Reader Peter reminds us to take special care about animals in the cold weather:
~
Cold weather tip
November 12, 2014 • 4:04 pm
Defeating a squirrel
November 12, 2014 • 2:54 pm
Is it a sin to find this funny?
The Rock Squirrel [Spermophilus variegatus] has been raiding our bird feeder, carrying away pounds of seed. Nancy figured a quick solution. I don’t know which is funnier, the squirrel or Nancy’s narration.
h/t: pyers ~
The horror, ctd.
November 12, 2014 • 2:15 pm
by Greg Mayer
We’ve had occasion previously to note some dastardly beings that eat lizards, and express dismay at their foul deeds. And now, thanks to Matthew, we have another opportunity to engage in a two minutes hate towards a transgressor.
That’s a wasp spider (Argiope bruennichi), a recent invader of Great Britain from the Continent. The picture was tweeted by Phil @goldenorfephoto. Phil is based in Cheshire, which is up where the NE corner of Wales touches England. So if he took the photo locally, then the spider is expanding its range rapidly (or, as Matthew put it to me when pointing this out, “pdq”), as can be seen from the map below, where it’s still quite a ways from Cheshire.
The tragic victim is a common lizard, Lacerta vivipara, one of the two three species of lizard native to Britain (the others being the much rarer sand lizard, Lacerta agilis, and the legless slow worm, Anguis fragilis; lizard count updated thanks to comment below by reader Dave). You can see some less traumatic photos of them here.
The picture reminded me very much of the large American orb weaving spider Nephila clavipes, which I have encountered in the West Indies and Central America, and which also eats lizards. The Nephila I’ve seen in the tropics are more yellow, rather than the orangey Florida ones pictured at the link above. Nephila and Argiope are both orb weavers (I didn’t realize they had big ones in England), and are sometimes placed in the same family.
h/t Matthew ~
Philae has landed!
November 12, 2014 • 11:34 am
by Greg Mayer
Qapla’!! Philae has landed! The European Space Agency’s Philae lander has successfully landed on Comet P67, and begun transmitting data.
If you rewind the live feed, the success signal is received at exactly 3:00:00 (17:03 CET in Darmstadt), so you can see the reaction in the control room. Here’s the BBC coverage, which includes the hugging in the control room.
Here’s the comet itself, taken by Rosetta, prior to the landing.
William Shatner is providing live tweet coverage, and there’s coverage from the Telegraph, the Guardian (lots of nice pictures at the Guardian), and the NY Times. There was also live coverage in the US on NASA TV, but I think that has now ended.
EDIT from Matthew Cobb: xkcd was *live-cartooning* the whole event, with updates to his cartoon in real time. Tanya Harrison has assembled them all into this nifty gif (pronounced…)
Stunning mimicry of an ant by a caterpillar
November 12, 2014 • 11:26 am
by Matthew Cobb
With the brilliant success of the ESA Rosetta/Philae mission, this isn’t a day to try and rain on the parade of physics and engineering. BUT BUT BUT, there are also mind-boggling things to be seen down here, too, if you look. This video was posted on FB by Niall McCann, who filmed the caterpillar in Nepal in 2011. My guess is the caterpillar is myrmecophagic – it eats ant grubs – and spends its time inside an ant nest, using chemical camouflage as well as this visual camouflage, to fool the ants. Quite remarkable.
Readers’ childhood plushies
November 12, 2014 • 9:30 am
I didn’t expect such a big response when I asked readers to send in photos of their childhood “plushies.” And even after the first post, featuring a dozen bears, turtles, and so on, I continue to receive them. I attribute this to the “Madeleine Effect,” expressed by the equation “Bear = Memories.”
So, in lieu of “Readers’ wildlife photos” today, here’s installment #3 of “Readers’ plushies.”
Reader Alex has a bear in surprisingly good condition:
Big Bear has been with me since my birthday in 1969. There is some sort of mechanical device inside Big Bear that gives off a “baaaaah” sound when he is turned upside down – and it still works perfectly. Big Bear is likely in such pristine shape because of the unselfish sacrifice of Wa-wa, another bear (not pictured) who was chewed upon incessantly.Big Bear now sits in my daughters’ room watching over them.
