Air France Flight 447: A Detailed Meteorological Analysis

From Watts Up With That?

NOTE: This writeup is from an acquaintance of mine who wrote some powerful meteorological software, Digital Atmosphere, that I use in my office. He used that software (and others) to analyze the Air France 447 crash from the meteorological perspective. h/t to Mike Moran – Anthony

by Tim Vasquez

Air France flight 447 (AF447), an Airbus A330 widebody jet, was reported missing in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean in the early morning hours of June 1, 2009. The plane was enroute from Rio de Janeiro (SBGL) to Paris (LFPG). Speculation suggested that the plane may have flown into a thunderstorm. The objective of this study was to isolate the aircraft’s location against high-resolution satellite images from GOES-10 to identify any association with thunderstorm activity. Breakup of a plane at higher altitudes in a thunderstorm is not unprecedented; Northwest Flight 705 in 1963 and more recently Pulkovo Aviation Flight 612 in 2006 are clear examples.

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Who Controls The Internet?

From The Weekly Standard:

The United States, for now, and a good thing, too.

In order to please our European allies and our Third World critics, the Obama administration may be tempted to surrender one particular manifestation of American "dominance": central management of key aspects of the Internet by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Other countries are pushing for more control. Early this year, British cabinet member Andy Burnham told the Daily Telegraph that he was "planning to negotiate with Barack Obama's incoming American administration to draw up new international rules for English language websites." It would be a mistake for the administration to go along. America's special role in managing the Internet is good for America and good for the world.

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Electronic Memory Chips That Can Bend And Twist

Image: Electronic memory chips may soon gain the ability to bend and twist like this one. (Credit: NIST)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 3, 2009) — Electronic memory chips may soon gain the ability to bend and twist as a result of work by engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). As reported in the July 2009 issue of IEEE Electron Device Letters, the engineers have found a way to build a flexible memory component out of inexpensive, readily available materials.

Though not yet ready for the marketplace, the new device is promising not only because of its potential applications in medicine and other fields, but because it also appears to possess the characteristics of a memristor, a fundamentally new component for electronic circuits that industry scientists developed in 2008. NIST has filed for a patent on the flexible memory device (application #12/341.059).

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Single Women Look Longer at Men

From Live Science:

Single women look longer when they're checking out men than women who are taken, a new study finds.

Neuroscientist Heather Rupp, of The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, had men and women rate 510 photos of faces of members of the opposite sex and give their gut reaction on the person's attractiveness, masculinity/femininity, and other subjective ratings.

The study included 59 men and 56 women ages 17 to 26, who were all heterosexual, from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and who were not using hormonal contraception. Some of the participants had sexual partners, while others did not (21 women did and 25 men did).

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Solar Thermal Surge Possible By 2050

Solar thermal converts the sun's energy to heat and then to electricity (Source: NREL)

From ABC News Science (Australia):

Solar thermal power has the potential to generate up to a quarter of the world's electricity by 2050, according to a new report by pro-solar groups.

The study, by Greenpeace, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association (ESTELA) and the International Energy Agency's (IEA) SolarPACES group, says huge investments would also create jobs and fight climate change.

"Solar power plants are the next big thing in renewable energy," says Sven Teske of Greenpeace International and co-author of the report.

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Confirmed: Windows 7 Launches October 22

From PC World:

It's official: Windows 7 will make its debut on October 22. Microsoft confirmed the late-October launch date with PC World, details of which leaked out earlier today.

Windows 7 development should finish up in July, at which time it will be released to PC manufacturers. The October 22 date will be a full retail rollout for the OS - although pricing has yet to be announced.

Microsoft will provide a "tech guarantee" for upgrading users, though its details are still to come.

There were some rumblings of an October launch in late April. Microsoft's initial target release date was in January 2010, but the company did confirm last month that Windows 7 would make its debut this year, before the holiday shopping season.

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More News On Windows 7

Windows 7 to launch October 22 -- CNET News
Windows 7 Gets Official Release Date: October 22 -- Daily Tech
Windows 7 release date announced -- BBC
Windows 7 release date is Oct 22 says Microsoft (download sooner?) -- Computer World

What Makes Us Happy?

From The Atlantic:

Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant.

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Is Vaccine Refusal Worth The Risk?

From NPR:

Morning Edition, May 26, 2009 · Over the past 10 years, a highly contagious and sometimes fatal bacterial disease once thought to have been eradicated from the U.S. has re-emerged, threatening the youngest and weakest. Pertussis is a bacterial infection of the lungs and spreads from person to person through moisture droplets in the air, probably from coughs or sneezes. A person with pertussis develops a severe cough that usually lasts four to six weeks or longer.

