NASA has released images from its new Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched in February 2010. For once, NASA had the good sense to take video of space phenomena - far more elucidating than still photographs (in black and white or false color no less). These videos give us a new understanding of out star. If you’ve ever looked into a fire and wondered what it is, this video will captivate you.

The SDO is part of a wider NASA program, Living With a Star, working on missions to observe and explore the bizarre workings of the Sun. As our success or failure as a species is tied to our star’s, LWS is a wise endeavor.

REFERENCE

Solar Dynamics Observatory (NASA)
Solar Dynamics Observatory (Wikipedia)

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Scientists have slowly been learning that there’s “something up” with the octopus. In aquariums around the world, fish curiously go missing from tanks with a trail of water leading back to the octopus tank. The cephalopods have been observed in the lab making complex decisions and using tools to solve problems.

But not until this video have we seen an octopus improvising a tool (in this case a coconut shell) and then carry it away to use again. This is also striking footage because its in the creature’s natural habitat. From the article:

Octopuses often use foreign objects as shelter. But the scientists found the veined octopus going a step further by preparing the shells, carrying them long distances and reassembling them as shelter elsewhere.

This footage is scientifically important… and it’s fun to watch.

More from the article:

The findings are significant, in that they reveal just how capable the creatures are of complex behavior, said Simon Robson, associate professor of tropical biology at James Cook University in Townsville.

“Octopuses have always stood out as appearing to be particularly intelligent invertebrates,” Robson said. “They have a fairly well-developed sense of vision and they have a fairly intelligent brain. So I think it shows the behavioral capabilities that these organisms have.”

Our understanding of the octopus and its brain is very limited but it is increasingly observed that this invertebrate, a closer relative to the clam than the dolphin, has something special that warrants more research. Perhaps, the octopus would have had a decent shot of being the dominant intelligent species of Earth had the apes not come down from their trees.

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The meteorite is believed to have landed intact near Taos, New Mexico.

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The crew of the International Space Station recorded the June 12th eruption of the Sarychev volcano on a Russian island off the coast of Japan.

It’s a well spent nine seconds.

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As we learn more and more about climate change, we are stunned by its bizarre effects. In one of the oddest effects of climate change that I have heard, recent studies and anecdotal evidence have uncovered that lands once burdened by the weight of glaciers actually rise when the glacier melts. From the New York Times:

The geology is complex, but it boils down to this: Relieved of billions of tons of glacial weight, the land has risen much as a cushion regains its shape after someone gets up from a couch. The land is ascending so fast that the rising seas — a ubiquitous byproduct of global warming — cannot keep pace. As a result, the relative sea level is falling, at a rate “among the highest ever recorded,” according to a 2007 report by a panel of experts convened by Mayor Bruce Botelho of Juneau.

Greenland and a few other places have experienced similar effects from widespread glacial melting that began more than 200 years ago, geologists say. But, they say, the effects are more noticeable in and near Juneau, where most glaciers are retreating 30 feet a year or more.

This Times article tells the story of a man who was able to build a golf course on land that was once underwater. While the anecdote is charming, the news isn’t all that great.

As a result, the region faces unusual environmental challenges. As the sea level falls relative to the land, water tables fall, too, and streams and wetlands dry out. Land is emerging from the water to replace the lost wetlands, shifting property boundaries and causing people to argue about who owns the acreage and how it should be used. And meltwater carries the sediment scoured long ago by the glaciers to the coast, where it clouds the water and silts up once-navigable channels.

A must read for anyone interested in the complexities of the climate crisis.

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One of the objectives of the International Space Station is to get a better understanding of how materials behave differently in zero-gravity. If humankind is ever to survive in space, we need to know what to expect from the absence of gravity as well as know what to expect from gravity on Earth.

That includes bubbles…

Tip to my friend Rob Stoll for trolling through hours of zero-gravity goodies.

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Very interesting news for archaeologists and just about anybody interested in mythology’s roots in facts:

The remains of a medieval “vampire” have been discovered among the corpses of 16th century plague victims in Venice, according to an Italian archaeologist who led the dig.

The body of the woman was found in a mass grave on the Venetian island of Lazzaretto Nuovo. Suspecting that she might be a vampire, a common folk belief at the time, gravediggers shoved a rock into her skull to prevent her from chewing through her shroud and infecting others with the plague, said anthropologist Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence.

In the absence of medical science, vampires were just one of many possible contemporary explanations for the spread of the Venetian plague in 1576, which ran rampant through the city and ultimately killed up to 50,000 people, some officials estimate.

The article is a great read for anyone interested in the birth of the vampire myth. Vampirism was basically a myth started by gravediggers during the plague. It’s a fascinating read. And for anyone who thinks a society can be well explained by it’s mythology and monsters, it’s delicious.

Ignorance about the natural stages of decomposition probably fed the original vampire myths, Borrini said, noting that historical documentation of vampires harped on the oddly life-like appearance of recently buried bodies.

“There are some recurring aspects in vampire exhumation reports (usually written in the 17th and 18th century by church-goers and well-educated men, and sometimes even by scientists): uncorrupted corpse, pliable limbs, smooth and tensed skin, renewed beard and nails,” Borrini said. At the time “death was linked to a cold and stiff corpse, or to a blanched skeleton (dry bones),” he said, so evidence of anything to the contrary was considered worrisome when the rare body was exhumed for examination.

In the middle of the plague in Venice, however, victims were being dumped into mass graves such as the one on Lazzaretto Nuovo very regularly, exposing bodies at every gruesome stage of decay.

REFERENCES

Vampire (Wikipedia)

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In anticipation of his next series, Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life, David Attenborough sits down with the BBC. Attenborough speaks personally about evolution and how great discoveries in his lifetime have validated Darwin’s works. There’s an additional clip about how Genesis has affected humankind’s view toward the environment.

Hat tip to Pharyngula, which I highly recommend to readers of science.

REFERENCE

Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life (BBC)

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