World-Famous Photo of JFK Assassin Not a Forgery

post from The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel on 07 November 2009 10:40:00 PM. © The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

"The human brain, while remarkable in many aspects, also has its weaknesses.The visual system can be quite inept at making judgments regarding 3-D geometry, lighting, and shadows."

Hany Farid, Dartmouth College Computer Scientist

Next to the famed Zapruder film segment, the most famous image of John F. Kennedy assassination was iconic image of Lee Harvey Oswald pictured in a backyard setting holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other. Oswald and others claimed that the incriminating photo was a fake, noting the seemingly inconsistent lighting and shadows. After analyzing the photo with modern-day forensic tools, Hany Farid, a pioneer in the field of digital forensics at Dartmouth says the photo almost certainly was not altered.

"If we had found evidence of photo tampering, then it would have suggested a broader plot to kill JFK," said Farid, who is also the director of the Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth. "Those who believe that there was a broader conspiracy can no longer point to this photo as possible evidence."

Farid added that federal officials long ago said that this image had not been tampered with, but a surprising number of skeptics still assert that there was a conspiracy.

Farid and his team have developed a number of digital forensic tools used to determine whether digital photos have been manipulated, and his research is often used by law enforcement officials and in legal proceedings. The tools can measure statistical inconsistencies in the underlying image pixels, improbable lighting and shadow, physically impossible perspective distortion, and other artifacts introduced by photo manipulators. The play of light and shadow was fundamental in the Oswald photo analysis.

At a casual glance, the lighting and shadows in the Oswald photo appear to many to be incongruous with the outdoor lighting. To determine if this was the case, Farid constructed a 3-D model of Oswald's head and portions of the backyard scene, from which he was able to determine that a single light source, the sun, could explain all of the shadows in the photo.

"It is highly improbable that anyone could have created such a perfect forgery with the technology available in 1963," said Farid. With no evidence of tampering, he concluded that the incriminating photo was authentic.

"As our digital forensic tools become more sophisticated, we increasingly have the ability to apply them to historic photos in an attempt to resolve some long-standing mysteries," said Farid.

Casey Kazan

Source: Dartmouth College

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Will the "Space Fence" Solve the Orbiting Litter
Crisis

post from The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel on 07 November 2009 06:53:00 PM. © The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

Man has made it to the moon, hurled equipment to the edges of the solar system, even examined the very beginning of time, but our true achievements are even more important (if less awe-inspiring): we've raised litter above and beyond the surface of the Earth! So much so that with some 300,000 objects orbiting our little blue dot, we need a new detection grid if we're ever to get off-planet without having our heads bashed in by a ball of old trash.

There's an entire ring of old, broken, or blasted to pieces bits and bobs in near Earth orbit, each with enough energy to permanently ruin an astronauts entire day (at least until the explosive decompression sets in). With twenty thousand objects already tracked, and hundreds of thousands more still in orbit, the International Space Station has already had to make emergency maneuvers to avoid collisions twice - and an Iridium satellite famously didn't make such maneuvers, colliding with a Cosmos-2511 colleague and exploding both (producing a storm of extra debris in what could be the world's most expensive, if slow, chain reaction.)

The new tracking system has been contracted to Northrop Grumman, who were handed thirty million dollars, pointed up and told "Keep track of all that stuff." The new system builds on previous technology and is called a "Space Fence" because it projects constant radio beams up from a few points on Earth - as Earth rotates, the radio region sweeps across all the objects in orbit.

The interesting note is that this strategy is still observation and avoidance - you need careful timing or maneuvering systems to actually evade any identified impact-possible pieces, otherwise you just get a countdown to space explosion. Awesome for Michael Bay, sucks for everyone else. It's pretty tricky to get garbage collectors into low Earth orbit but we're going to have to do something soon - or literally become penned into our own home by all the trash we threw out the front door. And then wonder why nobody's coming to visit.

Note: there was one attempt to bring down trash, the student-project SNAP satellite. Ironically, it failed and became space-trash itself.

Luke McKinney.

Space Fence System

SNAP http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/SSC/research/astrodynamics/rendezvous

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Will a "Space Fence" Solve the Orbiting Litter
Crisis

post from The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel on 07 November 2009 06:53:00 PM. © The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

Man has made it to the moon, hurled equipment to the edges of the solar system, even examined the very beginning of time, but our true achievements are even more important (if less awe-inspiring): we've raised litter above and beyond the surface of the Earth! So much so that with some 300,000 objects orbiting our little blue dot, we need a new detection grid if we're ever to get off-planet without having our heads bashed in by a ball of old trash.