Health officials cite an increase in the incidence of pertussis, particularly among infants and teenagers. In 1976, there were just over 1,000 reported cases of pertussis in the United States; by 2004, it had climbed to nearly 26,000 cases; and between 2000 and 2005, there were 140 deaths resulting from pertussis in the U.S.

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Listen now.

Einstein’s General Theory Of Relativity: Celebrating The 20th Century's Most Important Experiment

The story as reported in the 22nd November 1919 edition of the 'Illustrated London News'. (Credit: Image courtesy of Royal Astronomical Society)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 2, 2009) — In 1919, the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) launched an expedition to the West African island of Príncipe, to observe a total solar eclipse and prove or disprove Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Now, in a new RAS-funded expedition for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA 2009), scientists are back.

Astronomers Professor Pedro Ferreira from the University of Oxford and Dr Richard Massey from the University of Edinburgh, along with Oxford anthropologist Dr Gisa Weszkalnys, are paying homage to the original expedition led by Sir Arthur Eddington and celebrating the 90th anniversary of one of the key discoveries of the 20th century.

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Half of All Friends Replaced Every 7 Years

From Live Science:

You may have more Facebook friends as the years go by, but when it comes to your close friends, you lose about half and replace them with new ones after about seven years, new social research suggests.

As a result, the size of your social network stays about the same.

People might like to think they have control over whom they choose as friends, but social networks could also be influenced by the context in which we meet one another. Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst of Utrecht University in the Netherlands was interested in finding out exactly how much our networks are shaped by social context or by personal preference.

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Is This The Future Of Food? Japanese Plant Factories Churn Out Immaculate Vegetables 24 Hours A Day

Sterile: The plants are grown in a perfectly controlled environment,
uncontaminated by dirt, insects or fresh air

From The Daily Mail:

They look more like the brightly lit shelves of a chemists shop than the rows of a vegetable garden.

But according to their creators, these perfect looking vegetables could be the future of food.

In a perfectly controlled and totally sterile environment - uncontaminated by dirt, insects or fresh air - Japanese scientists are developing a new way of growing vegetables.

Called plant factories, these anonymous looking warehouses have sprung up across the country and can churn out immaculate looking lettuces and green leaves 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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The Ultimate Lock Picker Hacks Pentagon, Beats Corporate Security for Fun and Profit

From Wired News:

Tobias is laughing. And laughing. The effect is disconcerting. It's a bwa-ha-ha kind of evil mastermind laugh—appropriate if you've just sacked Constantinople, checkmated Deep Blue, or handed Superman a Dixie cup of kryptonite Kool-Aid, but downright scary in a midtown Manhattan restaurant during the early-bird special.

Our fellow diners begin to stare. Tobias doesn't notice and wouldn't care anyway. He's as rumpled and wild as a nerdy grizzly bear. His place mat is covered in diagrams and sketched floor plans and scribbled arrows. His laugh fits him like a tinfoil hat. It goes on for a solid 20 seconds.

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WHO Official Says World Edging Towards Pandemic

A picture shoes an airport thermal camera system monitoring the body heat of passengers arriving from abroad is displayed at Sofia airport in this April 29, 2009 file photo. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov/Files

From Reuters:

GENEVA (Reuters) - The spread of H1N1 flu in Australia, Britain, Chile, Japan and Spain has nudged the world closer to a pandemic, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

The newly-discovered strain had caused more infections than seasonal influenza at the start of Chile's flu season, raising concern about how it would spread in the southern hemisphere, according to Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's acting assistant director-general.

The virus has mainly affected people aged below 60 and caused 117 deaths worldwide, including some otherwise healthy people, he said. For now, the WHO's pandemic scale remained at the second-highest level but the threshold may soon be crossed.

"Globally we believe that we are at Phase 5 but we are getting closer to Phase 6," Fukuda told journalists. "The future impact of this infection has yet to unfold."

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Chocolate-Flavoured Milk Speeds Up Recovery As Well As Expensive Sports Drinks

Chocolate milkshake, which is low-fat milk flavoured with cocoa and sugar, has the advantage of additional nutrients not found in most traditional sports drinks Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Football players would be better off drinking chocolate milkshake after a game than expensive recovery drinks, claim scientists.

Researchers found that chocolate milkshake's "natural" muscle recovery benefits match or may even surpass a specially designed carbohydrate sports drink.

They discovered that muscle damage was actually lower in those players that drank the milk after training than those that drank the commercial energy drinks.

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Air France Mystery: Was Lightning to Blame?

{Photograph by Jacques Demarthon/AFP/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

An Air France Airbus A330, carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, entered an area of strong turbulence and disappeared. The CEO of AirFrance confirms that the airplane most likely crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. Some, including company officials, have speculated that the plane was struck down by lightning, a claim that is not at all outrageous. According to experts, most commercial aircraft are struck by lightning at some point in their lives. But can lightning down a plane? We spoke to the experts about the likelihood of lightning being the culprit in this tragic downing.

