I love this image (discovered via New Scientist)-



This is a solargraph. It shows the path taken by the sun as it travelled across the sky above the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, UK, between 19 December 2007 and 21 June 2008 (between the winter and summer solstices). It was taken in a single six-month exposure by photographer Justin Quinnell, using a pinhole camera strapped to a telephone mast.

Fantastic isn't it? Very psychedelic.

I'd also love to see Clifton suspension bridge sometime, I don't know that part of the world at all.

The photographer has his own website, with some astonishing other work - check out the "mouth cam" pics.

New Scientist has a nice gallery of anamorphic art which includes some very familiar stuff like Holbein's slanting skull, but also completely unfamiliar stuff like this mind-bending ceiling mural by William Pye from, of all places, Vauxhall station...

An average view-



From the correct angle-



The ceilings were whitewashed over two years ago...

While the world is getting understandably, and gratifyingly excited about the the Large Hadron Collider, I enjoyed reading about a related experiment happening in my native North East.

Although not as glamourous or exquisitely expensive as the LHC, the Boulby Dark Matter Collaboration project looks like it could give it a run for it's money-

Success would be an enormous coup for the group: the contrast between Geneva's LHC machine and Boulby could not be more marked. The former has taken 10 years to build and is the size of London Underground's Circle Line. Zeplin-3 is the size of a large cupboard but still has to be kept scrupulously clean even though it has been erected inside a working potash pit.

"It is a very different world down here," said Paling. "You have to put on mining gear, fulfil careful safety requirements and take great care not to get lost in all the different galleries. It's not like that in Geneva."

This story appeals to me not just because of the obvious "come on plucky Britain!" angle, but because it takes place at the mysterious Boulby Potash Mine, a strange alien complex on the North East coast that's been on the periphery of my experience since I was a child. The mine is astonishingly deep, the second deepest in Europe in fact, and goes down a mile underground and several miles out below the North Sea.



Until recently I had no idea the mine was so boggling, until I met a bloke who actually worked down there (a miner, not one of the scientists) who told me how hot it gets down there - about 42 degrees apparently. That a mere mile closer to the centre of the earth should make such a difference to the temperature seems amazing to me.

More on Boulby mine -
A video report, with a fantastic Teesside accent, is here.

I was rather taken with this sign which uses the title of my Lj Friends Page to good effect-



Come on, Britain!

Grazing Sea Urchins Create Reef Cacophony

How disappointing that the first sound link doesn't work.

Although the second one does...


A sea urchin, yesterday

ednawatley correctly identied this as something I'd be interested in.

"If you believe artist and inventor Paul St George then his "Telectroscope" connects New York and London via a (very) long tunnel running through the earth's crust, with the images bouncing back and forth using mirrors.

The other explanation is that it is all done by optical fibres - take your pick."

Has anybody been to see it yet?

We're hoping to take the kids and meet up with markhammonds and his family tomorrow in London Town Centre, so maybe we'll go and see it...



The official Telectroscope website is here. Looks rather groovy in Jules Verne/HG Wells paleofuturistic kind of way...

is "fogbow".

There's probably already a scramble as to which misty, fractured, ethereal laptop-folk electronica artist can use it first.

Bagsy me.

All rationalists and sceptics in the London area are encouraged to attend this event-

An Evening With James Randi and Friends

Should be great.

Here's an extraordinary way to pass some time -

....Continue for 30 seconds to a minute. After a while, you may start to feel as though your nose is three feet long (hence the name Pinocchio effect) or that your nose is somehow no longer connected to your body...."

Reader's interested in that fantastic "earliest recording" will also enjoy the details and MP3s on the marvellous First Sounds website.

That sound recording that sent Charlotte Green into fits of giggles on the Today programme this morning really is an extraordinary thing though isn't it?

"The recording appears to be of a young woman singing a couple of phrases from the 18th century folk song Au Clair de la Lune. It was made in 1860 by Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typesetter and librarian, on a Heath Robinson-style device he called a "phonautograph"

here it is

Yes, it sounds spooky and etherial (far more so than those phoney "EVP" recordings) but it's a tantalising glimpse into the past too, an impossibly fragile echo from 148 years ago.

