OMG we're all doomed

Apparently, according to this article in the NYTimes, the amount of beer a scientist drinks is inversely proportional to the amount of science they publish (i.e. more beer = fewer papers).

What? That's so not fair, I spent like two years in grad school learning how to drink beer just so I could fit in with my colleagues, and now you tell that I would have been a "more productive scientist" if only I had stuck with mudslides and amaretto sours?

Of course, if you read to the end of the article, you find out that these results may only hold true for biologists in the Czech Republic (apparently that country has a "special relationship to beer"). So maybe we'll be okay, but just to be on the safe side, I think I'll drink wine this weekend instead of beer and see if that motivates me to work on one of those 3 papers I'm supposed to be writing.

Surviving LPSC

For the second year in a row, I was felled with the flu halfway through the week of LPSC, unbelievable. That will teach me not to get a flu shot. But even through the fever and chills and the drug-induced haze, I would have to say it was still a pretty good week.

For me, the highlight was all the fabulous stuff from the MESSENGER flyby of Mercury. Luckily those talks were on Monday when I was still fully conscience. What an incredible mother lode of data. I can't remember the last time I was this excited about science after a full day of talks. It's almost like whole new planet. My friend Emily over at the planetary society blog has great details from several of the talks from that session here.

Normally, I would give a rundown here of the various NASA night events and what the folks from headquarters had to say, but as I am now one of those HQ folks, that's probably not appropriate. I will say though that it was an interesting perspective sitting in the audience as one of "them" rather than just a member of the community, but in the end, I was proud to be one of those headquarters folks, I think we're doing a pretty good job, and the community mostly seems to appreciate the work we are putting in.

If you weren't there and would like to know what went down, Star Stryder has a good rundown of Mike Griffin's talk and q&a here.

and Emily has a good rundown of Alan Stern's here.

New Painting

Until I come up with something more interesting, I'm calling this one "Earth and Moon #3"

As always, if you like my art, you can find more here:

New Painting

The third, and probably last, at least for a while, in my lunar-landscape-from-orbit series. This is "Daedalus in orange"- Daedalus being that big crater in the middle.

If you like my art, you can find more here.

Cool video of the Huygen's probe landing on Titan

Wow! This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. It is a very carefully pieced together video of some 3500 images from the Huygens probe decent imager as it landed on Titan. The four hour landing has been compressed into a fabulous four minute movie.

Awesome video here: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/video-details.cfm?videoID=126

Cassini homepage here: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The descent imager/spectral radiometer team is based at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

New Painting

This piece, titled "Not Quite HD" is my homage to one of the first HD images released by JAXA from the Kaguya spacecraft.

The original can be found here, along with some really cool movies of the Earth rising and setting over the Moon.

If you like my art, you can find more here.

Gordon McKay

The planetary science community had lost a friend and colleague. Gordon McKay passed early yesterday morning.

Gordon was truly a gentleman and a scholar. He was a talented scientist, a fabulous manager, and a good friend to many. I am lucky to have been able to call him a friend. I learned a lot from him, about science, about NASA, and about life. I found I could always count on him for a few encouraging words, usually over a beer at Boondoggles. He will be missed by many.


Update: Letter from NASA HQ on Gordon's Passing