(Stormy weather) How To Use A Telescope For Research
No commentsBy Ben Needles
Would you like to do scientific research with your telescope? Do you have a preconception that to do serious research with telescopes needs an astrophysics degree and a telescope costing millions of dollars? Not so, even with a small hobby telescope you too can do great research with your home telescope.
Galileo used a telescope which is much inferior to todays telescopes, even the telescopes your can buy for your home. Galileo saw Saturn with ears, whereas most of the telescopes available today for the home can see Saturn in greater detail. You too can participate in scientific research in the comfort of your own home, and without an astrophysics degree!
* Astronomy Research - The Moon
I love the Moon, especially when looking with a telescope. The Moon is so close to use that the Moon offers us much ability to research. We could research the luminosity of the Moon over the periods of a month, and scale everyday on a chart of maybe 1 to 10 the luminosity.
A bit trickier, would be to measure the Moons distance from us, and is fully possible even with a telescope for the home. You could make drawings of the Moons craters and check up on a map of the Moon to find out what the name of the crater is. You could take a look and find how fast the Moon really moves, by making points in the sky and measuring how long it takes the Moon to travel that arc.
* Astronomy Research - Saturn
Saturn also offers us much research, even for amateur astronomers. You can see the planet over time coming closer and going further. You can see the belt in different positions, you can view different detail, and make drawings. You can look at the moons and find there positions, and figure when they are in eclipse, in relation to you.
* Astronomy Research - Jupiter
Again with Jupiter, we can do similar research as with Saturn. You can look at that giant swirling cloud on Jupiter and use it as an indicator. Then you can find out how long it takes for the planet to revolve. Also you can observe the tilt of the planet which could easily swallow up the Earth many times over. Jupiter has many moons, so Jupiter makes a great point for research as you can see the moons around Jupiter and in different angles at different times.
* Astronomy Research - The Sun
Viewing the Sun with a telescope must NOT be done directly, as the Sun is so powerful in an instant it could render vision useless. The Sun can be viewed indirectly, however, by projecting the Suns image onto a white card or if your telescope is in your house, one way that I have used successfully is to project the Sun to the ceiling. Note it will take time to find the Sun as you can not use any of the lenses to source it into view. It is far too risky and please heed this warning.
When you project the Sun, you can find great detail such as Solar flares on occasion, Sunspots regularly. Over several days and months can see the Sun is an active and living star with constant activity.
* Astronomy Research Without A Telescope
For many years, I did not have telescope, so I was only able to do astronomy research without a telescope. All is not lost and can be great fun. You can monitor Pleiades, the Orion constellation and many other constellations in the sky, depending where you are and what time of the year it is. This serves to prove a great piece of knowledge for when you buy a telescope, as you can navigate the heavens much more easily. The Moon also offers great research without a telescope, as you can see the phases of the Moon, and still measure color, and luminosity.
Amateur astronomy research is fully possible, even with a small telescope. You can make great discoveries, and though they may not make impacts on science, it is fully possible to make a more fun and meaningful hobby. When you add to this a good and disciplined research method of cataloging your findings, you will amass a great amount of personal knowledge on the objects in the heavens. You also may be able to find the next Halleys Comet!
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Now to take action! You will need a telescope, and or astronomy binoculars, and a notebook. Visit http://www.buytelescope.co.uk and http://www.buyingbinocularsuk.info
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Computer Simulation of the Human Population
By Robert Webb
The power of computers is advancing at a rapid pace. Eventually, will we have the power to begin computer simulations of whole human populations? What would this mean economically if we were able to run these types of simulations? Could simulations of economic and political policies first be run on a computer before being enacted in the real world? Would this result in an optimization of economic activity and an ever greater increase in gdp per capita? How does one successfully model human behavior to a degree that is both accurate yet computationally efficient?
The human brain is one of the most complex organs known to man. To successfully model human populations it is vital that the computer models can successfully account for how an individuals brain would respond in specific situations in a sensory environment. Perhaps in the future, computer simulations that model entire human brains will allow even more realistic virtual simulations. However, this would require too much computational power that is not currently available. The Pentagon currently wants to “realistically replicate human behavior and frailties” to improve cyberwarfare tactics. The philosopher Nick Bostrom has argued that we may already be living in a computer simulation being run by an advanced civilization. This seems quite far fetched and I find it unlikely that we are in a simulation being run by other beings. However the increasing in computing power available to us may mean that we will soon be able to run these advanced computer simulations ourselves.
I think it could potentially be enormously beneficial to society to accurately model human populations. I would suggest that reliably simulating this aspect of general intelligence (along with possibly several other psychological variables that are too complex to go into in this post) might result in a reasonably accurate simulation. Now the simulation would currently be constrained by computational capacity. It could however allow a future society to run multiple simulations with various economic policies to find the one which lead to the best outcome for every person. A simulation is only as good as it reliably models human behavior. So they might have to run multiple simulations with different variables until a model that worked reasonably well was chosen.
A computer simulation would have the same problems that economics is plagued with currently. How do you measure economic success? Some people place more value on gdp per capita, while others might place more value on things like universal healthcare. I think it would be difficult for people to agree on what was the best measure of success for a population. There is also the issue of control. A person who successfully creates a computer simulation that can reasonably model human populations might have a considerable advantage economically over other people that did not have the model.
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Cognitive Drug to Enhance Brain Functioning
By Robert Webb
A pharmaceutical company is now currently working on a new drug that may be able to be used as a cognitive enhancer. In theory it could improve a person’s working memory. Working memory is the process by which the brain can temporarily store and also manipulate certain information, such as remembering a phone number. This specific drug is able to enhance the functioning a dopamine type 1 receptor in the brain. Dopamine is an important neurotransmitter in the brain that has a variety of functions. Increasing dopamine can often increase mood and a person’s attention by stimulating one of 5 different dopamine receptors. Stimulation of the D1 receptor is extremely important for the proper functioning of a person’s working memory. Under stimulation of these types of receptors leads to the cognitive dysfunction that is often found in those with attention deficit disorder.
Enhancing D1 receptor activity may allow a person to have an improved attention span. Improper D1 receptor functioning is also correlated with what are called “negative” schizophrenic symptoms. Negative schizophrenic symptoms include lack or decline in speech, apathy, emotional blunting and poor social motivation. A person with negative schizophrenia may have enormous social difficulties. So this new pharmaceutical compound may be able to improve several specific schizophrenic symptoms. Working memory can decline as a person ages due to a reduction in D1 receptor number. So this new pharmaceutical compound may be able to improve cognitive problems that are correlated with old age.
The new drug is actually an inhibitor of a new intracellular target that can increase activity of the D1 receptor in brain cells. Preclinical data has already shown that it may treat a wide variety of disorders such as schizophrenia, ADHD, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. All of these disorders may have improved cognitive functioning after using this drug.
Increasing activation of the D1 receptor may also have a positive impact on a person’s mood. Increasing dopamine is known to enhance a person’s pleasure response via the mesolimbic system of the brain. This new drug should not induce psychoses which can be induced by a dopamine type 2 enhancer sometimes. If this drug gains FDA approval it should be very useful for a variety of brain ailments. It may be used to increase cognition, functioning and improve a person’s mood. It may also be used by regular people to improve normal cognitive functioning on the job or at school.
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Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 5:35 am and is filed under science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