Reader Leo sends a bonus: a toy and a cat:
These are Druil and Druil, two of our domestic animals. Druil on the right is a dog. He has been with me since I was little. (He was a lot more fluffy back then; through the years he underwent several makeovers.) His name is short for “Druiloor”, which is probably best translated as “Droopy”. He was the most important dog in the world for me, hence he got the title “boss of all dogs”.
Druil on the left is a former stray cat that we took in when she was only about two months old. My wife named her after my former teddy-dog to endear me to the idea of having a cat in the house. Apparently she succeeded, because now we have six!
You can imagine that it is not an easy task for a little cat to be the boss of all dogs, but she is doing the best she can, even though she sometimes shies away from all too large underlings she encounters in the yard. However, she is a little afraid of Druil the dog; I had to take the picture while she was sleeping.
Reader Kimberley has a rather frightening d*g:
“Spotty D*g,” a toy Dalmatian whose gaping red mouth somewhat diminishes his overall cuteness (but not my fondness for him), was my mom’s childhood companion. She passed him on to me when I was born, and he’s still in pretty good shape although I had to do a little surgery on his right front paw years ago to keep the spherical rattle embedded therein from escaping.Thanks to my mom, the “Spotty D*g” family has had several new additions over the years. Spotty is pictured with one of his newer, cleaner (and nameless) family members.
Reader Lynn sent a whole menagerie, including a very aged bear. This is the third toy panda that has been imaginatively named “Panda”!
I recognize I am late to the picnic, but attached is a picture of Teddie, Bunny, Elephant and Panda. Yes, I was equally imaginative as the majority of readers. Teddy is 60+ and technically my brother’s bear. I adopted him at a young age and as you can see, never gave him up. Panda was a gift from said brother when I was 8 in an attempt to make me give Teddy back. Not being furry, he didn’t quite cut it. Bunny was much loved and had to be re-stuffed, remade and dressed by my Mother after my older brothers strangled her on one of our many family road trips. My mother lovingly dressed Teddy and Panda as pirates for me, though much of the clothing was lost over the years. She had a huge collection of stuffed bears which she tried to disguise by ostensibly giving them to me, and later keeping them in my childhood room. I, however, did end up with the same addiction and my own collection.
We land on a comet today! (10:47 EST)
November 12, 2014 • 6:52 am
[UPDATE]
Some more links to watch:
Here is the website of the team who are operating the lander, they also have livestream footage on their site.
Their Twitter feed is: https://twitter.com/DLR_en or @DLR_de for updates in German.
And don’t miss the Lander’s twitter feed : https://twitter.com/Philae2014
And the current xkcd update:
Make your plans now to be free in two hours. As I woke up late today (6:30 a.m.), I got this bulletin in my CNN News feed, and was reminded that today is really a historic day for the human species:
Comet landing probe Philae has been released from orbiter Rosetta and has begun its 7-hour descent to land on the surface of Comet 67P, ESA says.
“There is no going back now,” the agency said after the spacecraft’s lander was released for its trip to the surface.
How exciting! Last August I wrote a longish post describing the European Space Agency’s mission to land a space probe on a comet, and you can read all about that here. All has gone well so far. As I mentioned (read the earlier piece), the orbiter Rosetta will release a 100-kg lander, Philae, which will touch down on the small comet and sent us all sorts of scientific information. Well, Philae is on its way!
Here’s the comet, 67 P, as seen from Rosetta:
The comet is not large: the size of only part of London:
Here’s Philae:
The landing is scheduled to take place at 10:37 Eastern Standard Time in the U.S., which would be 3:37 (15:37) London time, only a bit more than two hours from right now. You can bet I’ll be watching in my hotel (the link for watching it live is below). We won’t see the images until 11:02 EST (16:37 London time).
