12 AM vs. 12 PM

One of my biggest pet peeves is the confusion between 12 AM and 12 PM. Yes, I know I've written about this before and here's the link to that post.

What Does Midnight Mean?

Why am I writing about it again? Because a couple of weeks ago we went out to eat and this is the sign on the door of the restaurant.

Why was I cranky about this sign? Because it was a Sunday and we were there to eat at 11:33 AM. According to the sign, the store opens at 12 AM on Sundays. Midnight. According to the sign, they opened at midnight, also known as the START of the day. Meaning they were supposed to be open at 11:33 AM!!!

Yes, I know they clearly open at noon (12 PM) on Sundays. I just don't understand why this is a hard concept for people to understand. Midnight (12 AM) is the START of a day. Not the end of the day. If it is midnight on a Friday, Friday has just started and there are 24 hours left before Saturday gets here! Noon (12 PM) is the halfway point in a day.

Sigh. It probably didn't help that I had the hangries when I saw this sign and found a locked door. LOL!

Doctor Who Valentine's Card Box

I can take no credit for this. All credit goes to the Cool Science Mom and my youngest daughter. For the Valentine's Day party at school this year, my youngest daughter wanted to make a Doctor Who TARDIS box for her Valentine's Day card box. The geek in me was super excited but the super poor artist in me knew there was no way I was ever going to do this and have it look like an actual TARDIS. That's where the Cool Science Mom stepped in and saved the day and built this:

Now that is super cool! It looks like a TARDIS and works like a Valentine's Day card box. Yep, full of geeks in this house!

This Blog's History: Gummy Bears

In case you missed it, for This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to a post from many years ago. It was a summer day and the kids and I had some fun testing out cool things we could do to gummy bears, other than eat them!

Playing with Gummy Bears

Our Cat Thinks He's the Boss

It's been some time since I shared a picture of our kitty, Newton. In this picture, I caught him in the early morning in my daughter's bedroom as she was getting ready for school. He was just hanging out like he's the boss. LOL!

Yep, he's the boss! :-)

Dianna Cowern (@thephysicsgirl) on Twitter

It's time to look at another excellent science communicator with an active Twitter presence. There are so many good ones!!! If you aren't already following Dianna Cowern on Twitter, you need to! Her Twitter handle is @thephysicsgirl and her feed is filled with all sorts of cool science! I first discovered Dianna on her Youtube channel, PhysicsGirl, where she does all sorts of cool science experiments, talks to scientists in the field, and just, in general, promotes awesome science to all!

Seriously, follow her on Twitter. If Twitter is not your thing but YouTube is, follow her YouTube channel! Awesome science and humor are the perfect combo!

Packing for Mars - Book Review

My latest book read was Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach. This is a non-fiction book taking a look at life living in space, with particular attention paid to the early Gemini and Apollo space flight programs. The author has done her research, talking to astronauts, astronomers, and engineers of the 1960s and 1970s. The early astronauts were viewed as heroes, but we don't often hear how living in space, even if for a few days, is not all that much fun. The living quarters are extremely cramped. The food isn't good. And then there's pooping and peeing. Yes, there's a whole chapter devoted to how astronauts get rid of their bodily waste and it is not a pretty picture!

The chapter on human waste looks at the development of space-based toilets, the differences between men and women and ridding waste from your body, and poop chunks floating around the spacecraft. Yes, poop chunks escaped and floated around the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft!!!

This was a very informative and humorous book looking at the other side of space flight. The side in which human emotions are at their highest and there is a considerable strain on the human body. For example, in space, due to a zero-gravity environment, your bladder doesn't tell your brain that it needs to release until the last possible moment. Astronauts were instructed to go to the bathroom at regular intervals even if they didn't have the urge to go. This and much more is discussed in the book! I encourage you to check it out!

What is #38: Enceladus?

I'm going to keep with the theme of moons in the Solar System in this series at least for a few more entries. I've covered the four Galilean moons of Jupiter and Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Today's moon is Enceladus, Saturn's sixth-largest moon.

