[chartermagic]

Sanar and Ryelle the Clayr twins. ‘The Sight’ © Laura Tolton 2017

Inspired by the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix.

[asapscience]

BEDMAS is important. [Via Reddit]

[nasa]

Happy International Women’s Day!

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day, a day in which we honor and recognize the contributions of women…both on Earth and in space.

Since the beginning, women have been essential to the progression and success of America’s space program.

Throughout history, women have had to overcome struggles in the workplace. The victories for gender rights were not achieved easily or quickly, and our work is not done.

Today, we strive to make sure that our legacy of inclusion and excellence lives on.

We have a long-standing cultural commitment to excellence that is largely driven by data, including data about our people. And our data shows progress is driven by questioning our assumptions and cultural prejudices – by embracing and nurturing all talent we have available, regardless of gender, race or other protected status, to build a workforce as diverse as our mission. This is how we, as a nation, will take the next giant leap in exploration.

As a world leader in science, aeronautics, space exploration and technology, we have a diverse mission that demands talent from every corner of America, and every walk of life.

So, join us today, and every day, as we continue our legacy of inclusion and excellence.

Happy International Women’s Day!

Learn more about the inspiring woman at NASA here: https://women.nasa.gov/

[orange-lightsaber]

Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

Sabriel from Garth Nix’s Abhorsen series. One of my absolute favorites <3

[dragonsun]

Still (always) my favorite Abhorsen.

[dragonsun]

In modern fantasy (literary or governmental), killing people is the usual solution to the so-called war between good and evil. My books are not conceived in terms of such a war, and offer no simple answers to simplistic questions.

Ursula le Guin, on the Studio Ghibli adaptation of Earthsea. She was clearly not happy with it.

This isn’t my usual “books > adaptations” spiel. I’m posting this because I think it resonates with what’s been happening in the Philippines these days.

To put it simply: it sucks.

[nasa]

Why Sequencing DNA in Space is a Big Deal

… And How You Can Talk to the Scientists Who Made It Happen

Less than one month ago, DNA had never been sequenced in space. As of today, more than one billion base pairs of DNA have been sequenced aboard the International Space Station, Earth’s only orbiting laboratory. The ability to sequence the DNA of living organisms in space opens a whole new world of scientific and medical possibilities. Scientists consider it a game changer. 

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who has a background in genomics, conducted the sequencing on the space station as part of the Biomolecule Sequencer investigation. A small, commercial, off-the-shelf device called MinION (min-EYE-ON), manufactured by Oxford Nanopore Technologies in the UK, was used to sequence the DNA of bacteria, a virus and rodents. Human DNA was not sequenced, and there are no immediate plans to sequence human DNA in space. 

(Image Credit: Oxford Nanopore Technologies)

The MinION is about the size of a candy bar, and plugs into a laptop or tablet via USB connection, which also provides power to the device. The tiny, plug and play sequencer is diminutive compared to the large microwave-sized sequencers used on Earth, and uses much less power. Unlike other terrestrial instruments whose sequencing run times can take days, this device’s data is available in near real time; analysis can begin within 10-15 minutes from the application of the sample.

Having real-time analysis capabilities aboard the space station could allow crews to identify microbes, diagnose infectious disease and collect genomic and genetic data concerning crew health, without having to wait long periods of time to return samples to Earth and await ground-based analysis.

The first DNA sequencing was conducted on Aug. 26, and on Sept. 14, Rubins and the team of scientists back at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston hit the one-billionth-base-pairs-of-DNA-sequenced mark.

Have more questions about how the Biomolecule Sequencer works, or how it could benefit Earth or further space exploration? Ask the team of scientists behind the investigation, who will be  available for questions during a Reddit Ask Me Anything on /r/science on Wednesday, Sept. 29 at 2 p.m. EDT. 

The participants are:

Dr. Aaron Burton, NASA Johnson Space Center, Planetary Scientist and Principal Investigator

Dr. Sarah Castro-Wallace, NASA Johnson Space Center, Microbiologist and Project Manager

Dr. David J. Smith, NASA Ames Research Center, Microbiologist

Dr. Mark Lupisella, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Systems Engineer

Dr. Jason P. Dworkin, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Astrobiologist

Dr. Christopher E. Mason, Weill Cornell Medicine Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics, Associate Professor

[dragonsun]

Science is awesome :)

[doodleforfood]

Site | Shop | Patreon

[thequarkside]

[chartermagic]

Abhorsen House.

© Laura Tolton. 2016

[nasa]

Peering deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, this close-up image reveals the beating heart of one of the most historic and intensively studied remnants of a supernova, an exploding star. The inner region sends out clock-like pulses of radiation and tsunamis of charged particles embedded in magnetic fields.

