Mars24 has been upgraded for Curiosity

post from Planetary Society Blog on 03 August 2012 11:46:39 PM. © Planetary Society Blog

Robert Schmunk has released a new version of the Mars24 application to help us tell time at Curiosity's landing site.

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What's up in the Solar System in August 2012

post from Planetary Society Blog on 03 August 2012 07:07:26 PM. © Planetary Society Blog

Welcome to the monthly roundup of our solar system's envoy of electronic explorers! All eyes are on Curiosity as it approaches Mars this weekend. Who will lend support at the Red Planet?

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http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/jason-davis/2012-08-03-whats-up-in-the
-solar-system.html

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NCBI ROFL: Seasonal Variation in Internet Keyword
Searches: A Proxy Assessment of Sex Mating Behaviors.

post from Discoblog » NCBI ROFL on 03 August 2012 07:00:27 PM. © Discoblog » NCBI ROFL

“The current study investigated seasonal variation in internet searches regarding sex and mating behaviors. Harmonic analyses were used to examine the seasonal trends of Google keyword searches during the past 5 years for topics related to pornography, prostitution, and mate-seeking. Results indicated a consistent 6-month harmonic cycle with the peaks of keyword searches related to sex and mating behaviors occurring most frequently during winter and early summer. Such results compliment past research that has found similar seasonal trends of births, sexually transmitted infections, condom sales, and abortions.”

Bonus quotes from the material and methods:

“One means of measuring what sexual issues and concerns are on the public?s mind at a specific period of time is by assessing changes in internet keyword searches. By simply typing a few words into an internet search engine (e.g., Google), individuals are able to obtain information on any topic of interest. For example, a person might type the word ?porn? into the Google search engine when attempting to find pornography. A person might type in ?eHarmony? when trying to find a mate or even ?prostitute? when attempting to engage in illicit sexual activities. Given that about 78 % of the population ...

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NASA Selects SpaceX To Return Americans To Space

post from Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News on 03 August 2012 06:22:13 PM. © Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

Hawthorne, CA (SPX) Aug 04, 2012
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has won a $440 million contract with NASA to develop the successor to the Space Shuttle and transport American astronauts into space. "This is a decisive milestone in human spaceflight and sets an exciting course for the next phase of American space exploration," said SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk. "SpaceX, along with our partners at NASA,

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ace_999.html

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Good climate change science, policy and politics
blogs.

post from Climate Change Action on 03 August 2012 06:20:03 PM. © Climate Change Action

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http://climatechangeaction.blogspot.com/2012/08/good-climate-change-science-polic
y-and.html

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Post 9/11, high religious beliefs predict more
distress

post from Epiphenom on 03 August 2012 05:06:00 PM. © Epiphenom

In the two months following the 9/11 attacks in 2001,

Daniel McIntosh, a psychologist at the University of Denver, and colleagues ran an internet survey of 890 people to gauge their happiness, cognitive intrusions (flashbacks and other post-traumatic stress), and diagnoses of anxiety and depression.

They found that high levels of religious attendance were linked to more happiness (positive affect, in the jargon), fewer cognitive intrusions, and fewer cases of anxiety and depression.

People with strong religious beliefs (i.e. those who said that "My whole approach to life is shaped by my spiritual or religious beliefs" and "I try hard to live all my life according to my religious or spiritual beliefs") were also happier, but there was no correlation with anxiety and depression.

However, strong believers ("High spirituality" in the graph) actually had more cognitive intrusions after 9-11. These gradually declined over time until they dropped back to the levels of non-believers by the end of the study.

Now, the religious attendance thing you would expect. Religious people in the USA regularly report they were happier, and it's easy to believe that belonging to a group could help you cope with the trauma. There was another recent study, this one looking at Italian earthquake survivors, which also found that people who attended religious services were protected from trauma.

But the high distress of religious believers is interesting. That differs from the Italian study, which found that religious believers were no more or less traumatised than non-believers. But it suggests that people with more religious belief felt more connected with the event in some way.

One thing they didn't look at was how religious beliefs changed after the event. There has been at least one study looking at this (which found that the most directly traumatised tend to lose religion), but other studies looking at trauma and belief have shown a mixed picture!

McIntosh DN, Poulin MJ, Silver RC, & Holman EA (2011). The distinct roles of spirituality and religiosity in physical and mental health after collective trauma: a national longitudinal study of responses to the 9/11 attacks. Journal of behavioral medicine, 34 (6), 497-507 PMID: 21344318

This article by Tom Rees was first published on Epiphenom. It is licensed under Creative Commons.

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ious-beliefs-predict.html

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Mars Exploration Rovers update: Opportunity works
on a whim, team to stand down for Curiosity

post from Planetary Society Blog on 03 August 2012 03:29:49 PM. © Planetary Society Blog

Opportunity roved on to new targets near the rim of Endeavour Crater in July, as the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) team prepared to stand down for the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity

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epares-to-stand-down-for-curiosity.html

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Monster Truck Physics

After days of watching the displays of elegant Olympic athleticism, with soaring gymnasts, unbelievably synchronized tandem divers, chiseled swimmers slicing through the water in hot pursuit of world records, and the many other sports that exemplify the glory and beauty of the human form, I've had about all I can stand.

And there's no better cure for Olympics overload that I can imagine than Monster Trucks!

Thanks to Car and Drivers' feature, The Physics of: Monster Trucks, I can escape the sublime Olympic celebration and wallow in the brutal, filthy destructiveness of all manner of absurd mechanized behemoths, while pretending that I'm learning something useful - like how much force Bigfoot exerts on the roof of a Crown Vic as it comes careening back to earth at the end of a ten meter high leap.

What a relief. One more inspirational story of some athlete rising to the pinnacle of their sport through all manner of heart-wrenching challenges would probably have made my head explode.

Yeah, yeah, I'll be glued to the screen tonight watching the Olympics until NBC ends it's broadcast at midnight. But if it gets to be too much, I'll close my eyes for a few minutes and imagine some strut blowing, axle bending, ear shattering monster truck destruction, just to keep things in perspective.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/physicscentral/PhysicsBuzz/~3/DQzOZbENt68/monster-
truck-physics.html

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NASA chooses SpaceX to return US astronauts to
space

BIG news: NASA announced this morning that it has awarded a total of $1.1 billion in grants to three different companies to put American astronauts back into space. The kicker: they chose SpaceX as the company, and their Falcon rocket as the vehicle, to[...]

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Navy Experimental Rail Gun to Fire GPS-Guided
Projectiles

From Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: The Office of Naval Research Wants Advanced Guided Munitions for its Electromagnetic Rail Gun ONR The U.S. military has been looking for ways to smarten up its dumb projectiles for years--look no further than this GPS g

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http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/20705/Navy-Experimental-Rail-Gun-to-Fire-GPS-
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