King Tut Drank Red Wine, You Should, Too!

Wow, what a discovery. You know, it would make perfect sense for the wine he drank to be red, especially if the grapes that were used to make the wine were red. To me, red wine seems much more natural than white. I mean, how often do you see clear, white grapes? I suppose it must come from the green grapes, but still. (Can you imagine drinking green wine? Yuck!) As you can tell I am in no way a wine connoisseur and can hardly stand the stuff. By the way, King Tut died unnaturally young, which means that drinking red wine may not be that great of an idea after all.

Update 10/15/09:  I feel as though I should amend this post since most of what it claims is no longer true for me.  I have actually developed quite a penchant for wine and enjoy both the red and white varieties.  It was just an acquired taste, I suppose.  I'm glad I can feel a connection with King Tut now in our common enjoyment of wine.  Who knew that I would have so much in common with an Ancient Egyptian Pharoh?

A Lady With a Right

Rosa Parks died yesterday at the age of 92. To tell the truth I did not even know that she was still alive, but she is a very important figure in the history of America and deserves to be remembered. What was her big accomplishment? Saying a simple "no." It was December 1, 1955, almost 50 years ago, and Ms. Parks had been working all day at her job as a seamstress and had heavy bags of groceries to take home. Being black she couldn't sit near the front of the bus, so she took a seat towards the back. As the bus continued on its route it picked up more passengers including the rush hour crowd and the Christmas shoppers. The bus quickly filled and it wasn't long until she, along with the other black passengers, were told to give up there seats to some white gentlemen who had just boarded the bus. It may have been because she was so tired from her long day or because she saw the injustice in it all, but Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. She realized her right as a human being to be an equal who should be treated with just as much respect as those men, perhaps even more since she was a woman. Whenever I hear of Rosa Parks and her story I think of the times that I rode in the buses down in Disney World and my dad and uncles would give up their seats to the women who would otherwise have to stand up for the ride. It always makes me proud when I think of it. Rosa Parks was an inspiration for the civil rights movement as she stood up for herself and her rights amid the persecution and inequality with which she was treated. Even though there is still bigotry and racism in our country today, we have come a long way in the past 50 years in recognizing the equality and dignity of all human beings. We owe a lot to a little lady with a right.

Attack of the Robo-woman

Oh, yeah! That is so me! Just kidding. I am generally a mild-mannered person and I am not really inclined to yell. I just thought that this was rather funny.

Hey, It Makes Sense!

Dr. Stat has an awesome post on Education vs. Instant Gratification. I would recommend checking it out. I have never heard the theory that he puts forth before, but it definitely makes sense and is worth a read.

Roman Explosion

I love ancient history, in particular that of the Roman Empire, and that is why I am so excited to see that there is going to be a Pompeii exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. This is definitely an exhibit I do not want to miss. The explosion of Mount Vesuvius may have been horrific for the residents in 79 AD of the city of Pompeii and its neighbor Herculaneum, but the objects that have been preserved in the volcanic have given historians a great glimpse into Romans and their way of life. One thing in particular that is an unprecedented find were the people who were the actual victims of the explosion. In Pompeii, they were covered in ash that hardened while the bodies decomposed, leaving cavities that have since been filled with plaster. The resulting statues show the agonies of the last minutes of the citizens' lives. Herculaneum, however, was not buried in the rain of ash and bodies of its people were covered instead in the mountain's pyroclastic flow with only their skeletons left behind, but there is still much to be learned from their bones and how the Romans lived. The volcano also preserved other parts of the daily life such as ointment bottles, jewelry, and food still on someone's dinner table, although I wouldn't recommend trying to eat it since it is thousands of years old and hard as a rock. I am definitely looking forward to this exhibit.

Speechless

Our two closest neighbors in our solar system are going to be quite visible during the next couple months and should be pretty easy to see, even using just the naked eye (like the ancients used to!).