 

 

 

 

NASA / JPL / SSI / Gordan Ugarkovic / Public domain

What makes Enceladus special? Well, it's certainly not its size. It is a large moon, but as the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, there are several other moons larger than it in our Solar System. Enceladus is special because it is covered in ice, opening up the possibilities of life of some form or using Enceladus as a resource for future human exploration in the Solar System.

In addition to a surface covered in ice, astronomers have observed geysers in real-time sending water high above the surface, as seen in the image below.

NASA/JPL/SSI / Public domain

Now that is cool! This is evidence of an active interior. It is not a dead moon if there is on-going geological activity we can detect. The close-up images we have of Enceladus are from Cassini, an amazing spacecraft that recently ended in 2017 after arriving at Saturn in 2004. At this time there is not a mission currently looking at Enceladus, but there are plans for a future mission to Enceladus to further study its very interesting surface. These missions are still in the early stages of planning, so it will be a decade or two before this happens. We'll just have to sit and be patient. :-)

This Blog's History: The Expanse

For This Friday in This Blog's History, I point you back to the post I wrote on a cool science fiction TV show, The Expanse. If you are not watching it, you are missing out!

The Expanse

Star Wars with Kid #2

Six years ago I wrote the following post on watching the original Star Wars trilogy with my oldest daughter.

Star Wars with Kid #1

Over the past six years both of my daughters have gotten older. It would be weird if they were still the same age they were in 2014. :-) We've watched the second trilogy and the third trilogy as well as Rogue One and Solo. But my youngest daughter had not watched the original trilogy. A travesty! We fixed that the last two weeks! Thanks to our local library, we rented all three movies and over a two week span we watched them. This included two Fridays in which mom and big sister were off doing other things, so we picked up some pizza and root beer and watched Star Wars.

I've watched the original trilogy many times and it is great each time I watch it. My daughter loved the movies and asked so many questions. Lots of laughing at all of the puppet characters. Some great times and memories that will live on with us forever!

Consent to Kill - Book Review

My latest book read was Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn. This is the eighth book in the Mitch Rapp series. Mitch Rapp is getting older, although still in his 30s, and is starting to feel the muscle aches of getting older. He's not able to be as active as he once was, but is still a force to be reckoned with. This is another great book in the series. Filled with action and excitement. Is it very realistic? Okay, probably not, but I read a lot of fantasy books with dragons and wizards and they aren't realistic either! :-) If you like political spy thrillers with a few politicians that are a bit corrupt, well, keep reading the Mitch Rapp series as it will have everything you like!

Let me brace you a bit before you read this book. There are a couple of huge shockers! Shockers that you won't immediately believe when you read them. You'll keep thinking it isn't true, but it is. Some definite book to book plot twists and these were not shockers I expected! I don't need to say it, but I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series. 

Pillars of Creation Nebula

I'll keep this short on words today as the image tells it all.

Pillars of Creation - NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) / Public domain

Astronomy is an amazing field of science!

Particularly Dangerous Situation Podcast

I love podcasts. I truly love them. I love to listen for the knowledge, humor, and insights of other people. A new podcast I discovered recently is the Particularly Dangerous Situation podcast. As the title suggests, the podcast focuses on dangerous situations. For example, a recent podcast focused on a large blizzard in 1913 in Denver. Other podcasts have focused on disasters in U.S. history. It's a really interesting podcast that focuses on specific disasters or dangerous situations. Give it a listen!

Particularly Dangerous Situation

This Blog's History: What is Ganymede?

In case you missed it when posted the first time, I point you back to a post I wrote on one of Jupiter's moons, Ganymede. Ganymede may not be the most interesting moon, but it is the largest moon in the Solar System. For more details on Ganymede, click the link below to read the original post.

What is Ganymede?

On a Scale of One to T-Rex Game

I'm a big fan of the board games produced by Exploding Kittens LLC. These games include the original Exploding Kittens, Bears vs. Babies, You've Got Crabs, Throw Throw Burrito, and most recently, On a Scale of One to T-Rex. We got this last game for my nephew for Christmas and had a ton of fun playing it as a family.