It reminded me of a recording I have somewhere of shelling in the trenches of world war one - it's fair to imagine that bulky recording machines were not the most sought after items in those horrendous times, but it's still amazing to hear, even if the thin cracks and bangs would not impress a "sound designer" on a modern war film.

Another fascinating thing about this recording is that it was never made to be played back - it's etched into soot for goodness sake! It was presumably read by using some sort of laser reader.

A few years ago Rob Flint and myself were shown around an exhibition in Dusseldorf by the American sound artist Paul DeMarinis, who is based at Stanford University, the same place as this recording was being honoured today, which seems more than a coincidence. DeMarinis used light to play back recordings in all manner of intriguing ways - a groove from an old 78 was copied into the side of an earthenware jug - and read back by a laser, an lp was played by a simple flashlight torch, and weirdest of all, he'd made a lovely holographic photograph of an old 78 in a sheet of glass, beautiful enough in itself, but it could then be played back with a laser stylus. He's also successfully experimenting with making loudspeakers out of flames (!)

...all beautiful and strange. Which is exactly what this amazing recording unveiled today is.

Links-
more on the recording

Paul DeMarinis's "Edison Effect"

film about Paul DeMarinis

Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville

The Little Atoms show featuring tycho_b and myself talking to the wonderful Marcus du Sautoy is now online.

Listen to the MP3 here...

For the benefit of the the people who replied "Jack Frost?" to the question "do you still get Jack Frost on your windows?", then Wikipedia tells you-

"In English folklore, Jack Frost appears as an elfish creature who personifies crisp, cold, winter weather; a variant of Father Winter (also known as "Old Man Winter"). Some believe this representation originated in Viking folklore.

Tradition holds Jack Frost responsible for leaving frosty crystal patterns on windows on cold mornings (window frost or fern frost)"

It looks like this



and I remember it regularly on my windows as a child, but it seems to have largely disappeared with the advent of mass central heating...

This news about Prozac and other anti-depressives is extraordinary, isn't it?
Prozac, used by 40m people, does not work say scientists

"The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.

When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved - but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs."

I've always found the placebo effect a somewhat worrying concept for a hardcore rationalist like myself - whilst it is a superb counter-argument against all kinds of "alternative" hogwash, it also has a kind of "magical" element of the-body-healing-itself in a peculiarly unscientific way, that you would have thought would appeal to every crystal-waving witch-doctor in the land.

The problem of course, (and something it has in common with much "alternative medicine") is the fact the placebo relies on trickery to work. There's something rather appealing about running a health service where, instead of handing out hyper expensive drugs, we start giving everybody little sugar pills, but tell them they're the latest v.expensive product from Roche, and how lucky they are to get it... Result = a lot of happier, healthier people for a fraction of the cost. Of course the outcry when the deception is uncovered doesn't bear thinking about, let alone the possibility of a reverse placebo effect, where people start assuming that they're always being given placebos and never get better...

I'm curious to see where the story leads...
But expect to see another absurd RCP "tyranny of science" article soon.

*The Fall, of course, from "Rowche Rumble"



Opinions from readers in the health services - black_triangle, duckyx69, flamingfairy, sought....

Happy Darwin Day everybody!

Yet another survey reaches the same conclusion as all the previous surveys-

MMR links to autism dismissed by huge study

"There is no evidence to link the MMR vaccination to autism in children, according to a substantial new study published today.

In the biggest review conducted to date, scientists from Guy's Hospital in London, Manchester University and the Health Protection Agency, analysed the blood from 250 children and concluded that the vaccine could not be responsible."

So can we finally knock this one into touch?

Ironically, straight after this being reported on Radio 5, they went into a feature about flouridation that really brought the tin-foil-hat brigade out...

Inspired by a conversation with my friend Dave Evans, I thought I'd put the nation's two leading Transporter Bridges to the public vote.

