What is a Supermoon?

Apparently it’s going to be open season for werewolves tonight. Not because I’ve cracked open the Twilight DVD again, but because there’s something called a Supermoon on the way.

Now, I assumed this was one of those titles that had been drummed up just to add sizzle to the spectacle, but it seems to be a pretty common term in the scientific community as well.

But what exactly is it? I turned to NASA from the answer. Here’s what Dr James Garvin had to say….

Question: What is the definition of a supermoon and why is it called that?

Answer: ‘Supermoon’ is a situation when the moon is slightly closer to Earth in its orbit than on average, and this effect is most noticeable when it occurs at the same time as a full moon. So, the moon may seem bigger although the difference in its distance from Earth is only a few percent at such times.

In other words size does matter.

For the record when the moon is closest to Earth – at its perigee – it seems 14 per cent larger and 30 per cent brighter than when it’s furthest away, at its apogee.

Read more at the Christian Science Monitor which also reveals, among other things, that full moons come in different sizes because of its elliptical orbit.

Did Isaac Newton really discover gravity when an apple fell on his head?

Every so often – usually when I’m recounting the alleged thievery of biscuits belonging to an understanding high school Physics teacher – my brain reluctantly turns its attention towards science.

So today I decided to put the focus to good use and look at the truth behind a popular scientific legend – that Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head. And, like all the best myths from history, it seems to have at least a little grounding in reality.

I found one intriguing backgrounder on the topic at the Culture Lab blog at New Scientist, which profiled a historical manuscript that went on to become a biography of the scientist by William Stukeley, who was apparently told the following anecdote firsthand by Newton. He remembers the telling as such..

“After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank tea, under the shade of some apple trees…he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself…”

You can read the full manuscript here at the Newton Project, which is a non-profit group dedicated to making his unpublished and published works freely available online. If you have time, I do recommend it, as it offers some pretty interesting insights into the development of his theory on gravity and more.

Certainly he did more good with his apples than a certain snake ever did in the garden of Eden…

James Cameron dived into the Challenger Deep. What is it?

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve had this fantasy about the ocean.

It involves draining all the water away – naturally while freezing time so the animals don’t die – and then wandering around to see what’s really down there.

I suspect the result would be equally terrifying and fascinating. I mean we already know about Jaws, Godzilla, Orca and the creature from Cloverfield, but I bet there’s a beast or two that would make them look like fluffy kittens.

Yet I imagine there would also be pretty some pretty cool stuff. And in the same way people say our jungles are full of scientific and medical breakthroughs we’ve yet to discover, I bet the same goes for the deepest part of our planet.

Someone who shares my fascination is uber-director James Cameron, who this week became the first solo person to reach the 11km Challenger Deep, an undersea valley in the Mariana Trench that is Earth’s deepest realm.

It was only the second manned dive into the Deep, the first being in 1960 when Lt Don Walsh and late Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard made their journey in the bathyscaphe Trieste. Cameron completed his journey, which took just over two hours, in a one-man vessel that collected videos, photos and samples.

You can read more about his trip – and watch a video – at National Geographic, which is a partner in the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE project. But I was inspired to learn more about his destination. So I set myself a challenge to learn a few facts about the trench. Here they are…

* The trench was created by ocean-to-ocean subduction, which basically means the Pacific Plate was forced underneath the Mariana plate.
* Measuring 11,033m deep, it lies in the Pacific Ocean.
* The trench stretches 2542km long and 69km wide.
* The pressure at its deepest part is more than 8 tonnes per square inch.
* Mt Everest – the highest point on Earth – would fit into the trench and still have almost 2200m of water above it.
* The deepest point, called Challenger Deep, is named after the British Royal Navy ship HMS Challenger II, whose crew made the first recordings of its depth in an expedition from 1872-1876.
* Four descents have been made to the bottom. As well as the two that were manned, the Kaiko reached the bottom in 1996 and Nereus in 2009.

 

How many stations does Australia have in Antarctica?

