How Disneyland Keeps it UNREAL

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/02/business/la-fi-cover-disney-20100502

No, Not DESMOND Tutu’s Election … I said “Dancing TuTu Construction”

The second part of my posts in anticipation of Midsummer Night’s Dream as performed by Oregon Ballet Theater:  TuTu Facts. Thanks again to the OBT website for supplying my information

• Every tutu takes approximately 140 hours to make by hand and costs about $2,000.

• One tutu requires about 120 yards of tulle – if you lay it out, that’s longer than a football field.

• Last year OBT made 22 new tutus, which cost the company over $44,000.

Ballet Shoe Facts

In anticipation of this weekend’s performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream, I’ve lifted the following facts, from the  Oregon Ballet Theater website:

• One pair of pointe shoes costs about $80 and typically lasts for only 8-12 hours.

• Last year alone OBT purchased over 1,500 pairs of pointe shoes at a cost of $120,000.

• All OBT dancers wear shoes from FREED of London, the world’s premiere pointe shoe manufacturer. Cobblers at FREED custom craft [OBT] dancers’ shoes to suit each ballerina’s particular specifications and preferences.

• A Principal Dancer will often wear one new pair of shoes in every single performance.  For very demanding roles, like Odette/Odile, it is not unusual for a ballerina to go through multiple pairs of shoes in one evening.

• Pointe shoes are constructed with layers of Satin Burlap, tissue paper, flour paste, reinforced cardboard and leather.

• Young dancers must study ballet for 4-5 years before going en pointe; it requires a great deal of strength in the legs, ankles, and feet as well as strong turnout.  Most young dancers get their first pair of pointe shoes around the age of 11 or 12.

Batman’s King Tut – Had it All Wrong

From The National Geographic News, Feb 16, 2010:

“King Tut may be seen as the golden boy of ancient Egypt today, but during his reign, Tutankhamun wasn't exactly a strapping sun god.

“Instead, a new DNA study says, King Tut was a frail pharaoh, beset by malaria and a bone disorder—his health possibly compromised by his newly discovered incestuous origins.”

link to original article here

Tricorder Technology in the Modern World

MSNBC is running the following article by Alan Boyle in Cosmic Log, “Hairs Trace Human History”  [link]

(Image from MSNBC article)

“For the first time, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of an ancient human from a long-gone culture, using the DNA from just a few tufts of 4,000-year-old hair preserved in Greenland's permafrost.

“Thanks to the rapid advance of gene-sequencing technology, researchers could tell the hair belonged to a brown-skinned man whose ancestors came to the New World from Siberia around 5,500 years ago, during a previously unknown migration. And that's not all.”

Here’s what else they learned about this guy (quoted from the article):

• His blood type was A+, which is found in very high frequency in east Asian populations.
• Combinations of SNPs suggest that he had brown eyes as well as dark, thick hair and a skin color that was not as light as that commonly found in Europeans.
• One of the SNPs is linked to shovel-graded front teeth, a characteristic trait of Asian and Native American populations.
• Another SNP is linked to having earwax of the dry type that is typical of Asians and Native Americans, rather than the "wet" earwax found in other ethnic groups.
• A 12-SNP combination, linked to metabolism and body mass index, suggests that Inuk was adapted to a cold climate.
• Inuk's genetic code also indicates that he had an increased risk of baldness. The fact that Inuk's hair could be recovered thousands of years later led Willerslev to suggest half-jokingly that "he actually died quite young."

We’re on the verge of adding information like this to the human body of knowledge:

“…the geneticists also said sequencing techniques were improving so much, for ancient as well as present-day DNA, that other long-dead cultures could be studied in the future. What skin color did the ancient Egyptians have? What genetic diseases afflicted the Etruscans? How did humans settle the Americas?”

I may be getting a bit too controversial here, but wouldn’t it be interesting to run a maternity/paternity scan on all the European Royals? How many “rightful” heirs were actually interlopers? The answer to that question could create massive turmoil in the history of monarchies?

Separately, remember the concept of the Tricorder in Star Trek? The difference between that technology and this technology is that the Tricorder was a Field instrument. As of today, we have to test the samples in the lab. We’re getting closer by the year.

