Blackhole Gang Bang

This picture recently released by NASA is undeniably cool. It shows the trail made by 'grumpy' neutrons while two massive black holes collide at the center of galaxy cluster Abell 400.
Black holes are one of those things that have remained a continuous mystery for many. Because they suck everything up (space and time included) they are incredibly hard to detect. Realistically you can't even see a black hole, they area spot of more or less non-existence that exist. However, those smart shiney pennies of the scientific world have learned to look for the tell tale signs black holes make. They look for things like a bend orbital paths and light emitted by stars (the light looks like it's coming from a different direction than it really is, the path has been changed by pull of the black hole causing everything to change course).
As a matter of fact we have our own black hole in our universe, and yes, it is pulling at everything. Though to lie in the constellation Sagittarius at the centre of the Milky Way is a super-massive black hole. Here are a few basic facts you can work into today's conversations to make everyone pause and go, WOW!

Distance: More than 25,000 light-years.
Mass: About 4 million times more than the sun.
Size: About 14 million miles across.
Rotation: About half the speed of light, or 335 million mph.
Age: Perhaps 10 billion years or more.

Source: NASA, University of California-Berkeley

Not that you need any encouragement but I suppose you Sagitarians could use this as support that you ARE the center of the universe; just don't talk to me about it.

A picture like the one above results when two black holes pull eachother in, leading to a super-massive blackhole. This as I have said earlier is way too cool for words. Such a scenario was proposed by the king himself, Einstein. According to Albert, when two black holes collide there is a wiggle in the gravitational pull. This causes a corresponding shake in all of the dimensions that are being affected already, space and time. These wiggles are yet to be detected but scientists are working on it. Success has been fostered through a computer program which has modelled such an event. To find out more about this collision and the program just check out the article attached below.

Simulation Breakthrough: When Black Holes Collide from PhysOrg.com
NASA scientists have reached a breakthrough in computer modeling that allows them to simulate what gravitational waves from merging black holes look like. The three-dimensional simulations, the largest astrophysical calculations ever performed on a NASA supercomputer, provide the foundation to explore the universe in an entirely new way. [...]

Sesame Street will live forever

For a show running since 1969 Sesame Street isn't doing too badly. I can remember the days when C was for Cookie and Cookie was for C. Alas, those were the carefree days, before I knew the words carbon, cancer, caustic, and career. But time goes on and the Street is entertaining and educating an entirely new generation of kids. Teaching them Spanish and how to count the apples in a bucket. This past Saturday the Street won 7 Day Time Emmys, an impressive feat by any account. To commemorate I coloured in a picture of the big man himself.
p.s.: In Canada we no longer have Sesame Street... the CBC has been airing Sesame Park since 1996. No worries though, you can still catch the Street on PBS if you start to feel a little nostalgic.

A sigh for 4/20

I missed it.. I really missed it. This is sad moment folks. Fortunately things can still be rectified in the up coming days, and all hope is not lost. On the other hand I did spend the day in Ottawa sleeping at Ashley's house and having an incredible home cooked meal. I feel that happens less often than 4/20 so really, you win some, you lose some. Overall I feel I won out.
For those of you who remembered the relaxing holiday I hope you had a good one. The chill was thick in the air ;)

I bet you thought I had died... too bad.

Hey kids, I have returned!
I start with apologies for having neglected this page for the past month. Time has been ticking on my degree and I have been spending the last while preparing reports, studying for finals and working. Since it has been so long I’ll give you the updates in somewhat of a chronological order. I’ll start from when I stopped writing right up until today, and I promise you today is gonna be captivating!

Late March
Los Juanes
Lets start things off write with some bonefied multimedia. While in Greece they had a music station that played basically 6 videos over and over again 24 hours a day. Luckily one of them was incredibly addictive. It's by a Spanish artist, Los Juanes he's huge aparently??? Anyways, here is the video entitled Camisa Negra. Listen to it all the way through, I promise you will get as addicted as I did.



