A florescent cat sounds like something imaginary, maybe out of Star Trek, but apparently it is not.

Science can do wonderous things these days.

For example, the so-called Spider Goat. Researchers integrated spider DNA into goat embryos, and there you have it, a spider goat.

The glow-in-the-dark cat was also created in the name of science. The first American florescent cat was Mr. Green Genes. When viewed under ultraviolet light (UV), one sees eyes, gums and a tongue glowing a vivid lime green. This experiment was conducted in New Orleans at the Audobon Center for Research of Endangers Species.

Hard to believe that there could be such a thing as a florescent cat!

Florescence connotes luminescence. For the term florescence we have Irish scientist Sir George Gabriel Stokes to thank.

In 1852 he described the experience of florescence as seen in flourospar and uranium glass in a paper on the wavelength of light. In florescence, UV radiation is converted from invisible into wavelengths that are longer and visible.

The florescent cat must surely be a monumental step in research science that Sir Stokes might never have imagined when he first described the luminescence of florescent objects back in 1852.

While almost everybody’s attention has been focused on Tropical Storms Ana and Bill, still well out in the Atlantic, a new tropical disturbance has formed much closer to home …

On Sunday evening, the National Hurricane Center began monitoring an area of low pressure just off the west coast of Florida (approximately 80 miles southwest of Tampa). With very little wind shear, conditions in the upper levels of the atmosphere appear favorable for development.

It’s still too early to tell how much this system will develop, and if it does become a Tropical Storm or Hurricane, exactly where it will go.

However, after a very slow start the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane season this is definitely an indication that people in coastal areas need to start paying close attention. It could be a very wet and windy couple of days for some areas of Florida, Alabama and even Louisiana next week.

I’ll continue to monitor the NHC, along with radar and satellite, over the next day or two, and will post a follow-up if I have any unique insights to offer. (I used to work as a satellite analyst at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, and at the moment I also happen to be on vacation at my parents house near Tampa Florida)

Mars, the new frontier. The blue planet. The only planet in the whole universe known to man which has the potential to sustain some kind of life-form. It is planet that has an atmosphere that remotely resembles planet Earth. Scientist have long dreamed to capitalise on this remote resemblance and exploit it enough to make it self sustainable to humans. They envisioned a day when humans will populate the entire planet without any artificial life supporting system, thriving on their own on Mars, just like they are thriving healthily here.

The mission to Mars, still in it’s infancy even though it has been a few decades, has made startling discoveries in recent years. Much due to the improvement of latest space technology, samples of soil sent back by the space probe has indeed revealed that life did existed on Mars before it became barren today. This amazing new discovery has risen the hopes of scientists and space researchers to new heights. Further encouraging finds are signs that water, the basic need of all life-form, is present on Mars, frozen beneath the surface of the planet.

Scientist and space researchers now are faced with a new mission. To unfreeze the water beds beneath the crust of Mars and bring it to the surface. They opined that if there is water, plants will grow, and with green plants growing in abundance, the effect of photosynthesis will take effect, providing the life giving gas called oxygen to oxygen inhaling lifeforms. Like humans, for example.

They might already have that technology and the expertise. What with all the drilling and extracting of petroleum and gasses happening on this planet. There will be two major obstacles though. One is transportation and the other, the setting up of the heavy equipments used for major drilling works.

The perilous journey to Mars took the tiny space probe more than a few good months an it was lucky to survived a few good knocks before landing on Mars. To transport equipments and structures the size of an off shore drilling platform will probably see the need to built a space ship the size of the USS Enterprise. Okay, I may be exaggerating a little bit, one tenth the size of the USS Enterprise will be more than enough. And it don’t need to be able to travel at warp speed even.

I certainly will not live to see the day when someone lands on Mars on a successful mission and proclaims yet another “bigger leap for mankind”, but I am hopeful. I truly believe there will be that day. When it comes, I hope Planet Earth still existed. I hope my off springs will still be around. I hope they get to witness the first successful man-ed mission to Mars. I hope it’s a man and not a monkey though.

Today’s story is brought to you by Paul Mccartney Piedmont Park. While the former Beatle is fabulously wealthy and famous, he is doing this concert because he loves to sing and he is raising awareness for the ever popular movement these days, the Green movement. Although the presence of Paul Mccartney in this concert will generally only benefit the Piedmont Park, he is hoping to raise awareness of how badly polluted Mother Earth is and how much she needs our help.