REAL Science

Specifically, R’s science project. Hydroponics In Space. I’d blogged about R’s project before. This week is where all the hard work came together.

The big science project, I’m told, had two possible due dates:  Feb 5 if you want to be considered for the State Science Fair, and Feb 19th if you don’t want to be a State candidate. R wanted to be a State Science Fair candidate, so we scheduled up to hit the earlier deadline.

And he did. As I left for work this morning, he was loading his Science Fair exhibit and his 10 page Science Report into the car.

My earlier blog post covered some of the details about the results and the analysis, so I won’t duplicate that here. But what was cool was how R endeavored to work ahead of his deadline. Here are some examples:

• R was stuck on how to make an exhibit for his project. At first, he was just going to clue each page of his printed report to the poster board and be done.  I helped him understand that the two mediums, report and exhibit, were very different. He allowed me prototype his exhibit with paper and pencil to make a compelling story. This planning process helped him a LOT, it turns out. He felt much more at ease when he had a template to build to…
• Further setting the stage for success, R took his paper/ pencil prototype to school on the Monday before, to consult with his teacher. By getting early feedback on the plan, R could easily adjust his work to meet the teacher’s expectations, and probably improve his grade (plus, now the teacher knows that R’s organized and on-task a week ahead of the deadline. Good politics, that!)
• On Tuesday, R took the first draft of his report to school to consult with the teacher on that. Again, the teacher now knows that R has “this” much work done by Tuesday, well ahead of the deadline. R brought back the remarks and we made slight changes.
• C helped R get started on his board. I must admit, a huge science fair exhibit board, blank, is an intimidating amount of emptiness to fill. Even to me that first look at the empty board feels as big as handpainting a highway billboard with a kitchen sponge.
  C helped him get started. They had to stay up late on Wednesday night, but they got a lot done. By the time I got home from my trip on Thursday, things were nearly complete. I helped with three finishing touches, then I assisted in getting the report printed out on paper, and we were done. R got to bed at a reasonable hour and started his Friday well rested.

As luck would have it, I came across a technical publication describing a very similar experiment currently underway on the International Space Station. The lab module attached to the outside of the ISS is investigating the effectiveness of different plants and care strategies for space-bound horticulture. We printed out the article and attached it to the exhibit. Why? Because R’s work is directly related. We get to make the point(mostly to R, frankly) that he just did real science.

I’ll update with pics later. I’m proud of him; this turned out well.

UPDATE:  R informed me last night that he was not selected for the State Science Fair. He was very apologetic that he didn’t make the cut. I assured him that, even though he didn’t get to go forward, he delivered real science, well communicated, and in his own hand. I’m proud of him anyway. There will be other opportunities.

The X-Men Have a Birthday Party

R and M’s birthdays respectively bracket the Labor Day holiday. One has a birthday just before school starts, the other just after. It’s an awkward time for a birthday on both occasions: friends are overbooked with end-of-summer, get-ready-for-school stuff, then overbooked with settling-in-to-the-new-school-routine for the other.

And, in 2009, we threw ANOTHER wrinkle at these two… a cross-town move and a parental surgery.

So. We made a deal with the kids. The family would delay any birthday parties until 1) the move was finished, 2) C’s surgical recovery was mostly over, and 3) the normal holiday rush was completed. And, at that time, we’d have one combined big-deal birthday celebration. To demonstrate our seriousness, we took the kids shopping for the party decorations at the time of their birthdays, and started the party planning process at that time. It’s easier to delay the gratification if you know the things at least started, you know?

That big-deal celebration took place this past weekend. At OMSI. We had 15 or 16 children present. It worked out to be about seven friends each, at a collaborative theme party. The boys were a pirate theme; girls were Pacific Islanders. I joked that, instead of the “pirate or ninja?” question, our party was asking “islander or interloper?”

Party guests arrived, checked in, and were assigned the following:

1. pirate bandana or lei, depending upon group.
2. a team for the OMSI treasure hunt (including at least one adult chaperone for the team)
3. a treasure hunt list and instructions

Phase 1 of the party involved a museum-wide treasure hunt for knowledge. Teams had to cover the museum, answering questions from the exhibits all throughout the facility. Answer 15 of the possible 26, then turn your sheet in to the Sergeant at Arms for validation and entry into the party proper!

