Wednesday Wows

Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

UP AND AWAY:  This afternoon, we watched Northrop Grumman launch its Antares rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo spacecraft. Lift off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia was at 1:46 our time, and everything appeared 'nominal' during and after the launch. The capsule is headed to the International Space Station. On board are 7,600 pounds of research, crew supplies and hardware. The Cygnus Cygnus spacecraft, the SS Roger Chaffee, is set to arrive at the ISS on Friday, April 19, at  2:30 a.m., West Coast time.

Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

ZOMBIE PIGS: A headline caught my eye this morning. It read: 

Scientists Restore Some Function In The Brains Of Dead Pigs

It was from NPR, so I figured it was almost certainly true, and read the story. And then I asked the kids to read the story. Here's what CJ had to say about it. ... 

According to an NPR article with a clickbaity headline (it implies that scientists have somehow brought pig brains back to life), recently, scientists at the Yale University research team have announced that they have been able to restore and/or preserve cellular activity in the brains of dead pigs, just a matter of hours following slaughter. BrainEx, the technology developed and used to restore cellular activity, is (currently) incapable of restoring life, though the scientists are kidding themselves if they don't think it's going to be developed and (ab)used to actually restore life in the future.

The possibility of restoring cellular activity in and of itself is filled with potential for previously-unthinkable experiments, and raises ethical questions about the difference between life and death. Perhaps needless to say, I don't think it will be terribly long before human brains start being subject to BrainEx experimentation. One can only wonder if religious fundamentalists will declare BrainEx to be satanic, in the same vein as stem cell research. 

Here's what Annabelle has to say about the news. ...

With the advent of BrainEx, there are a number of questions about whether the ethics of potentially reanimating dead brains would have an impact on how the technology is used. If the BrainEx program reaches a level where it can truly "revive" a human brain, it would be of extreme use to doctors around the world and could possibly even restore some functions to people classified as "braindead." It would also allow scientists to properly study the brain as a full organ instead of having to dissect and use the already-dead tissue.

On the other hand, there could be a number of cons to this practice such as the aforementioned ethical issues. It could also cost a lot of money to get the chemicals and technology necessary to even start attempting to revive the brains. Finally, it's not even guaranteed that this would revive the brains so much as make the cells begin to function again - and of course there's the obvious fear of "zombies" arising from this.

"AH HA!" MOMENT: We took just a couple of minutes midday to watch this video: "Why There’s No Such Thing As A Good Or Bad Memory" by "brain coach" Jim Kwik. It was really interesting, IMHO.

I found his point about the brain being a "super computer" and that our self talk is how we program it especially helpful. For example, if you tell yourself you're bad at remembering names, well, guess what? You're programming your brain to think that. Makes sense. He also pointed out that something like memory or focus is something you DO, not something you HAVE. In essence, it's a verb, not a noun. 

Good stuff. We watched the video twice and talked about it afterward.

Out and About

BARK IN THE PARK: Sunday, we made our second pilgrimage to Safeco Field, er, I mean T-Mobile Park for the season. CJ was especially excited about the event, because it was a "Bark in the Park" day, where people are encouraged to bring their dogs to the game. 

Even though we didn't have a dog with us, we went and sat in the dog section, in the top row. We saw So. Many. Dogs. Dogs of all shapes and sizes. A pair of brindle boxers sat next to us for several innings, as did some big labradoodles.

We saw a little Dachshund in a sporty Mariners ballcap a few row down from us. The little guy was paralyzed, but it's owners had a chariot-type wheelchair for its back legs.

There were two big 'comfort stations' for dogs to check out, complete with lush sod and plenty of fresh water.

I asked the kids if they thought the dogs were looking down at the ballfield, wishing they could mark some territory down on that expanse of grass

SATURDAY PLAY: April 13 was Record Store Day. It's kind of like an extra Christmas for music enthusiasts. :)  Last year CJ and I waited in line for a couple of hours before opening at his favorite record store, Silver Platters in Seattle's Sodo neighborhood. This year, there was nothing he was 'dying' to get, so we skipped the line thing. Instead, we went to the record store at about 1 or so, and still came home happy.

I found both of the only two items I wanted - a collaboration of Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen with Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters on a track originally recorded by Dennis Wilson of Beach Boys fame. (Hawkins also happens to be arguably the biggest Queen fan in the world.) 

