Guitares Cinématiques: Links

Water on Mars

Subsurface water in early Mars: Article in the Nov 2, 2011 online edition of the journal Nature (Nov 3rd in hardcopy). Recently discovered clay minerals widespread in Mars's Noachian terrains point to long duration interactions between water and rock during Mars early history. However, the article makes the point that since the Noachian rock record is dominated by a history of subsurface waters, Mars was most likely a cold arid planet for the last 4 billion years with short periods of surface water.
Evidence for a deep Martian ocean: Review in the June 13, 2010 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. Researchers argue that evidence for a large ancient ocean on Mars is substantiated by river deltas that, they say, mark the vast ancient Martian sea level.
Water existing as a liquid on Mars below the freezing point: Article (pages 401-404 ) in May 21, 2009 edition of the journal, Nature. Researchers showed that water with solutes Si, Fe, S, Mg, Ca, Cl, Na, K and Al could remain in the liquid state at temperatures well below 273 K..
Mars' past ocean: summary of an article regarding ancient shorelines of Mars
Evidence for water on Mars: The Nasa Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has discovered a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars.

GALACTIC COSMIC RAYS

Does the Space Environment Affect the Ecosphere?: An informative article in the Sept 6, 2011 edition of the journal EOS transactions of the American Geophysical Union. The sun is known to create dangerous CME's of it's own. However, it also creates a protective "bubble" (the heliosphere) by way of radiation pressure of the solar wind. We rely on this protective bubble to shield us against the even more deadly GCRs (galactic cosmic rays) which can be of extremely high (billions of electron-volts) energy. The solar wind pressure has been declining and this allows for greater potential penetration of GCRs into the Earth's atmosphere. The article goes on to say the geological records of the radioisotope beryllium-10 taken from polar ice core samples has shown that the GCR intensities in Earth's history have been exceedingly variable. The conjecture is that the past increases in GCRs reaching the Earth may in fact have aided in stimulating evolution by increasing the rate of cell mutation!

Solar Coronal Mass Ejections

Info on CMEs (NASA): A description of Coronal Mass Ejections
Space Weather prediction center (NASA): Up-to-date data on the current space weather conditions surrounding our planet
Early Detection of Emerging Sunspots: Article in August 19th, 2011 edition of the journal Science describing a new helioseismic technique that can detect deep subsurface magnetic activity within the Sun allowing detection of large sunspot regions up to 2 days before they appear at the Sun's surface. This is an immensely powerful new tool in space weather forecasting.

Kasha-design guitars, ukeleles, basses

Jay Hargreaves - master guitar and bass luthier: Website of luthier Jay Hargreaves, featuring photos of the guitar used on the Penguins on Mars CD. Jay builds Kasha-design classical guitars and acoustic basses.
DeVine Guitars and Ukeleles: Website of master luthier Eric DeVine in Hawaii, builder of Kasha-design guitars and ukeleles. His ukeleles are played by Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) and Kimo Hussey.
Mike Doolin Kasha-design acoustic basses: Master luthier Mike Doolin's Kasha-design acoustic bass guitar is played by jazz bassist and vocalist Esperanza Spaulding.
Klein acoustic basses and guitars: Steve Klein is a luthier who builds kasha designed acoustic basses and guitars as well as electric guitars. His instruments have been played by many well known artists such as Joni Mitchell, Sting, David Torn, Stanley Clark, Bill Frisell, Lou Reed, and the late Michael Hedges.
Tom Bills - luthier: Tom Bills is a luthier who builds Kasha-design acoustic steel string and classical guitars

Effects of Solar Storms on Earth

Predicting Radiation Dose on Aircraft from SEPs: Article in Vol 8, Issue 3, 2011 (p 8) of Space Weather, a quaterly journal of the American Geophysical Union describing a recent half-day session held during the Japan Geoscience Union 2011 International Symposium on May 24th, 2011. A future early warning system for aircraft was proposed. It was tentatively called the Warning System of Aviation Exposure to SEP (WASAVIES): It's purpose would be to automatically calculate radiation dosages along an aviation route for any flight operated during a particular prediction interval. This is particularly useful for transpolar flights such as between Tokyo and New York or between San Francisco and Paris.
Characteristics of Solar Proton Events (SPEs) with Ground Level Enhancements (GLEs): Journal of Geophysical Research, VOL. 115, A10107,Oct 15, 2010. An article describing a potentially faster method providing early warning of proton storms based upon detection of neutrons. According to the authors, this system could provide a warning 30 minutes ahead of the earliest proton alert currently issued by the Space Weather Prediction center.
Deleterious Effects of Space Storms on Earth: Article by Michael Brooks in March 21, 2009 edition of New Scientist magazine warning of a complete shutdown of all electrically reliant technology due to a massive DC current overloading of the power grid if ever a major solar storm (but only a storm possessing a southward pointing magnetic field whose magnetic field lines could reconnect with the Earth's) would someday make a direct hit on the Earth.
Holes in Earth's Magnetic Field: NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist.
The impact of solar flares and magnetic storms on humans: An article reviewing the hazards to biological systems posed by photon radiation from solar flares, SEPs (solar energetic particles), and inhomogeneities in the solar wind that drive magnetic storms, was published in journal Earth in Space (ISSN 1040-3124), vol. 4, no. 7, March 1992, p. 11-14.
Solar storm impinging on earth: Reuters news article 8/6/11 regarding a effects of a large magnetic storm due to hit Earth in the next few days.

