Mayur's Posterous

Look_at_the_stars
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The Big Bang Theory

About a month ago, when Ipsa found out that I don't watch The Big Bang Theory, her initial reaction was something like this:

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A month later, I'm in the middle of season 3 and even with the audience laughing in the background, I actually enjoy this show :) This is one of rare few shows that does not suck when I watch 5 episodes in a row.

I love all the references they throw in there, be it the comic book ones or the hardcore physics ones. Did you know that there is a blog written by the show's science advisor (David Saltzberg) who explains all the physics stuff in every episode? Check out The Big Blog Theory.

I have a few favourite moments from the show but my #1 moment would be the one when Penny gifts Sheldon a napkin autographed by Leonard Nimoy.

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On some nights I get a few friends together and we each get to pick and watch our favourite episodes together ^_^

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Duck Sauce - Barbra Streisand (Official Video)

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Gigantic hidden planet could be hurling comets at the rest of the solar system

Gigantic hidden planet could be hurling comets at the rest of the solar system

Far away in the frozen outermost depths of our solar system, there might be a hidden planet four times the size of Jupiter. This secret companion to the Sun could be responsible for sending comets into the inner solar system.

This idea is an intriguing variation on the old Nemesis theory, which holds the Sun has a smaller companion star orbiting the outer reaches of the solar system. The Nemesis star was thought to be either a pint-sized red dwarf of a failed brown dwarf, and either way its movements through the Oort Cloud at the furthest edge of our solar system would cause comets to hurtle out of their obits. Some of these would hit Earth, leading to mass extinction events. The presence of Nemesis would explain why these extinctions occur in an apparently cyclical fashion.

That's the old theory, which fell apart because (among other things) it turns out Nemesis could not have a stable enough orbit to account for the regular mass extinctions, which is the main reason such an object was hypothesized in the first place. But now University of Louisiana-Lafayette astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire have a new theory that holds a rather different kind of companion object is out in the Oort Cloud. Fittingly, they've named it Tyche, who in mythology is the good sister of the evil Nemesis.

So, why should Tyche exist? For one thing, two centuries worth of observation indicate a disproportionate amount of comets originate from the outer regions of the Oort Cloud as opposed to the areas closer to the Sun. A planet anywhere from one to four times the mass of Jupiter could be responsible for the gravitational influence that would create this imbalance. Matese points out that the probability that this effect is purely a statistical fluke is extremely small, which suggests there's something strange going on out there in the outer Oort. Tyche might also be responsible for the unusually elongated orbit of the dwarf planet Sedna.

Matese says such the discovery a planet would be a huge shock to planetary scientists:

"Most planetary scientists would not be surprised if the largest undiscovered companion was Neptune-sized or smaller, but a Jupiter-mass object would be a surprise. If the conjecture is indeed true, the important implications would relate to how it got there - touching on the early solar environment - and how it might have affected the subsequent distributions of comets and, to a lesser extent, the known planets."

If the planet exists, it would be located some 30,000 astronomical units away, meaning its distance from the Sun is 30,000 times that of Earth. It be extremely cold, with a temperature of about -73 degrees Celsius. At such a freezing temperature, Tyche would radiate no heat for us to detect, and its extreme distance would make it incredibly hard to spot. By comparison, Neptune is only 30 astronomical units away, and the Kuiper Belt is just 55 AU from the Sun.

There's some hope that we could find Tyche, however. NASA's WISE space telescope might have caught sight of Tyche before its mission ended in October. Actually, we need to hope it spotted the planet twice, as otherwise it would be impossible to corroborate its existence. If WISE, which is the most powerful infrared telescope yet built, could not detect Tyche, then it will be quite a few years before we've got a legitimate chance at seeing it again... assuming it's out there in the first place.

[via Space.com]

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Re : Batman - The Dark Knight Returns

Catman
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Batman - The Dark Knight Returns

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I've been so busy that I almost forgot that I had ordered this comic book. It was quite a surprise when I opened up the package today morning and flipping through the artwork brought a big smile to my face. This is a special edition written by THE Frank Miller (of Sin City and 300 fame) and was originally published in the year 1986 as a 4 part series (now put together under one single book).

This book tells of a story where Batman has retired, disappearing from Gotham for about 10 years. It is a very dark themed Batman, some saying it's too dark for your average comic book aficionado. I've gone through a couple of pages and I love it. Even Stephen King has gone on record saying that the book is "...probably the finest piece of comic art to be published in a popular edition..." 

Official listing on the DC Comics website: http://www.dccomics.com/dcu/graphic_novels/?gn=1279

Reviews: 

Grovel.org.uk

Hasker on Everything
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Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

 

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Sergio Ramos Red Card [29.11.2010 Barcelona - Real Madrid]

The original Galacticos would have never had this.

I can't believe this is what Real Madrid has become. Puyol and Xavi are his national teammates that won the World Cup. WTF Ramos?

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