Oddly enough the concert really benefits such a small area, but any small gains of progress is still progress. With Paul Mccartney performing in Piedmont Park, my mind drifts back to a famed Republican professor that I had, Professor Cipollini. Now this guy was great and hilarious, and just as important knew what he was talking about. This one lecture he gave was about how humanity was not that big of a deal in affecting this planet environmentally, how global warming was scientifically not proven to be true, and of course Al Gore. [Al gore, of Man Bear Pig fame, no doubt has heard of Paul Mccartney in Piedmont Park but probably does not have the time to attend such a great concert]. After his usual angry tirade was finished, which I always enjoyed and learned a lot from, Professor Cipollini went on and on against Al Gore in particular. What my professor had a huge problem with was Al Gore, the Environmental Movement, and how anyone can “clear his or her conscience” of their polluting their environment by buying carbon credits from the former Vice President. He was angry at Al Gore because he felt it was just a fancy scam aimed at lining the pockets of a politician (which of course is typical according to the corrupt-politician stereotype that is commonly held by many) and that all a carbon credit really was, was a “Stupid #@$king tree, that he [Al Gore] freaking plants, in THE MIDDLE OF GOD D@#N NOWHERE that will NOT DO A DAMN THING for this planet!” end quote. Yes those were his exact words in that exact tone and I really wished I had a recorder back then because whether or not you agree with the great professor, I think anyone would get a kick out of listening to him.

Now whether Paul Mccartney singing and dancing at Piedmont Park’s concert tonight will do much, it will at the least, bring more social proof or social encouragement to the people to protect our environment. What was once just a “hippie, tree hugger” ideology is now more or less a huge social trend that everybody needs to be a part of. Me personally I’m just too lazy to do anything. I mean, I recycle, I don’t use resources or paper unless I absolutely have to, and I don’t litter. While I will not be at the Paul Mccartney Piedmont Park concert, I do know and support what he is trying to do, even if the benefit is specifically just for Piedmont Park because all of us doing a little bit of this and that to save the world will add up to benefits and dividends that will compound beyond any of our imaginations, and the air will smell good for once.

Tropical storm Ana looks to be the first storm of the 2009 hurricane season. The National Weather Bureau is currently tracking the storm nearly 2000 miles away from Florida so there is a wide-margin for error with both Puerto Rico and Cuba in the potential hurricane’s path. The storm is not yet declared a hurricane. There is also another depression in the area which is deepening and may become the next named storm of the season.

Personally I have never lived in an hurricane area -I’d rather deal with an earthquake – I don’t like the idea of knowing on a Saturday that the weather may be a problem on Thursday -which is the estimated landfall for Tropical Storm Ana in southern Florida. If it was me – with the knowledge of how fierce hurricanes can be in Florida and other southern states, I’d be planning on relocating inland and north ASAP.

The main damage from hurricanes appear to not just be the wind but the huge storm surge which causes most of the damage along the coast. Perhaps states such as Florida should really look at encouraging buildings further from the coast with a dune or other open area on the actual foreshore to reduce the damage bill.

I also wonder how easy it is to hurricane proof marinas and harbors – Florida like any sun-filled tropical paradise, has a large number of boats per capita. Boats are costly items and the insurance bill must run into millions in terms of hurricane damage.

There mus also be strict building standards which insist that buildings are built to strict guidelines including shutters and other devices to increase the chances of the building suriviving a major hurricane and reducing the damage bill.

In a startling discovery, no less than astronomical, Astronomers from Britain’s Keele University has reportedly discovered a brand new planet 1000 light years away from Earth which is twice the size of Jupiter. What made this discovery so special is due to the fact that this planet, unlike all other planets in the Universe, orbit backwards. Scientist has named this planet WASP-17, reasons unknown.

The discovery has been widely reported and has stirred up considerable interest for Astronomers around the world. Trying to reason out why this planet goes against nature in it’s orbiting habits, experts are banking on the theory that this unusual phenomena might be due to a

“A near collision during the early, violent stage of this planetary system could well have caused a gravitational slingshot, flinging WASP-17 into its backwards orbit.” As quoted, Astronomer David Anderson of Britain’s Keele University during a press release, announcing the discovery.

Astrophysicist Sara Seager from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology agrees that this is indeed “one of the strangest planets we know about” reports the New York Daily News.

The National Post gave a more detailed explanation of WASP-17 but it would take a learned astronomy enthusiast to understand what they are trying to say. Try to understand this if you can.

