First look at Curiosity MARDI's descent animation
(WOW WOW)

Even a preliminary, low-resolution, low-frame-rate version of Curiosity's descent imager animation of the arrival on Mars contains almost more awesome than I can stand.

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http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/08061652-mardi-video-thumb.h
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VIDEO of Curiositys descent from the rover cam
itself!

Well, that was fast! The MARDI – MARs Descent Imager – was designed to take images as the Curiosity rover dropped down to the surface of Mars. Those thumbnail images have been put together into a stop-motion video that’s just[...]

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Curiosity update: Heat shield spotted!

Just a quick update: new analysis of the incredible picture from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showing Curiosity parachuting to the surface of Mars has revealed a new detail: the rover’s heat shield:Very cool! But it gets[...]

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Joy after seven minutes of terror at NASA lab

Pasadena, California (AFP) Aug 6, 2012
After years of hard work and seven minutes of terror, workers of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory here let out their tears of joy. "Touchdown confirmed," said a member of mission control at the laboratory as the room erupted in cheers at the touchdown of their $2.5-billion Mars Science Laboratory and Curiosity rover on the surface of the Red Planet, breaking new ground in the US-led search f

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http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Joy_after_seven_minutes_of_terror_at_NASA_lab_99
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Next on Mars: 400 scientists on an alien road
trip

Washington (AFP) Aug 6, 2012
Imagine taking 400 scientists on an alien road trip where each one wants to examine every interesting rock along the way. Welcome to the next two years of NASA's landmark robotic mission on Mars. Scientists on Earth are eager to explore the Gale Crater, where water is believed to have pooled many years ago and where the US space agency's $2.5 billion Curiosity rover touched down early Monday

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http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Next_on_Mars_400_scientists_on_an_alien_road_tri
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NASA lands rover on Mars to seek signs of life

Los Angeles (AFP) Aug 6, 2012
NASA opened a new chapter in the history of interplanetary exploration on Monday when its $2.5 billion nuclear-powered robot Curiosity beamed back pictures from the surface of Mars. The one-ton mobile lab is the largest rover ever sent to Mars, and its high-speed landing was the most daring to date, using a rocket-powered sky crane to lower the six-wheeled vehicle gently to the Red Planet's

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NCBI ROFL: Surprise surprise, sarcasm is hard to
communicate via email.

Egocentrism over e-mail: can we communicate as well as we think?

“Without the benefit of paralinguistic cues such as gesture, emphasis, and intonation, it can be difficult to convey emotion and tone over electronic mail (e-mail). Five experiments suggest that this limitation is often underappreciated, such that people tend to believe that they can communicate over e-mail more effectively than they actually can. Studies 4 and 5 further suggest that this overconfidence is born of egocentrism, the inherent difficulty of detaching oneself from one’s own perspective when evaluating the perspective of someone else. Because e-mail communicators “hear” a statement differently depending on whether they intend to be, say, sarcastic or funny, it can be difficult to appreciate that their electronic audience may not.”

Bonus excerpt from the full text:

“We expected participants to overestimate their ability to communicate sarcasm. To test this hypothesis, senders’ predictions of the receivers’ accuracy were compared with the receivers’ actual accuracy. Because the data for each pair are interdependent, the data were analyzed at the level of the dyad. Specifically, we averaged each person’s estimate of the number of topics (out of 10) that they expected the other ...

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Dork Tower gets curious

John Kovalic, the author of the web comic Dork Tower, apparently feels the same way about the media coverage of Curiosity as I do. Click to see the whole thing.Tip o’ the sky crane to Emily Lakdawalla.[...]

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Venntastic

Logicians, graphic artists and even cartoonists have found many uses for Venn diagrams -- the mathematical figures first introduced in the late 19th century. Standard Venn diagrams have two or three overlapping circles that visually explain the relationships between or among several objects, such as nerds and geeks.

But this is just the tip of the Venn iceberg. More generally, Venn diagrams can include a variety of intersecting curves that form exotic shapes. Now, a team of mathematicians has found the first simple, symmetric 11-Venn diagram. Although the image is technically "simple," the set of 11 curves form a beautiful visual treat.

Below you can see a teaser 7-Venn diagram that was discovered awhile ago. To see why the newest 11-Venn diagram hasn't been found until now, read on for a blown up image of this mathematical treasure.

This older symmetric 7-Venn diagram, while intricate, pales in comparison to the new diagram. According to the authors of a new Arxiv paper, the new type of Venn diagram has not been discovered until now. Image courtesy Frank Ruskey and Khalegh Mamakani.

Although 11-Venn diagrams have been created before, mathematicians Frank Ruskey and Khalegh Mamakani from the University of Victoria decided to narrow down their search. The words "simple" and "symmetric" are actually technical definitions in mathematics. Here's what you need to know to understand the world's first simple, symmetric 11-Venn diagram:

• Simple: As Ruskey and Mamakani write, simple means that only two curves can intersect at one point on the Venn diagram. If anything, this seems to make the search more complex because it's a fairly strict restriction.
• Symmetric: A symmetric Venn diagram will retain the same overall shape after a rotation of 2*pi/n radians, where n is the number of curves in the diagram. This means that a symmetric 7-Venn diagram will look the same every time you rotate it 1/7th of a full rotation.
• 11-Venn: Quite simply, an 11-Venn diagram has 11 curves. These don't have to be circles though, as is the case in the diagram that Ruskey and Mamakani unveiled.

To find their elusive mathematical object, Ruskey and Mamakani developed an algorithm to search for their object. Ultimately, they found thousands of simple, symmetric 11-Venn diagrams, but they uncovered the first one in March of this year. You can see it in all of its glory below.

The first simple, symmetric 11-Venn diagram. The existence of such an object has been an open question in mathematics for decades, according to Ruskey and Mamakani. One of the 11 curves is highlighted with a white line. Image courtesy Frank Ruskey and Khalegh Mamakani.
The team has named the new diagram "Newroz," meaning "the new sun" or "the new day" in Kurdish. For English speakers, it sounds like "new rose," and all of these names seem fitting.

You can read more about Venn diagrams on Ruskey's website, including a set of open problems in this area of mathematics. Maybe you can tackle the next open problem and track down the next elusive diagram.


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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/physicscentral/PhysicsBuzz/~3/s1dOZVC5wpU/venntast
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to boldly go where we cant go. yet

After screaming through the Martian atmosphere and pulling off a ridiculously complicated and risky set of maneuvers, Curiosity is finally on the surface of the Red Planet. Aside from the sheer fact that we have the technology to launch an SUV-sized robot to another planet and land it with pinpoint accuracy after guiding it for [...]

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http://worldofweirdthings.com/2012/08/06/to-boldly-go-where-we-cant-go-yet/

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