SMILE FOR THE CAMERA: Don't forget, tomorrow afternoon marks the photobombing opportunity of a lifetime! 

Photos of the Earth taken from from the outer solar system are rare. The most famous is the "Pale Blue Dot" shot of 23 years ago, by Voyager 1, from 4 billion miles away.  Friday afternoon, there'll be another shot. 


Instead of regurgitating the facts, I'm just going to include most of NASA's well written press release on the topic below.

PASADENA, Calif. -- Two NASA spacecraft, one studying the Saturn system, the other observing Mercury, are maneuvering into place to take pictures of Earth on July 19 and 20.

The image taken from the Saturn system by NASA's Cassini spacecraft will occur between 2:27 and 2:42 p.m. PDT (5:27 and 5:42 p.m. EDT, or 21:27 and 21:47 UTC) Friday, July 19. Cassini will be nearly 900 million miles (nearly 1.5 billion kilometers) away from Earth. NASA is encouraging the public to look and wave in the direction of Saturn at the time of the portrait and share their pictures via the Internet.

The Cassini Earth portrait is part of a more extensive mosaic -- or multi-image picture -- of the Saturn system as it is backlit by the sun. The viewing geometry highlights the tiniest of ring particles and will allow scientists to see patterns within Saturn's dusty rings. Processing of the Earth images is expected to take a few days, and processing of the full Saturn system mosaic will likely take several weeks. ...

Details on how to find Saturn in the sky and participate in the event are available at: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/waveatsaturn .

The public can share pictures by using the hashtag #waveatsaturn on Twitter, or uploading pictures to the event's Flickr page at:http://www.flickr.com/groups/wave_at_saturn/ .
the event's Facebook page is: http://bit.ly/waveatsaturn .

I found a blog that gives the most straightfoward instructions regarding where to look "at" Saturn at the appointed time (you won't really be able to see it, of course). Go here: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/waveatsaturn/viewing/

The bottom line: For those in the west, you should wave at Saturn very low on the eastern horizon from 2:27 to 2:42 p.m. PDT. (That's right, you have to wave for 15 minutes straight! Ha ha, just kidding. Do whatever feels right for you.)

Image courtesy: NASA/JPL

We'll certainly be doing it - from the grounds of Seattle Center, as we have a 3 p.m. appointment there tomorrow afternoon for the exhibit feedback study group we're in at Pacific Science Center.

The nice NASA folks have even come up with an interface so that you can print out your official "I Waved at Saturn" certificate. Go here: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/waveatsaturn/certificate/


BRITISH INVASION: We've been counting down the days until Sir Paul McCartney's concert at Safeco Field on Friday night.

It's exciting for a number of reasons, the most obvious reason being, well, it's Paul McCartney. ;) But another reason the event will be special is because it's the first full blown concert at Safeco Field - which is kind of hard to believe given that the stadium opened in 1999, 14 years ago.  The Seattle Times had a front page story about it yesterday. It's a pretty Big Darn Deal.

I had the kids read the story so they can better appreciate all the work that's going on behind the scenes in order to make their Friday night memorable.

We also watched the BrainPOP movie about The Beatles (a BrainPOP subscription is required). From it, the kids learned a bit about The Beatles roots and their discography, as well as the British Invasion in general. 

After the BrainPOP video, the kids took a related quiz, and then completed an activity called 'Analyze It." They had to read lyrics from "I'm Looking Through You" and "Eleanor Rigby" and give their own interpretations of what they meant.  

The BrainPOP video made mention of the Beatles' debut appearance in 1964 on the Ed Sullivan show. Of course, we had to find that on YouTube. The video we watched has been nicely remastered. The kids loved it.


ON THE PAD: It's a little early for most West Coasters, but if you're up early Friday morning, you an watch the launch of a pretty United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral. On board is the the U.S. Navy's second Mobile User Objective System (MUOS-2). The launch window is 5:48-6:32 a.m. PDT on Friday, July 19.
Built by Lockeed Hartin, the MUOS-2 will provide narrowband tactical communications for U.S. forces on the move. 

Here's a video of technicians encapsulating the satellite inside a ULA Atlas V 5-meter diameter payload fairing.


Spaceflight now will have live, streaming coverage of the event, and updates prior. Check it out here: 
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av040/status.html

BALANCING ACT: Our progress in "The Science of Gastronomy" continues. This morning's lectures were about balancing tastes and flavors and the infinite possibilities for combining them. 

