Eclectic's Universe Wordle

Check out this wordle that I created using the text from this blog. It's my first one, so don't be too critical, okay? Ha!


Yeah, I know, it's awful blurry, but you'll get a bigger, better, crisper view if you click on it!

The Science Vine – Premier Issue: Surfing the Science Side

This will hopefully be the first of many Science Vine posts by me, your friendly eclectic science guy. Now, since this is the first post of this series, I hereby justify the title of this article as “premier.” It could also be considered premier as in “first in importance” or “outstanding quality” but that would depend on your point of view and I graciously grant that it might be debatable if you are not me. But I won’t go there, even if I already have! (Oh the ego of this eccentric eclectic!)

But enough of the alliterated nonsense – let’s just get right to it, shall we?

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The Science Vine for July 12, 2010 (Issue 1): Surfing the Science Side of the Internet today, I found the following little grape seeds that could blossom into full blown grapes from the Science Vine should you actually choose to read more about ‘em from the links I’ve so magnanimously provided.

The Moon continues to NOT be implicated in the rise of bad behavior during full moons. Yet another study has found no correlation between full moons and crimes. See the USA Today article Full moon eclipsed as accessory to crime (By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY )for more info. Yet soooo many folks, cops and bartenders included, continue to believe that all the lunatics come out to play on nights with a full moon.

Practical Astronomy Magazine - Free Download eZine

Practical Astronomy Magazine - Free Download eZine



For anyone with the slightest interest in the night sky and/or astronomy! Become a member and subscribe for free and get access to back issues and other cool stuff on this site! But it's a time-limited offer folks, so get there now or be square!

Also, if you have a mind to, and can actually write worth a whit, they you can also write and submit your own articles for consideration. Wouldn't it be cool to be published in this magazine? I'm going to have to try this out myself!

From Practical Astronomy's about page:

About Practical Astronomy Magazine

Practical Astronomy magazine was founded in 2009 and has always been distributed for free, using digital download from the internet.

Its primary driver is to encourage amateur astronomers worldwide, to share their observations and astronomical experience. So far, contributors from at least ten countries have been published in the magazine.

Contact (and send images/articles for publication) to Kevin Brown: editor@practicalastronomy.com

The magazine is published by Structure Ltd (a UK registered company) in pdf format, making it readable and printable by most computers in the World.

It’s been assigned the International Standard Serial Number ISSN 2042-2687, by the British Library.

Here’s a message from the editor..

The title “Practical Astronomy” just about sums-up my personal Astronomy ethos. So I thought, I really should help create this regular, downloadable magazine.

Magazine Editor, Kevin Brown

The objective (!) is to share practical astronomy techniques and news…

And also, encourage you to get outside and do some observing!

Thank You,

Kevin Brown FRAS

PlanetQuest - the number of Exoplanets Found is about to skyrocket!

PlanetQuest: Exoplanet Exploration

NASA's JPL/CalTech website reports the current exoplanet count at 453 as of June 19, 2010. The number of stars with planets is a bit lower and stands at 385, meaning that some stars have more than one planet orbiting them.

The image below is a screen shot (from this author's screen) of a widget for your desktop and can be downloaded from the PlanetQuest Planet Counter page. It will keep you current on the hunt for exoplanets, but you'll have to have Yahoo! Widgets installed to make it work.

As soon as the recent first data set from the Kepler mission, which is devoted to finding exoplanets (particularly, Earth-like planets), is fully analyzed, the count of exoplanets is sure to skyrocket. But right now, the data set, just released to the public, reports 306 exoplanet "candidates." That means those candidate explanets must still be confirmed before adding them to the official exoplanet count.

Scientists explore whether some apes shake heads for "no"

Scientists explore whether some apes shake heads for "no":

May 5, 2010

Special to World Science �

In communicating with each other, apes known as bonobos sometimes shake their heads—and one of the purposes for which they do this may be analogous to saying “no,” a study has found.

Researchers say the finding could be significant because bonobos are also humans’ closest evolutionary relatives, along with common chimpanzees."

[Yes, there's more! Click the link above to read the rest of the original article at the World Science website. --gdt]

This is one of those articles that may have you shaking your own head as you contemplate the possible universality of the head shake for "no!" in not only all humans but other species!