On a Scale of One to T-Rex

For $20 you get a fun game filled with entertainment. The goal of the game is simple. Everyone simultaneously acts out something based on the cards in play. The goal is not to identify the action, but to match the level of the action with another player. This means there is whispering and screaming at the same time. Not a game if you want to relax with a nice glass of wine because you'll likely spill your glass of wine playing. :-)

Oh, and don't wear heavy clothes as you'll likely be sweating in a few minutes for the actions, especially if you are doing a level 10 action! A fun game. Buy it. Play it. Enjoy it. And laugh!

Betelgeuse is Dimming

If you haven't heard, Betelgeuse, a super red giant star about 700 light years from Earth, is dimming considerably. You can still see it easily with the naked eye, but over the last few months it has dimmed to only about one-third of its typical brightness. That's a big deal and left astronomers with many questions.

Betelgeuse - ALMA [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)]

Betelgeuse is a super red giant star. This was a star that started out much more massive than the Sun and will end its life by exploding as a supernova. As a super red giant, Betelgeuse is beyond the main part of its life and nearing the end. This doesn't mean this dimming suggests the star is about to go supernova, but a supernova is coming soon, astronomically speaking, meaning sometime in the next several tens of thousand years to 100,000 years. In astronomy that is a short time period!

There are many unanswered questions in astronomy and seeing Betelgeuse dim and change in brightness provides more clues to understanding these very large stars near the end of their lives. Me, I'm really hoping Betelgeuse explodes as a supernova in my lifetime. This would be quite the sight in the sky and we'd still be safe. At 700 light years from us, Betelgeuse can explode as a supernova without harming life on Earth. Anything closer than 100 light years is trouble for life on Earth!

Dragonflight - Book Review

Yep, I'm still on pace to read 45 books this year, my goal for 2020. My most recent book finished was Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey. This is the first book in the Dragonriders of Pern series. I've had a few of these books on my shelf for a few years but haven't gotten around to starting the series. I decided it was time to fix that so when looking for my next book, I grabbed this one. :-)

I thought this was a great book! It's a fantasy book about dragons so how can it not be good?!?!?! LOL! I definitely plan on reading the other books in the series, although I've read that not all of them are nearly as good as the this one. That is not going to scare me off, however. That's a common theme in many fantasy series with many saying the first is the best. I don't always agree with that. In my opinion, the first always gets rated the best because it is a new series with a new storyline, whereas the others are just a continuation of the story. But I love the continuation of a story. For me, a single book just doesn't cut it. I love fantasy series that are 5, 10, or even 20+ books in total. It's a story that continues and continues and allows me to fall deeper into the new world created by the author. Then again, I'm kind of weird, so take all of this with a grain of salt. LOL!

Carbon Brief on Twitter

I have a created list on Twitter titled Science, that I filter all posts from these individuals and groups to so I don't miss any of their tweets. Right now it contains 36 members, several who I've written about on this blog. Another great Twitter account to follow is Carbon Brief (@CarbonBrief). Carbon Brief is not a person, but a group devoted to climate change science. Their Twitter profile description states:

"Award-winning website dedicated to analysis and fact-checking of energy policy and climate change science, with a focus on the UK."

Climate change effects us all and the inability of political leaders in the U.S. to do anything about it will shape the lives of humans for generations and centuries to come. It's important to know the truth and the science of climate change and @CarbonBrief does an amazing job of this. They have a website you can see here:

CarbonBrief.org 

You can go here for even more information on climate change. So check out Carbon Brief on Twitter for a good dose of real climate change science.

This Blog's History: What is Callisto?

In case you missed it when originally posted, for This Friday in This Blog's History I point you back to the post I wrote about Callisto, one of the four large Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter. A very cool moon, so to learn more, click the link below to read my post on it.

What is Callisto?

What is #37: Titan?

Having recently discussed the fourth Galilean moon, Ganymede, in this series, it makes sense to continue with some other moons in the Solar System as there are a ton of very cool moons out there! Jupiter does not own all of the cool moons. Far from it. Another very cool moon in the Solar System, Titan, orbits Saturn.