The treasure hunt was a stroke of genius from C. The party spread out, smaller groups of tangential acquaintances forged the bond of friendship, and C had ample time to set up a wonderful party space with pirate-castle cakes, punch, ice cream and all sorts of cool themed decorations.  Oh, and presents for the party goers, too.

Phase 2 of the party was cake and ice cream. Guests did the limbo while all the treasure hunter teams finished up. The refreshments were tasty, and the kids liked the highly themed decorations and food items. No longer do the birthday parties look like the near food fight of six year olds hopped up on sugar and excitement; now, the gatherings are a bit calmer and even include some cross-gender conversational outreach, if you know what I mean.

Phase 3, was what we called ‘open play’ at the museum. Some guests took advantage of free passes to OMNImax, others took advantage of free submarine tours, and some of sought out specific exhibits for deeper study. We had all types, and met everyone at their specific need. And… C and team cleaned up the party during this time.

I’m telling you, hanging out with this particular group of kids is like being on site with the X-Men. Every one of them is amazingly gifted in some area to such a degree that it’s easy to call that strength their ‘superpower.’ NONE of them have the same superpower. When these kids take the time to divide up challenges to match their respective superpowers, they accomplish amazing things.  In fact, here’s an example of what I mean from just one of the guests, to illustrate the amount of talent they possess.

There’s one blonde girl in the group – tall, thoughtful, not shy but introverted – who is a classmate for R and M. She’s not even twelve yet.  She’s EXTREMELY advanced linguistically, and LOVES life sciences. She was in my group to visit the museum exhibits, for phase 3. She wanted to spend the last portion of the party in the Life Sciences lab, handling the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches that are available for petting. Yes. For REAL!.

As there were four of us in our group, I referred to our team as the ‘fearsome foursome.’ I could tell be the immediate change in her expression that I had played with words in a way that intrigued her. A few minutes later, one of our party pealed off to visit their exhibit of choice. At that moment, my eleven year old blonde charge asked, “What is a good adjective that starts with T-H? The only one I can think of is ‘theocratic’, but I don’t think I want to be ‘the theocratic threesome.’” We also eliminated ‘Thessalonian’ and ‘theatrical’. We still hadn’t found a suitable adjective by the time another member of our group pealed off, leaving us with just two. My suggestion of the ‘gruesome twosome’. made her laugh so hard she snorted.

For most of the hour we spent in Life Sciences, she held a cockroach in her hand and give live demonstrations to the kids, explaining all about the mechanics of how the cockroaches hissed, where they came from, what they ate and why some were brown while others were black in color. The little kids idolized her; the adults thought she was a volunteer. She was clearly in her best element; using her language like a media-trained grownup to discuss interesting living beings.

The whole day was filled with vignettes like this. Like I said, it’s almost like hanging with the X-Men.

At the party end, everyone naturally gathered in the lobby for ‘fond farewells’ and lingering. It was a very good time, well planned to accommodate kids, adults, girls, boys. and all interests.

A triumph without doubt. C has just upped her game for event organizing, I must say. When she can orchestrate the mini X-Men to a unanimously grand good time, she’s the real superhero.

And what about those guests of honor? They had a GREAT time. Their respective friends intermingle nicely, everyone was respected, included and treated as an equal. Even more telling, while they enjoyed the presents they received, they were even more interested in making sure the party favor present each guest received was to their liking. There’s my kids in action; caring deeply about others when it truly matters. Again, it’s like the X-Men, along with their strength they each have flaws. And sometimes behave badly when there pressure’s off. But… add the need to be serious about something, and they snap right to it, doing the Right Thing nearly every time.

Around the World in a SOLAR PLANE?!?!?

The Solar Impulse project aims to do exactly that [link].

Low speed taxi tests just took place… successfully.

Prove the ability to circumnavigate the globe in a solar powered aircraft and we’ve changed the game again.