The neutron star at the very center of the Crab Nebula has about the same mass as the sun but compressed into an incredibly dense sphere that is only a few miles across. Spinning 30 times a second, the neutron star shoots out detectable beams of energy that make it look like it’s pulsating.

The Hubble Space Telescope snapshot is centered on the region around the neutron star (the rightmost of the two bright stars near the center of this image) and the expanding, tattered, filamentary debris surrounding it. Hubble’s sharp view captures the intricate details of glowing gas, shown in red, that forms a swirling medley of cavities and filaments. Inside this shell is a ghostly blue glow that is radiation given off by electrons spiraling at nearly the speed of light in the powerful magnetic field around the crushed stellar core.

Read more about this image HERE. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[nasa]

Juno: Exploring Jupiter’s Intense Radiation

Since 2011, our Juno spacecraft has been heading towards Jupiter, where it will study the gas giant’s atmosphere, aurora, gravity and magnetic field. Along the way, Juno has had to deal with the radiation that permeates space.

All of space is filled with particles, and when these particles get moving at high speeds, they’re called radiation. We study space radiation to better protect spacecraft as they travel through space, as well as to understand how this space environment influences planetary evolution. Once at Jupiter, Juno will have a chance to study one of the most intense radiation environments in our solar system.

Near worlds with magnetic fields – like Earth and Jupiter – these fast-moving particles can get trapped inside the magnetic fields, creating donut-shaped swaths of radiation called radiation belts.

Jupiter’s radiation belts – the glowing areas in the animation below – are especially intense, with particles so energetic that they zip up and down the belts at nearly the speed of light.

Earth also has radiation belts, but they aren’t nearly as intense as Jupiter’s – why? First, Jupiter’s magnetic field is much stronger than Earth’s, meaning that it traps and accelerates faster particles.

Second, while both Earth’s and Jupiter’s radiation belts are populated with particles from space, Jupiter also has a second source of particles – its volcanically active moon Io. Io’s volcanoes constantly release plumes of particles that are energized by Jupiter’s magnetic field. These fast particles get trapped in Jupiter’s radiation belts, making the belts that much stronger and more intense.  

In addition to studying this vast space environment, Juno engineers had to take this intense radiation into consideration when building the spacecraft. The radiation can cause instruments to degrade, interfere with measurements, and can even give the spacecraft itself an electric charge – not good for something with so many sensitive electronics.  

Since we know Jupiter is a harsh radiation environment, we designed Juno with protections in place to keep it safe. Most of Juno’s electronics live inside a half-inch-thick titanium vault, where most of the radiation can’t reach them. We also planned Juno’s orbit to swoop in very close to Jupiter’s surface, underneath the most intense pockets of radiation in Jupiter’s radiation belts.

Juno arrives at Jupiter on July 4th. Throughout its time orbiting the planet, it will send back data on Jupiter’s magnetic field and energetic particles, helping us understand this intense radiation environment better than ever before.

For updates on the Juno mission, follow the spacecraft on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

[dragonsorcsandgeeks]

[sciencenetlinks]

TODAY IN SCIENCE: The First Woman in Space

Sally Ride became the first American woman in space on this day in 1983.

Lift-off is very exciting! There isn’t really time to be scared, but it’s exhilarating and sometimes overwhelming.                                 —Sally Ride, Female Frontiers QuestChat, March 23, 1999

As a child, Ride’s dream was to be a professional tennis player. As an adult, she achieved something that many children dream of doing – she became an astronaut and orbited the Earth.

Ride entered the astronaut corps in 1978, one of only 35 people accepted out of over 8,000 applications, and was trained as a mission specialist. Her qualifications included a doctoral degree in physics. One of only six women accepted into NASA’s space program the year she applied, Ride became the first American woman in space when she blasted off aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on this day in 1983.

Ride flew on two space flights during her career at NASA, both aboard Challenger. During Ride’s second space flight, in October 1984, one of the crew, Dr. Kathy Sullivan, became the first woman to walk in space. Ride’s planned third flight was cancelled after the Challenger exploded in January of 1986; Ride served on the Presidential Commission that investigated the accident.

In 1987, Ride left the astronaut corps to teach at Stanford University, hoping to encourage more women to pursue careers in science and engineering. She has written several books, including a children’s book titled To Space and Back.

Learn more.

Image Credits: NASA

Dr. Ride sits in the aft flight deck mission specialist’s seat during deorbit preparations. 

Ride floating in the Challenger flight deck.  

Ride before taking off in a T-38 jet, bound for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, three days before launch aboard Space Shuttle Challenger.  

Ride participates in a mission sequence test in preparation for the STS-7 mission.  

