If You’ve Never Seen a Spaceship With Your Own Eyes, Now’s Your Chance.

The International Space Station (ISS) is about to make a remarkable series of flybys over the United States. Beginning this 4th of July weekend, the station will appear once, twice, and sometimes three times a day for many days in a row. No matter where you live, you should have at least a few opportunities to see the biggest spaceship ever built.

Check NASA’s ISS Tracker for flyby times.

The ISS has been under construction for nearly 11 years, and it has grown very large and very bright. The station is now more than 350 ft wide (wider than a football field), has 12,600 cubic feet of labs and living quarters, and on Earth would weigh about 670,000 lb. Sunlight illuminating the massive outpost makes it shine fifteen times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.

Sometimes it is even brighter than that. Sunlight glinting from the station’s flat surfaces (mainly solar arrays) produce dazzling flares as much as six hundred times brighter than Sirius. For astronomers: On the scale of visual magnitudes, space station flares register -8.

“The station flared spectacularly on May 22nd when it passed over my backyard observatory in the Netherlands,” reports amateur astronomer Quintus Oostendorp. “I knew the ISS was coming, so I had my telescope ready and I was able see exactly what happened.” Click on the image to launch a movie he recorded through his 12-inch Newtonian reflector:

At present, the flares are unpredictable. No one knows when they will happen or exactly how bright they will be. Any given flyby could be interrupted by one—and that’s what makes the watch so much fun.

The marathon of space station flybys won’t stop until mid-to-late July (depending on your location). That gives space shuttle Endeavour, currently scheduled to launch on July 11th, time to reach the space station and join the show. As the shuttle approaches station for docking, many observers will witness a memorable double flyby—Endeavour and the ISS sailing side by side across the starry night sky.

Endeavour is on yet another space station construction mission. This time it will deliver a “space porch” to be added to Japan’s Kibo science laboratory module. The porch is not a place where astronauts can sit, relax and watch the stars drift by (although that is not a bad idea); it is a science platform. When an experiment needs to be exposed to the hard vacuum or energetic radiation of space, it can placed outside on the porch to take advantage of the space station’s unique research environment. The official name of the porch is the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility and it will add its own small contribution to the station’s reflected luminosity in the night sky.

Discrimination, Anyone?

Residents want sign promoting atheism removed

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WSVN) -- Community residents are protesting a billboard they call offensive to Christians.

The recruitment billboard put up by the Florida Atheist and Secular Humanist Society stands just east of Interstate 95 on Sunrise Boulevard and 27th Avenue, next to a business owned by an African-American preacher.

The members of the community cite two main problems: born-again Christians own the business right next to the sign, and the billboard is located right in the middle of an African-American community.

Neighboring businesses have called to try to get the sign removed. "Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Christian, whoever you are, we all believe in a spiritual higher being. When you have something like this here, people don't want to come and patronize us anymore," said Theodore Hamilton, an employee at a nearby business. "We don't agree with this. We don't like this here in our community, and this is a spiritual based community."

The sign states: "Being a good person doesn't require God. Don't believe in God? You're not alone. www.FreeThoughFlorida.com."

Ken Loukinen, President of FLASH, said he had no intention of offending anyone when he paid to put the sign up. "We didn't want to incense anybody or put a derogatory statement in there," he said. "The two statements there, the first one, is basically to the public to let them know that atheists can be good, moral people, and the second part of the message is to other free thinkers who are in Broward County or in the area that may see this, that there is an organization that supports them."

http://www1.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/MI124870

So Much For the Virgin Mary on Grilled Cheese

A Drug That Could Give You Perfect Visual Memory

Imagine if you could look at something once and remember it forever. You would never have to ask for directions again. Now a group of scientists has isolated a protein that mega-boosts your ability to remember what you see.

A group of Spanish researchers reported today in Science that they may have stumbled upon a substance that could become the ultimate memory-enhancer. The group was studying a poorly-understood region of the visual cortex. They found that if they boosted production of a protein called RGS-14 (pictured) in that area of the visual cortex in mice, it dramatically affected the animals' ability to remember objects they had seen.

Mice with the RGS-14 boost could remember objects they had seen for up to two months. Ordinarily the same mice would only be able to remember these objects for about an hour.

The researchers concluded that this region of the visual cortex, known as layer six of region V2, is responsible for creating visual memories. When the region is removed, mice can no longer remember any object they see.

If this protein boosts visual memory in humans, the implications are staggering. In their paper, the researchers say that it could be used as a memory-enhancer – which seems like an understatement. What's particularly intriguing is the fact that this protein works on visual memory only. So as I mentioned earlier, it would be perfect for mapping. It would also be useful for engineers and architects who need to hold a lot of visual images in their minds at once. And it would also be a great drug for detectives and spies.

Could it also be a way to gain photographic memory? For example, if I look at a page of text will I remember the words perfectly? Or will I simply remember how the page looked?

I can't see much of a downside for this potential drug, unless the act of not forgetting what you see causes problems or trauma.

via Science

Report: Palin resigning as Alaska governor

WASILLA, Alaska - Sarah Palin plans to resign as governor of Alaska in a few weeks, KTUU-TV reported Friday.

Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008, made the announcement at her home Friday morning, the station said.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will take over at the end of the month, KTUU reported.

With her at the announcement were Parnell and most of her cabinet.

There was no immediate word as to why she will step down before the end of her first term, though some have speculated in the past that she may be interested in running for president in 2012.