EarthSky » Human World

Leap seconds to remain… at least until 2015

Larry Sessions — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:00:50 +0000

2012 is a leap year, and it will also have a leap second. A leap second is a one-second adjustment to the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). It’s an extra second added in to our official timekeeping, with the most recent one being December 31, 2008. The next leap second will be added to the clock on June 30, 2012. At the same time, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations body that governs some global issues related to time, has been contemplating the controversial idea of a leap second. They considered abolishing the practice, but in late January 2012 – with delegates from more than 150 nations meeting in Geneva – the ITU decided to defer a proposal to dump the leap second until their 2015 meeting.

Like the ancients who insisted that all motion in the heavens must be perfect, uniform and unvarying, many of us today assume that the Earth’s rotation – its spin on its axis – is perfectly steady. We learned, correctly, that the sun, moon, stars and planets parade across our sky because the Earth turns. So it is easy to understand why we assume that the Earth’s rotation is precise and unwavering. Yet Earth’s rotation does not stay perfectly steady.

This U.S. Naval Observatory graphic depicts small changes in the rate at which Earth spins.

Instead, compared to modern timekeeping methods such as atomic clocks, the Earth is a notoriously poor timepiece. Not only is Earth’s spin slowing down, but it also is subject to effects that cannot even be predicted well.

If you have ever been to the beach, you will be familiar with the main reason our planet is slowing down. That reason is ocean tides. As our planet rotates, it plows past the great watery bulges (raised mostly by the gravitational interaction of the Earth and moon), which serves to slow it down much like a brake on a rotating wheel. This effect is small, actually very small. According to calculations based on the timing of ancient astronomical events (eclipses), the Earth’s rotation has slowed down by about .0015 to .002 seconds per day per century. That means that the a day in 2012 is about 0.002 seconds (2 milliseconds, or two-thousandths of a second) longer than was a day in 1912.

Ocean tides are what is causing Earth to slow down in its rotation

That in itself is not much, and is not enough to justify adding a “leap second” every 18 months or so, as has been done since 1972. The length of a day today is almost imperceptibly longer than the length as the same day last year. In the 1800s, a day was defined as 86,400 seconds. Today it is 86,400.002 seconds, roughly.

Chip scale atomic clock, introduced by U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2004. Time is now measured using stable atomic clocks, whereas the rotation of Earth is much more variable.

The discrepancy comes by comparing the Earth’s daily rotation relative to astronomical objects (which show the planet slowing down), to a extremely high precision atomic clock (which is accurate to about a billionth of a second per day).

The Earth is slowing down, very slowly. It takes about 100 years for Earth’s rotation to add just 0.002 seconds to the time it takes Earth to spin once on its axis. What happens, though, is that the daily 0.002-second difference between the original definition of a day as being 86,400 seconds builds up. After one day is it 0.002 seconds. After two days it is 0.004 seconds. After three days it is 0.006 seconds and so on. After about a year and a half, the difference mounts to about 1 second. It is this difference that requires the addition of a leap second.

The situation is not quite that clear cut, however. The figure of 0.002 seconds per day per century is an average and it can, and does, change. For example, you might recall that the Fukushima earthquake in 2011 resulted from displacements of portions of the Earth’s crust that actually speeded up the Earth’s rotation, shortening the day by 1.6 millionth of a second! While that is not much, keep in mind that such changes are cumulative, too. Other short term and unpredictable changes can be caused by a variety of events, ranging from slight changes in the distribution of mass in the Earth’s molten outer core, to movement of large masses of ice near the poles, and even density and angular momentum variations in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The bottom line is that the actual variation day to day is not always plus 2 milliseconds. According to a U.S. Naval Observatory document, between 1973 to 2008, it has ranged from a plus 4 milliseconds to a minus 1 millisecond. Over time, that could necessitate a negative leap second, signifying an increase in the Earth’s rotation speed, but since the concept was introduced in 1973, this has never been done.

Telecommunications relies on precise timing, and the addition of a leap second forces many systems to be turned off for a second every year or two.

This all may seem pretty esoteric and unimportant, but not to the telecommunications industry, which is where the ITU comes in. Telecommunications relies on precise timing, and the addition of a leap second forces many systems to be turned off for a second every year of two. To get all such systems in a global industry cycled on and off in sync can be a major headache. Consider also that the global positioning system (GPS) does not use the leap second system, which causes further confusion. Many in the industry feel that the periodic addition of a “leap second” to keep the to measurements in step is cumbersome and wasteful.