I have a bit of a thing for Antarctica. I’ve always wanted to go and always will want to go, even with the lack of reception my mobile phone would be sure to have.

I’m not sure what first sparked this interest. Perhaps it’s the fact that heat makes me so very unreasonable grumpy while cold weather gives me an excuse (like I need one) to drink copious amount of hot chocolate. Then there’s the fact you can see penguins and don’t have to worry about being eaten by a polar bear. It’s also the setting for one of my favourite books – Ice Station by Matthew Reilly.

Anyway, my hunger to go was made all the worse earlier this year when my parents embarked on my – and to be fair their – trip of a lifetime down south, spending weeks on end exploring the southernmost reaches of our planet.

I asked them to bring back a penguin but instead got Gucci’s new Envy perfume, which I imagine tastes far less palatable roasted over an open flame. But on a serious note they did manage to fulfil one of my bucket list items – to visit one of the permanent stations. And the stories they bought back only made me want to learn more. Here’s what I discovered.

The Australian Antarctic Division maintains four permanent research stations, which are occupied year-round by scientists and support staff. They are:

* Mawson (Antarctic continent)
* Casey (Antarctic continent)
* Davis (Antarctic continent)
* Macquarie Island (subantarctic)

You can read more about them here, with information ranging from webcams and science overviews to cultural heritage and information on station facilities. But I found the write-ups so fascinating I had to share one. Here goes…

CASEY

“About 150-160 expeditioners, including Wilkins Aerodrome ground crew, visit Casey  during the summer. About 16-20 remain on station over winter.

Living at Casey is very comfortable and has often been compared to ski lodges, with the odd exceptions. The local ‘supermarket’ is substituted by a walk in cupboard called “Woolies”, where all expeditioners can browse the shelves for soap, linen etc. in a cashless society.

When blizzard days inhibit fieldwork, the main living area (the Red Shed) has indoor climbing, a home theatre, gym, photographic dark room, library and many communal sitting areas for expeditioners to pass the time.

Casey living is very communal and all expeditioners contribute to the day-to-day running of the station. Rosters are set up for Saturday duties that may include vacuuming the living area, shovelling snow, cleaning the cold porches etc. Expeditioners are rostered on to help the chef out in the kitchen (“Slushy duty”) to help feed the station.

Expeditioners have private bedrooms and share a bathroom between three people. Before the summer melt, water is scarce and therefore all expeditioners are limited to two-minute showers every second day.

Casey living is also very social after work and on days off. Every Saturday night expeditioners dress up for dinner and occasionally a theme night will be organised – with very adventurous costumes! The Casey bar “Splinters” is often occupied after work and on weekends with expeditioners playing pool and darts and drinking the home brewed beer.

Casey also boasts a special hydroponics building, which we use to grow lettuce, green vegetables, tomatoes and fresh herbs. These are welcome additions to our winter diet.”

Wow, sounds amazing, doesn’t it? And I would love nothing more than to spend six months living and working there. But sadly sarcasm, a comprehensive knowledge of power ballads and a liking for D-grade monster movies don’t seem to appear anywhere on the list of preferred candidate attributes. As Homer J Simpson would say: “D’oh”.

How did Bear Grylls break his back?

Bear Grylls is no more. Actually wait, that sounds a bit too dramatic. What I mean is, Man vs Wild is no more. At least not for the foreseeable future.

I was very sad to learn today the Discovery Channel had fired the action man over a contract dispute. I mean I know the show drew a lot of criticism for its staged elements, but I always found him an amazing role model. He certainly encouraged plenty of kids I know to spend a bit more time outdoors and a bit less time glued to a TV or video game screen.

Anyway, the news got me thinking about what an interesting life Bear has led, with feats including scaling Mt Everest. And it’s all the more remarkable when you consider he fought back from a broken back in 1996 when he was just 22.

Now, I knew he suffered this injury in a skydiving accident. And I was even in the audience at a live show where he shared the story. But somehow I missed it. Probably because I was out getting a drink. For the record not my own urine.

