I liked Dio, especially his solo stuff. I remember buying Holy Diver when it first came out, and I was pleasantly surprised that "that guy from Black Sabbath and Rainbow" had put together such a good metal album. Some of it was obviously geared for radio play, but it's still a hard-rocking album that carries all the characteristics of Dio.Ronnie James Dio, whose soaring vocals, poetic lyrics and mythic tales of a never-ending struggle between good and evil broke new ground in heavy metal, died Sunday, according to a statement from his wife and manager. He was 67.
Dio revealed last summer that he was suffering from stomach cancer shortly after wrapping up a tour in Atlantic City, N.J. with the latest incarnation of Black Sabbath, under the name Heaven And Hell.
The surface of the sun undergoes violent changes on a daily basis, but a group of astronomers has found that the size of our nearest star has been perplexingly constant in recent years.
The new study shows that the sun's diameter has changed by less than one part in a million over the last 12 years. The sun's width today is a steady 932,057 miles (1,500,000 km) across, the researchers found.
"The sun is remarkably constant," lead researcher Jeff Kuhn, the associate director of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, told SPACE.com. "We're measuring that the diameter changes by less than a kilometer (0.62 miles).
"This constancy is baffling, given the violence of the changes we see every day on the sun's surface and the fluctuations that take place over an 11-year solar cycle," Kuhn said.
The puzzling results also contradicted other measurements of the sun taken from the ground, raising further questions on what could be causing the discrepancies.
"What this really means is that, if we believe the ground measurements, then what we're seeing is long-term fluctuations in the Earth's atmosphere," Kuhn said. "The sun is influencing the atmosphere of the Earth in very significant ways."
Kuhn's work is one of several worldwide efforts to understand the influence of the sun on Earth's climate.
"We can't predict the climate on Earth until we understand these changes on the sun," Kuhn said. [emphases added]
A lake of asphalt may be the closest thing on Earth to the hydrocarbon seas on Saturn's moon Titan, and it is apparently teeming with microbial life.(from Space.com)
Not only could these findings help in the search for aliens in our own solar system, but they could provide insight into the evolution of life on this planet.
The largest naturally occurring asphalt lake on Earth is Pitch Lake on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, where black goo oozes across roughly 114 acres, an area slightly larger than that covered by Vatican City. Brimming as it is with hot asphalt and bubbling with carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon gases, Pitch Lake hardly seems fit for life.
However, scientists now find each gram of sticky black goo in Pitch Lake can harbor up to 10 million microbes, including bacteria as well as other single-celled organisms known as archaea.
After lots of talk and testing, Japanese researchers are ready to go space sailing. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced its intention to launch its first "space yacht" propelled by solar sails into the heavens on May 18. Ikaros -- the Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun -- will cruise through the solar system powered by solar particles that bounce of its giant, ultra-thin sails.(from Popular Science)
Ikaros -- which aside from being a somewhat clumsy acronym is also an allusion to the Greek mythological character who flew too close to the sun -- marks the first time a space craft will enter deep space towed by solar sails, which provide a fuel-free means to explore the solar system provided the craft is near enough the sun to catch a particle powered breeze. Several prototype space sails have been unfurled in orbit by various agencies including NASA, but as far as long-term propulsion is concerned the Ikaros mission is solar sailing's coming out party.
(from TimesOnline)THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.
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Alien life ... is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the centre of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.
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Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.
He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”
Future astronauts might end up living in a moon base created largely from lunar dust and regolith, if a giant 3-D printing device can work on the lunar surface.
The print-on-demand technology, known as D-Shape, could save on launch and transportation costs for manned missions to the moon. But the concept must first prove itself in exploratory tests funded by the European Space Agency (ESA)
"We will make very basic printing trials in a vacuum environment to verify if this is possible," said Enrico Dini, chairman of Monolite UK Ltd and creator of D-Shape.
Dini's D-Shape has created full-size sandstone buildings on Earth by using a 3-D printing process similar to how inkjet printers work. It adds a special inorganic binder to sand so that it can build a structure from the bottom up, one layer at a time.
The device raises its printer head by just 5 to 10 millimeters for each layer, moving from side to side on horizontal beams as well as up and down on four metal frame columns. Finished structures end made out of a marble-like material that's superior to certain types of cement. The buildings do not require iron reinforcing.
Such a concept might help future lunar colonists live off the land, as well as provide thick-walled structures that protect against solar storms or micrometeorites.
Headline a faux pas
I reluctantly acknowledge there is a “dumbing down” of America, but I would never believe the Express-News or any responsible newspaper would pander to that movement.
However, on Page 1 April 2, you printed a story about the census under the headline, “Where you were at, not where you're from, counts.”
Where you were at? Never end a sentence with a preposition. How about “Where you reside ...”? Or “Where you presently reside ...”?
I understand issues of space and layout, but that shouldn't compromise the standards of journalism and grammar.
Kathleen Trottier
Editor'snote: The Express-News acknowledges the grammatical faux pas, which was committed by a copy editor, not the author of the story.