Professor King explaned how taste inhibitors and enhancers work. For instance, we learned that adding salt to something can enhance its sweetness and inhibit sour notes; adding acid to something enhances the salty taste, and sugar inhibits both salt and bitter taste.   

For our homework today, we had to whip up five liquid concoctions: 

Drink A: 1 teaspoon of vinegar into 100 ml of water
Drink B: 1 teaspoon of vinegar and 1/8 teaspoon of sugar into 100 ml of water
Drink C: 1 teaspoon of vinegar and 1/4 teaspoon of sugar into 100 ml of water
Drink D: 1 teaspoon of vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar into 100 ml of water
Drink E: 1 teaspoon of vinegar and 1 teaspoon of sugar into 100 ml of water

The trepidation grew as we did the mixing. "It seems disgusting, drinking vinegar, to me," CJ weighed in. But being the good researcher he is, CJ soldiered through tasting all of the solutions. Heck, by the time we got to Drink D, CJ wanted more than one sip. :)

WHAT A DIFFERENCE TWO DAYS MAKES: I've been experimenting around with kale smoothies the past couple of days. The first day (kale, strawberries, and Greek yogurt), as you might recall, was an abject failure. Yesterday was better. I used less kale (the first day I had waaaay too much by any recipe you'll find), and used watermelon instead of strawberries, and that helped. Today, using info I've gleaned from our gastronomy class, BTW, I opted for a healthy mountain of kale complimented with a big banana, nonfat Greek yogurt and a teaspoon of organic honey. Miraculously, when Annabelle saw the ingredients, she asked, "Can I like the spoon?" 

Naturally, I gave her a spoonful and offered up more in her own cup.  

"Man, this kale smoothie is good! And that, coming from a kid, is amazing," was her review.  

Hearing that, CJ wanted in on the action, of course. He ran and fetched a cup and approached me, asking, "May I have a kale smoothie, please?" Naturally, I was happy to oblige. I poured a nice helping from my cup to his. He chugged it down and declared, "One thing I'll say is it's definitely better than the first one." 

They both gave an enthusiastic 'yes!' when I asked them if they'd be interested in drinking it again. Sweet Smoothie Success!

PANDA CAM: Zoo Atlanta has a new pair of giant panda cubs! Their mother is 15-year old Lun Lun. 

Wonderful photo by: Curt http://www.flickr.com/photos/curt/566225918/?reg=1&src=comment

The cubs, both boys, are the first giant panda twins to be born in the U.S. since 1987.  

You can watch the action (well mostly lots of inaction, but it's still interesting) here: http://www.zooatlanta.org/1212/panda_cam

Wednesday

ON THE TIPS OF OUR TONGUES: The blackberries are here, the blackberries are here!

Well, at least a few of them - but a few is better than none! Today, CJ and Annabelle strained to reach some growing on a steep hillside by the ballfield at Bayview Park.

Later tonight, the tastebuds were put to use again as we completed an assignment for our "Science of Gastronomy" course.

Tonight professor King spoke volumes about how we taste and what we taste (yes, including umami). We learned lots about the types and locations of taste of receptors in our body. The professor also covered the topic of "supertasters." CJ reminded us that at the Seattle Science Expo a month or so ago, there was a booth there with a banner that asked, "Are you a supertaster?" We were each given strips to taste. Annabelle and Christian tasted nothing but the paper of the strip, while CJ and I winced at its bitterness. Turns out we're supertasters (along with about 25 percent of the population, and more women than men are supertasters). It's a genetic. thought to be related to the presence of the TAS2R38 gene, specifically. 

We also learned lots about saliva - how it's made and what its functions (as transportation, a solvent, protection, and more) are. And we learned why you should wash capsaicin-laced foods down with full fat milk (it's soluble in lipids) instead of beer (alcohol can make it seem hotter!).

Our assignment tonight was to dry all the saliva off our tongues and then try to taste salt or sugar. Surprise, surprise, it had a nearly imperceptible taste. Then, we repeated the taste with a 'normal' (not dry) mouth and, of course, we could taste the sugar or salt, no problem. Well done, saliva, well done.

BUDDING ARTIST: Annabelle spends a fair amount of time most every day drawing. Often it's crayon or pencil on paper, often it's with graphic software. I've been super impressed with her (self taught) progress as of late. For instance, here is a progression of a baby shark she drew and then colored.

And here's a turtle. 