Space Flight Technology News

Ion engines for space travel: An article in the July 24th, 2009 edition of New Scientist magazine. Ion engines, are less powerful for liftoff but can continue to generate power for long lengths of time. As such, a rocket could potentially reach a higher max speed than with a conventional chemical engine.
Shortage of Plutonium-238 for NASA's missions: An interesting article in Jan 2011 issue of Physics Today magazine summaries of the issues surrounding powering NASA's planetary science missiion. The current supply of Pu-238 is falling behind NASA's needs to supply power to spacecraft in distant missions where the sunlight is too dim. There is only enough left to power two of the four NASA planetary misssionss due for launch by 2020. The current technology, Pu-238-powered radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) have no moving parts. They convert heat generated by the decay of Pu-238 directly into electricity but with only a 6% efficiency. However, newer techology Advanced Sterling Radioisotope Generators (ASRGs) have moving parts operate with 29% efficiency and thus require far less Plutonium to accomplish the same task.

ENERGY

European Super Grid for Tranporting Wind Generated Electricity: Articles in Nov 10, 2010 edition of the journal Nature. A consortium of European countries are in the planning stages of creating an enormous undersea dc electrical grid in the North Atlantic to transport energy captured by offshore wind farms to continental Europe. A similar project, Desertec, is being planned for wind farms in the Sahara desert. Obstacles of high setup cost and major technical difficulties of dealing with large amounts of dc power.

Kontiki - Polynesian Theory

Thor Heyerdahl's legacy: A BBC summary of Thor Heyerdahl's Koniki expedition and contribution to his theory of the Peruvian origins of the Polynesians.
Did Polynesians sail to S. America or vice versa?: An extremely informative article in the June 11, 2010 edition of the journal Science (pp 1344-1347). Researchers have clues (skulls similar to polynesians found in S. Am and sweet potatoes found in Polynesia, tools similar to those in Polynesia found in S. America) but can't yet prove which direction the migrations may have gone (east-to-west, or west-to-east).

The Heliosphere

NASA's IBEX Reveals: A Ribbon of Energetic Neutral Atoms (ENAs): 5 papers in the Nov 13th, 2009 issue of the journal Science detail NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer's (IBEX) discovery of a unexpected and highly intense concentrated "ribbon" of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) (with energies ranging from 0.2 to 6 KeV) existing at the boundary between the heliosphere and the interstellar medium.

Visual Sound

Cymatics: A lecture on visualization of sounds by Evan Grant presented on www.Ted.com

Electro-Magnetic surprises

The Aharonov-Bohm effects: Variations on a subtle theme: In the September 2009 issue of the journal Physics Today, an article on the AB effects. These effects fell out implicitly from the 1926 Schröedinger equation. They are that electrons can be affected by EM potentials without even coming in contact with actual force fields.

Guest Artists

Shanna Gilfix, vocalist: My favorite of Shanna's videos on youtube. Shanna sings on songs:"Natukashii", "Kontiki", "So Easy", "Hi L'eau", and ALH840001" on the Penguins on Mars CD.
Steve Stanley, trumpet & flugelhorn: Steve Stanley plays flugelhorn on the piece "Hi L'eau" and trumpet on the piece "So Easy" on the Penguins On Mars CD. Steve's bio is listed on this webpage for the group Aja Vu

Auroras (northern & southern lights)

Asymmetric aurora displays between the North and South Poles: Article in the July 23, 2009 edition of Nature presenting observational research supporting theoretical studies that conductivity differences may be the cause of inter-hemispheric currents which induce differences in displayed auroral intensity.
auroral videos: Really nice videos of auroral light displays!