There's an entire ring of old, broken, or blasted to pieces bits and bobs in near Earth orbit, each with enough energy to permanently ruin an astronauts entire day (at least until the explosive decompression sets in). With twenty thousand objects already tracked, and hundreds of thousands more still in orbit, the International Space Station has already had to make emergency maneuvers to avoid collisions twice - and an Iridium satellite famously didn't make such maneuvers, colliding with a Cosmos-2511 colleague and exploding both (producing a storm of extra debris in what could be the world's most expensive, if slow, chain reaction.)

The new tracking system has been contracted to Northrop Grumman, who were handed thirty million dollars, pointed up and told "Keep track of all that stuff." The new system builds on previous technology and is called a "Space Fence" because it projects constant radio beams up from a few points on Earth - as Earth rotates, the radio region sweeps across all the objects in orbit.

The interesting note is that this strategy is still observation and avoidance - you need careful timing or maneuvering systems to actually evade any identified impact-possible pieces, otherwise you just get a countdown to space explosion. Awesome for Michael Bay, sucks for everyone else. It's pretty tricky to get garbage collectors into low Earth orbit but we're going to have to do something soon - or literally become penned into our own home by all the trash we threw out the front door. And then wonder why nobody's coming to visit.

Note: there was one attempt to bring down trash, the student-project SNAP satellite. Ironically, it failed and became space-trash itself.

Luke McKinney.

Space Fence System

SNAP http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/SSC/research/astrodynamics/rendezvous

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'Earth Explorer' Mapping Planet Inside Out From
Space

post from The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel on 07 November 2009 06:31:00 PM. © The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

The most accurate gravity map of Earth ever is being recorded - from space, of course. The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Explorer (GOCE) was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) this fall to explore Earth inside and out like never before.

GOCE is equipped with a triple-accelerometer gradiometer, accurate to within one part in one hundred trillion of standard Earth gravity. Don't pretend you understand that - a one hundred trillionth is beyond the human minds ability to usefully picture. For reference, it's the size of a virus compared to a sixteen wheeler truck.

The GOCE is the first in a series of Earth Exploring satellites - it's companions will be CRYOSAT, SMOS, AEOLUS and the excellently-named SWARM. Five satellites in orbit with names like that - the ESA have not confirmed that the quintuplet will merge to form a giant alien-battling robot in times of distress, but only because it's so obvious it doesn't need to be said.

The image above provides a global model of the Earth's gravity field and of the geoid. The geoid (the surface of equal gravitational potential of a hypothetical ocean at rest) serves as the classical reference for all topographical features -important for studies of Earth interior processes, ocean circulation, ice motion and sea-level change.

The five hundred million dollar satellite is expected to survive for 20 months - at twenty-five million a month that makes it even higher maintenance than Paris Hilton, but infinitely more useful. Data provided by the satellite will map everything from ocean depths to the magma core of the planet, providing data of unprecedented accuracy for everything from climate physics to geophysics.

In an interesting coincidence, GOCE was launched on the same day the Large Hadron Collider was supposed to power up. Project leader Kal-El urges readers not to pay too much attention to this, nor ask why the nose cone seems to be full of diapers and a red cape.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

GOCE homepage http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/GOCE/index.html

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The Gioconda smile: a solved enigma

post from Communicating Science through the Arts on 07 November 2009 06:09:53 PM. © Communicating Science through the Arts

Five centuries after its creation, Leonardo Da Vinci’s most famous painting, Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda), is still raising unanswered questions and fascinating art lovers, researchers and onlookers alike. The identity of the model and the[...]

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putting the caution in cautious optimism

post from weird things on 07 November 2009 04:11:39 PM. © weird things

Earlier this week, I wrote about some of the challenges involved with building a warp drive using some of the more conventional means that might be available to a fairly advanced alien civilization. Well, that is if you think of complex nuclear weapons[...]

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Carl Sagan Day

post from Supernova Condensate on 07 November 2009 03:27:12 PM. © Supernova Condensate

Ladies and gentlemen, have a Happy Carl Sagan Day!

(Read more ...)

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Rudeness required

The concern trolls are very concerned. They are responding to my posting of Sonia/Tanja/Rosa/Whoevera Jensen's crazy email — she's disabled! She's mentally ill! It's cruel to post her wacky screeds publicly where people will point and laugh! You're picking on her! <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE SONIA ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>

No.

