Oblate Spheroid

From one of the reviews: “And in case you find yourself in my position, I can confidently report that Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake Mix is also a completely inadequate raw material for the same project. Not to mention the mess it makes in the centrifuges.” via Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Uranium Ore.

Could not resist re-posting this (as seen at The Kitchen). It’s just too awesome. Earth History students, you will definitely see this in class! YouTube – Primordial Soup With Julia Child.

I’m in the middle of writing a grant proposal: hashing out user fees, equipment and supply costs, student stipends, etc… I’m half-seriously thinking about stocking my lab with surplus equipment bought at auctions. OK, not really. “Runs great” is NOT a wonderful endorsement for a sensitive lab instrument.

From the San Jose Mercury News: “Ground penetrating radar is used on the next-door neighbor’s property of kidnap suspects Phillip and Nancy Garrido Friday Sept. 19, 2009 at the site in unincorporated Antioch, Calif. Investigators also tore down a shed in the Garrido backyard and hauled away the debris.” Photo credit: Karl Mondon/Staff. The San [...]

Forgot to post this when it came through my email inbox a while ago: grad-school friend Daniel Glavin, now of NASA, gave a lecture at the Library of Congress earlier this summer. It’s on the web now. Congratulations, Danny! Astrobiology: Life in Space Webcast (Library of Congress).

I just received an evaluation copy of Anthony N. Penna’s The Human Footprint: A Global Environmental History (Wiley-Blackwell) in the mail today. It looks fantastic, at least from my cursory first glance: an environmental studies text from a historical/anthropological point of view. I also like Andrew Goudie’s The Human Impact on the Natural Environment (also [...]

FYI – it you are running a version of WordPress prior to 2.8.4 (as I was until last week), consider upgrading to the most recent version. A worm has been infecting WordPress blogs. Version 2.8.4 and the previous version are immune, but the previous versions may experience broken links and, according to WordPress, being removed [...]

I’d forgotten about this website from Rutgers – a collection of demos and experiments I’d used frequently my first time I teaching physics. My favorites are in the “Surprising data, puzzles, problems” section. Learning Cycles on Surprising data, puzzles, problems.

Because I’m from Pasadena, I’ve been keeping a close eye on what’s been going on with the Station fire. This is the one that’s been burning in the San Gabriel Mountains north of the LA basin for the past week or so. Because the fire is threatening a lot of places I know pretty well, [...]