Salinity breeze

This winter we are experiencing a similar temperature pattern as the last one, with a strong Artic anomaly (artic warm, Europe and US very cold); as by the salinity pattern in the Atlantic, fresh water is reaching southern latitudes and is redirecting the Gulf Stream in a way Ireland and UK are not used to, with temperatures in the low 10s F.
It is one of the known feedback consequences of the global warming, the reshaping of the ocean streams, which coul have serious consequences in the redistribution of the energy all around the world.

Oxygen and carbon dioxide at Saturn’s moon Rhea

NASA scheduled a press conference for 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2. Specifically, they will discuss: "an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life."
Results from the mission reveal that the atmosphere of Rhea, Saturn's second-largest moon at 900 miles (1,500 kilometers) wide, is extremely thin and is sustained by high-energy particles bombarding its icy surface and kicking up atoms, molecules, and ions into the atmosphere.
The density of oxygen is probably about 5 trillion times less dense than it is in Earth's atmosphere. However, the formation of oxygen and carbon dioxide could possibly drive complex chemistry on the surfaces of many icy bodies in the universe.
"The new results suggest that active, complex chemistry involving oxygen may be quite common throughout the solar system and even our universe," said Ben Teolis, a Cassini team scientist based at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "Such chemistry could be a prerequisite for life. All evidence from Cassini indicates Rhea is too cold and devoid of the liquid water necessary for life as we know it."
"The discovery of this tenuous atmosphere provides key information on how radiation can drive chemistry on icy surfaces throughout the universe,” said Geraint Jones from UCL’s Mullard Space Science Lab.

Leas the batteries

During the last NATO meeting, Obama made some advertising for a new car, produced by GM and Opel; it will be named GM Volt in the US and curiously Opel Ampera in Europe.
The concept behind the car is quite interesting and develops further the classic electrical / hybrid vehicles: instead of having only an electrical motor or to load the batteries while breaking, the Volt/Ampera has a pure plug systems to cover the typical daily drives (about 80Km); you can load it at home with the usual AC plug and drive at work with a very silent electrical motor. When you approach the 80 Km haul, a normal gasoline based engine ignites and reloads the batteries; in case of very long drives, it can also support the electrical motor and transmit power to the wheels.
No doubt that such a concept has a better efficiency and that the electrical energy needed on the plug is absolutely more efficient than a gasoline engine. The point will be, as by all the battery based devices (laptops, mobile phones and so on), the usage curves of the batteries after couple of year; which should force the automotive industry to leas that part of the car, so that the user will not be afraid to have after 3 years a car capable to drive only 30-40Km with a load.

Flying in Space

As an engineer I grew up assisted by one of the most amazing piece of hardware ever build, the Hewlett Packard HP 41C; I received it as a XMas present from my father in 1982 and I still have it; it works fine and I sometimes look at it with a sort of nostalgia.
I learned programming and I learned a beautiful reverse way to calculate, the RPN. And even now, after almost 30 years, I always keep the compiled microkernel in all my devices, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, iPod.
But one thing surpassed the joy of my first programs (mostly around math, science and grammar): NASA did choose the HP-41C as an emergency computer on the Space Shuttle in case the main controller failed during reentry; the small calculator, build on a 4 layer assembled chip, had a trajectory software capable to bring back the astronauts manually, although this has never happened.
The space agency developed a special ROM and a keyboard layer for it (as seen in the picture with astronaut Sally Ride) in order to avoid the data being lost in case of a MEMORY LOST, which is the situation when the 41C do erase everything.
The calculator was simply fantastic, reliable, light, easy to program and with enough memory; HP formed with it a plethora of scientists and engineers, one of them is myself. Actually I am deeply thankful and respectful; not only to them, but to my father as well; he bought that XMas two HP 41, one 41CV for my brother and one 41C with less memory for me. The price adjusted by the inflation is about 2000 Euros each.