Magnetic Reconnection

Magnetotail Reconnection Triggering Substorm Onset: Angelopoulous et al report in Science (Aug 15, 2008, Vol 321, No 5891, pp931-935) that results demonstrate that magnetospheric substorms are likely initiated by magnetotail reconnection.
Comment on "Tail Reconnection Triggering Substorm Onset": A rebuttal to the the previous artible in Science by Angelopoulos et al (Science, Aug 15, 2008), that magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetotail is causally responsible for triggering the onset of a magnetospheric substorm.
Response to Comment on "Tail Reconnection Triggering Substorm Onset": A rebutal to the responsed by Lui that magnetic reconnection was not responsible for triggering the onset of a magnetospheric substorm.

Solar Corona

Alvén waves versus Nanoflares as a possible source of heating for the Sun's corona: Article (pages 19-21) of May 2009 edition of journal Physics Today detailing an NCAR study of Alvén waves analyzing CoMP (Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter) plots of spatial frequency versus temporal frequency of coronal emissions.

Solar Cycle 24

Sunspots are currently missing: An article about the current lull in sunspot activity in the July 21st, 2009 edition of the NY Times
Solar cycle 24: Article May 8, 2009 in online version of the journal Science concerning the unusually low activity in the current solar cycle

Astrobiology of Early Solar System

Survival potential of microbial activity of the early Earth: Article (pages 419-422 ) in May 21, 2009 edition of the journal, Nature. Researchers claim that the Earth could not have been completely sterilized even by the tremendous onslaught of asteroids during the period of known as the "late heavy bombardment." They conclude that hyperthermophilic microbes could have survived the intense heat and be the ancestors of any present day life on Earth and elsewhere.

MS Research

Hope for MS patients via a new drug: In the Oct 27, 2011 edition (p.432) of the journal Nature it was reported that the drug Alemtuzumab showed promise with improving MS treatment. The study found that 78% of patients remained from from relapse after 2 years. More info is a given in the Oct 24th article on Nature's online website at the link provided.

MS and Solar Storms

Multiple Sclerosis' relationship to Solar Storms: Dr Johannes Resch's 1995 paper on the similarity between the geographic distribution of the neurological disease Multiple Sclerosis ("MS") and the incidence of solar particle rays on the Earth
Correlation of MS to Cosmic Rays: 1960 Paper by JS Barlow from Harvard Medical School siting the connection between the geographic distribution of MS and cosmic ray intensities

Nerve cell research

keys to triggering myelination of axons: An article in the Sept 11, 2009 edition of the journal Nature. They propose that G protein-coupled receptor Gpr126 causes the differentiation of promylenating Schwann cells by raising the levels of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) and in doing so trigger the expression of the transcription factor Oct6 which in turn causes myelination.

Martian dynamo

Theories of how the Martian dynamo died: 4/30/09 Article in AAAS Science onine mag ScienceNow. Research suggested that impacts from large asteroids during the period of heavy bombardment 3.9 billion years ago may have upset the convective flow and turned off the Martian dynamo.
Martian dynamo & atmospheric research: This article from the Feb 2009 issue of the journal, Astrobiology, outlines a future research mission to Mars named "Mars Environmental and Magnetic Orbiter" (MEMO)

Magnetic Field Reversals

true polar wander: an interesting article regarding magnetic anomalies in the Svalbard ocean sediments point to the Earth's ability to shift it's spin axis in response to a lop-sided build-up of continental mass
Solar magnetic field reversals: Info on magnetic field flips of the Sun (NASA)
Earth's changing magnetic field: Info on Earth's variable magnetic field (NASA)

Hazards of Space Travel

Sociological problems of long duration space missions: A Russian simulation of a Mars mission to detemine the ability of astronauts(cosmonauts) to coexist peacefully during long periods of isolation away from the Earth. It appears this is not easy...as humans have a propensity to not get along with each other when trapped together for long periods of time!
Abstract regarding Hazards of space travel: Neurobiological problems in long-term deep space flights.
The effects of proton exposure on neurochemistry and behavior: Dosage effects of proton bombardment from Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs)
Emerging Radiation Health-Risk Mitigation Technologies: An abtract from a paper discussing the triage of factors for risk mitigation to space flight outside of the Earth's protective magnetic field

Magnetic Shields

Magnetic Shields for Space Travel: New research on portable magnetic plasma shields to protect against Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs)

Martian Meteorites

Landmark article on Martian Meteorite ALH840001: This was the famous paper written by David Mc Kay and others at NASA (published in the August 1996 issue of the journal, Science) that led to the search for life on Mars based on the premise that possible evidence of life had been found in a Martian meteorite named "ALH840001" that was discovered in Antartica.
ALH840001: Article "Magnetotactic Bacteria on Mars." A discussion on whether the magnetite crystals in the Martian meteorite named ALH840001 found in Antarctica were of biological or non-biological origin.