Electricity from Slow-Moving Water

Off Make Magazine’s blog, I’m snipping most of the Make blog entry here:

Capturing the same powerful forces that destroyed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge shortly after it was built in 1940, researchers at the University of Michigan are developing a new way of generating electricity with the slow moving currents found in most of the rivers and oceans of the world.

This technology is hoped to be easier to site than traditional windmills and hydropower generators.

[link]

So, I’m posting this here for the alternative energy expert in the family – R!  Enjoy!

 

==

This idea is particularly interesting to me, as a resident of the Pacific Northwest, where our massive and fast-flowing river system has been throttled by dams that continue to threaten the river ecosystems. I’m not going to get all ‘environmentalist’ here, but a technology that allows for widely distributed power generation from other water currents provides yet another way to relibably go locally off-grid. Don’t have reliable solar at your Alaska cabin? I bet you’ve got a nearby stream or river…

What if --- really. What if we really could breach dams like Bonneville? Dams who’s PRIMARY reason for existence is power generation? It’s too much to target Hoover Dam or Hech Hechy, because they’ve been built to create water reserves, not power. Still, the more we’re able to decentralize the creation of electricity, the more we’ll be able to move away from the dinosaur power plants of the 20th Century.

Tucker & Crawford

What a great article on the International Space Station and performing IT support!

[link to article]

A quote from the article:

“It's the most expensive single thing ever built (£92bn and counting), the quickest manned vehicle in existence (17,300mph) and the staging point for future Moon and Mars missions. But when computers on board the International Space Station go down, the astronauts living there do the same as any office drone in Slough -- they call IT. We were lucky enough to meet Tyson Tucker and Joey Crawford, the NASA flight controllers responsible for maintaining uptime in mankind's first permanent space colony.”

The Aries Launced Today

Aries 1X Test Launch Video

Fans Re-make Star Wars … 15 Seconds at a Time!

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

How We’ll Power Off-Planet Outposts

From the Technology Review, published by MIT:

“Tests prove the feasibility of using nuclear reactors to provide electricity on the moon and Mars.

“Researchers at NASA and the Department of Energy recently tested key technologies for developing a nuclear fission reactor that could power a human outpost on the moon or Mars. The tests prove that the agencies could build a "safe, reliable, and efficient" system by 2020, the year NASA plans to return humans to the moon.

“Nuclear power is being considered for lunar and Mars missions because, unlike alternatives such as solar power, it can provide constant energy, a necessity for human life-support systems, recharging rovers, and mining for resources. Solar power systems would also require the use of energy storage devices like batteries or fuel cells, adding unwanted mass to the system. Solar power is further limited because the moon is dark for up to 14 days at a time and has deep craters that can obscure the sun. Mars is farther away from the sun than either the Earth or the moon, so less solar power can be harvested there.

“To generate electricity, the researchers used a liquid metal to transfer the heat from the reactor to the Stirling engine.

“’They are very efficient and robust, and we believe [it] can last for eight years unattended,’ says Lee mason, the principal investigator of the project”

[link]

Fencing

My son made a life choice recently. He’s not quite twelve; big life choices are new territory for him. R’s been going to gymnastics class for, what, six years now? He’s been on the competitive team for two years. Blog readers may recall that he placed second in state individually, back in March.

But his coach left, moving on to a new life as a husband and a new father with his new wife. They’re now in New Mexico as she finishes her studies to be an Anesthetist.

Gymnastics, for R, was about his relationship with his coach. And about his love for doing that sort of activity. Not about competition.

I think he has quietly been seeking another place to put his athletic attention for some time now. So, when his Mom asked him if there was something the two of them could do together, could share together, he immediately said ‘Fencing!!’

And so, that’s what they do. They go to Fencing class. R loves  it. I see him ‘on fire’ about Fencing in a way he never was about gymnastics. For that, I am relieved.  C really enjoys it, too. She finds dance in it. R, of course, finds swashbuckling fun and endless layers of complexity in it. That’s what keeps him engaged.

R is selling his gym gear. His mushroom, etc. The proceeds will go to the purchase of his own fencing gear… and probably his own gym membership for a while. Just to see if he 1) loves it enough to fund it himself, 2) buys in mentally because he’s the one paying for it now, or 3) a bit of both.