I also found Brian May's over-sized "New Horizons" single. It was inspired by the space probe of the same name. Far out!

Saturday evening, we headed to downtown Renton for a special festival celebrating a new public art piece, a metal dragon atop a building in the center of the city (It's atop the Old Western Hotel at the corner of S. Third Street and Wells Avenue.) 

One of the festival events involved a Dungeons and Dragons session, hosted at a local web design company, Bloqs. It's worth noting that D&D was created by a Renton-based company, Wizards of the Coast. 

CJ and Annabelle spent about 90 minutes involved in a campaign. The dungeon master did a great job, and it was very entertaining.

 Here's the dragon's head. ...

 And here's a side view. 

 It's a unique addition to the city, that's for sure!

MONDAY SUN DAY: After a series of shades of gray, finally the glowing yellow orb made a reappearance overhead. That inspired us to get our tomato starts outside.

 Look at how happy CJ was to get his hands into the dirt. ;)

Hopefully our tomatoes will thrive. Time will tell.

In closing, here's a gratuitous tulip shot, from our back yard. 

Hive Arrival

NEW NEIGHBORS: It occurred to me today that I forgot to share the photos from when our new 'pets' arrived on the scene last Saturday.

We picked our bee 'nuc' up in Burien. People there had fetched it from Eastern Washington that morning. The bees were in a white cardboard box, on a few manufactured honeycombs.

 Carefully, one by one, Christian took them out and transferred them to their new home.

 We didn't stop to count the bees, but it seems like there has to be thousands of them.

In the photo below, Christian has just placed a little capsule with the queen bee in it atop the hive. 

One end of the capsule was covered in candy, which the worker bees would eat off to release the queen. 

 Little did Christian know several bees were perched on his head during this whole process.

Today, when taking recycling out, I was astounded at how loud the bees were. Dozens were flying in and out of the hive, going about their business. 

We hope they're happy in their new home!

Astounding

Using the Event Horizon Telescope, scientists obtained an image of the black hole at the center of galaxy M87. Above, it is outlined by emission from hot gas swirling around it under the influence of strong gravity near its event horizon. Credits: Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et al.

DAY OF DISCOVERY: It's almost impossible to overstate the importance of Wednesday's news. Every image ever seen before April 10, 2019 relating to black holes was supposition - an artist's rendition. Now, with the image from the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, that has all changed. 

The world has its first image of an actual black hole.

Chandra X-ray Observatory close-up of the core of the M87 galaxy. Credits: NASA/CXC/Villanova University/J. Neilsen

As NASA explains, "Anything that comes within a black hole’s 'event horizon,' its point of no return, will be consumed, never to re-emerge, because of the black hole’s unimaginably strong gravity. By its very nature, a black hole cannot be seen, but the hot disk of material that encircles it shines bright. Against a bright backdrop, such as this disk, a black hole appears to cast a shadow."   

Brian Greene, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University. had this to say about the development: "It is hard to express how utterly remarkable and astoundingly delightful it is that mathematical scribblings can predict something as bizarre as black holes and then, looking to the skies with sufficient diligence, we find them."

This short video from the BBC succinctly sums up the importance of this 

"Time" has a great story about Katie Bouman and the team who worked together to create the image. It tells, in part, that while Bouman hardly knew a thing about black holes when she joined the team six years ago, she became involved in the project while pursuing a PhD in computer vision. Time reports Bouman's passion is “coming up with ways to see or measure things that are invisible."

TALK ABOUT IT: This morning I was thinking about ways to improve interpersonal communication, and my mind immediately turned to TED, as in TED Talks. I knew there had to be numerous talks on the topic of talking (and listening!). My browser wound up on a short presentation by Celeste Headlee, a longtime writer and radio host. The kids and I watched it, took notes on her main points, and then used it as a springboard to talk about how we could have more effective communications in our daily lives. It was time well spent. 
https://www.ted.com/talks/celeste_headlee_10_ways_to_have_a_better_conversation?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

HEAVY DUTY: This afternoon, we watched SpaceX launch a communications satellite (Arabsat-6A) atop the biggest rocket in the world, the Falcon Heavy.

The launch was impressive, of course, but I have to say, watching those three boosters come back down to Earth in a controlled fashion and stick their landings was phenomenal! 