But I think one has to be careful of the assumptions that are easy to make here. For example, is the head shake for "no" really universal in humanity around the world? Or just in civilized peoples? I'm not really sure if the primitive tribes still extant in places like the Amazon jungle, the jungles of the Congo, or the remote Australian Outback all actually do generally shake their heads "no" in the same fashion that you and I do.

In any case, perhaps this recent research is at least food for thought? I hope!

--The Eclectic, a.k.a. Gary D. Timothy

Ya talk about high tech innovation - The future is here!

If you want to get a glimpse into the future, and even of the here-and-now, you just HAVE to check out the TED talk by Patty Maes about the ultimate interactive environment in the real world. But you don't have to wait - the working demo is working now.

Some on you may remember the commercial about letting your fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages. Well, with this technology, your fingers are going to do a LOT more than just walking!

Making The-Sixth-Sense a reality, this video is a must-see for anybody even slightly interested in technology. It's amazing! And, there are a few laughs to boot!


You can also find this video and many more fantastic talks at:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html

Hawking Radiation, and how something comes from nothing all the time!

You too can begin to understand Black Holes, Hawking Radiation, Virtual Particles, and the strange quantum world of how "something" comes "nothing" all the time, everywhere!

Here's my story. And I'm sticking with it!  :-)

Space Shuttle Discovery Lift Off - April 5, 2010

The Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off successfully on April 5 2010 for mission STS-131, one of the last missions before the program is retired. The photo below is an amazing shot of that lift off from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA!

Just take a gander at this beauty and see if you don't agree with me.

RedGage - a new kid on my block!

I've recently found a new site to publish my work to: RedGage. As far as I know, RedGage started up just last year, but I've only signed up for it about a week ago.

Now, I'm not abandoning my blog here, but I will be posting to RedGage as well, so not to worry!

In any case, I just wanted to get the word out there just in case any readers might be interested. Signing up for RedGage is FREE and you actually get paid to write articles and post your photos and videos there! Once you've earned $25, you'll get a RedGage Visa debit card and further earnings will be added to that card automatically. The great advantage to this site is that you get to spend the money on your RedGage Visa card anyway you like anywhere that Visa is accepted.

You can find me there as TheEclectic. :-)


Here's what RedGage has to say for itself on their site:

What is RedGage?

RedGage is a first-of-its-kind web site that pays people for their online content and monetizes their social activity. It's centralized hub where you can earn money for all the things you're already doing online at places like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Blogger. RedGage pays based on the value of your content, measured by page views/popularity. It aggregates from other sites so you don't even have to regularly visit RedGage.

RedGage has redefined socializing and creating projects on the web by paying you for all of your blogs, pictures, videos, documents, and links. You will not only be able to create a stronger web identity, but will also have the opportunity to host, navigate, and review a wide variety of projects.

Why is RedGage Unique?

At RedGage, we realize that it's you, the user, who makes our site worthwhile by creating and sharing all of your great content. For the first time, by using RedGage, you are able to manage all of your online videos, blogs, posts, documents, links and photos in a single location, AND have the opportunity to get paid for your content. If you manage several social media accounts, RedGage provides a one-stop destination that will automatically import your new content, so no manual work is required to earn money. By using RedGage, you can make money for what you are already doing online.

We understand that the internet has become a major part of modern life only because of people like you. And we feel that you should be rewarded. So why should you keep on using multiple sites to manage your content when you can put it all in one place, and make money while doing it? Just create an account and start uploading your content. It's absolutely free. And the sooner you start, the more you stand to gain.

Sean Carroll on the arrow of time (Part 1) | Video on TED.com

Sean Carroll on the arrow of time (Part 1) | Video on TED.com

A fascinating and easy to understand video explaining the arrow of time as it is ultimately linked to entropy.

From the TED Talks site of this video:

In Part 1 of his lecture at the University of Sydney, cosmologist Sean Carroll gives an entertaining and thought-provoking talk about the nature of time, the origin of entropy, and how what happened before the Big Bang might be responsible for the arrow of time we observe today. (Don't miss Part 2 of this talk!)

About Sean Carroll

A physicist, cosmologist and gifted science communicator, Sean Carroll is asking himself -- and asking us to consider -- questions that get at the fundamental nature of the universe. Full bio and more links