Ankh's Mostly Science Stuff

From Eklund's site - just doing my part to spread the message.

A Call to Action

One of the best things about having a successful site like this is we have the ability to be a major voice and help the sport en masse when it needs it. Well hockey fans, it needs it badly again. All of you on here visit several websites and message boards throughout the hockey world, and I am asking that you spread this message today and over the next week. What is happening directly effects every hockey fan and could deeply damage the way the sport is covered and enjoyed by all of us.

The LA Times has quietly announced that they are cutting back on their hockey coverage again. They are not sending their reporters to cover away games for either the Kings or Ducks and they are eliminating Hockey Hall of Famer Helene Elliott's weekly NHL report as well. Helene is the top of the top of hockey reporters in North America. She is the most celebrated female hockey writer of all time and has served as a source of inspiration for scores of women hockey writers everywhere including Hockeybuzz.com’s Sunaya Sapurji and Kat Stein.


Obviously, this is a huge deal to our LA and Anahiem fans, and hockey fans in the LA Metro Area. There are some great California Hockey fans for both teams and something you may not know: There are over 600,000 Canadians working and living in the LA Metro area. Sometimes LA is referred to as Canada’s 5th largest city. Not to mention the great moves made by both of these up-and-coming franchises could really invigorate hockey in California. And California is a real and true hockey state. 10% of traffic for Hockeybuzz.com, second only to New York, comes from California. 60% of those are from the LA area. And to be honest, my coverage of hockey in California is still in its infancy. In other words I need to get a lot better and when I do report more on the California teams I am quite certain they could challenge NY as my top hockey state in the US.

As fans we relate to the writers that we read every day. When our team goes away, they go for us. We can experience it through them. As writers we get our best stuff on the road, when players and coaches tend to open up more- away from the distractions of home. All this will be gone soon. We will still get good, solid game reporting, but we will miss out on the everyday soap opera of a team gelling and coming together over the course of a long season.

I personally don’t write game stories, because I truly don’t read game stories or find them very interesting. I know most die-hard hockey fans feel this way as well. I don’t need to hear about the goals that were scored. I saw them myself, right? I want to hear the behind-the-scenes stuff. The stuff I couldn’t see. The stuff that a team’s beat writer can get from a team that, love him or hate him, are always around him. Because when you talk to a player or coach or GM it is all about respect and trust. You earn that through familiarity and over time. It means something to all involved with the team that the media outlet found it important enough to pay to fly you, feed you, and house you. They can’t avoid talking to you. I saw this firsthand this year when I traveled with the Flyers to a few away games. A different attitude exists on the road.

Do not ignore this. Once the ball starts rolling downhill it rolls faster and gets harder to stop. This isn’t about the writers, this is about you. They are your eyes and ears and they are the ones who put everything inside the inner circle in your hands or on your computer screen. If this is allowed to happen your hockey experience will suffer greatly this year. Make your voice heard and get the word to the others. Remember, it is far easier to destroy something than it is to build something. And re-building doesn’t usually occur.

STOP THIS!

For the LA Times, email your displeasure and copy these four decision makers:

Dean.Baquet@latimes.com
John.Arthur@latimes.com
Doug.Frantz@latimes.com
randy.harvey@latimes.com

I ask that we each help each other out here, because hockey fans in Canada and the US are all the same. We are hockey fans, and we are getting screwed by this.

Step 1: Learn how to skate (check, started in January 06 with a new pair of hockey
skates, lessons completed in April and July)
Step 2: Buy hockey gear (check, have full pads, couple of sticks)
Step 3: Attempt to play hockey (check, took part in an open hockey game in June)
Step 4: Sticks and pucks class (check, taking it right now)
Step 5: Play in league (not yet, signup is in the August)

So, for the past 7 months I have been preparing myself to start playing hockey. Come September I should be on a team and actually playing.

And now I guess it is obvious why I haven't been posting here -- too much time spent learning how to skate.

Astronomers have detected what they are calling the '10th planet' orbiting our Sun.

It is bigger than Pluto, the ninth planet, which is 2,250 km across, and was discovered by three US astronomers.

It is the largest object found in our Solar System since the discovery of Neptune in 1846.

The object, designated 2003 UB313, is currently 97 Earth-Sun distances away - more than twice Pluto's average distance from the Sun.

Since this object is bigger than Pluto, I believe that it will have to be called a planet, otherwise we will have to reclassify what Pluto is.

From BBC News.

A giant patch of frozen water has been pictured nestled within an unnamed impact crater on Mars.

The photographs were taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board Mars Express, the European Space Agency probe which is exploring the planet.