Here's a link to the hour-long launch program. The actual lift off is at about the 19 minute mark, and the booster landings (there are three) start at about the 26 minute mark. 

College Bound

TRIUMPHANT:  This morning we headed to South Seattle College campus so that CJ could take his placement tests to see if he could qualify for Running Start/full time college come this fall, though he'd be a high school junior on 'paper'/by age, otherwise. 

In preparation, we went over So Many practice tests. He was as ready as he could be, for sure.

We went in, paid the fee, wished him well and then Annabelle and I went and ran errands while CJ went about his business. 

About 90 minutes later, we returned to pick up the triumphant CJ. He nailed the tests, qualifying for enrollment in both math and English at the collegiate level. Mission accomplished! 

I suggested we go to the bookstore to buy him a collegiate hoodie for posterity. He donned it proudly and I asked him to do a "Rocky" pose on our way back to the car. We all smiled when the "Rocky" tune "Eye of the Tiger" was playing when we got back to the car. 

We continued the celebration with lunch at Popeyes. The kids love fried chicken and had never been there before. They were super underwhelmed with the food, and Annabelle noticed the 'honey' was not really honey. It was a honey 'sauce.' :/

Popeyes disappointment aside, a momentous day for MPA. Congrats to CJ!

Collegiate

CAMPUS VISIT: Yesterday afternoon we headed to east West Seattle (yeah, I know that sounds weird) to visit the campus of South Seattle College, a school CJ is contemplating attending.

We arrived early, so we took the opportunity to stroll around the campus. We had a map, and that let us know there was a gazebo and garden on the campus' north end, so we headed that way.

We were pretty surprised to find there's an expansive Chinese garden there, specifically, Seattle Chinese Garden. This structure CJ's standing in front of is just exterior walls, which surround a courtyard. 

There's a pretty gazebo on site, and a super big carp art installation to the east of the courtyard.

The sign explaining it is a little worse for the wear, but we learned that a traditional Chinese tale tells of a carp that could leap the high falls of the Yellow River at Dragon Gate, and it would then transform into a dragon. 

The "Dragon Seeker" on site at South Seattle was made in Thailand, over 100 years ago. It was on display in Chiang Mai for years before moving to a private garden in Kuala Lumpur, and then all the way back to Seattle when the couple returned to the Emerald City.

Another piece of Chinese-related art work is on display in a plaza near the west entrance of the campus.

Made by Ye Yushan, it's a statue of Tang Dynasty era Chinese poet Li Bai. I thought it a little odd that the poem was about taking a jug of wine and drinking alone, but, oh well. 

Eventually we made our way to the board room of the college president for the Running Start presentation. The woman giving the presentation was a little overwhelmed. She said she usually has about 7 people for an orientation. There were probably three dozen there yesterday. Wonder why the sudden increase. ... 

Anyway, it's a nice little campus - kind of high school sized, in a way. It might make a nice spot for CJ to get his feet wet with a college experience. Stay tuned.

HEAVY STUFF: Tomorrow afternoon, 3:35 Pacific time, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is set to lift off from Cape Canaveral. On board with be an Arabsat 6A communications satellite, built by Lockheed Martin. The satellite will provide television, internet and mobile phone services to the Middle East, Africa and Europe.  It's kind of a Big Deal, because this is SpaceX's first use of its Falcon Heavy for a commercial launch. 

Towering at 230-feet, right now it's the world's most powerful rocket by a factor of two, according to Space X. The bad boy has central rocket boosters, and its engines will generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, according to a SpaceX Tweet on April 7.  

You might remember Falcon Heavy's maiden test launch back in February of 2018, when it launched a cherry-red Tesla Roadster with a mannequin named Starman in the driver’s seat.

Image: Shared by Elon Musk of SpaceX

By the way, there's actually a website where you can track that Tesla's space journey: https://www.whereisroadster.com/

As of 4/9/2019 at 4:26 pm, its current location is 219,789,644 miles (353,717,255 km, 2.364 AU) from Earth, moving toward Earth at a speed of 12,054 mi/h (19,399 km/h, 5.39 km/s).

Here's some video of it, not too long after it left its home planet.

Takes the Cake

SWEET SATURDAY: We had a whirlwind day here at MPA on Saturday. Everyone was up early to ready for a full docket. First and foremost on the 'to do' list was loading the car with a couple of huge, heavy cakes and all sorts of decorations.

