Michael West’s Blog

Pascal pointed out something quite humorous in his opening remarks at the conference today. Keraunothnetophobia is the fear of falling satellites and it is quite apt given that Phobos’ orbit around Mars is decaying. Don’t worry though, it will take at least another 3-4 million years until it crashes into the surface of Mars and that is provided that the increasing tidal forces don’t rip the moon apart first into small pieces that will burn up as they reach Mars’ atmosphere.

Yesterday, a young woman, agitated after being accused of shoplifting and arguing with staff at Woolworths, decided to use her car to redecorate the front of the Erindale Shopping Centre. The Erindale Shops are just down the road from my house and within walking distance - and I found out about it by reading the news online here and here! Thankfully no one was injured in the incident and the woman was promptly arrested. Apparently there was a fair bit of damage to doors and signage and those stupid kids rides you find in such shopping centres - I’m not complaining about the destruction of the latter! Anyway… as one of my house mates pointed out aptly, “That’s the south side of Canberra for you!”

CNN reports this mildly bizzare episode in Palatine, Illinois….
“An elementary school science teacher in this Chicago suburb doesn’t have to turn on the news for an update on NASA’s space mission. She just turns on her video baby monitor.

Since Sunday, one of the two channels on Natalie Meilinger’s baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis. The other still lets her keep an eye on her baby.

“Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you’ll usually see,” Meilinger said. “No one would ever expect this.”

Live video of the mission is available on NASA’s Web site, so it’s possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.

“It’s not coming straight from the shuttle,” NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. “People here think this is very interesting and you don’t hear of it often — if at all.”

Meilinger silenced disbelieving co-workers by bringing in a video of the monitor to show her class on Tuesday, her students’ last day of school. At home, 3-month-old Jack and 2-year-old Rachel don’t quite understand what their parents are watching.

“I’ve been addicted to it and keep waiting to see what’s next,” Meilinger said.

Summer Infant, the monitor’s manufacturer, is investigating what could be causing the transmission, communications director Cindy Barlow said. She said she’s never heard of anything similar happening.

“Not even close,” she said. “Gotta love technology.”

OK, so the title of this post is a bit macabre but it is interesting how the climate change & carbon emissions debates are making people rethink everything. Check out this article from the SMH entitled ‘After life, go back to your roots‘. It reports an Australian scientists call that the dead can help fight climate change by fertilising their favourite tree and also discusses the impact in terms of energy use and carbon emissions of cremation. I wonder how long it will be until we hear calls for the banning of baked beans and Indian food on the grounds of the emission of methane often produced following consumption. Crikey!