 

Titan - NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute [Public domain]

Titan is the largest moon orbiting Saturn and the second largest moon in the Solar System, behind Ganymede. You can't see the surface of Titan from above the atmosphere since Titan has a very thick atmosphere that consists of primarily nitrogen. This is similar to Earth's atmosphere, but the non-nitrogen components differ drastically from Earth. Titan does not have a breathable atmosphere for humans.

We do have surface images of Titan thanks to the Cassini mission that arrived at Saturn in 2004 and dropped a probe, Huygens, onto the surface of Titan. The surface has craters, rocky features, and lakes of hydrocarbons (but not lakes of water).

Shoreline of a hydrocarbon lake on Titan. - NASA/JPL/ESA/University of Arizona [Public domain]

Very cool! Titan may not be the largest moon, but it may very well be the most interesting moon with its thick atmosphere, liquid on the surface, and interesting features. Then again, there are many interesting moons out there with Io, Europa, and Enceladus to name just a few. However, you can't deny that Titan is an interesting moon!

College Readiness Programs

It's hard for me to believe I'm actually writing this, but my oldest daughter, a 7th grader, is now receiving invites to, and information on, college readiness programs. It seems like just yesterday she was a little baby we were holding in our arms and rocking to sleep. Now she's a 7th grader who is just as tall as my wife and receiving information in the mail about going to college! Thinking back on my childhood, it was about this age I started receiving information on college and attending college readiness programs and other outreach activities.

Near the start of this year, we took her to her first college readiness program where she learned about the college admissions process and how students are admitted to college. She also learned about how financial aid works as well as some tips on writing college essays. In a couple of weeks she'll be taking the SAT for the first time. I have conflicted thoughts about the SAT and other standardized tests as they do not reflect the ability to succeed. But, with most colleges still requiring these, it is important to understand how the tests work. Some colleges have recently dropped the SAT requirement and I'm guessing more are to come. We'll see where this is at in 4 years when my daughter starts applying to college.

If you have a child in middle school, starting as early as 7th grade, I encourage you to check out college readiness programs in your area. You don't need to pay for many of these. If your area is like mine, there are probably several free programs at colleges and universities you can check out. Start with one of them for your child to get their feet wet in the college process, as well as for you, if this is your first child, to get your feet wet as a parent preparing for a child to go to college. It's not too early to start, trust me!

The Expanse

After recently finishing all of the available episodes of Black Mirror (more needed please!!!), I needed a new TV series to start watching. I stumbled across The Expanse and have fallen in love with it! There are currently four seasons of the show available to watch on Amazon Prime and I am nearly finished with the second season.

The show takes place in the future. Mars is colonized but not on good terms with Earth. There's the constant threat of a war between Earth and Mars for control of the Solar System. On top of that there are the "belters" the people born and raised on asteroids or moons who are dealt the consequences of the Earth vs. Mars battle. These people want their freedom from the oppression of the two planets.

So yeah, space battles! The science isn't perfect, but is pretty good. Many scenes show a great look at gravity, or lack thereof, in space.

Thus far the series takes a good look at the lack of resources available and the actions peoples and governments take against others to gain access to the limited resources still available, whether they be on Earth, Mars, or elsewhere in the Solar System. A great TV series for anyone who is a fan of science fiction.

Left Alive #3 - Book Review

I'm reading the Left Alive zombie series by Jeremy Laszlo and just finished the third book. I'd rate this book on par with the first in the series. A decent zombie book, but not one of my favorites. I enjoyed the second book in the series more than the first and the third. The main character in the story is off on his own again, looking for his daughters. He causes quite a bit of damage to a group of people looking to harm him. This book focused less on the zombies and more how humanity helps or harms each other in the face of extreme adversity. Some readers like this, but in any zombie book or TV series or movie, I'm more interested in how people survive the zombies, not each other.

If you really like zombie books, go ahead and read this series. Each book is a quick read so they do not take much of your time. If this is your first go at a zombie series, I'd start somewhere else first.