Crazy people — and I don't mean clinically ill people who need medical/psychiatric help — are everywhere, and they are saying and doing stupid things, and they are sending their nonsense to me, and they are engaging in their foolishness in public places where they affect the normal, non-crazy, mostly sensible people. Announcing that they are mildly nuts is not a reasonable excuse to hold off on criticizing them. That logic would mean we'd have to restrain ourselves from mocking Glenn Beck or rebuking Michele Bachmann. They're no less crazy than Sonia Jensen, after all.

My mailbox would depress you. I think I am notified about just about every dufus who pops up and demands public respect for his delusions. Take the bus driver in Atlanta who decided he wouldn't let passengers off his bus if they wouldn't pray with him.

A MARTA bus driver is on suspension following allegations that he forced passengers to pray before allowing them to exit the bus.
Christopher James was one of those passengers. James said, initially, he thought something was wrong when he rang the bell to get off the bus and the door didn't open.
James said the bus driver asked him and three other passengers to join hands in prayer. James said the driver prayed with the group for about four minutes.

Suspend him or <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE THE BUS DRIVER ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>?

Or how about the schoolteacher who thinks the Book of Revelation has warned her about fingerprints?

A 22-year veteran kindergarten teacher in the Texas Bible Belt could lose her job for refusing, on religious grounds, to give fingerprints under a state law requiring them.
The evangelical Christian, Pam McLaurin, is fighting a looming suspension, claiming that fingerprinting amounts to the "Mark of the Beast," and hence is a violation of her First Amendment right to practice her religion. Her case is similar to a lawsuit by a group of Michigan farmers, some of them Amish, challenging rules requiring the tagging of livestock with RFID chips, saying the devices are also the devil's mark.
The latest case is the first in which a teacher is refusing fingerprinting on religious grounds, the woman's lawyer said. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to decide whether the First Amendment is implicated in fingerprinting, especially at a time when states, local governments and civic organizations are increasingly making them mandatory for anyone wanting to drive a car or coach a youth basketball team.
McLaurin's lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency cites various passages of Revelation, the final book of The Bible:
He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand and on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.... Then a third angel followed them saying with a loud voice -- if anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God.... He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

Fire her or <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE THE SCHOOLTEACHER ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>?

I also get email from Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association. He's very excited; Christmas is victorious!

Governor gets message, big victory for Christmas!
Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear did not like a Christmas tree being called a Christmas tree. So he changed it. According to the Associated Press, Gov. Beshear recently decided the tree on the Capitol lawn in Frankfort, for 2009, should be called a "holiday" tree.
American Family Association immediately went to work against the forces of political correctness who wanted to remove the word "Christmas" from the Christmas season. Within hours, we sent an email alert into the Bluegrass State asking our 38,370 AFA Action Alert friends to call and e-mail Governor Beshear.

Point and laugh, and call the tree we atheists put up in our homes a Christmas tree too, or <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>?

Or how about this one? It turns out that Iraqi police are searching for bombs…with dowsing rods. A British company is making bank selling these useless gadgets to gullible — and now endangered — people with a risky job.

Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq's security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.
The sensor device, known as the ADE 651, from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Iraq has bought more than 1,500 of the devices.The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works "on the same principle as a Ouija board" -- the power of suggestion -- said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.
…
Aqeel al-Turaihi, the inspector general for the Ministry of the Interior, reported that the ministry bought 800 of the devices from a company called ATSC (UK) Ltd. for $32 million in 2008, and an unspecified larger quantity for $53 million. Mr. Turaihi said Iraqi officials paid up to $60,000 apiece, when the wands could be purchased for as little as $18,500. He said he had begun an investigation into the no-bid contracts with ATSC.

Scream and yell that their stupidity is putting their lives on the line, prosecute the con artists selling these cheap and useless gadgets, or <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE THE BOMB DOWSERS ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>?

I guess I'm one of those people who will continue to say that stupidity, ignorance, and even mental illness do not demand that people stand silent when victims of those afflictions thrust themselves forward and demand respect for their views. Polite silence and encouraging words of reassurance is how we got to Idiot America in the first place.

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MiniSpaceWorld Design Contest Nears Finish

My friend Tibor Pacher reports that the MiniSpaceWorld Design Contest is getting quite interesting, with six submissions of high quality, all going in different directions. Tibor’s goal is to build a scale model world that, like the famous Miniatur[...]

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Kids Science Weekend

BiologyInMotion presents animations, interactive activities, and cartoons designed to make learning biology a richer, more engaging experience. Enjoy the original, entertaining, interactive biology learning activities. Tipps for teachers too!To visit click here: http://biologyinmotion.com/welcome.html

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