An article in today's Washington Post explores the constant feedback that Prius drivers get about their fuel consumption -- and how that may be one of the main reasons that Prii* get lower gas mileage than other vehicles. I've noted this phenomenon before, so I thought I'd pass along a link to the article.

* "Prii" = plural of "Prius," at least in my world.

Labels: action, environmental, oil, prius, tech

Mars has a new robot geologist on its surface, as of last night at just before 8pm (E.S.T.). The Mars Phoenix lander arrived in Mars' north polar region after an apparently dicey landing sequence that went off without a hitch. It unfurled its solar panels and started taking pictures, like the one at the left. That's a new view of the planet thought most likely to give us insights into the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.

Why the pole? That's where the water is. Remote sensing indicates ice just a few inches below the surface in this area, and the geomorphology seems to back that up. Visible even in this earliest photo, polygonal shaped features suggest repeated freeze-thaw action. (Similar freze-thaw action in Earth's polar regions produces similar features, like these:



That's the way geology works, right? The principle of uniformity suggests that uniform physical laws operating over vast ranges of time and space will produce similar phenomena in different locations. It remains to be seen how valid this principle is in guiding our exploration of other planets, but with Mars it appears that there are some real similarities. And why do we care where the water is? Because on Earth, all life needs water. Figuring out whether life exists elsewhere in the universe has huge implications for our place in the cosmos.

Labels: mars, planetary geology, satellite imagery, tech

In an article in Newsweek, the hosts of NPR's "Car Talk" talk about the car of the future.

Turns out that the Tappet Brothers, one of whom doesn't even own a car (!), are lobbying Congress for increased automobile fuel efficiency. They're also starring in a new episode of the PBS series Nova. And they have some advice for you, the consumer: "Get a Prius."

FYI, since we're talking about it -- a quick update on my "Pious" seems in order. Its current fuel efficiency (running average since I bought the car in December) is:

Labels: action, climate change, global warming, oil, petroleum, prius, tech, tv

A cool feature from Google Maps allows users to create individualized maps with content centered on specific locations. They call them "My Maps." This maps are then viewable in any HTML browser. Check out the "Earth As Art" demonstration map, or this "Oral Histories of Route 66" map for examples of the kind of stuff that you can do with "My Maps." You can also watch the video about how to create them.

It occurs to me that My Maps might be a good way to share geologic knowledge about outcrop locations. One thing that I found frustrating and limiting in my first few years of teaching was that there was no good single source to go to find out about relevant outcrops. It took time and experience to find out where the cool rocks were. Is it a good idea to put this information online in a publicly-accessible format so beginning instructors and interested students/amateurs can visit interesting outcrops? (I sure would have appreciated it four years ago!) Or does that run the risk of letting rockhounds and less-than-ethical geovandals onto previously-secret locations? Is there a benefit to the ancient barriers in outcrop-information flow? Is it better to pass this information on from wise elder to trusted neophyte?

Labels: google, maps, teaching, tech, websites

I got an e-mail the other day from NOVA's VP for Instructional & Information Technology. He informed the faculty that later this month we'll have the option of putting our lectures & course materials up on iTunes, as part of something called iTunes U. Thomas Nelson Community College, another community college in Virginia, is already participating, as are a great many 4-year universities, including Ivy Leaguers.

I like this idea, but wonder how much time it's going to take. In general, I am super-duper excited over the advent of increased sharing online, and the decline of barriers to sharing. One of my pet peeves has been academic journals. Many are published by huge publishing companies like Elsevier, who make money off of them. For many years, scientists (and other scholars) who wanted to publish their research were forced to give up the copyright to their work and turn it over to one of these companies. Other scientists (or other scholars) who wanted to read about the research then had to pay OUTRAGEOUS subscription fees for these journals. I'm talking thousands of dollars a year -- far beyond the means of anyone who doesn't have a massive academic bureaucracy backing them up. To me, this seems massively unjust. It's the scientists who produce and consume the research; and publishing companies appear to make crazy profits off of all that stressful labor by others. ...Reminds me of slavery!

However, the Internet has the potential to change all that. With the net, anyone can publish their research online, and someone else on the other side of the world can access it 2 seconds later. With this, of course, comes the potential for lousy scholarship and fakery in research. At least that's the line touted by Elsevier and their ilk. Peer review is still essential, and it's going to be cool to see which journals get on board with the new reality. One I checked out recently is PLoS One. (They had a research article on really cool jellyfish fossils from the Cambrian, which is how I found out about them.) Somewhat more basic is the Journal of the Virtual Explorer, where my thesis advisor and some colleagues published an article (about kink banding) in 2004.

And while you're talking about the distribution of online information, it would be remiss not to mention Wikipedia. Wikipedia is HUGE among my students. I frequently use it myself as a handy reference. But handy doesn't mean accurate. Because anyone can edit the entries on Wikipedia, it's not guaranteed to be peer reviewed. A competitor, Citizendium, hopes to out-wiki Wikipedia with fully-refereed articles written by identifiable authors. WIRED explored their competing styles in their recent "Geekipedia."

More information about the iTunes U / online lecture phenomenon is available in a Washington Post article from the end of December.

Labels: teaching, tech, websites