The Tap Dancing Geographer

I’m from Nashville. I’m a geographer who tap dances. I’m going to fill this page with all kinds of intellectual musings, mostly related to geography, science, random humor, and dance.

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Millisecond Pulsar with Magnetic Field Structure

A pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits pulses of radiation (such as X-rays and radio waves) at regular intervals. A millisecond pulsar is one with a rotational period between 1 and 10 milliseconds, or from 60,000 to 6,000 revolutions per minute. Pulsars form in supernova explosions, but even newborn pulsars don’t spin at millisecond speeds, and they gradually slow down with age. If, however, a pulsar is a member of a binary system with a normal star, gas transferred from the companion can spin up an old, slow pulsar to the millisecond range.

Credit: NASA, Dana Berry: Lead Animator Michael McClare (HTSI)

[tapdancinggeographer]

(via What Is Your Profession 300 GIF - WhatIsYourProfession 300 Profession - Discover & Share GIFs)

[dsmsix]

René Descartes: *thinks*

René Descartes:

[rachelpasser]

Hispanics in South Carolina: A map I designed recently

It’s not often my work gets posted for the public to see so when it does, I love being able to share.

Here’s a new take on a ring map I did last summer for an infographic exploring Hispanics in South Carolina and how they compare to the rest of the Southeast US.

If you’d like to see the whole thing, here’s a link to the infographic. It’s one of the latest featured visualizations on the SC Healthviz website my office maintains.

Happy Mapping!

-Rachel

[dearesri]

This should be shown to all first year mapping students

[dsmsix]

René Descartes: *thinks*

René Descartes:

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Why do stars twinkle?

On a clear, dark night, our eyes can see about 6,000 or so stars in the sky. They seem to twinkle, or change their brightness, all the time. In fact, most of the stars are shining with a steady light. The movement of air (sometimes called turbulence) in the atmosphere of Earth causes the starlight to get slightly bent as it travels from the distant star through the atmosphere down to us on the ground. This means that some of the light reaches us directly and some gets bent slightly away. To our eyes, this makes the star seem to twinkle.

You will notice that stars closer to the horizon will appear to twinkle more than other stars. This is because there is a lot more atmosphere between you and a star near the horizon than between you and a star higher in the sky. Go out some night soon and have a look!

source

[caseycheung-deactivated20210903]

Kayla Seitel Can’t Fight The Feeling (2017) Choreography by Orialis Ashley

[npr]

Countless scientific studies have espoused the idea that a glass of red wine a day can be good for the heart, but a new, sweeping global study published in The Lancet on Friday rejects the notion that any drinking can be healthy.

No amount of alcohol is safe, according to The Global Burden of Diseases study, which analyzed levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries from 1990 to 2016.

While the study’s authors say that moderate drinking may safeguard people against heart disease, they found that the potential to develop cancer and other diseases offsets these potential benefits, as do other risks of harm. The report urges governments to revise health guidelines to suggest lower levels of consumption.

“Our results show that the safest level of drinking is none,” the report states. “This level is in conflict with most health guidelines, which espouse health benefits associated with consuming up to two drinks per day.”

No Amount Of Alcohol Is Good For Your Health, Global Study Says

Photo: Peter Forest/Getty Images for Starz

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

A Cepheid is a star that varies in light intensity over regular, measurable periods. The period of pulsation is directly related to a Cepheid’s intrinsic brightness making observations of these stars a powerful tool for determining distance. This animation shows a Cepheid variable star varying in brightness in the arm of a spiral galaxy.

Credits: Dana Berry (Skyworks Digital): Lead Animator Michael McClare (HTSI): Writer (NASA)

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Millisecond Pulsar with Magnetic Field Structure

A pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits pulses of radiation (such as X-rays and radio waves) at regular intervals. A millisecond pulsar is one with a rotational period between 1 and 10 milliseconds, or from 60,000 to 6,000 revolutions per minute. Pulsars form in supernova explosions, but even newborn pulsars don’t spin at millisecond speeds, and they gradually slow down with age. If, however, a pulsar is a member of a binary system with a normal star, gas transferred from the companion can spin up an old, slow pulsar to the millisecond range.

Credit: NASA, Dana Berry: Lead Animator Michael McClare (HTSI)

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

10199 Chariklo

10199 Chariklo  is the largest confirmed centaur (minor planet of the outer Solar System). It orbits the Sun between Saturn and Uranus, grazing the orbit of Uranus. On 26 March 2014, astronomers announced the discovery of two rings (nicknamed Oiapoque and Chuí), around Chariklo by observing a stellar occultation. making it the first known minor planet to have rings.

Chariklo was discovered by James V. Scotti of the Spacewatch program on February 15, 1997. Chariklo is named after the nymph Chariclo (Χαρικλώ), the wife of Chiron and the daughter of Apollo.

Image credit: ESO, L. Calçada, M. Kornmesser, Nick Rising

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Silicate Crystal Formation in the Disk of an Erupting Star

This artist’s concept illustrates how silicate crystals like those found in comets can be created by an outburst from a growing star. The image shows a young sun-like star encircled by its planet-forming disk of gas and dust. The silicate that makes up most of the dust would have begun as non-crystallized, amorphous particles.

Streams of material are seen spiraling from the disk onto the star increasing its mass and causing the star to brighten and heat up dramatically. The outburst causes temperatures to rise in the star’s surrounding disk.

When the disk warms from the star’s outburst, the amorphous particles of silicate melt. As they cool off, they transform into forsterite (see inset), a type of silicate crystal often found in comets in our solar system.

In April 2008, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope detected evidence of this process taking place on the disk of a young sun-like star called EX Lupi.

Credit: NASA/Spitzer 

 Animation: NASA Spitzer

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

Excitation of atom by photon

Electron excitation is the transfer of a bound electron to a more energetic, but still bound state. This can be done by photoexcitation (PE), where the electron absorbs a photon and gains all its energy or by electrical excitation (EE), where the electron receives energy from another, energetic electron.

When an excited electron falls back to a state of lower energy, it undergoes electron relaxation. This is accompanied by the emission of a photon (radiative relaxation) or by a transfer of energy to another particle. The energy released is equal to the difference in energy levels between the electron energy states.

Image credit: teggor

[maptitude1]

German dialects, 1900

[thespinningcp]

PostGIS Resources

If you are looking to learn about PostGIS here are some resources I have found thanks to the #gistribe: 

PostGIS In Action, i have heard that this book is stellar and a great first step in learning about PostGIS. 

Boundless Geo has a great resource and modules for PostGIS: http://suite.opengeo.org/opengeo-docs/dataadmin/index.html 

QGIS also has a module related to PostGIS that seems to be very helpful, when learning. : http://docs.qgis.org/testing/en/docs/training_manual/spatial_databases/index.html

So these resources will be the next series of items i add to the GIS Student resource spreadsheet i update every 6 months. 

[land-of-maps]

Language map of Europe in 1914 [1,024 × 882].