Video: Sally Ride on Dumb Questions | Blank on Blank | PBS Digital Studios

[dragonsorcsandgeeks]

[red-stick-progressive]

15 things JK Rowling could include to treat Native people and culture respectfully:

1.       Don’t make the centerpiece of the story about a boarding school. If you’re white you probably don’t know this but, boarding schools were used to genocide Natives for centuries.

2.       Bother to do some research on the cultures you’re trying to write about. Natives are not simple. They are complex and deep. In some ways much more so than the European colonizers.

3.       Natives had the most advanced and sophisticated government structures in the world at the time. International war laws, reverse hierarchical federalized democracies, independent economic entities, the clan systems, the most expansive road and trade networks in the world, the list goes on just do some reading.

4.       Don’t diminish or dismiss the natives as backward or simple in the fiction either. JKR decided that natives don’t use wands for magic and stuff because they don’t do specific or focused magic, that’s racist nonsense.

5.       Natives would do some wild shit like Onondaga fire magic or Aztec surgical stuff. There were Mixtec oracles and mystics who cut the flesh from their face and replaced it with gems, that shit is metal.

6.       The wand thing could be replaced with turquoise gem totems, or obsidian magic knives or some shit like that. Taking the tools away from them is dehumanizing imagery.

7.       Don’t mess around with pipes or anything like that. You’re white JKR, you’re white.

8.       If you have a character run away into the woods in Massachusetts, she is gonna run right into Native cities. Don’t pretend that America is this open uninhabited nature reserve. That wasn’t true and it is racist.

9.       Don’t pretend that American societies are going to be as backward and prejudiced as other places. Most American languages didn’t have gendered pronouns. American cultures did not have the institutional patriarchal bullshit or homophobia. We would probably be pretty accepting of people that could do magic.

10.   There should be magical clans… that sounds dope.

11.   There should be magical schools already and there could be a really cool plot about protecting them from the Spanish and the English.

12.   They should not be schools as much as campus communities, workshops instead of classes. The predecessors to the Cherokee would create communities and give them a purpose, which was a practice common throughout North America. There would be a half-dozen schools the size of massive cities centered around dope pyramids like Cahokia.

13.   Magic using medicine men would come to villages to teach the citizens that couldn’t leave or something like that.

14.   Instead of skinwalkers which are too specific and appropriationy, try something like the Witiko, which is about cannibalism and evil deeds freezing your heart or something (fluctuates according to region). Could very easily be related to evil magic users.

15.   The basic thing I think is to do some research and maybe ask some natives before you try shit like this.

To be clear for some white people who think I’m being sensitive or something. First off, fuck you, the second thing is JK Rowling is trying to make a shit ton of money with this. And she will so she should at least not contribute to the immolation and genocide of Native peoples at the same time.

[dragonsun]

True. 

JK Rowling is being insensitive and lazy, to be honest. She could have explored so much more about Native American magic. Instead we just get a mirror of British/European magic.

JK Rowling is great, but she doesn’t know what it’s like to live in a non-Western culture, and it seems that she’s not educating herself. She should take a page out of Ursula Le Guin’s book.

[dragonsun]

My headcanon for the Hogwarts motto is:

Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin standing around the field of a Hogwarts that is still in the process of being built, trying to come up with a school motto, then Gryffindor suddenly apparating in front of them, eyebrows singed and out of breath, putting his hands on his knees and gasping out, “never tickle a sleeping dragon.”

[firewhisky]

Guys, how did you feel about Ilvermorny's four houses? I mean, I feel kinda bad, but I feel a certain... disappointment? Another snake, another mammal, another bird and then the Pukwudgie? It makes sense given the fact that both Isolt and the two kids were raised hearing about Hogwarts and the four houses, but it becomes more and more unfullfilling for me when JK writes about magic in a completely different continent and everything seems either the same or somehow lacking, as if +

+ Europe had been the first and only continent to contain magic and the rest of the whole world either did not have it or didn’t know how to use it. I, personally, was a bit thrown by the ‘no wands’ thing (which was well explained by a post I saw regarding the fact that even in different parts of the world, some things are common because they’re needed, regardless of contact)… Sorry about the ramble, I just wanted to know what you guys think about all this.

My feelings are similar. There was such an opportunity to explore a whole new dimension to the wizarding world, what with Ilvermorny being in America, but instead we got Hogwarts 2.0. 

I love Jo and it’s so hard for me to criticize her, god, but if she’s going to introduce these new elements to her readers, she should put as much vim, vigor, and effort into the worldbuilding as she did when she was writing the books. Otherwise, what’s the point?

-Ashley

P.S. I still enjoyed being sorted for Ilvermorny, though, because I’m a sucker for online tests telling me who I am as a person. 

[dragonsun]

It was definitely underwhelming. Though I did enjoy being sorted.