Fortunately, it wasn’t too hard to track down this excerpt from his book Mud, Sweat and Tears. 

“I was in the SAS Reserves, and though I was years away from my TV career, life was perfect. I was fit and doing a job I adored. What young man wouldn’t love being trained in blowing stuff up, climbing cliffs and high-speed driving?

“That summer, I was helping out on a game farm in South Africa and decided to head to Zimbabwe for some down time before going home to the UK. Fun, for me, meant skydiving with good friends. Little did I know how much I was going to rely on the qualities that first got me a place in the SAS.

“One evening, as the brilliance of the African sun was being replaced by the glow of dusk, my friends and I huddled together in a small plane as we climbed to nearly 16,000 feet. The plane levelled out. Someone reached for the door. One by one, the guys dropped from the door and fell away. Soon I was alone. I looked down, took that familiar deep breath, then slid off the step.

“Three thousand feet. Time to pull. I reached to my right hip and gripped the ripcord. I pulled it strongly. Initially, it responded as normal.

“The canopy opened with a crack that interrupted the noise of the 130mph free fall. My descent rate slowed to 25mph. Then I looked up and saw something was wrong. Instead of a smooth rectangular shape, I had a very deformed looking tangle of chute, which meant it would be a nightmare to control.

“I pulled hard on both steering toggles to see if that would help. I started to panic. The desert floor was coming closer. My descent was far too fast. I was too low to use my reserve chute. I was getting close to the ground, coming in at speed – and then I smashed into the desert floor.

“I bounced like a rag doll and landed directly on my back, right on top of the tightly packed reserve chute. It felt as if something had driven clean through the centre of my spine. I could only roll over, crying in agony. In the pit of my stomach I feared that my life would never be the same again.”

Of course, as we know, Bear’s life never was the same again as it took off in ways he couldn’t have imagined. He climbed Everest, became a global TV star and in the meantime managed to eat any animal not quick enough to get away.

So what I want to know is this. Who will now fill the void of TV presenters willing to give themselves an enema while floating on a raft at sea? RIP Man vs Wild.

BTW you can read the full extract with the story of his accident and recovery here. And here’s another interview I liked in which he revealed the answer to a question I’m dying to know. Here it is.

Question: What is the worst food you’ve eaten in a survival situation?
Answer: Raw frozen yak eyeballs; camel intestine juice; raw goat testicles; live snake; maggots as big as a hand, pulsating with yellow pus; and giant live spiders.

 Ick.

What are the spots on a jaguar or leopard’s coat called?

This blog is dedicated to learning something new every day. And roughly 70 days in I have been religious about keeping it up to date. Until now. And technology is to blame.

Quite literally I have been unable to access my computer all day, which has made it very hard to do any sort of research. Plus there’s the small fact of having to do it all on my phone.

So clearly, a short and simple question was in order. And here it is – is there a special name for the spots on a leopard and jaguar’s coat? The answer is yes. They are called rosettes because they resemble flowers.

Until tomorrow when hopefully technology has become my friend again!

Do crocodiles really shed tears?

I finally got around to doing something today that has been on my checklist forever. And that’s buy the book version of the Hunger Games.

I don’t know why I waited so long as I know for a fact I’m going to love it. But at least now the plot will be fresh in my mind when the movie opens in a few weeks.

Anyway, I never go to a bookstore for just one book – I always emerge with a bag full. And while browsing the specials rack today, my eye fell on a title I immediately knew I had to have – Know It All from DK Books, which offers facts, stats, lists, records and more.

Now, I’m interested in random information at the best of times, and this year-long knowledge quest I’m on has only heightened my curiosity. So I decided that for today, I would open up a random page and find an interesting fact. And luckily I have good aim.