MATHS: This week I started an online class from Stanford called "How to Learn Math." So far, it's absolutely riveting. Professor Jo Boaler has made a career out of studying math teaching and discerning why math evokes such strong negative feelings for so many. There's a nice overview article about the class here: https://ed.stanford.edu/news/new-online-course-learning-love-math. I'm one of 20,000+ parents/teachers enrolled.

Boaler's class seems very necessary when you start reading about students experiences in and perceptions about math education. For example, one survey of adults found that four out of 10 hated math in school, twice as many as any other subject. Yowza.

I'd highly recommend anyone who is in a position to teach or help anyone in math to check it out. The lectures are anything but the standard dry sermons. They are sprinkled with interviews with students and other math experts, and along the way there are short, relevant assignments. The ones so far are largely based on the course taker's observations and experiences - in other words, there's no long hard math quiz or final to worry about! ;)

One of our assignments asked us to make a concept map of themes we heard emerging from interviews with students about their feelings toward math. Here's what I came up with.

This fall, Boaler will be offering a version of the course for kids ages 10-ish in the upcoming school year. I know a couple of students who will be enrolled!

Taste Sensations

MEAN GREEN: I've been threatening to make a kale smoothie (it's all the rage) for days now. This morning, we finally got 'round to it.

It looked so pretty sitting there in the food processor, with the bright red berries, creamy Greek yogurt and crunchy green kale. We gave it a good spin, and I poured the concoction into three cups.

I tasted it first, with my back to the kids, as I didn't want to pollute their palates. Good thing my back was to them, as I'm sure I grimaced. Not deterred, I gave them a hard sell, telling them to drink up the glorious elixir. 

Here's Annabelle's face at first taste.

And CJ looked like this. 

Sorry the photo is blurry. He was shuddering violently. Once he could talk, CJ spat out, ""Oh my, this tastes bad. What kind of abomination is this?"

And so, our first foray into the world of drinking your kale was a rather miserable failure. I will not be deterred. Stay tuned for Round 2.

TO THE MOON: On this day in history (July 16), Apollo 11 lifted off from Cape Canaveral. A towering craft at 363-feet tall, it was the summer of '69 and on board were astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., (you can call him Buzz). 

(credit:NASA-KSC)

(credit:NASA-KSC)

Four days later, Neil and Buzz were walking on the moon. 

RED PLANET POETRY: A couple weeks back, the kids and I got in on a NASA promotion to have our names on board their MAVEN spacecraft, which will be Mars-bound after its launch this November. However, getting our names on board came with a catch. We had to submit a Mars-inspired haiku, as well. 

Here's Annabelle's:

Fourth in our system
The red one floats in orbit
We come to explore

And CJ's:

Do you have life there?
That is what I wonder now
We cannot stop here

And mine: 

Mysterious Mars
Our rusty, dusty neighbor
Enchanting you are

Now, the public can vote on their favorite haikus. (You can vote for us by clicking on the embedded links with our names, above). There were nearly 30,000 haikus submitted, so I'm pretty sure John Q. Public isn't going to read all of them. Or even 100 of them. They'll probably read a page or two of them, and cast a couple votes. Our haikus are very near the last of thousands of pages, and we're not social media gurus, so we're not thinking we're going to win that contest. ;) But the way I see it, we've already won, as our names will be rocketing toward Mars come fall. (Incidentally, our names are already ON Mars, as we participated in a get your name on board program for Mars Science Laboratory ("Curiosity"), as well.

And speaking of Mars, right now Curiosity is on a Red Planet road trip. It started on July 4 is heading for Mount Sharp, a Martian mountain that rises 3.4 miles high (about the same as Mt. Rainier). The rover isn't going to set any land speed records as its top speed is just .09 MPH (.14 KM/H). As of July 9, MSL has a total odometer reading of 325 feet since it touched down in early August of 2012. Mission managers estimate it will take Curiosity nearly a year to make the 5-mile trek to the mountain.

This image from NASA/JPL-Caltech shows the turret of tools at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm. The rover's rock-sampling drill in the lower left corner of the image. You can see the lower slopes of Mount Sharp at the top of the photo.

TASTE TEST: As previously mentioned, we've started our "Science of Gastronomy" course through Coursera. One of our Week 1 assignments was doing an experiment that involved a 'taste map' of our tongues.

We were to use cotton swabs to apply four different mixtures (sweet, salty, bitter [cocoa powder], sour [vinegar]) to four different regions of our tongues and then chart the intensity of the taste. 

It was a fun exercise, but it's not an exact science. In fact, the 'fact' that different sections of the tongue are exclusively responsible for registering different basic tastes has been debunked in recent years. 