The planets in our solar system are pretty easy to see at times, yet often go unnoticed. To find a planet in the sky, the first thing you need to know is what a planet looks like. The book A Field Guide to Stars and Planets by Donald Menzell and Jay Pasachoff says that there are three things to take into consideration when trying to find planets: brightness, twinkling, and location. One of the first things that you will notice when you start looking at the sky is that the stars and other objects are different brightnesses. You can take advantage of this fact to figure out what you’re looking at. The brightest things in the sky, other than the moon, are usually the planets. Unlike stars, planets don’t usually appear to twinkle but instead seem to shine steadily. Twinkling is caused by the light being bent as it comes through the atmosphere. A star appears to be just a single point of light since it is so far away so it blinks. However, a planet is closer and bigger and thus its light rays all average out with their blinking, and so it appears to be shining steadily. So all that this means is that if something twinkles it’s most likely not a planet. There’s an imaginary line across the sky called an ecliptic which most of the planets, and also the moon and the sun during the day, stay near as they journey across the sky. The zodiac also can be found along this line. From where we are, the ecliptic crosses the southern part of the sky, which means that any bright objects at the zenith—the point directly over your head—or in the northern sky can’t be planets.

So, to find and recognize a planet you just have to look for a dot of light in the sky that’s really bright, doesn’t seem to twinkle, and isn’t towards the north. If it meets all of those criteria, it’s probably a planet.

One of the easier planets to see is our neighbor Venus. Being the brightest planet because of the sun reflecting off its cloud covering, Venus ususally just appears too bright to be a star. It can never be very far away from the sun in the sky, so whenever an extremely bright dot of light appears in the sky towards the west after sunset, or towards the east before sunrise it’s probably Venus. It’s often the first bright object visible at night, before any of the stars appear in the sky. GoAstronomy.com says that Venus will be at its brightest on December 9, so that would be a particularly good time to take a look at it.

The most impressive planet this month and into early November is going to be our other close neighbor, the planet Mars. According to Martin Ratcliffe and Alister Ling in their article “The Planets” in the October 2005 issue of Astronomy Magazine, Mars is going to be closer in the next couple weeks than any time since the summer of 2003. Even though it was closer in 2003, it will be higher in the sky this time and therefore easier to see. This is going to be its best appearance until 2018, so if you don’t want to have to wait another 13 years, now’s the time to see it. Even though it is quite easy to see at night right now, Mars is going to at its brightest between Halloween night and November 7, so the first week of November will be the best time to see it. It will be highest in the sky during the couple hours after midnight, but it rises mid-evening just after 8:30, so you don’t have to stay up late or get up that early to see it. To see it all you have to do is look to the east and it is just about the brightest thing up there. You can also tell that it is Mars because it has a slight, but noticeable red tinge to it.

I hope you get a chance to take a few minutes to see some of the wonders in the night sky. I’ll end with this fact: according to Dr. Tony Phillips at Science@NASA’s website, Earth is racing toward Mars at a speed of 23,500 mph, which means that the red planet is getting bigger and brighter by the minute. That also means that by the time you’re done reading this post Mars will be more than 1,000 miles closer and that much better to see. All it takes is just a couple moments to look towards the east to catch a glimpse of its beauty and leave you speechless.

A Game of Mismatched Sox

Whoohooo! The Chicago White Sox have made it into the playoffs and have begun the post season with a bang. Just a few hours ago, they whopped the Boston Red Sox with a score of 14-2! I guess that means that the Red Sox stink and the White Sox knocked their socks off! (sorry, couldn't resist : ))

Adding a Dimension to the Definition

The possible new tenth planet has been accessorized. It has now been given a name and a moon has now been discovered orbiting around it. Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology has temporarily nicknamed the "planet" "Xena", after the warrior princess of that name, and he dubbed its moon "Gabrielle", after the warrior princess' sidekick. The speed at which the satellite circles Xena will aid astronomers in their calculations of Xena's mass. The discovery of a moon may give more credibility to its possible status as a planet, but having a moon is still no qualifier for being a planet, and so the planetary definition debate continues.