For the past two weeks, and throughout the month of November, a superlative recreation of lnineteenth century fashion is on display at the Haysville Community Library.
Local corsetiere Marti McCartney received both the First Place blue ribbon and Best of Show award at the Kansas State Fair in September for her exquisite 19th Century replica dress. Don’t miss it.
Various hummingbird species (Ernst Haeckel)
The rare Peruvian spatuletail hummingbird’s mating display is the subject of a fascinating bit of video from BBC News. Here’s another at the Internet IBC Bird Collection.
(Note that the illustration above does not include the spatuletail hummingbird)
There’s another intriguing slideshow at Seed Magazine, this time a brief overview of the art of Luke Jerram, including a plant orchestra, fantastic glass sculptures of maleficent bacteria and viruses, a device that sings the moon’s gravity, and more. It’s At the Edge of Perception.
Orion Nebula (M42) (Hubble Space Telescope)
Seed Magazine offers a visually stunning and immensely interesting slideshow entitled Traveling Through Time and Stars. Quite wonderful.
The 2009 Consumer Information Handbook is now available from the Federal Citizen Information Center, and ten free copies are waiting for the first to claim them at the Haysville Community Library.
The handbook covers a very broad range of topics of interest to consumers, providing helpful tips about preventing identity theft, understanding your credit, filing a consumer complaint, filing for bankruptcy, finding a lawyer, planning a funeral, along with many other useful and interesting topics.
For more information on the handbook, or on related consumer news, see the Federal Citizen Information Center’s ConsumerAction.gov website.
Gliese 667C System (artist's impression -- ESO)
The European Southern Observatory today announced the discovery of 32 new exoplanets, bringing the total known extrasolar planets to well over 400. Operating at the very limits of contemporary technology, the HARPS instrument has now discovered more than 75 planets in 30 different solar systems.
For more on this announcement, see Scientists Announce Planet Bounty from the BBC News and HARPS Discovers 32 New Exoplanets from Universe Today.
For more intimate details on the operation of the HARPS and its mission, see The HARPS Search for Southern Extra-Solar Planets, a manuscript from Astronomy & Astrophysics.
For more information on exoplanets, view the links related in our earlier post Hard Rain.
You’re planning on visiting the Haysville Fall Festival this weekend, of course.
When you do, be sure to drop by the Haysville Community Library/Friends of the Library booth for some great bargains on used books, a new or updated library card, or just a little pleasant conversation. We hope to see you there.
Wired sends you to a wonderful YouTube video featuring Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking in a kind of technorap paean to our exploration of the universe: “A Glorious Dawn”.
The National Institute for Literacy has an excellent little nine page booklet for parents who want to help their young ones to a head start in learning how to read.
Shining Stars Preschoolers Get Ready to Read is a perceptive source of good advice for parents. You’ll find a copy available on the Kansas Reads to Preschoolers website. You’ll also find a quick one-page summary of Tips for Reading With Your Children there, along with a variety of other resources.
And don’t forget to bring your child by the library on November 17th for Wiggle author Doreen Cronin’s visit.
The Haysville Community Library is one of just four libraries in the state of Kansas that will host children’s author Doreen Cronin on her visit to introduce preschoolers to Wiggle, this year’s choice for Kansas Reads to Preschoolers featured book.
She’ll be here in the children’s section to read Wiggle and meet with children and parents on November 17th at 10 am. We’re delighted that she’ll be visiting here in Haysville, and hope that you can bring your child to join in the learning and the fun.
Every year, the Kansas Center for the Book at the State Library of Kansas promotes the importance of reading to Kansas preschoolers and other youth by sponsoring one book through Kansas Reads to Preschoolers.
Jupiter & 3 Moons (HST)
“. . . although our Earth is silicon-rich, other earths may instead be carbon-rich, like giant versions of carbon-rich asteroids and comets. Rather than silicate rocks, they’d have carbonaceous ones. In fact, [Jade] Bond [of the University of Arizona] suggests that such Earths may be the majority: most stars with planets contain proportionately more carbon than our sun does. Yet scientists have barely begun to think about how their geology would differ. ‘No one has looked at it,’ Bond says.”
Reporting each day for Scientific American, George Musser has relayed five brief but interesting updates on the proceedings of the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences last week in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. The first update included Bond’s discussion of exoplanet characteristics from the which the preceding quote was excerpted, along with a review of Jupiter’s atmosphere, an update on Messenger’s most recent flyby of Mercury, and the geology of Saturn’s remarkable moon Titan.
The second update focused entirely upon undulations recently discovered in Saturn’s C ring – a more important discovery, perhaps, than the far more publicized discovery of Saturn’s new ring (Look here and
here for more about that.). You’ll find a more extensive discussion of the perturbation of Saturn’s rings What Shook Up Saturn’s Rings? in New Scientist.
Update three discussed planetary bombardments and asteroids, update four the LCROSS lunar impact and planetary formation, while update five concentrated on the unusual characteristics of Quaoar, the Kuiper Belt object discovered in 2002. Much further than Pluto (about 42 Astronomical Units from the sun), Quaoar has a greater density and a much less eccentric orbit. Why?