Sun City

SUN DAY: All day Saturday we worked around the house and yard, except for an hour or so in the morning when we went for a nice long walk and spotted our first blackberry of the season! There are thousands to come, no doubt. 

Come Sunday, I was itching to go to the Mariners' game. I kept my eye on Craigslist and Stubhub, but couldn't find tickets at my 'give' point  ($15 apiece, half face value), until about 2 hours and 5 minutes before first pitch, a trio popped up on Stubhub. We jumped on them (only $12.83 apiece!) and then bought our fourth from a scalper at the same price point. Sweet! 

It was a LOVELY day at the park. Heaven on Earth, really.

A foul pole never looked so lovely, right? ;)

FUZZY WUZZY: This weekend, a Facebook friend turned me us on to some live bear cams. First, was a cam trained on Alaska's Brooks River in Katmai National Park. There, each year, over a hundred brown bears descend on a mile long stretch of Brooks River to chow down on the largest Sockeye Salmon run in the world. It's very entertaining to watch. I find myself switching between rooting for the bears and the salmon.

From the site above, I noticed the site had lots of other wildlife live cam links. For instance, one of polar bear Ilka and her twin cubs at Scandinavian Wildlife Park in Denmark. 

TASTY: This evening, we completed week 1 of "The Science of Gastronomy," a Coursera course via The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Here's our campus. ...

Well, at least virtually. But isn't it LOVELY? Maybe we can see it for ourselves some day...In the meantime, our professor's name is King, which you have to love. :) So far, so good - we've already learned lots!

For instance, we've learned about how energy can be transferred through conduction, comparing heat capacity and heat conductance, cooking by convection, increasing the boiling point of water with salt or sugar, cooking by radiation and more. 

One of the lectures we watched demonstrated how different materials conduct heat, which speaks to choices when it comes to cooking vessels. The charts and examples showed us that metals conduct heat significantly better than ceramics and plastics. 

We decided to replicate the experiment on our own. 

We put two ice cubes in small plastic bags, and set them on four different surfaces: ceramic, plastic, foil and copper. After five minutes, it was clear to see the copper and foil samples were melting more quickly.

Afer 10 minutes they looked like this. They are from left to right ceramic, plastic, foil and copper. As you can see, the copper cubes were completely melted. Amazing! Science! Woot!

This first weeks' lessons also touched upon hunger and satiety. The lectures covered why we need food, how we determine whether we're full or not, how we determine if food is good, and how sound, texture and the other senses play into our eating experiences. Interesting stuff that we can use every darn day.

One of our assignments this week had to do with sensory specific satiety. It involved eating a 'meal' of chocolate. Ten bites of chocolate, spread out over 30 minutes. Pure torture. ;)"I think this is my favorite quiz ever," Annabelle remarked after 'having' to eat and rate her second piece.

The exercise involved rating the level of "pleasantness of item one after eating," and then the pleasantness" of pieces 2-10. Won't surprise \you to learn the 'pleasantness' went down with successive pieces. Chocolate is good, but it turns out there *is* such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Where the Wild Things Are

CREATURE FEATURE: This afternoon, on a whim, we went to the Woodland Park Zoo with Rick, who had some discount tickets. Count us in, 'cause we're all about discounts, as you know.

As we arrived at the zoo grounds, Rick announced he needed to see the sloth bears, snow leopard, and the grizzly. Let's just say it was Rick's day. All of them were up and about.

The sloth bears were up first. We watched a sloth mom wander around as her two cubs wrestled with one another.

I noticed the mama bear looking into the small cracks of the rocks at one point and asked the kids what they thought that was all about. Annabelle guessed, "She's looking for insects."

Sure 'nuff, they're insect eating mammals. In fact, they have a specially adapted lower lip and palate used for sucking insects.

Given that they're from the Indian subcontinent, yet they're wearing what looks like a super heavy, long fur coat, I had to speculate that maybe it was more like hair than fur - so that they wouldn't get too hot. But what do I know?

We wandered around a bit and saw kangaroos and wallabies and a wallaroos (I'm not making that up).

We also came across some gorgeous Gray Wolves. They looked more white to us, but what do we know? We marveled at how closely they are related to our house dogs, but how far away they are in other respects. 

 We also speculated about how long our lil Havanese would last in the Gray Wolves' enclosure. ...

 They looked so pretty, docile and even domestic, but of course, that's not the case.

We made our way to the snow leopard exhibit. Upon arrival, the big cat was sunning itself at the back of the enclosure, far from us.  Imagine our surprise and delight when it popped up and made a beeline toward us!