It was only on the news today that police fear a woman in the Northern Territory has been taken by a croc. So how appropriate the spread I turned to had information on whether crocodile tears are real. Here’s what the book said …

“If you shed ‘crocodile tears’ people think you are faking it. That’s because crocodiles ‘cry’ while they are eating their victims. But it’s not because they are feeling remorse; as they swallow down great lumps of meat, their jaw muscles expand and contract. The pressure created by the moving muscles squeezes tears out of the crocodile’s tear glands.’

In short – real tears, no sorrow. No wonder they say you should never smile at a crocodile. And now a few pieces of FYI . . .

* A crocodile can hold its breath underwater for an average 10-15 minutes 
* It can swim up to 30km/h
* It has roughly 68 teeth, which are constantly falling out and being replaced

Now let’s finish with a chorus of Crocodile Rock. The cool version from the Gnomeo & Juliette soundtrack.

 

Did the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs really hit the moon as well?

Jurassic Fight Club. Just the name alone was enough to draw me in. But this turned out not to be the documentary I expected.

The name, of course, suggested a program of celebrity death matches such as raptor versus T-Rex and allosaurus versus triceratops.

But it actually featured scientists, historians and other related experts recreating the last day on Earth before a meteor wiped out the dinosaurs (and pretty much all other life as well) some 65 million years ago.

Much of it I already knew. But what I did learn – having never really given it much thought before – was the origin of this Baptistina meteor. And turns out it tracks back to a collision between two massive rocks in the asteroid belt nearly 100 million years ago. It sent one of them towards Earth, where it struck Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and wiped out life on earth as we knew it.

But that wasn’t the only victim. Turns out other fragments also struck the Moon, Venus and Mars, leaving them with massive craters. A fascinating glimpse into the history of the skies above. And you can read more here.

What is the world’s biggest ocean? And more geographic facts . . .

After spending much of the afternoon helping a friend prepare stock for her new boutique, the last thing I felt like doing was embarking on a massive knowledge quest through the internet.

Plus, I had a new copy of the Horrible Bosses DVD to watch.

So I decided to go easy on myself and find out the answers to what I thought would be five pretty simple geography questions concerning the planet we call home. As predicted they took no time at all to investigate, but that doesn’t mean they’re not handy to know. So here goes . . .

Question: What is the world’s biggest ocean?
Answer: Pacific.

Question: What tectonic plate is Australia on?
Answer: The Indo-Australian plate.

Question: What is the world’s most active volcano?
Answer: Kilauea in Hawaii.

Question: What is the deepest point on the planet?
Answer: The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.

Question: How long is the equator?
Answer: 44075.16km.

So there you go, don’t say I never teach you anything!

What are mountaineering’s 7 summits?

Some of my work colleagues have decorated my desk surrounds with what they call a wall of spunks. And they mean it entirely ironically since the largest image is of an Identikit composite.

For the most part I let them go, but every so often one of them takes pity on me and adds someone who does not boast man boobs, excessive chest/face hair or some combination of the two. Which is how Bear Grylls got a guernsey.

Now, I’ve been a fan of Man vs Wild for a long time, even knowing “he and the crew receive support when they are in potentially life-threatening solutions, as required by health and safety regulations”.

I won’t hear a word against him. And to the detractors who call him a fake and a fraud, I simply point out he has some serious adventuring credentials. I mean the man climbed to the summit of Mt Everest when he was only 23, becoming the then youngest Briton to do so.

It was an incredible feat. One I could certainly never hope to emulate. But why stop there?

After all, it’s just one of the famous 7 Summits, otherwise known as the seven highest mountains on the seven continents. But where are the others? I set out to find out. And here they are…

* Kilimanjaro, Africa, 5895m
* Denali, North America, 6194m
* Elbrus, Europe, 5642m
* Aconcagua, South America, 6962m
* Vinson, Antarctica, 4897m
* Everest, Asia, 8850m

Then we get to the final and somewhat controversial summit. The Bass list includes Mt Kosciuszko in Australia (2228m) while the Messner list broadens the continental definition to Oceania or Australasia and slots in Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia (4884m).

Either way, getting the set is an impressive feat!