Although dropping the idea of a leap second would be a convenience for telecommunication and other industries, in the long (very long) run, it would cause clocks to get out of synch with the Sun, eventually causing 12 p.m. (noon) to occur in the middle of the night, for example. But at the current rate of change in Earth’s rotation rate, it would take about 5,000 years to amass just a one-hour difference between the Earth’s actual rotation rate and the atomic clock.

For now, the issue will continue to be debated, because the ITU has put off a decision until 2015. But, as mentioned above, a leap second will be added this year on June 30, 2012.

But how, you may ask, do we even measure such small changes in the Earth’s rotation? Historically, astronomers (such as those at Britain’s famed Royal Greenwich Observatory near London) have used a telescope to watch a star pass through their eyepiece, crossing an imaginary line called the meridian. Then they time how long it takes for the Earth to bring that around star back around to cross the meridian again. This is highly accurate for everyday purposes, but for scientific use it is limited in accuracy because of the wavelengths used and the murkiness of the atmosphere. A much more accurate method is to use two or more radio telescopes separated by thousands of miles, in a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry. By carefully combining the data from each of the telescopes, astronomers effectively have a telescope thousands of miles in size, which provides much greater resolution (detecting fine detail) and measurement of position. This allows them to determine the planet’s rotation rate to an accuracy of less than a thousandth of a second. They do not observe stars, however, but very distant objects called quasars.

Bottom line: The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a U.N. body that governs some global issues related to time, has considered abolishing the practice of inserting a leap second into official time-keeping. Leap seconds have been added every so often since 1972. But in late January 2012, the ITU decided to defer a proposal to dump the leap second until their 2015 meeting. The next leap second will occur in this leap year of 2012. It will be added to the clock on June 30, 2012.

EarthSky 22: Glimpse the early universe

EarthSky 22 — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:22:46 +0000

Host: Jorge Salazar
Lead Producer: Mike Brennan

ES 22 Producers: Deborah Byrd, Ryan Britton, Emily Howard

Snowy owl sightings soar in early 2012. (USFWS)

Science news of the week:

Snowy owl sightings soaring in lower 48 states of U.S. in 2012

Two more planets orbiting in double star systems

Volcanoes might have triggered the Little Ice Age

Asteroid Eros at its closest since 1975 on January 31

Asteroid 433 Eros

GRAIL’s first video shows moon’s far side

New species of ancient crocodile nicknamed “Shieldcroc”

Song of the week:

The Lovely Sparrow’s “While Sailing”

LOFAR is a revolutionary new digital radio telescope and the largest of its kind. It is located in the Netherlands and spreads throughout Europe. It targets the early phase of the universe as well as the most energetic cosmic particles. Image via Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen

This week’s featured stories:

The Early Universe Jorge speaks with Dr. Ger de Bruyn about observing the early universe with the International LOFAR Telescope.

Snowy Owl Eruption Migration Jorge talks with biologist Denver Holt about the recent migration of arctic snowy owls into the lower 48 states.

The Frozen Thames, a painting by Abraham Hondius from 1677. Could all this freezing weather have been caused by volcanic eruptions? Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Could volcanic eruptions have led to ice-skating on the Thames in the 1600s? Volcano image via USGS

The Little Ice Age Jorge talks with Deborah Byrd about the new research suggesting that the Little Ice Age might have been caused by a series of volcanic eruptions.

Thanks for listening in. We’ll catch ya next week!

This week’s musical contributors:

The Lovely Sparrows

Daniel Webb

Sleep Good

The Black and White Years

One Hundred Flowers

The five U.S. terror hot spots

EarthSky — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:01:35 +0000

Nearly a third of all terrorist attacks from 1970 to 2008 occurred in just five metropolitan U.S. counties, but events continue to occur in rural areas, spurred on by domestic actors, according to a report published January 31, 2012 by researchers in the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence based at the University of Maryland.

New York, N.Y. (Sept. 14, 2001) -- A fire fighter emerges from the smoke and debris of the World Trade Center. The twin towers of the center were destroyed in a Sep. 11 terrorist attack. U.S. Navy Photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Jim Watson.

The largest number of events clustered around major cities:

Manhattan, New York (343 attacks)
Los Angeles County, Calif. (156 attacks)
Miami-Dade County, Fla. (103 attacks)
San Francisco County, Calif. (99 attacks)
Washington, D.C. (79 attacks)

While large, urban counties such as Manhattan and Los Angeles have remained hot spots of terrorist activities across decades, the START researchers discovered that smaller, more rural counties such as Maricopa County, Ariz. – which includes Phoenix – have emerged as hot spots in recent years as domestic terrorism there has increased.