To show how remarkable this achievement is, the chase from Earth to the comet was a complicated pathway 6 billion km long; the journey started more than ten years ago (March 2004); and the landing probe will have to touch down on a comet travelling 55,000 kilometers per hour. Now that is accuracy! If the rendezvous is successful, it will be a remarkable achievement for an overcerebralized primate.
By now you should be asking yourself, “How can I watch this live?” It’s easy, just go to the Rosetta Website, where there’s a live feed to watch the landing here. Don’t miss it; this won’t happen again in our lifetime. The Tw**er feed is here), and here are a few images from the Twitter link, which updates constantly. But who needs Twi**er when you can watch it live?
Also, over on xkcd, Randall Munroe is doing his own version of a live-stream. The xkcd page will update as the mission continues: http://xkcd.com/1446/
Below is a cool video from the IIEE website showing how the landing will look, should it occur:
And they add this information:
A successful landing would allow Philae to transmit the first images ever taken from a comet’s surface and then to drill into the surface. The lander’s investigation could help reveal whether comets helped deliver some of Earth’s first water or the chemical ingredients for life on Earth.
Philae’s approach will involve about 7 hours of free fall to cover the distance of 22.5 kilometers between the Rosetta mother ship and the comet’s surface, according to the Planetary Society. Once the lander’s three legs absorb the landing shock, Philae will anchor itself in the comet’s surface by firing two harpoons while using a thruster to counteract the force of the harpoons. Each of the three feet will also deploy ice screws.
If the landing succeeds, mission controllers expect to receive a radio signalconfirming the landing at about 11:02 AM EST. The lander would also deploy a radio antenna used by the CONSERT (Comet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radiowave Transmission) experiment, which is designed to study the inside of the comet by reflecting radio waves off the celestial body’s solid nucleus. A full list of scientific instruments on the orbiter and lander can be found on the European Space Agency’s website.
The lander’s primary battery only has enough power to keep the mission active on the comet’s surface for about two-and-a-half days — enough time to complete a first series of scientific measurements. But a second phase of the lander’s mission that runs on backup batteries recharged by solar cells could potentially last up to three months.
. . . The Rosetta mission first launched from Earth in 2004, but the spacecraft entered a 31-month hibernation period starting on 8 June 2011 and ending on 20 January 2014. That record-breaking hibernation period for a satellite kept Rosetta’s consumption of power and fuel to a minimum during the longest and coldest leg of its journey.
Don’t miss it. Nothing like this has ever been done before.
h/t: Michael, Grania
Wednesday: Hili dialogue
November 12, 2014 • 6:15 am
The talk at Truman State last night went well, I think: there was a more-than-capacity crowd, with people sitting all over the floors and stairs, and the talk was followed, after a short book signing, with about an hour and 20 minutes of questions, with much of the audience staying (and asking thoughtful questions). That was a good sign, and was marred only by one crazy religious woman who, after my talk, thrust pamphlets in my hand, told me I was teaching the students lies, and that she “felt sorry” for me because I had rejected God and was bound for Hell. She also said I wasn’t allowing anybody to respond to the lies I’d told about evolution. I informed her that there was a Q&A session to come and she was welcome to ask me a question. She stayed but remained silent. So it goes. Such cowards these people are!
I’m flying back to Chicago today, and the first leg, from Kirksville to St. Louis, is in a tiny, 8 seater Cessna propeller on Cape Air. One of the passenger seats is right next to the pilot! I’m hoping to get that one, which I was assigned last time, but a bumptious passenger stole it from me when they said “seating is open. ” It’s fascinating to watch the guy fly the small plane, though I’m not sure whether some time it’s on autopilot.
But I sat right behind the pilot on his left side, so I was able to see everything, and it was so engrossing that I didn’t even read my book. Today I’ll try to take a video. And, after a longish layover in St. Louis, I’ll be home this evening. Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili has her usual First World problems:
A: Do you want to come into the house?Hili: I don’t know what I want. I’m thinking.
In Polish:
Ja: Chcesz wrócić do domu?
Hili: Nie wiem czego chcę, myślę.