Monthly Archives: August 2011

Moody Billboards? What’s Next?

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Mood-Reading Billboard: Jell-O’s ‘Pudding Face’ Ad In New York City Smiles Or Frowns Based On Twitter Emoticons

First Posted: 8/3/11 03:51 PM ET

This advertisement won’t just make you smile — you can make it smile.

A newly-installed billboard for Jell-O constantly studies the ratio of happy and sad emoticons on Twitter, then uses the ever-changing data to make a face on the ad smile or frown.

If the majority of Twitter users are posting the 🙂 symbol, a man’s face on billboard grins. When the majority are posting the 🙁 symbol, the advertisement grimaces.

The billboard at the corner of Grand Street and West Broadway in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood is an extension of larger campaign by Kraft Foods that started with the Jell-O Pudding Face website, which gives out coupons when there are more frowny faces than smiley faces on Twitter, Adage notes.

SEE MORE CREATIVE BILLBOARDS:

ok, so you just know you are dying to see these, then go to:    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/mood-reading-billboard-jell-o_n_917475.html#s321731&title=JellO

M6 Class Solar Flare

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fr/spaceweather.com

 

M6-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Sunspot 1261 unleashed another strong solar flare this morning–an M6-class flash at 1348 UT. Like yesterday’s eruption from the same active region, this explosion propelled a CME in the general direction of Earth. ETA: August 5th. Stay tuned for additional analysis.

UPDATE: A listening station above the Arctic Circle in Norway reports ionospheric waves and VHF radio noise associated with today’s M6-flare: their data.

Another Phoenix Haboob

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Dust storm rolls through Phoenix overnight, excessive heat continues

by Catherine Holland

azfamily.com

Posted on August 3, 2011 at 6:26 AM

Updated today at 4:54 PM

PHOENIX – Mother Nature took another swipe at the Valley, delivering the fourth major dust storm of the monsoon early Wednesday morning, which was also one of the warmest mornings we’ve seen in some.

The storm slowly rolled across the Valley between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., leaving dust hanging in the air hours later. Some early morning commuters thought the dusty haze was fog.

While many people might have heard the wind, they didn’t realize another dust storm had hit until they saw the layer of dust on their cars.

The National Weather Service issued a dust storm warning just before 1 a.m. The storm pushed up from the Tucson area through Pinal County and into Phoenix metro area, bringing high winds and lots of dust.

It was mostly over by the time “Good Morning! Arizona” went on the air at 4:30 a.m., but there still was some thunderstorm activity in Pima County, as well as some light shower in Pinal County. That storm activity was dying down as the sun came up.

Because it happened in the middle of the night, it’s difficult to compare the severity of Wednesday morning’s dust storm with the previous three storms.

to read more, go to:    http://www.azfamily.com/news/Dust-storm-rolls-through-Phoenix-overnight-126660458.html

Differences in Lunar Surface Explained

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Study reveals why the Moon’s sides are different, hit by companion

Published on August 3, 2011 1:40 pm PT
– By Dave Tole – Writer
– Article Editor and Approved – Ron Jackson


Click for larger image

(TheWeatherSpace.com) — The moon may have been hit by a second moon orbiting the Earth which explains why the two sides are different.

The ‘dark side’ of the moon is never shown at Earth and it rotates with the rotation of Earth so precise that we may never see it.

But spacecrafts have seen the other side of the moon, which has been discovered to be different than the Earth-facing side.

Scientists have discovered through an animation that a collision between Earth’s moon and a companion moon that was 750 miles wide and about 4 percent the lunar mass, may have been response for the different terrains.

The impact would have pushed an underground source of magma toward the near side, explaining why rare-earth metals and radioactive potassium, uranium, and thorium are concentrated best near the crust there.

fr/ww.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-08_03_2011_moonside.html

TS Emily Approaches Miami

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Tropical Storm Emily still moving west, Miami very near impact zone

Published on August 3, 2011 3:00 pm PT
– By Kevin Martin – Senior Meteorologist
– Article Editor and Approved – Ron Jackson


Click for larger image

(TheWeatherSpace.com) — Tropical Storm Emily is still moving due west despite the projected path of northwest from NOAA and this might be the key to where it goes.

Right now the storm is moving west, just below the Dominican Republic. NOAA forecasts have the system starting out moving northwest and this will be what the mistake will be on their side.

The storm track on the National Hurricane Center’s track starts out going northwest when the storm is clearly moving west. This error means their track will need to be shifted west.

I’ve kept a western track and even my track is starting to move a bit west, putting Miami at risk for this system to get near or even impact plans over the weekend.

As of now my track has Emily going over the Western Haiti Peninsula in a west-northwest movement. After that it goes over Eastern-Central Cuba before exiting into the Bahamas.