This is the definition of a Transporter Bridge-

A transporter bridge (also ferry bridge or aerial transfer bridge) is a type of movable bridge that carries a segment of roadway across a river. The gondola is slung from a tall span by wires or a metal frame. The design has been used to cross navigable rivers or other bodies of water, where there is a requirement for ship traffic to be able to pass. This has been a rare type of bridge, with fewer than two dozen built. Just eight, plus one converted into a lift bridge, continue to be used today.

This is the Newport Transporter Bridge in South Wales, built in 1906-



And this is the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge in the North East of England, built in 1911



Poll #1119496
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19

Which Transporter Bridge Do You Like The Most?

Supplementary- have you ever been on a transporter bridge?

Transporter Bridges are good for...

Obviously I'm biased, but I do love these things. Further investigation has revealed a very nice one in Portugalete, and an ugly boxy one in Warrington.

If any of my American readers would like to point out a splendid American transporter bridge that's escaped my attention, then I'd be delighted (and a little surprised).

Let the Great Transporter Bridge Battle Begin!

EDIT: I'm delighted to find out that there's a World Transporter Bridge Association.
Things are as they should be.

Good old New Scientist, always coming up with brilliant headlines, like-

Biggest Black Hole in the Cosmos Discovered

Head-Exploding parts highlighted-

The most massive known black hole in the universe has been discovered, weighing in with the mass of 18 billion Suns. Observing the orbit of a smaller black hole around this monster has allowed astronomers to test Einstein's theory of general relativity with stronger gravitational fields than ever before.

The black hole is about six times as massive as the previous record holder and in fact weighs as much as a small galaxy. It lurks 3.5 billion light years away, and forms the heart of a quasar called OJ287. A quasar is an extremely bright object in which matter spiralling into a giant black hole emits copious amounts of radiation.

ka-boom!

I imagine there was quite a hoo-hah when America and Australia were discovered, but the discovery of "the most massive black hole in the universe" is a foot-note in a popular science magazine.

Related-
I watched "Sunshine" on DVD yesterday, and listened to the commentary by the science advisor Dr Brian Cox, during the course of which I discovered that our Sun is big enough to contain one million Earths.

ka-boom!

He didn't tell me what was going on at the end with that zombie (played by "Tosker" from "Our Friends In The North") though...

Ruth and I visited the Greenwich Royal Observatory today. It's absurd that I've lived half-an-hour's walk away for 9 years and never visited it. The extra spur, apart from actually having the time, was the opening of the brand new Planetarium at the site...



(Ruth in the new Greenwich Observatory)

We went along early to avoid the crowds, and it was pretty good. The new bit has lots of state of the art interactivity - like the positively sci-fi exhibit above, where you slide those beaker things around on a drifting starscape to access information. This bit, by the way, is completely free.

The Planetarium itself was £6, which, until we'd experienced it seemed like a lot for about 35 minutes of film. However the experience was pretty good, after an introduction by a real live scientist we settled back to watch a film about Black Holes. The last time I went to a planetarium I was about 12, and I still remember the bit when they projected the night sky, and it felt like somebody had taken the roof off and I could almost feel the night air. Sadly this film didn't bother with that, but instead bombarded us with effectively 3d computer graphics - at times this was almsot terrifying - such as a sequence where a fall into a black hole was simulated. I felt I'd got my money's worth, but I will try to come back and see a presentation by a local astrono,er detailing the current night sky - as I'm not familiar with many black holes being visible in the Hither Green sky...



Elsewhere, the museum is really interesting, assuming that, like any reasonable person, you have a fascination with ancient brass instruments (mainly telescopes and clocks) - seeing John Harrison's clocks (still working) was a hypnotic joy. it was also wonderful to see the origin of the, still startling, green meridian laser that flies over Greenwich, it seems far too thin and weedy to travel out 15 miles...but I know it does...

The strange conic section made of brass that houses the planetarium is quite imposing-

Here is a perfect example of a "controlled demolition", it's a controlled demolition of all the ridiculous "9/11 = demolition = inside-job" theories, in one perfectly made, straightforward, non-hysterical piece of science-


Somebody send it to Peter Tatchell please.

And while I'm on the topic, before I leave it alone to enjoy Christmas, if anybody knows of any good debunking sites to counter the amount of 7/7 conspiracy theories growing like a plague, then please let me know.