Thursday, August 28, 2014

#trowbackthursday

Throwback Thursday

N49 is a supernova remnant within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby small companion galaxy to the Milky Way visible from the southern hemisphere.

Image Credit: NASA Hubble Space Telescope
NASA Identifier 440548main_STScI-2003-20a

Cosmologist Tom Abel reveals some incredible facts in his 7th Avenue Project interview with Robert Pollie about the universe and you. Considering the age of the universe is 13.8 billion years old:

1/ After the Big Bang, the atoms in a single human body likely came from a region of space at least 1 million lightyears across.  Condensed through gravity to the solar system, sun, earth and you.

2/ The Body is mostly Hydrogen. Whether it is the H2O in water, or the H in fatty acids or proteins, Hydrogen comprises 67% of the human body. This Hydrogen is 13.8 billion years old, mostly made during the Big Bang.

3/ The average age of an atom in the body is 10 billion years old.

4/ Heavier elementslike carbon, oxygen, iron and higher elementsare the result of stars super novae. The atoms in our body came from the order of magnitude of a billion stars. A billion stars' dust recondensing into our sun and solar system.

The early stars in the universe were incredibly short lived with a life spans of a few million up to 10 million years max. These stars were 30 - 300 solar masses. And so many generations and large expanses collapsed to form our Sun and solar system 5 billion years ago.

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Listen to the full podcast here:


Sunday, March 9, 2014

What's My Line?

The most glamorous game show aired early in the age of television. In "What's My Line?" celebrities try to guess a guest's occupation through a series of yes or no questions.

I love the gentle jokes. I love the sponsorship. Such politeness in voice and dress.

"What's My Line?" ran for 17 years from 1950 to 1967 and for good reason is still entertaining today. It recalls an era when people would dress up to take an aeroplane. What a time! When great TV involved a few celebrities playing a simple parlor game. How did they figure out the magic formula so early on?




Friday, December 13, 2013

Snow in Cairo

Snow is like a desert.




New Yorker Fiction

The New Yorker Fiction podcast has many short stories about precocious youngsters, socially lost, unable to find joy in the world.  This one is not. This one is excellently fantastical.  Take a listen to Italo Calvino's The Daughters of the Moon.

Inline image 1

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

We Almost Lost DÉTROIT

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. covers Gil Scott-Heron in "We Almost Lost Detroit".  See the Scott-Heron version here.  Jr. Jr. amps up the synth and hometown pride for a lovely remake of a classic.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. is playing tonight at the Majestic along with Tunde Olaniran.  I'm pumped. Two of my favorite bands, two high energy performances.  I still owe Tunde full coverage in a separate post.



Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - We Almost Lost Detroit from Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. on Vimeo.

"We Almost Lost Detroit" by Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., from 'It's A Corporate World,' out now. Video directed by Andrew Smart.

Download 'It's A Corporate World' on iTunes: http://glnk.it/3p
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/daleearnhardtjrjr
Website: http://www.daleearnhardtjrjr.com/