Kathleen Trottier and borderplex [another commenter on the same article] are both wrong, and the Express-News editors are wrong to acknowledge their supposed "gotcha." There is no "faux pas" in ending a sentence with a preposition because there is no "rule" in English that demands it. Respected writers have been ending their sentences with prepositions for hundreds of years, and only stiff prescriptivists insist we should adhere to this shibboleth at every turn. "Where you were at" communicates the message just fine in English, and it breaks no rules.
On the other hand — and it's a big other hand — old-timers shouldn't always dictate your writing, and you don't deserve your writing license if you elevate this rough guideline into a superstition. Don't let it make your writing clumsy or obscure; if a sentence is more graceful with a final preposition, let it stand.Good writing to all, and to all a good night.
New images have revealed an unprecedented look at the swirling winds inside Jupiter's famed Great Red Spot and allowed scientists to build the first-ever detailed weather map of the giant storm's insides.
"This is our first detailed look inside the biggest storm of the solar system," said Glenn Orton of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the leader of the team that studied Jupiter's giant spot.
Orton and his team looked at thermal images of the Great Red Spot taken with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. The images revealed that the reddest colour of the Great Red Spot corresponds to a warm core within the otherwise cold storm system, and images show dark lanes at the edge of the storm where gases are descending into the deeper regions of the planet.
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"We once thought the Great Red Spot was a plain old oval without much structure, but these new results show that it is, in fact, extremely complicated," Orton said.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot is at least hundreds of years old and has been observed by astronomers on Earth since the 19th century. The storm is massive, and is large enough to fit three entire Earths inside.
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"One of the most intriguing findings shows the most intense orange-red central part of the spot is about 3 to 4 degrees warmer than the environment around it," said team member Leigh Fletcher of the University of Oxford in England.
This temperature difference might not seem like a lot, but it is enough to allow the storm circulation, usually counter-clockwise, to shift to a weak clockwise circulation in the very middle of the storm. Not only that, but on other parts of Jupiter, the temperature change is enough to alter wind velocities and affect cloud patterns in the belts and zones.
"This is the first time we can say that there's an intimate link between environmental conditions — temperature, winds, pressure and composition — and the actual color of the Great Red Spot," Fletcher said. "Although we can speculate, we still don't know for sure which chemicals or processes are causing that deep red color, but we do know now that it is related to changes in the environmental conditions right in the heart of the storm."
4. The fourth is headed "Less vs. Fewer", and warns against substituting less for fewer. It is claimed that the latter "describes finite, listable items". Strictly that would imply that it's ungrammatical to say There are fewer rational numbers than reals, because neither the rationals nor the reals are finite in number, and the reals are not even listable. But never mind the math. The page recommends saying "fewer brains", as in "He has fewer brains than I thought", which is ludicrous (how many more does he need, if he has one?). It's an old, old usage quibble, and here it's very badly presented and described.
Coin designer 1: Hey, we have a beautiful Thoroughbred looking great in all its graceful majesty on our little coin. What could be better than that?
Coin designer 2: I know! Let's block half of it off with a bunch of horizontal lines. Something like a fence, maybe.
Coin designer 3: Brilliant!
Vast pockets of water ice numbering in the millions of tons have been discovered at the north pole of the moon, opening up another region of the lunar surface for potential exploration by astronauts and unmanned probes, NASA announced Monday.
A NASA radar instrument on an Indian moon probe found evidence of at least 600 million metric tons of water ice spread out on the bottom of craters at the lunar north pole. It is yet another supply of lunar water ice, a vital resource that could be mined to produce oxygen or rocket fuel to support a future moon base, NASA officials said.
Now all we have to do is get the dance moves right so we can please our bikini-clad queen.Laser weapons aren't just the realm of science fiction. The military just completed the first airborne test of a futuristic energy weapon, simulating defense against a missile attack. This could be the answer to a rapidly arming Iran -- if the government can afford it.
In the test, a modified Boeing 747 jet took off from Edwards Air Force Base carrying a Northrop Grumman designed laser in its nose. The plane used built-in infrared sensors to find and destroy an in-flight missile.
A joint venture between Boeing and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the tests mark the first time a laser weapon has engaged and destroyed an in-flight ballistic missile, and the first time any system has accomplished it in the missile's "boost" phase of flight. It was also the highest-energy laser ever fired from an aircraft -- and the most powerful mobile laser in the world.
Shami replied, “I find 80 percent of my employees at the factory are Hispanics. I don't find, you know, many white people really willing to work, you know, unfortunately.”I say, don't vote for him.
While still declining to answer the question, Shami said that at his Houston hair care products factory, Hispanics are vital to his business and the economy.
Asked to explain what he meant about not hiring many whites, he said they want special treatment. [Like a decent wage, maybe? --ed.] “A majority of the people are going to be Hispanic and African-American. You don't find white people who are willing to work in factories. And our history proves, you know, lots of time when they, you know, the white people come to work in a factory they either want to be supervisors or they want to be, you know, paid more than the average person. And unfortunately they exit.”