We left home about 9:30, destination Shoreline/Lake Forest Park. It usually a half hour drive from our place, but as bad luck would have it, a semi-driver fell asleep and rolled his truck on Interstate 5, just north or our place. The wreck managed to close multiple lanes of both north and south bound on the freeway. That slowed us down CONSIDERABLY.

Fortunately, we still made it to the cake show on time. After taking mega back roads and work-arounds there, the kids got their cakes on the table post haste and started adding their decorations. They had trees to build, bushes to 'plant,' a stage backdrop to erect, speakers to stack, a band to put on the stage, and Horton to place in a field of clover.

They'd been working on the elements for days ahead of time, building tree trunks from gum paste, tree tops from gum paste mixed with fondant, bushes of a gumpaste blend, building the speakers out of Rice Krispies treats covered in fondant and decorative details. 

Annabelle can tell you a bit more about the event. ...

This year for the annual Edible Book Festival in Shoreline, my brother and I spent days working on a cake to present. The theme of the event is book puns, and the one we had selected was "Horton Hears the Who!", as opposed to the original "Horton Hears a Who!" We sculpted the titular Horton and rock band The Who out of modelling chocolate and fondant, placing them on banana peanut and chocolate toffee cakes respectively. We sculpted and decorated cartoonish trees, speakers, and even a drum kit to decorate the empty spaces on the cakes.

Once we finally got to the event, we set up everything in a corner spot on one of the tables so everyone attending could view from multiple angles. My brother and I stood nearby the cake to answer any questions, and we got many compliments on our hard work. The most common questions were what the figures were made of and how much time it took. By the end of the judging, CJ and I were called up on stage to receive our rewards from the youth category - "Most PUNderful" and "People's Choice."

The Edible Book Festival is held at Lake Forest Park Town Center Commons yearly, and more information can be found on their info page at http://www.shorelinearts.net/edible-book-festival/.

A few more photos from the event ...  

The little pink 'clover' in the photo below are actually cute little Japanese cookies. We found them at a local grocer, Uwajimaya. Annabelle used her food grade airbrush to turn them pink.

Horton was sculpted out of modeling "chocolate" (candy melts and Karo syrup, home made). He had to then be covered in fondant (also home made), because you can't really paint modeling chocolate very well because it's oily/has a high fat content.  I think he's so cute. :) She did a great job.

And then there was the band. They are meant to be cartoony versions of the guys, in keeping with the simple illustrated style of "Horton Hears a Who!" But still, she wanted to capture the individuals' personalities.

Roger Daltry is front and center, arms outstretched and eyes closed, as he often does.

 Stage left is Pete Townsend, of the windmill guitar playing and notable nose. :)

John Enwhistle is up against a Marshall stack playing bass, and Keith Moon had to settle for a small drum kit, cause that's all the cake would allow. 

CJ has this to say about the experience. ... 

On April 6, 2019, I brought a cake (technically two cakes, but more on that later) to the Shoreline Arts Council's Edible Book Festival, held at the Lake Forest Park Town Center Commons in Shoreline, WA. Participants in the Edible Book Festival had to bake and decorate cakes, with the cakes themed around books. The cakes were either submitted to the Youth Category, or the Adult Category, depending on the age of the bakers.

For this year, my family decided to make a cake titled "Horton Hears The Who." Perhaps needless to say, "Horton Hears The Who" is a pun based on the Dr. Seuss book "Horton Hears a Who," as well as the famous British rock band The Who. The cake, technically split into two cakes (one for the field that Horton sat in, the other for The Who's stage,) was submitted to the Youth Category.
At the event, the judges took a look at every cake, and took photographs. Visitors were given ballots to vote for Youth and Adult cakes in those categories' respective "People's Choice Award." After some judging and voting took place, Horton Hears The Who was awarded the "Most Punderful Award" in the Youth Category, as well as the People's Choice Award in the Youth Category.

Right after the awards ceremony, we had to rip off to Annabelle's ultimate (Frisbee) game. Fortunately, G&G from Mukilteo were able to swoop in and serve up the cake to the crowd. (The cake eating is a much-anticipated part of the event.

I'm here to tell you, the banana bread cake with salty/crunchy peanut butter filling is delicious (and I don't even like cake).  

Overall, the entries this year were a cut above last year's event. Some really stellar work on display!

Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with next year!