The annual Perseid meteor shower is set to peak on Thursday night and has already caused a fireball. The display took place 70 miles above Paint Rock, Alabama when a meteor just one inch in diameter hit the Earth’s atmosphere are 134,000 miles per hour, causing a spectacular demise.
According to NASA, the meteor was six times brighter than Venus. It entered the atmosphere at a low angle which, combined with the velocity, meant it moved 65 miles across the sky before finally burning up.
The Perseid meteors are created when the Earth passes close to the orbit of a comet named Swift-Tuttle. This happens every August, and the photo above is of last year’s shower.
Debris from the comet, mainly ice and dust, burns up in the atmosphere. The meteors come from the same direction as the Perseus constellation, hence the name.
NASA is predicting that, clear weather permitting, the peak of the shower will feature at least 80 meteors per hour.
If you want to know more about the shower, NASA astronomer Bill Cooke is holding a webchat at 3pm (EDT) on Thursday, Aug. 12
Hey folks, look at what Adidas is releasing as part of their new Fall/Winter 2010 collection: A quilted “Wookie” jacket!
Hmmm, I hope all these fur linings aren’t made out of authentic wookie fur, else Adidas will probably have some PETA activists protesting on their doorstep pretty soon.
Those crazy guys over at the Discovery News Friday Feedbag, a podcast that summarizes the most interesting science stories of the week, invited me to chat on the show once again. If you missed my first appearance, they asked me to share three GAS stories to add a little variety to the show. This time, I joined them in a discussion of mosquitoes and what the world would be like without them.
If you’d like to hear the interview, check out their latest episode. You can either subscribe on iTunes and get the July 30th episode, or just CLICK HERE for a direct link to the MP3 file. Either way works!
Here’s the best, most delicious way to welcome a co-worker back from his summer vacation: Just encase the poor soul’s keyboard and mouse inside a block of Jell-O.
Given the theory that the iPad would be a good fit for the ultra-casual computing audience, there may well be a gap in the market for selling similar devices in stores which are a little more mainstream and accessible to the non-geek than the ultra-cool Apple Store.
That certainly seems to be the theory at Best Buy which looks set to launch its own tablet device. Robert Stephens has recently posted two photographs on Twitter showing a device which certainly appears to take the iPad as inspiration. The first is shown above, while the second photograph simply shows the rear of the device complete with a Rocketfish logo.
That’s a brand name used for some products made by third-party manufacturers exclusively for Best Buy. Unfortunately that means we can’t tell too much about who will make this device or what it will run. Interestingly, though, Stephens did respond to a question about the device running Android by saying ” the question is: Is 2.2 ready for the tablet interface?”
In turn, that’s prompted speculation that the Best Buy tablet might run WebOS, though that speculation also comes from the way the size and socketry on the photos is similar to the original plans for the HP Slate. The only problem with that theory is that you’d normally expect HP to make products under its own brand name.
Without further details of the device’s specs, it’s tough to predict exactly how well a Best Buy tablet will sell. But if the chain can make a profitable device for around the $250 mark without simply coming off as a cheap and nasty Apple imitation, it could certainly capitalize on the appetite of consumers who never realized they wanted a tablet until the iPad came along.
Like Dave Munger of Seed Magazine, I have been a coffee addict for the better part of my life. I discovered the dark brew’s magic toward the end of high school, and probably would have slept through the bulk of college were it not for the Starbucks conveniently located on the way to the English department. And let’s just say that during the first few years of my son’s life, the contribution was central to my level of sanity. Or so I thought.
However, Munger raises some interesting points about coffee, which is particularly apropos of what I’ve been trying to do: kick coffee all together. I know, I know. What is a geek without her caffeine? And why would I want a world without it? I’ve kicked caffeine for two reasons: I want to sleep better at night, and I don’t want to crash in the afternoon. I have a four year old, and I work from home part time, and often the lure of the nap is too great. I end up far less productive, and then can’t sleep at night since I need more coffee to stay awake. A vicious circle, indeed.
But kicking caffeine is a lot harder than you might think. I had headaches for almost a week, extreme fatigue, and almost felt like I was coming down with the flu. Then, miraculously, it passed. And instead of waking up feeling like I could do with another six hours of sleep, I’m up at 7am—even before my son is up. That’s some vast improvement!
According to Munger’s article, even 100 milligrams of caffeine a day can cause withdrawal symptoms when stopped. And the amount of caffeine in your beverage varies drastically from cup to cup. Munger says:
…researchers found that depending on where you get your coffee and how it’s prepared, the caffeine content in a serving can vary from 58 mg to 259 mg. Espresso shots in general had less caffeine than brewed coffee, ranging from 58 to 92 mg per shot; the 259 mg of caffeine was in a 16-ounce cup of Starbucks brewed coffee.
In other words, you might be pumping a lot more caffeine into your blood system than you think!
In general, research indicates that taking quick shots of high-potency drinks isn’t the way to go, either (if you’re not looking to switch to decaf and want to get the most out of your caffeine molecules). Small doses over the long haul actually work far better than quick “energy” drinks.
But that’s not to say everyone is the same. I’m the kind of person who can feel a slight buzz from decaf, while my husband can knock back a Red Bull and fall asleep right afterward. I’m likely one of those people who just shouldn’t drink caffeine to begin with, and honestly I’ve felt much better in general since I’ve made the switch (and not to fear, there is some very good decaf out there!)—but there are those among us for whom caffeine is but a drop in a very large bucket.
So, whichever way you drink it, cheers! Coffee and tea both have a variety of other benefits, other than caffeine, including packing plenty of antioxidants! So drink up!
Those crazy guys over at the 