Giant planet WASP-17b, the least-dense planet currently known. It is 1.6 Saturn masses but 1.5-2 Jupiter radii, giving a density of 6-14 per cent that of Jupiter. WASP-17b is in a 3.7-day orbit around a sub-solar metallicity, V = 11.6, F6 star.

In a related report, The Planetary Society gave a better prospective in plainer English, though it might still be alien to most of us. Describing the technique used to discover WASP-17 in this article by Amir Alexander, it states,

WASP-17 was first detected through the transit photometry technique by the Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) consortium of British universities, using the WASP-South camera array in South Africa. But in order to detect its retrograde motion the WASP team needed an assist from planet hunters at the Geneva Observatory, who specialize in radial velocity measurements.

In further elaboration,

According to Darin Ragozzine of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomers can identify the direction of a planet’s orbit because of slight discrepancies in the radial velocity data when a planet transits a star. Because a star is rotating, one side of it is moving towards (or away) from Earth faster than the other side. During a transit, the planet covers first one side of the star and then the other, causing a slight but measurable shift in the radial velocity readings. If during the transit the star first appears to be moving relatively slowly towards the Earth, but then faster as the transit progresses, then the planet is orbiting in the same direction as the star’s rotation. But if the reverse is the case – as it is for WASP-17 – then the planet is in a retrograde orbit.

The full report of this discovery can be found at http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1553

2 moons on 27th August! Have you received your annual reminder yet? Every year, I never fail to be reminded by email that on the 27th of August, 2 moons will be seen in the sky above me. Each year, I waited in vain for this phenomena to happen. I have waited for 3 consecutive August 27 and not once, did I manage to see the second moon.

This year is no different. Right on spot, somewhere in the middle of June, I received that email again. This year, it was a little bit more elaborate. Attached with the email is a Powerpoint presentation on how and why this astronomical miracle can and will happen. Let me share with you the full text of the email I received this year.

Check it out, guess no one will get much sleep in August.

Mars

The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!

This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history.

The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

Due to the way Jupiter’s gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again. The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide.

At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.

Share this with your children and grandchildren.

NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN

Now if this was the first time anyone received this email they are going to be thoroughly fooled just like yours truly here. What with all those precise scientific explanation and accompanied with powerpoint slides at that. I bet these emails will get better next year.

No one knows exactly who started this hoax and where it originated from. It first surfaced in or around 2003 and has never stopped till today. Every year a newer version makes it’s round and I bet every year there will be someone new who gets fooled. How the originator benefited from this hoax is something beyond me. I doubt he, she or they even got their last laugh.

New Planet WASP-17….I know…I know…The first thing I thought of when I heard the news was Mork calling Orson or perhaps an old Ed Wood reel had been found and we were in for a cinematic treat. I even checked the calender to make sure that it wasn’t some kind of Orson Wells “War Of The Worlds” blunder but sure enough a new planet called WASP-17 has been discovered. This new planet is 1,000 light years away from Earth and is about 2 times as colossal as the giant Jupiter. I suppose it’s like losing one friend and making another because so many folks were heartbroken at the loss of little Pluto most likely because of the Walt Disney namesake and the affection he brings to the hearts of people.

Not only do we get a replacement for the defunct neglected planet Pluto but the new planet WASP-17 is also a lot more fun in a funky warped kind of way. You see, WASP-17 orbits backwards like the teenage kid who dyes his hair to be different and he is baffling the heck out of scientists. The best they could come up with was that the planet must have had some kind of a gravitational “close Encounter” which pretty much doesn’t explain too much at all. I suppose it’s like the planet that got in with the wrong crowd!

Scientists have admitted that WASP-17 is among the oddest planets that they have ever discovered. This planet drawn by an artist from what he perceived it to look was like a small orange ball in the foreground of a bigger sun-like fiery ball of molten flames. I suppose a new funky planet has to look spectacular in order to be accepted. The team of scientists who discovered WASP-17 were taking pictures with an array of cameras which look for changes in light in order to discover new planets by observing stars and watching for any masses their cross their paths.

But seriously, any such new scientific discovery like WASP-17 is bound to cause joy among all mankind because it shows us that we have only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discovering the mysteries and content of our vast universe. The fact the we are still discovering new planets is amazing but we must also remember that our own little blue planet still has much to offer in the way of new discoveries and although WASP-17 is a highly significant find it still remains a million miles away for regular inhabitants of planet Earth.