The global models want to keep this well east of Florida but there are key ingredients the models may be missing in the calculations. The placement and strength of the upper level ridge is one of them.

to read more, go to:   http://www.theweatherspace.com/news/TWS-08_03_2011_emilymiami.html

A Tribute to Environmentalists

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Worth Dying For

A video tribute to those who have sacrificed their lives to protect the environment.
 Filmmaker Vivek Chauhan created this video celebrating the beauty and diversity of Earth’s natural systems. The video also reveals the man-made dangers threatening those systems, and honors environmental advocates from around the world who have died to protect the places they loved from destruction.
Check out this link to view the video of our Incredible, Living, Beautiful, and Threatened Gaia, our  Home Planet:     http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/worth-dying-for

 

 

 

The Closer to the Poles, the Larger the Brains

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ScienceShot: Brains Grow at Earth’s Poles

by Daniel Strain on 26 July 2011, 7:02 PM
sn-northerners.jpg
Credit: Eiluned Pearce

Underneath those horned helmets, Vikings may have sported big brains. Like other residents of the dark north, however, the Scandinavian pillagers would’ve needed the grandiose noggins to see, not to sack cities. Scientists have long known that polar days tend to be shorter and dimmer, on average, than their equatorial counterparts. Northern and southern peoples seem to compensate much like owls do, scientists report online today in theProceedings of the Royal Society B. The researchers examined 55 skulls dating back to the 1800s and taken from various parts of the world. They discovered that humans living along the tropics tend to have smaller eye sockets than people dwelling at higher and lower latitudes. Since bigger eyes absorb more light, large polar orbs could make up for the twilight conditions there. In fact, high- and low-latitude natives seem to see just as well in low light as tropical people do in bright light, according to the study. Cerebral size seems to grow by a few milliliters with increasing and decreasing latitude, probably because the brain’s visual centers expand as peepers widen.

fr/http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/scienceshot-brains-grow-at-earth.html

And now, The Science of Golf

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ScienceShot: Golf Is All About the X (and S) Factor

by Jon Cartwright on 29 July 2011, 3:00 AM
sn-golfswing.jpg
Credit: Jessica Rose

Golfers can spend years honing their swings, but now it seems there are just a few key traits that separate amateurs from the pros. Researchers used eight digital cameras to record 3D videos of 10 professional and five amateur male golfers in action. Then, they measured several parameters, including the “S factor” (tilt of the shoulders) and the elusive “X factor” (rotation of hips relative to the shoulders), which is considered vital for power generation. Compared with the amateurs, the pros had S and X factors that were greater—often by as much as 10 degrees—and more consistent. Although previous studies have examined the biomechanics of golf, this latest study, published online today in the Journal of Applied Biomechanics, is thought to be the first to analyze rotational biomechanics throughout the swing. According to the researchers, the results could help golfers strike balls harder, with less risk of injury.

to read more, go to:    http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/scienceshot-golf-is-all-about-the.html

The Math of Basketball

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The Mathematics of Basketball

by Ron Cowen on 2 August 2011, 1:04 PM |

To shoot, or not to shoot, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to try to score right away or wait for a better chance.

Professional basketball players face that quandary multiple times in every game. And in an article posted at arXiv.org on 29 July, Brian Skinner, a graduate student in theoretical physics at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, provides some mathematical guidance for the best time to take aim.

Skinner, an avid basketball fan, was inspired to analyze the game when he heard a talk at an American Physical Society meeting in 2007 on the flow of traffic. Every driver tries to minimize his or her commuting time rather than reduce the average travel time of all drivers, resulting in a paradoxical situation: Closing a road may actually reduce congestion by forcing drivers to take a route many had avoided, speeding up the average commute.

That paradox reminded Skinner of the Patrick Ewing theory in basketball, named after the high-scoring player for the New York Knicks. Analysts had noticed that in games from which Ewing or other big scorers on a team were absent, that team was more likely to win. In addition, the diagrams and flow of players in basketball also resembled the traffic models Skinner had seen.

to read more, go to:    http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/the-mathematics-of-basketball.html?ref=hp

Another Earthquake in Ethiopia

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Moderate earthquake hits Ethiopia

Last update: August 3, 2011 at 2:52 pm by By Armand Vervaeck and James Daniell

 

UPDATE: A potentially dangerous earthquake has hit on the border of Ethiopia and Somalia, early this morning. The earthquake would have been very much felt in the city of Borama and villages nearby.

 

The USGS has its epicenter directly under Borama.

 

The huge difference in the estimates of GFZ and USGS show the deficiency of adequate seismological stations in this area of the world (similar to our PNG article).

 

There are no volcanoes in the immediate vicinity according to CATDAT, so this is most likely a tectonic earthquake in the East Africa rift zone.

 

A number of earthquakes have occurred in this region previously in 1930, 1951, 1961 and 1980.

to read more, go to:    http://earthquake-report.com/2011/08/03/m5-5earthquakehitsethiopia