So, farewell to Gymnastics. Hello to Fencing. The family blog should see more fencing over time. I’m adding a new category to the blog for Fencing.

The Reverse Air Conditioner

Simple, recycled, nearly zero-cost. Yet amazingly effective at capturing passive solar heat.

Window frame, aluminum cans painted black, stacked like an array of chimneys. Convection pulls cool air in from below and ejects lots of hot air from the top. The author says 105 degrees, in fact, without having the prototype properly insulated or sealed. YIKES!

http://ecotechdaily.com/2009/07/01/free-heat-from-an-old-window-and-some-soda-cans/

Green GT Electric Supercar

Up-and-coming Swiss auto company GreenGT recently unveiled plans for a fully-electric vehicle that is heralded to be the most powerful and cutting-edge electric race car ever built. Designed with the famous Le Mans race in mind, their Twenty-4 vehicle is currently undergoing development and will boast two 100-kw electric engines that provide 350-400 horsepower and a top speed of 171 mph.

 

Thanks to Jorge Chapa for posting this update to the inhabitat.com website, and for slashdot for running a link to it.

Rutgers Robotic Atlantic Crossing Attempt

A team of students at Rutgers University have a project underway in which they’re attempting a robotic crossing of the Atlantic. You can find out more here:

http://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/atlantic/

We have customers at Rutgers who order boards from us. I really don’t know if this is a project we’ve got boards in or not… not that I really care, to be honest. There’s something else going on here that I think is particularly cool

Not only is this research project full of ‘first time in the world’ chutzpah, and loaded with real-time tracking so that their success or failure is in full, realtime public view, but – best of all – the team looks to be 50% female.

Robotics and engineering disciplines NEED more women in their ranks, without doubt. I’m cheering for the Rutgers team. You should too.

Batteries That Use Air

This article posted to the UK paper, The Telegraph, and covered by slashdot, indicates some new technology for making sustainable battery technology.

The cells are charged in a traditional way but as power is used or 'discharged' an open mesh section of battery draws in oxygen from the surrounding air.

This oxygen reacts with a porous carbon component inside the battery, which creates more energy and helps to continually 'charge' the cell as it is being discharged.

The applications are in longer-lasting batteries and smaller battery payloads needed to support an electric device, whether a cell phone or a car.

[link] to the article

Black Holes

Phil Berardelli, of ScienceNOW, just posted an article on rogue black holes in the Milky Way galaxy:

Don't lose any sleep over it, but astronomers suspect that hundreds of medium-sized black holes are roaming loose in the Milky Way. These rogues, according to a new study, are the orphaned central black holes of the many smaller galaxies that the Milky Way has swallowed over its billions of years of existence. If one of them is discovered, it could provide important clues about the evolution of our galaxy.

Light ‘Handedness’ Indicates Life on a Planet?

I found this posted to slashdot; the original sourse is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Visiting aliens may be the stuff of legend, but if a scientific team working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is right, we may be able to find extraterrestrial life even before it leaves its home planet—by looking for left- (or right-) handed light.

The technique … could allow spaceborne instruments to see a telltale sign that life may have influenced a landscape: a preponderance of molecules that have a certain “chirality,” or handedness. A right-handed molecule has the same composition as its left-handed cousin, but their chemical behavior differs. Because many substances critical to life favor a particular handedness…chirality might reveal life’s presence at great distances.

Why do the scientists think this is a viable technique?

“If the surface had just a collection of random chiral molecules, half would go left, half right,” Germer says. “But life’s self-assembly means they all would go one way. It’s hard to imagine a planet’s surface exhibiting handedness without the presence of self assembly, which is an essential component of life.”

Chirality sensing is possible from great distances – in theory. The scientists responsible for this work have apparently already tested a prototype sensor. But it’s not ready to be pointed at an exoplanet yet.

With a new exoplanet seemingly being identified every week, a straightforward tool that presumes little about the chemical makeup of a life form will likely be the ultimate tipping point in locating extraterrestrial life.

How elegantly simple yet powerful!