Aviation experts agree that it is highly unlikely that lightning alone caused the crash of Air France Flight 447 earlier today. The 2005 Airbus A330-200 twinjet with 228 aboard disappeared on a flight from Rio to Paris shortly after the aircraft sent out automated signals indicated it had suffered a catastrophic electrical failure and a sudden loss of cabin pressure while flying through an area of severe thunderstorms. Late this afternoon the Brazilian Air Force was reporting that the aircraft likely crashed in an area approximately 60 miles south of the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Senegal. Air France spokesman Francois Brousse this morning stoked mounting speculation when he said "it is possible" the plane was hit by lightning.

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DNA Test To Discover Tutankhamun's Parentage

A replica of the death mask of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. Egyptian researchers are using DNA tests to discover the lineage of pharaoh king Tutankhamun, whose ancestry remains a mystery to Egyptologists, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Monday. (AFP/DDP/Lennart Preiss)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian researchers are using DNA tests to discover the lineage of pharaoh king Tutankhamun, whose ancestry remains a mystery to Egyptologists, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Monday.

The young king, whose mummy was found in a gold and turquoise sarcophagus by English archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922, ruled Egypt between 1333 and 1324 BC.

His ancestry has been as much a source of speculation as his abrupt end.

"Until now, we don't know who his father was. Was it Akhenaten or Amenhotep III," Hawass told reporters at a press conference.

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The Essential Guide to Stem Cells

Myelin Maker?: In July, scientists at Geron Corporation will kick start a clinical trial to heal injured spinal cords with stem cells, in the hope that new cells will create myelin, which insulates nerve fibers in the spinal cord

From Popsci.com:

Everything you need to know about the hottest topic in 
medicine, from big-league breakthroughs and new therapies to emerging health risks and the patients willing to take them.

For more than a decade, researchers have touted stem cells as the most promising advance in medicine since antibiotics. And this winter, when President Obama lifted the Bush administration's ban on federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research, talking heads buzzed that his decision could bring scientists that much closer to cures — not just treatments — for conditions like heart failure, spinal-cord injuries and Alzheimer's disease. Biologists around the world toasted their new prospects with champagne. "Lifting the ban will free us up to use additional cell lines," says Jack Kessler, director of the Feinberg Neuroscience Institute at Northwestern University. "It's very important for science."

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Combined Stem Cell-Gene Therapy Approach Cures Human Genetic Disease In Vitro

Shown in green are genetically-corrected fibroblasts from Fanconi anemia patients are reprogrammed to generate induced pluripotent stem cells, which, in turn, can be differentiated into disease-free hematopoietic progenitors, capable of producing blood cells in vitro. (Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Juan-Carlos Belmonte, Salk Institute for Biological Studies)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 1, 2009) — A study led by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has catapulted the field of regenerative medicine significantly forward, proving in principle that a human genetic disease can be cured using a combination of gene therapy and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technology. The study is a major milestone on the path from the laboratory to the clinic.

"It's been ten years since human stem cells were first cultured in a Petri dish," says the study's leader Juan-Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, Ph.D., a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory and director of the Center of Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona (CMRB), Spain. "The hope in the field has always been that we'll be able to correct a disease genetically and then make iPS cells that differentiate into the type of tissue where the disease is manifested and bring it to clinic."

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Bing It: Microsoft To Launch New Search Engine But Doesn't Bank On Beating Google

From The Daily Mail:

Microsoft has unveiled a new search engine in a bid to lure Web surfers away from Google and other search sites.

It is hoped that new site, 'Bing', will be more successful than the company's two most recent incarnations: Live Search and MSN Search.

Microsoft claims the new search engine will offer an improvement in the number of users who actually find answers to their search questions.

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Why Is The Earth Moving Away From The Sun?

Photo: The sun and Earth are moving apart by about 15 cm per year - the culprit may be tides raised on the sun by our home planet (Image: NASA)

From New Scientist:

Skywatchers have been trying to gauge the sun-Earth distance for thousands of years. In the third century BC, Aristarchus of Samos, notable as the first to argue for a heliocentric solar system, estimated the sun to be 20 times farther away than the moon. It wasn't his best work, as the real factor is more like 400.

By the late 20th century, astronomers had a much better grip on this fundamental cosmic metric – what came to be called the astronomical unit. In fact, thanks to radar beams pinging off various solar-system bodies and to tracking of interplanetary spacecraft, the sun-Earth distance has been pegged with remarkable accuracy. The current value stands at 149,597,870.696 kilometres.

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