 Exciting! It came within a couple feet of us (albeit separated by thick Plexiglas). Pretty kitty!

We also saw an elk with an amazing rack!

The penguins are always a hit, of course. 

At the zoo, the meerkats and komodo dragons are neighbors. 

This meerkat served as sentinel of the group. She was posted way above the rest, keeping lookout, while the others frolicked, slept and so on below.

The komodo dragon looks so serene, but it will eat you alive, given the chance. 

We spent the most time looking at the grizzly bears, who were on the move. 

 Amazing animals, are they.

 Look, it even smiled at us! ;) 

7/11

FANCY PANTS: Today we finally got around to transforming some super cute fabric Annabelle picked out weeks ago into some new pants. 

It was a super easy pattern - just two pattern pieces involved. First, Annabelle sewed the front and back legs together at the inside seam. 

Then she joined the front and back along the middle/crotch seam. Then it was time to sew the outside leg seam. Up next was creating the waistband casing, then inserting the elastic. 

Once that was done, it was time to hem the legs, and sew on the super cute buttons she picked out as accents. She's getting really good at threading needles! 

She was very specific about which buttons went where.  I told her I thought it took longer to sew the eight buttons on (four apiece on the cuff of each leg) than it did to sew the pants.

Of course, the work was worth it. Bee is very happy with her new pants.

SPECIAL DELIVERY: Imagine our delight when included among a stack of mail we received recently was a letter from Professor Lou (Bloomfield) of the University of Virginia. He was our "How Things Work" Coursera class we took that introduced the kids to physics.

In the last video lecture we watched, the professor encouraged students to drop him a postcard, so we did. 
I'm not going to post his whole letter here, but it was long, thoughtful, and encouraging. I'd sent a few pages of the kids' notes along with their postcards, because I thought he'd get a kick out of seeing how an 8- and 10-year old process the info he's sharing compared to the traditional college aged student. He definitely enjoyed  copies of the notes and said, "a person's age seems to be less important to learning or understanding science than their willingness to think." Amen. :)

On their postcards, the kids each told Professor Lou they hoped there would be a Part 2 to his class, and he said it's a possibility. We'll keep our fingers crossed. In the meantime, we (and you!) can check out his Web site Howe Everything Works - Explaining the physics of everyday life (http://www.howeverythingworks.org/).

SCIENCE SITE: We test drove a new-to-us science site today, Planet-Science.com. The site has articles, games, and experiments for students, divided into over and under 11 year old categories. 

Annabelle loved their jokes section. I think she read them all to me. My favorite: The optimist sees the glass as half full. The pessimist sees the glass as half empty. The engineer sees the glass as twice as big as it needs to be.

The site's "About" page tells us it was originally launched as a Millennium project nurtured by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and previously funded by the Department of Education and Skills. In 2010, it was re-launched under the ownership and guidance of Tinopolis Interactive, a South West Wales and London-based company which designs and builds eLearning and new media solutions. 

The kids enjoyed playing the games there. Annabelle and CJ both played "Mission Adaptation," a game where you have to take photos of creatures and plants native to a certain environment. Along the way, you learn factoids about how the things have adapted to their environment. 

And, they played "Fashionable Labs," a game that helps players raise awareness of what they need to know to be safe in a laboratory setting.

Annabelle spent a fair amount of time reading (and sharing) all sorts of facts about animals from the site's "Our World" articles. The site is content-rich. We can (and will) spend days combing through it.

FREEBIE: Twitter and Facebook feeds made it abundantly clear that today was free Slurpee day in honor of the date 7/11. This is typically the only day of the year the kids have a Slurpee, so it's a Big Deal for them. 

We headed to a 7-11 on Queen Anne hill a little after 11 a.m. and the kids were dazzled by their choices, including a Mt. Dew flavor. Oh happy day. 

Thank you, 7-11, and we'll see you next year. :) 

MARTIAN MOON: We've all spotted Earth's moon overhead, making its way across our sky countless times. Imagine being on the surface of Mars and watching the Red Planet's moon cross the sky. That's just what the Mars Science Laboratory did recently, and fortunately, it snapped a series of shots of it so that we can see, too.

The clip below is a combination of 86 frames MSL took on June 28. It shows Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars, passing overhead, shortly after a Martian sunset. Phobos enters the frame in the bottom at the center and moves toward the top of the view. It's shown at an accelerated speed - the real time for the transit was 27 minutes.