The ice disc is located on Vastitas Borealis, a broad plain that covers much of Mars' far northern latitudes.

This discovery of frozen water on the surface of Mars could be an indication that life is possible on the red planet. It also would provide needed resources for a manned mission to Mars.

From BBC News.

Astronomers have found a large object in the Solar System's outer reaches. It is being hailed as "a great discovery".

Details of the object are still sketchy. It never comes closer to the Sun than Neptune and spends most of its time much further out than Pluto.

It is one of the largest objects ever found in the outer Solar System and is almost certainly made of ice and rock.

It is at least 1,500km (930 miles) across and may be larger than Pluto, which is 2,274km (1,400 miles) across.

This is the second significant body found in the outer Solar System since last year. The other object was named Sedna, and is now included with the other large objects that have been discovered including Quaoar (2002) and 2001 KX76 (2001).

From BBC News.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The space shuttle Discovery roared into space Tuesday, piercing a Florida morning sky today and launching seven astronauts on NASA’s first orbiter mission since the Columbia disaster.

After almost two weeks of delay, two and a half years without a shuttle flight and $1.4 billion in return-to-flight work, Discovery successfully left Earth behind on a 12-day test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) with no hint of the fuel sensor glitch that scrubbed a July 13 launch attempt. Typical Florida weather, including rain storms and a potential launch threat from electrified anvil clouds, was not an issue here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) spaceport.

“With an early morning launch, we hope we give you a good show,” Discovery’s STS-114 commander Eileen Collins told reporters before the flight. “We’re very prepared.”

Discovery launched right on time at 10:39:00 a.m. EDT (1439 GMT), rising above Launch Pad 39B here at KSC. Eight minutes and 29 seconds later, Collins and her crew reached orbit.

Congratulations both to NASA and the crew of STS-114 for a successful launch.

Story from Space.com.

Approximately one hour and ten minutes until STS-114 (Shuttle Discovery). You can follow the launch through NASA, and watch it on NASA TV.

There's a whole lotta shakin' going on at Mount St. Helens these days as the restless peak does what it has done for thousands of years: build new lava domes that totter and fall and become the foundations for still more new ones.

A series of unusually strong earthquakes — exceeding magnitude 3 — has been reported in recent days by the Cascades Volcano Laboratory in Vancouver, Wash., about 50 miles south of the mountain. The latest was a magnitude 3.1 quake early Thursday that was accompanied by a rockfall.

Rockfalls during the quakes send up plumes of ash. Some tower thousands of feet above the 8,364-foot crater rim; a March plume reached 30,000 feet, raising concerns about area air traffic. Some plumes don't escape the crater and some wispy, gritty puffs crest just above the rim.

Some 10 months after Mt. St. Helens began its unrest, it is still rebuilding its lava dome. You can check out the Crater Dome/Eruption pictures at the USGS/Cascades Volcano Observatory, Vancouver, Washington web page, including the below picture of changes in the dome structure (if you look close enough, you can see where part of the spine collapsed between July 20th and July 21st).





From Yahoo - AP Science.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA will restart the countdown for the space shuttle Discovery Saturday, with plans to launch the orbiter spaceward on July 26 after more than week of work to pin down a fuel sensor glitch, mission managers said late Wednesday.

“Right now we think we have eliminated all the common causes,” shuttle program manager Bill Parsons said of the glitch during a press briefing here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC). “We believe we’ve done everything we possible could on the vehicle.”

Discovery’s STS-114 mission, NASA’s first shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster, is now set to launch at 10:39 a.m. EDT (1439 GMT) on July 26.

All eyes will be focused on this launch as NASA tries to get its fleet back up in the air.

From Space.com.

Researchers have found well-preserved fossils of organisms that lived on the ocean bed about 550 million years ago.

The fossils, unearthed in Southern China, are of some of the earliest complex lifeforms known to science.

Frondose vendobionts died out before the Cambrian explosion about 540 million years ago, when animals with bones and shells appeared.

It is amazing that these organisms survived in the rock record, considering that they were more than likely soft bodies multicellular organisms that were on the seafloor.

From BBC News.

Human settlers made it to the Americas 30,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence.

A team of scientists came to this controversial conclusion by dating human footprints preserved by volcanic ash in an abandoned quarry in Mexico.

They say the first Americans may have arrived by sea, rather than by foot.

The traditional view is that the continent's early settlers arrived around 11,000 years ago, by crossing a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska.

This definately challenges the theory that the Americas were settled by migration over the land bridge over the Bering Strait. Other evidence has been popping up recently like the Topper site in South Carolina, the Burnham Ranch site in Oklahoma, and Monte Verde in Chile.

From BBC News.