The START researchers found that 65 of the nation’s 3,143 counties were “hot spots” of terrorism.

They defined a “hot spot” as a county experiencing a greater than the average number of terrorist attacks, that is, more than six attacks across the entire time period (1970 to 2008). Gary LaFree is director of START and lead author of the new report. He said:

Mainly, terror attacks have been a problem in the bigger cities, but rural areas are not exempt.

Researchers also found time trends in terrorist attacks. Bianca Bersani, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, said:

The 1970s were dominated by extreme left-wing terrorist attacks. Far left-wing terrorism in the U.S. is almost entirely limited to the 1970s with few events in the 1980s and virtually no events after that.

According to the new report, ethno-national/separatist terrorism was concentrated in the 1970s and 1980s, religiously motivated attacks occurred predominantly in the 1980s, extreme right-wing terrorism was concentrated in the 1990s and single issue attacks were dispersed across the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

The complete report Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United State, 1970 to 2008, is available online: http://ter.ps/9j.

Bottom line: According to a January 31, 2012 report, nearly a third of all terrorist attacks from 1970 to 2008 occurred in just five metropolitan U.S. counties. But events continue to occur in rural areas, spurred on by domestic actors, according to researchers from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence based at the University of Maryland.

Via UMD Newsdesk

Semir Zeki: Beauty is in the brain of the beholder

Beth Lebwohl — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:45:03 +0000

Beauty isn’t in the eye of the beholder – it’s in the brain, according to a 2011 paper in the online journal PLoS One. And in a very specific part of the braia, too: the medial orbito-frontal cortex, located just behind the eyes. That’s according to co-author of the new PLoS One paper and brain expert Professor Semir Zeki, of the University College London. He told EarthSky’s Beth Lebwohl:

Philosophers have always been interested in: what is beauty, and what do all things that are experienced as beautiful have in common? And we are attacking these questions in an experimental setting. Can we answer any of these questions by reference to what happens in the brain?

Apparently, the answer is yes. Zeki exposed people from all kinds of different cultural/gender/age backgrounds to works of visual art and music. According to his paper:

The visual stimuli included paintings of portraits, landscapes and still lifes … The auditory stimuli included classical and modern excerpts.

Zeki found, by examining MRI images of his subjects’ brains, that when people look at something they find beautiful, a portion in the front part of the brain called the medial orbito-frontal cortex “lights up.” That is, there’s increased blood flow in this area. He believes it’s a near-universal response to beauty. Zeki added that the medial orbito-frontal cortex is a portion of the brain associated with pleasure, and also reward.

It really tells you seeking beauty is in fact seeking to reward your pleasure centers.

Seeking to reward them with the neurotransmitter dopamine, also known as the feel-good chemical of the brain. Zeki added that one thing that’s novel about his study – and a result he wasn’t expecting – is that beauty as perceived through the eyes (e.g., visual art), and beauty you receive through the ears (e.g., music) aren’t routed to different parts of the brain; they both “reward” the same spot. Not only that, he said, the degree of activity in the medial orbito-frontal cortex correlates very strongly to the degree to which you find a thing attractive. He explained:

Image Credit: was_a_bee

The extent of activity in the medial frontal cortex is directly proportional to the declared intensity of beauty. So if you experience something as very beautiful on a scale of 1 to 10 and you give it a 10, then the activity is going to be stronger than if you experience it as a 1 out of 10.

By contrast, Zeki said, he found that when people see something that’s aesthetically displeasing – something they find ugly – it lights up a completely different part of the brain.

… It is another region of the brain … called the amygdyla, which is also active when you look at frightening stimuli … also active with fear and anger … as if the body is being mobilized, or prepared, or planning some kind of motor action to avoid what is ugly.

Zeki said this research is most interesting to him because it offers a completely modern definition of beauty – instead of trying to find out which characteristics all beautiful objects (or musical works) have in common, he’s busy figuring out what they have in common in terms of how the brain perceives them.

Zeki added that his findings about how beauty affects the brain are so specific, the data could be useful to people like advertisers or the art community. But, he warned, applications of this research have certain ethical strings attached. Why? Because, just by looking at a person’s brain with an MRI, you can tell what they like, what they don’t like, and to what degree. In other words, looking into someone’s brain could translate into a real invasion of emotional privacy. He told EarthSky:

I think you’ll be able to tell what people like, what people dislike, what people find beautiful, what people find not beautiful. But this is of course an invasion into their subjective states, and invasion into their very private lives, and I’m not sure you want to do that. At any rate, this is not a question that should be left to [just] scientists. We are really interested in learning more about the brain. But all these studies done all over the world about value, judgment, reward pleasure and all these things are basically invading our very private worlds, and we have to be careful about this information.

