Faster than Light Neutrinos

Confirmed.  Well, sort of.  At least to 1.4 standard deviations, which isn't all that good, but is something.
Given some theoretical basis.  Tentatively, in a hurry-up paper.  I won't comment too much on this, I'm still reading it.
Anyway, this is real science in action in its very best form: carefully checked results that don't make sense, publication and open flow of information along with a plea "we probably made a mistake, but we can't find it, please see what you can do with it, here's the data."  Lots of digging around for prior published results that could shed light on the subject.  And some quick theoretical work to give an early look at what might be happening.  If this pans out, it's huge.  And if it doesn't, nobody comes away embarrassed by bad behavior.

The Crap that Fell to Earth

In the wake of last weekend's UARS reentry, here's an article on Eight surprising hunks of space gear that returned to Earth.  Mostly big chunks of titanium tanks and such, with the occasional nuclear reactor.  Nothing to get too concerned about.

Local Hang-Out Music Roundup

Bunch of good music lately down at the Mockingbird.  Here's a roundup of some that've stood out.

• Jerico Road Show.  Defies description, here's a youtube link, and here's page for a closely allied band, the Jake Leg Stompers that'll give you some idea of where they're coming from.
• Blue Mountain, an alt-country outfit that puts on a good show.
• Bronwynne Brent, from the Mississippi Delta by way of Austin.  Most of the songs from her first album are there for the streaming at the web site.

Naturally, they've all got CD's for sale at the shows, and I've been listening and re-listening to all of the above for weeks.  Lots more bands to come next month, will write up more as they filter through.

R.E.M. is breaking up.

You've probably seen it in the news already, but if not, here is reasonable coverage of the who, what, where, and why.
OK, now for some not-just-a-link actual content.  My take on it?  Twenty five years too late.  They had a great run in the early to mid-80's, a handful of good songs after that, and one last, final, good album, Collapse into Now (reviewed here).  The time couldn't be better for a recap of R.E.M.'s major works.

• Chronic Town (EP), 1982.  An early glint of genius.  Has Gardening at Night on it, that song alone makes the entire band worthwhile.
• Murmur, 1983.  Yes, more like this please!
• Reckoning, 1984.  A second helping from the same kitchen where Murmur was cooked.  Good stuff.
• Fables of the Reconstruction, 1985.  Deep Southern-fried but somehow not country-fied.  Damn near miraculous.
• Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986.  Can they get any better?  As it turns out, no.
• And handful of outtake and compilation albums, like little core samples from their 1979-1987 run of brilliance.  

After that, their albums were a morass of drawn-out weepy tunes, sporting maybe one or two songs that gave glimmers of hope that R.E.M. would rise again.  But it never quite happened.  Collapse into Now, released just last spring, showed them back in their earlier good form, but the fire was cooler, mellowed by time and age.  And now the fire is out.  Ah well, a year ago I'd have said that the fire went out in '87.  I am glad that they managed to put out one more good disk before it was all over.

 

xkcd #955

Worth a post, for the few readers who don't regularly visit xkcd:

And if you don't read xkcd, why the hell not?


[added later]  You know, I'll bet that this would all make a lot more sense to the non-physics-plugged-in if there was a link to a related news story telling what the hoopla is all about.

18 Historic Photos...

...that changed the way we saw the universe, at Dvice.  Take a few minutes and flip through them.  For starters, there's the first photo taken from space, from an experimental post-war V-2 launch in 1946:

Ivorybills

Background @wikipedia: Ivory-billed Woodpecker


Here is a pretty good article on the current status on finding these things.  Not easy, but not hopeless.  (go read the article, it's short, I'll wait)  I've never seen one, but know a couple of people with credible sightings.  Interesting stuff, best summed up at the end of the article:

Collins says the maximum number that could still exist is more realistically about a hundred. “There couldn’t be a thousand because someone would have found an active nest,” said Collins, “but a hundred birds could have hidden out.”