC ring to go along with his Superbowl ring.

"Overhaul the defense in attitude and aggression. Simplify the offense while keeping the essence of it. That's what Pelini's staff is built to do.

Now think about two of the great failures of the Bill Callahan era. The defense looked lost, ticked off, and trapped inside its own collective brain. The offense, meanwhile, had its moments, but often couldn't get out of its own way when it really needed to score. So Pelini's staff is designed to perform triage on two major wounds of Callahan's regime.

And Pelini's doing a bad job? You wanted more credentialed assistants? Why? Staff continuity and chemistry is far more crucial than credentials. Phil Elmassian had a ton of credentials as a defensive backs coach. His guys also made an art out of face-guarding. You wanted better recruiters? Give it time.Clearly, Pelini's hitting the trail with a different message than Callahan's troops did.

There's a difference between straight talk and sweet talk."

Amen.

Another Husker note is that the staff is complete with the addition of former Kansas WR coach and "Passing Coordinator"(? it's s new one to me) Tim Beck as the new RB coach. Beck is also from the Pelini's hometown of Youngstown and a fellow grad of Cardinal Mooney High. The word with Beck is that he is a good to excellent recruiter with some strong ties to Texas from a period as a high school coach there.

Also, we gained a QB recruit out of the Lone Star state, Kody Sprano, who is billed as a dual threat run/pass type. He runs about 6'2 and 200 lbs, and will get a jump by enrolling at NU for the spring semester.

Youngest Exo-Planet Discovered

via Space.com, astronomers have announced that they have discovered the youngest extra solar planet yet orbiting a star very similar to our own. The planet, estimated to be only 10 million years old, orbits the star TW Hydrae 180 light years from Earth in the constellation Hydra at .4 AUs and is around ten times the mass of Jupiter.

"The extrasolar planet is an estimated 8 million to 10 million years old, a mere toddler compared to Earth, which is 4.5 billion years old. Until now, the researchers say, no planet younger than 100 million years old has been detected circling a sun-like star."

The most interesting item about the discovery is that the planet has formed before the protoplanetary dust disk has dissapated, the first a planet like this has been observed directly. Other systems have shown evidence of young planets by astronomers noting clear trails in the dust cloud surrounding these stars.

Boston Legal Quotes

Denny Crane: It's fun being me!
[after thoughtful pause]
Denny Crane: Is it fun being you?
Alan Shore: Most of the time.

Sporting News' Matt Hayes on Coaching Hires

Sporting News columnist Matt Hayes spouts off about the college football coaching changes, and apparently holds a curious opinion about Husker hire Bo Pelini. C-?

Matt appears to favor Jim Grobe, who interviewed but I don't believe was ever under serious consideration - I mean, Callahan beat Wake TWICE. Hayes gave NU an "A" for hiring BC in a column in 2004, and we all know how well that went.

"Michigan got it right. Nebraska and Texas A&M didn't. Arkansas? Check back in two years. Want the definition of a good hire? Just ask me."

He gives UM an A for hiring Rich Rodriguez, which I would grade a "B+" myself - we'll see how he adjusts his spread attack to the talent on hand, and what kind of staff he assembles. Curious RR turned down Bama last year, and also curious he was apparently not the school's top choice.

A bigger joke is giving UCLA an A for hiring "tricky Rick" Neuheisel. I don't care if he's a Bruin alum, he's been a complete disaster everywhere he's been. Betting scandal, rape/sex scandals, using ineligible players, etc. There's a damn good reason no one has touched him in years since getting fired at Washington. He was 13-10 his last two years at CU and 15-10 his last two at UW, hardly what I'd describe as stellar. I say "C+" based on splash alone, there is no way he will be able to compete any time soon with the Carrol juggernaut at the school crosstown.

Hayes also gives Georgia Tech an "A" for bringing in Navy's Paul Johnson, which I
agree with - Johnson has shown a great deal of offensive flexibility in his jobs, and also give Arkansas an A for hiring Bobby Petrino - if he sticks around.

He also pans A & M's hiring of Mike Sherman, which I'm a little ambivalent about - true Sherman is a NFL coach, which historically has been an issue, but he did spend over a decade in the college ranks first, and has A & M ties, coaching the o-line there for six seasons. He recruited A&M's career rushing leader, Leland McElroy, during his earlier tenure at the school. I'd have to give it at least a "C".

The Pelini rating is an absolutely dumb - not only was he one of the hottest coordinators around the game and most definitely on a lot of schools short lists, the job was almost definitely going to either him or Turner; given the defensive issues on the team, Bo is the best hire. Anyone else, Grobe included, was for appearances sake only. The fans love him, players love him, and he schemes incredibly well. I'd give the hire a B+ only because it's his first permanent head gig, but he does have a Hall of Fame coach upstairs.

Plate Tectonics May Be Sporadic

via ScienceDaily, plate tectonics may not be a permanent geologic process, it might temporarily "grind to a halt" when the continents group together to form a "supercontinent" such as Pangea 350 million years ago.

"Writing in the January 4 issue of Science, Paul Silver of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and former postdoctoral fellow Mark Behn (now at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) point out that most of today's subduction zones are located in the Pacific Ocean basin. If the Pacific basin were to close, as it is predicted to do about in 350 million years when the westward-moving Americas collide with Eurasia, then most of the planet's subduction zones would disappear with it.

This would effectively stop plate tectonics unless new subduction zones start up, but subduction initiation is poorly understood. "The collision of India and Africa with Eurasia between 30 and 50 million years ago closed an ocean basin known as Tethys," says Silver. "But no new subduction zones have initiated south of either India or Africa to compensate for the loss of subduction by this ocean closure."

If this theory proves correct, it would go a long way toward explaining why the Earth has not lost as much heat as expected given its age. When the continents form these supercontinents, subduction of the seafloor stops and heat begins to build up underneath the supercontinent, leading to massive volcanic activity explaining the far out of palce igneous rocks found in the middle of continents far from the subduction zones where they are usually found.

Boston Legal Quotes

New for 2008 - Boston Legal quotes!

Denny Crane: You hear the one about the fella who died, went to the pearly gates? St. Peter let him in. Sees a guy in a suit making a closing argument. Says, "Who's that?" St. Peter says, "Oh, that's God. Thinks he's Denny Crane."

Hiatus

Happy New Year.

Blogging to resume fully on Monday - still enjoying the break, plus not much to comment on until today, so expect me to unload next week early and often.