Bottom line: According to co-author of the new PLoS One paper and brain expert Professor Semir Zeki, of the University College London, MRI scans show a specific part of the brain lighting up when something beautiful is seen or heard.

EarthSky 22: Solar storms and supernovas

EarthSky 22 — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:00:26 +0000

Host: Jorge Salazar
Lead Producer: Mike Brennan

ES 22 Producers: Deborah Byrd, Ryan Britton, Emily Howard

Science news of the week:

Cyclone Funso wasn’t fun for the coast of southeast Africa

This dog skull is 33,000 years old. Image Credit: Nikolai D. Ovodov

A 33,000-year-old dog skull found in a cave in Belgium. The skull was 33,000 years old, not the dog.

The Opportunity rover has been on Mars for eight years, and it’s still kickin’.

2011: greatest economic losses globally due to earthquake-related events.

The sun has been super active, and some people saw incredible auroras.

Song of the week:

The Boxing Lesson’s “Better Daze” from their upcoming LP.

This week’s featured stories:

What makes a star blow up? Jorge Salazar speaks with Dr. Brad Schaefer of Louisiana State University about what causes a type 1a supernovae, and what cosmological lessons the remnants of these explosions have for us.

Image Credit: NASA

Global Night Sky Deborah Byrd talks about how the sun has been super active so far in 2012, and about seeing auroras.

Image Credit: NASA

Thanks for listening in. We’ll catch ya next week!

This week’s musical contributors:

The Boxing Lesson

Ocote Soul Sounds

Sleep Good

The Black and White Years

One Hundred Flowers

Study confirms we do get by with a little help from our friends

EarthSky — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:50:15 +0000

Keeping friends close has real physiological and psychological benefits, according to a January 2012 study in the journal Developmental Psychology.

The presence of a best friend directly and immediately benefits children going through negative experiences, says the report. Feelings of self-worth and levels of cortisol, a hormone produced naturally by the adrenal gland in direct response to stress, are largely dependent on the social context of a negative experience.

Photo credit: Ingsoc

William M. Bukowski, a psychology professor and director of the Concordia Centre for Research in Human Development, is co-author of the study. He said:

Having a best friend present during an unpleasant event has an immediate impact on a child’s body and mind. If a child is alone when he or she gets in trouble with a teacher or has an argument with a classmate, we see a measurable increase in cortisol levels and decrease in feelings of self-worth.

Humble people are more helpful, study shows

Powerful people think they’re taller than they are, says study

A total of 55 boys and 48 girls from grades five and six in local Montreal schools took part in the study. Participants kept journals on their feelings and experiences over the course of four days and submitted to regular saliva tests that monitored cortisol levels.

Although previous studies have shown that friendships can protect against later adjustment difficulties, this study is the first to definitively demonstrate that the presence of a friend results in an immediate benefit for the child undergoing a negative experience.

Photo credit: Jolante

These results have far-reaching implications. Bukowski explained:

Our physiological and psychological reactions to negative experiences as children impacts us later in life. Excessive secretion of cortisol can lead to significant physiological changes, including immune suppression and decreased bone formation. Increased stress can really slow down a child’s development.

When it comes to feelings of self-worth, what we learn about ourselves as children is how we form our adult identities. If we build up feelings of low self-worth during childhood, this will translate directly into how we see ourselves as adults.

Bottom line: The presence of a best friend directly and immediately benefits children going through negative experiences, according to a January 2012 study in the journal Developmental Psychology. Feelings of self-worth and levels of cortisol, a hormone produced naturally by the adrenal gland in direct response to stress, are largely dependent on the social context of a negative experience.

Via Concordia University

Powerful people think they’re taller than they are, says study

Eleanor Imster — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:43:28 +0000

People who feel powerful tend to overestimate their own height, according to a January 2012 paper in the journal Psychological Science.

That is, they feel physically larger than they actually are.

Image credit: !unite

After the huge 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Carl-Henric Svanberg, the chairman of BP, referred to the victims of the spill as the “small people.” He explained it as awkward word choice by a non-native speaker of English. But two researchers, Jack A. Goncalo of Cornell University and Michelle M. Duguid of Washington University, wondered if there was something real behind it. Goncalo said:

Maybe there’s a physical experience that goes along with being powerful. For people who are less powerful, maybe other people and objects loom larger, and for the powerful everything else just seems smaller.