I do need to head out soon, time has run short. But below you'll find a list of other things I'll be adding to my list of highlights from the past month. Be sure to come back soon to check them out!

John's Birthday
Another year has come and gone and John (my grandfather is another year older), how old though? I wouldn't be able to tell you. I found out once but forgot pretty quickly - memory of a goldfish with the attention span of a squirrel I have. But can't hold that against John! This was probably one of the more memorable but least wanted birthdays this year but hey, you're here and we all love you very much. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!

Wallace gets GI stasis
On the same day John turned ?? The intrepid bunny Wallace decided that my life just wasn't exciting enough. Yes, she really couldn't help it, and probably didn't want it, but bunny got a hairball. Before you start laughing, because admittedly it sounds like a pretty amusing thing to be peeved about, hairballs are not rabbit friendly. Since rabbits can't vomit the fur must go all the way through the digestive track and out the other end. This is where the problem lies as you know from years of intimate relationships with shower drains, things can get clogged and nasty. For rabbits that means their pipes stop working and they essentially can't eat digest anymore. Luckily when caught early things haven't stopped completely yet and you jsut need to give it a nudge along. Meghan and I spent the entire night up hand feeding moist pellet mash and water, and rubbing bunny's tummy. On the bright side she made us feel loved. Not feeling very well she just wanted to be cuddled so consistently hopped into my lap and cuddled up. For those who may wonder... everything was back to normal by 7am and I crashed by 9am after I was sure she wasn't just acting.

Ouch!
Many of you know how accident prone I am. I have walked into large eye level signs, massive posts, and am convinced that doorframes shrink to trick me. This time it was the last Friday of March and I needed to catch shuttle to Mac to print a poster before everyone went home for the weekend. Being incredibly paranoid of being late I left the house with a little less than 20 minutes to make it. This cut it a little close and I didn't have a watch on me, both combining to make for one paranoid Booth. The first half of the walk there seemed like forever - I hit every read light - so I sprinted for the finish. BAD IDEA! the weather was perfect, people were out strolling takeing extra long lunchs. I deeked left, right, then left again - BANG! Everyone turned to look at where the noise was coming from... Out of nowhere infront of the construction going on at Holt Renfrew jumped this massive pickup truck, hitting me square on the boney part of my elbow! And the maniac who was supposed to be driving it wasn't even in the cab! People these days, geez. I didn't feel much at the time but turns out the load noise was the top boney part of my elbow taking on the hard plastic cover of the rearview mirror. Within minutes it had swollen up nicely and an ugly bruise had reared angrily into appearance. I couldn't even move my freaking elbow properly for a couple of days, ugh. In the end I got to the bus completely red in the face and out of breath thinking I had seconds to spare.
The bus driver laughed and said "vous gagnez le prix!"
Ya, I won the prize, I made the bus!

Graduation dinner

The table everyone else wanted to be (left to right): Max, Hamilton, Peter, Lena, Me, Mark, Meghan and Danielle.

One year of freshman and 3 years in a degree and it all leads up to this... the graduation dinner. That's right we got dressed up, went out (kinda) and had a ratio of around 40 bottles of wine for 50 people... it was a good night. Fittingly the dinner was on April Fools (or as the French call it, Poisson d'Avril, I like that name better). Why fitting you say? Well if your convocation is on the devil's birthday (06/06/06 - yes we are doomed) then why not kick it all off with the hoilday of tricksters?! So long Mac, I'll miss ya, but... won't be back.

April 3rd – Ash’s Birthday
April 3rd-4th – Conference, Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution
- poster presentation
April 4th – put down Jacques, my loved guinea pig
April 6th – eco 19 kegger and after party
April 8th – Japanese Steak house for Peter’s and Lena’s Birthdays
April 13th – Craig down from Quebec as ‘family’ for easter weekend.
April 14th – 1st big walk on the mountain for the season!
April 18th – last final EVER!
- down to Ottawa to visit Jenn for a couple of days and get British Passport