Using the space station: where does the US go from here?

With the International Space Station nearly completely assembled, attention now turns to how to best utilize it. Taylor Dinerman explains how that will depend on how much access scientists will have to it once the shuttle is retired.

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A lot!

Python in Science: Why Python

Python in Science: Why Python

A2DP on iPhone with P590

Just tried to connect my Plantronics P590 to my iPhone 3G that I updated last week to 3.0.
I am running this for 20 minutes now, and so far I love it in total.
Some points I noticed:

• Quite some bass coming from the P590.
  
• There are some problems, some songs show skipping like an old CD player, and even more enerving is a pitch-down effect (not good for musical ears).I found in some forums that there are indications that this only happens for self-imported tracks and not for iTunes tracks bought on iTunes? I would find this a weird selection effect and would propose that this is caused by differences between mp3 (less efficient) and ac3 (more efficient)?
• Volume control is after pairing with headset blocked on iPhone and solely done via the headset
• With the P590 next and previous track selection does NOT work.
• Even high data rate songs in m4a format (lossless) play nicely via the headset. They /might/ sound a bit better, but that might be wishful thinking as the bluetooth encoder might reduce that quality all away

So overall I am very pleased that this is finally in the iPhone OS, pity that next track does not work with the P590, but I am looking anyway for a new Stereo Bluetooth headset, want to try in-ear plugs this time.

Bug in Project 2007

When formatting the Gantt Chart Bar Styles in a way, that something is put on top of the bar, so that the height of rows have to be expanded for it to make space, the bars become invisible in the print-out.

Significances

What does a significance of three sigma mean ? Four sigma ? Five sigma ?

• something not so rare; something quite rare; something exceptionally rare.
• evidence of some new phenomenon; strong evidence of same; observation of new physics!
• evidence of something fishy; a bug in the code; a horrible bug in the code.

SPIEGEL online science news... thumbs down

Ok, I haven't exactly written much here, sue me, but from time to time certain stuff happens that awakes my attention enough to rant about it.

This time it was a SPIEGEL online news article that again unknowingly and unfortunately puts Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the same pot (as we say in German).

Dark Matter has multiple observational support, and I don't say 'support' here lightly, as for the public the word will sound to light, but as a scientist I have to state it correctly.

But to explain the strength of support more in detail: There a plenty, I think it's more then 10 now, independent (!) physical situations now in the history of the universe, where Dark Matter is just the best explanation for the observation. This includes rotational curves of galaxies, but also structure formation at all during development in the Universe, and gravitational lenses.

By the way, the last point is interesting: If you don't trust the evidence of the existence of Dark Matter for gravitational lenses, it basically means you don't trust General Relativity. That way you need a whole lot more of extra explanation to do, if you want to do without Dark Matter.

In conclusion (I know, this could be a whole lot more clearly written, and maybe I do one day), Dark Matter is safe, it's only Dark Energy that's a bit mystic still.

To come back to the post title.. it's also interesting how the SPIEGEL news science writer abuses the potential questioning of the Copernican principle, which states that we don't live in a special place in the Universe, to make it sound like one should even question that the Earth is rotating around the Sun. :(

As a friend of mine stated, he already sees the Creationists jumping up and down in joy...

man man man...

I guess I should start up writing again for raumfahrer.net, they as a student project seem to have higher standards then the professional and paid SPIEGEL writers.. a pity..

Ok, enough for this year's rant.

Enjoy your autumn everybody, or should I say, singlebody, counting the numbers of my readers.. ;)

Venice (Venedig) is calling! :)

Yess!
Just booked my conference in Venice about Particle Astrophysics.
Isn't it cool to be paid to go to Venice (first timer in Venice) and even hear about newest results in the coolest job possible, palavering around Dark Matter, Dark Energy and all the other high energy stuff flying around. :) I love my job...
Have a look where I am going:
Link to conference page
and my hotel
Ok, probably I won't have water view, booking a single room (they are always the worst), but getting out of the hotel, first thing I see is the water. Nice! :D
But first I go for 2 weeks holidays to the Ukraine to the family of Anya. This is a nice summer! The postponed launch of Dawn has more and more nice sides to it.