Plenty of research has shown that taller people are more likely to acquire power; taller people make more money, on average, and are more likely to be promoted. But our research is the first to show the reverse may also be true power also makes people feel taller.

In one experiment, subjects came to the lab in pairs. First they had their heights measured. Then they were given a leadership aptitude test and told that, based on their feedback, they would each be assigned to play the role of the manager or the employee. They were given fake feedback and randomly assigned a role. Afterwards, each person filled out a questionnaire with personal information, including eye color and height. People who had been told they would be the manager, with complete control over the work process and power to evaluate the employee, said they were taller than the actual measurement. The subject who had been told they would be the employee gave a height that was more or less the same as their real height.

Other experiments found similar results— that people who feel powerful overestimate their height. So maybe Carl-Henric Svanberg really did feel taller than the people affected by the Gulf oil spill. The results may also explain why diminutive leaders might still behave like people twice their height—they actually feel taller. Goncalo said:

Given that height is associated with power, raising your height may make you feel powerful.

Goncalo said that might help explain the continuing popularity of high heels and offices on the top floor.

Bottom line: A January 2012 paper in the journal Psychological Science suggests that people who feel powerful tend to overestimate their own height.
Via APS

Chinese New Year 2012 rings in Year of the Dragon

Shireen Gonzaga — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:00:37 +0000

Gong Xi Fa Ca! That’s the traditional Chinese New Year greeting that means “wishing you prosperity” in Mandarin. The first day of the Chinese New Year – which begins at midnight on January 23, 2012 – is the most important of Chinese holidays, celebrated by over 1.3 billion people in China and by millions of ethnic Chinese around the world. It’s a celebration that lasts for 15 days, culminating with the Lantern Festival. Each year is associated with one of twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. For 2012, it’s the Year of the Dragon.

Current local time in Bejing

2009 Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco featuring the traditional Chinese New Year dragon. Image credit: David Yu via Wikimedia Commons.

There are several variations on the mythology behind Chinese New Year celebrations. Most are based on a ugly bloodthirsty monster named Nian that would emerge on the last night of each year to destroy villages and eat people. A wise elder advised villagers to scare the monster away with loud noises. That night, they set fire to bamboo, lit fireworks, and banged their drums. The monster, afraid of the loud noises and lights, ran away to hide in its cave. In another version of the myth, an old man persuaded Nian to turn its wrath on other monsters, not the villagers. Before he was seen riding away on Nian, the old man, actually a god, advised the people to hang red paper decorations in their homes and set off firecrackers on the last night of the year to keep Nian away. On the first day of the new year, the villagers celebrated, greeting each other with the words “Guo Nian” which means “survive the Nian”, a tradition that has continued to this day to mean “celebrate the new year.”

In China, the familiar Gregorian calendar is used for day-to-day life. But Chinese calendar dates continue to be used to mark traditional holidays such as the new year and the fall moon festival. It’s also used astrologically to select favorable dates for weddings and other special events.

Traditional Chinese New Year Decoration. Image credit: Fanghong via Wikimedia Commons.

The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, in other words, a combination of solar and lunar calendars. It has a long history spanning several Chinese dynastic rules from as far back as the Shang Dynasty around fourteenth century B.C.. There are several different symbolic cycles within the calendar, used in Chinese astrology, that make it an intricate and complex measure of time.

A month in the Chinese calendar spans a single lunar cycle. The first day of the month begins during the new moon, when no sunlight falls on the lunar hemisphere that faces the Earth. A lunar cycle, on average, lasts 29.5 days, so a lunar month can last 29 or 30 days. Usually, there are 12 lunar months in a Chinese calendar year. In order to catch up with the solar calendar, which averages 365.25 days in a year, an extra month is added to the Chinese calendar every two or three years. As a result, Chinese New Year falls on different dates each year (in the Gregorian calendar) between January 21 and February 21.

Each year of the Chinese lunar calendar is represented by one of twelve animal symbols of the Chinese zodiac: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar. For 2012, it’s the dragon’s turn. According to Chinese astrology, people born on the year of the dragon are said to be strong, self-assured, eccentric, intellectual, and passionate, among other things.

Traditional Chinese Dragon used in the dragon dance. Image credit: Caseman via Wikimedia Commons.

Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally lasts 15 days, from the first day (during a new moon) to the 15th day (a full moon). Each day holds a special significance that varies according to local traditions. But first, before the arrival of the new year, homes are thoroughly cleaned to sweep away ill fortune, and to welcome good luck. On new year’s eve, there are family gatherings to celebrate and enjoy sumptuous traditional feasts, and to greet the new year with fireworks at midnight.

Chinese New Year fireworks in Hong Kong. Image credit: Kroot via Wikimedia Commons.

In the days that follow, festive dance parades are held featuring colorful dragons or lions, ceremonies are held to pay homage to deities and ancestors, children receive money in red envelopes, gifts are exchanged, extended family members visit each other, and there’s more traditional feasting.

Chinese New Year red envelopes, used for giving money to children, at Dihua Market, Taipei, Taiwan. Image credit: BCody80 via Wikimedia Commons.

The celebration culminates on the 15th day with the Lantern festival; on this night of the full moon, families mingle in the streets carrying lighted lanterns, often creating a beautiful light display.

Lantern Festival night in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. Image credit: Philo Vivero via Wikimedia Commons.

Bottom line: The Chinese New Year for 2012 will be celebrated on 23 January. It’s the most important of Chinese holidays, celebrated by billions of people across the world. Festivities traditionally last for 15 days to culminate with the Lantern Festival. This calendar is based on a complex lunisolar calendar system that uses both lunar and solar cycles to mark time. As a result, Chinese New Year falls on different dates each year, between January 21 and February 21 of the conventional Gregorian calendar. Each Chinese lunar year is associated with one of twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. For 2012, it’s the Year of the Dragon.

Autumn equinox, cycles of nature and Chinese philosophy

Celebrate the summer solstice as the Chinese philosophers did

EarthSky 22: Forests from space

EarthSky 22 — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:38:30 +0000

Host: Jorge Salazar
Lead Producer: Mike Brennan

ES 22 Producers: Deborah Byrd, Ryan Britton, Emily Howard

Science news of the week:

Stormy U.S. Pacific Northwest, and mild winter elsewhere

The January 18 Internet “black out” in protest to SOPA and PIPA.

Via buybackworld.com

A newborn island in the Red Sea, 40 miles off the coast of Yemen.

What anxiety looks like

Song of the week:

Guns of Navarone’s “Put it to Rest” from the album Prize and Battlefield.

This week’s featured stories:

Monitoring Forests Jorge Salazar speaks with Dr. Alan Belward, Head of the Global Environment Monitoring Unit in Italy about human impact on global forests.

Image Credit: NPCA Photos

Global Night Sky Deborah Byrd on seeing the planet Mars, plus Venus and Jupiter with the moon this month.

Thanks for listening in. We’ll catch ya next week!

This week’s musical contributors:

Guns of Navarone

Maneja Beto

Sleep Good

The Black and White Years

One Hundred Flowers

SOPA and PIPA: What’s happening, plus good links

Deborah Byrd — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:53:38 +0000

Wikipedia, Reddit, Craigslist, Wired, Boing Boing and other online media sites are protesting today (January 18, 2012) by blacking out, partially blacking out, or censoring some part of themselves for a 24-hour period. The protests are against two bills, SOPA (now in the U.S. House of Representatives) and PIPA (now in the U.S. Senate). The bills are intended to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites. They have the support of the U.S film and music industries. But, according to sites online that blacking out, the bills endanger an open, secure, and free Internet. Wikipedia explains it this way:

SOPA and PIPA are badly drafted legislation that won’t be effective at their stated goal (to stop copyright infringement), and will cause serious damage to the free and open Internet. They put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites [ed. note: like EarthSky.org] won’t have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn’t being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won’t show up in major search engines. And, SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.

Like to get your info via Ted? The following video is a 13-minute talk called “Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea).”

By the way, SOPA is short for Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA for Protect IP Act. (IP stands for “intellectual property.”)

EarthSky encourages you to contact your representatives and voice your opinion on these bills.

Inside U.S.: Wikipedia’s main page on January 18, 2012 can help you find your representatives.

Outside U.S.: Stop American Censorship

Here are just a few of the best links we’ve found today on this subject:

SOPA and PIPA: Learn more from Wikipedia (visible during the blackout)

SOPA, PIPA: What you need to know from CBSNews.com

Why We’ve Censored Wired.com

Wikipedia blackout a ‘gimmick’, MPAA boss claims

Follow SOPA through the legislative process from GovTrack.us

Follow PIPA through the legislative process from GovTrack.us