MMatessa - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Return to Space? (Score 1) 256

by MMatessa on Thursday July 21, 2011 @10:01AM (#36834184) Attached to: Atlantis Lands, Ending the Shuttle Era

How many active space exploration missions are there? One or two? Over a dozen. Studying Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Vesta, and on the way to Pluto.
Here's a map of them all.

Comment Re:Yes now it takes two clicks to log out of Gmail (Score 1) 294

by MMatessa on Wednesday June 29, 2011 @07:20PM (#36617216) Attached to: Google's New Design

It also o takes an extra click to switch accounts now.

Comment Re:Reasoned Debate? (Score 1) 307

by MMatessa on Tuesday April 19, 2011 @03:30PM (#35872516) Attached to: Tim Berners-Lee: Stop Foaming At the Mouth, Twitter

How about structuring comments by topic instead of by time? Some MIT folks have used argument mapping to structure debates on climate change at Climate CoLab

Comment Goatse alert (Score 2) 130

by MMatessa on Friday March 25, 2011 @06:27PM (#35617532) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Gadgets Would You Use For Hunting Meteorites?

Don't click on the blog link above unless you've got eye bleach...

Comment Re:Still carbon-based (Score 1) 405

by MMatessa on Thursday December 02, 2010 @02:21PM (#34420466) Attached to: NASA Finds New Life (This Afternoon)

Looks like it's the former instead of latter: "In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic... That makes it very peculiar, though it falls short of being some form of truly 'alien' life belonging to a different tree of life with a separate origin."

Comment Re:Couple Questions... (Score 1) 62

by MMatessa on Saturday November 06, 2010 @10:53AM (#34147138) Attached to: NASA's Stunning Close-Up Photos of Comet Hartley 2

JPL's new Eyes on the Solar System has a 3D+time simulation of most current spacecraft including the approach of Deep Impact (EPOXI) to Hartley 2.

Comment Re:Woot for me (Score 4, Interesting) 738

by MMatessa on Wednesday October 20, 2010 @01:06AM (#33957266) Attached to: China Now Halting Shipments of Rare Earth Minerals To US

first models predicted peak oil between 1965 and 1970 http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf

...in the US. And that's when it peaked.

Comment Re:It all depends on detection... (Score 1) 264

by MMatessa on Friday October 15, 2010 @03:04PM (#33911352) Attached to: How To Deflect an Asteroid With Today's Technology

I've been looking for a way to get into cheap astrophotograpy and found some people using webcams to detect stars down to magnitude 9.6 and even magnitude 14.5. Has anyone else found links to more recent work?

Comment Re:10/10/10 is a climate day (Score 1) 296

by MMatessa on Sunday October 10, 2010 @10:17AM (#33851744) Attached to: 10/10/10 — a Nice Day To Celebrate the Meaning of Life

From the linked site: "The goal of the day is not to solve the climate crisis one project at a time, but to send a pointed political message: if we can get to work, you can get to work too--on the legislation and the treaties that will make all our work easier in the long run."

Comment Transition Movement (Score 1, Informative) 764

by MMatessa on Saturday September 11, 2010 @01:52AM (#33542624) Attached to: German Military Braces For Peak Oil

The Transition Movement is a bottom-up approach for communities to prepare for peak oil. You can find a group near you here.

Comment No confirmation from Cassini (Score 5, Interesting) 408

by MMatessa on Tuesday August 24, 2010 @12:06AM (#33350752) Attached to: The Strange Case of Solar Flares and Radioactive Decay Rates

One way to double-check the seasonal variation effect is to look at the output level on radioisotope power sources in spacecraft. Cooper (2008) found no relationship between radioactive decay and distance to the sun.

Submission + - Does the Sun influence radioactive decay on Earth? (stanford.edu)

Submitted by MMatessa on Monday August 23, 2010 @07:58PM

MMatessa writes: When researchers found an unusual linkage between solar flares and the inner life of radioactive elements on Earth, it touched off a scientific detective investigation that could end up protecting the lives of space-walking astronauts and maybe rewriting some of the assumptions of physics. Researchers from Stanford and Purdue University have found decay rates showing a seasonal variation, dropping during solar a flare, and having 33 day patterns.

Comment Video (Score 1) 53

by MMatessa on Friday July 16, 2010 @01:15PM (#32928312) Attached to: The REX Robotic Exoskeleton

A video of REX in action.

Comment Video (Score 5, Informative) 57

by MMatessa on Sunday July 04, 2010 @10:25AM (#32791766) Attached to: 'Robofish' Schools the Rest

Here's a site with a video of Robofish in action.

Comment Re:Better Articles! (Score 2, Informative) 284

by MMatessa on Thursday June 10, 2010 @11:14PM (#32531428) Attached to: Japan Successfully Deploys First Solar Sail In Space

I also came here to complain about the poor article. Good coverage comes from the blog of the Planetary Society, which is working on its own solar sail and actually has people visiting JAXA.

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