#University of Alabama Huntsville

[odinsblog]

Transcript: This Black man's land was stolen and turned into the Business Administration building at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. And the well he had in his backyard that provided everyone in the area with fresh water is now a parking lot.

The family of Willie Jones wants justice, and they want their land back. But the university wants to offer an apology and a plaque. But that ain't enough.

Let's talk about it.

And the 1950s, the land that Willie Jones had contained a house and a well. He was graciously known in his community for providing fresh water for his neighbors. Around that time, the city of Huntsville traced a clean water source to Willie's home, and they wanted it. So in 1958, the city of Huntsville offered Willie $900 for the portion of land that included the whale. That's only about $9,000 today.

So, of course, Willie was like, “Nah, you can't have my land.”

So in typical white supremacist fashion, they condemned the land and considered it uninhabitable and unsafe.

Since he wasn't able to live in the house at that moment and still needed to provide for his family, Willie began sharecropping at various homes in the area. One particular place was described as a house in the woods. And while they lived in these homes, they never received any mail from the city.

At the same time, the city was actively attempting to confiscate the land that Willie still owned. Now, that land is this, and this right here, too.

Willie Jones' descendants need justice. So share this, sign the petition, and stay tuned for part two.

👉🏿 https://www.change.org/p/help-the-jones-family-of-huntsville-alabama-get-back-their-land

#alabama #willie jones #university of alabama #reparations #black history #willie jones’ well #university of alabama huntsville

[reportwire]

UAH alumnus Michael Wicks inducted into Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame

BYLINE: Kristina Hendrix Newswise — Michael Wicks (MSE, Mechanical Engineering, ’94), is one of six honorees inducted in this year’s Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame on Feb. 25 at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel and Spa. Wicks’ career has been devoted to providing innovative engineering and technical services to the nation’s defense, both as a United States Army civilian and as a private…

View On WordPress

#Engineering #engineering hall of fame;Mechanical Engineering;hypersonics;cancer immunotherapies;Cancer;Cancer Research;Missile;cummings research park;ala #Newswise #University of Alabama Huntsville

[smallcollegebasketball]

What an incredible, historic game! Alabama-Huntsville outlasted Lee, 115-109, in the longest-game in Gulf South Tournament history, a 5-Overtime Thriller!

#NCAA DII #Gulf South Conference #Alabama-Huntsville #Lee University

[mimi-0007]

Eva Beatrice Dykes (13 August 1893 – 29 October 1986) was a prominent educator and the third black American woman to be awarded a PhD.

Dykes was born in Washington, D.C., on August 13, 1893, the daughter of Martha Ann (née Howard) and James Stanley Dykes. She attended M Street High School (later renamed Dunbar High School). She graduated summa cum laude from Howard University with a B.A. in 1914. While attending Howard University, where several family members had studied, Eva was initiated into the Alpha chapter of Delta Sigma Theta. At the end of her last semester she was awarded Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated's first official scholarship. After a short stint of teaching at Walden University in Nashville, Tennessee, Dykes attended Radcliffe College graduating magna cum laude with a second B.A. in 1917 and a M.A in 1918. While at Radcliffe she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1920 Dykes began teaching at Dunbar High School, and in 1921 she received a PhD from Radcliffe (now a part of Harvard University). Her dissertation was titled “Pope and His influence in America from 1715 to 1815”, and explored the attitudes of Alexander Pope towards slavery and his influence on American writers. Dykes was the first black American woman to complete the requirements for a doctoral degree, however, because Radcliffe College held its graduation ceremonies later in the spring, she was the third to graduate, behind Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (1921, University of Pennsylvania) and Georgiana R. Simpson (1921, University of Chicago).

After her graduation from Radcliffe in 1921, Dykes continued to teach at Dunbar High School until 1929 when she returned to Howard University as a member of the English Faculty. An excellent teacher, Dykes won a number of teaching awards during her 15 years of service at Howard University. Her publications include Readings from Negro Authors for Schools and Colleges co-authored with Lorenzo Dow Turner and Otelia Cromwell (1931) and The Negro in English Romantic Thought: Or a Study in Sympathy for the Oppressed (1942). In 1934 Dykes began writing a column in the Seventh-day Adventist periodical Message Magazine, this continued until 1984.

In 1920 Dykes joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and in 1944 she joined the faculty of the then small and unaccredited Seventh-day Adventist Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, as the Chair of the English Department. She was the first staff member at Oakwood to hold a doctoral qualification and was instrumental in assisting the college to gain accreditation. Dykes retired in 1968 but returned to Oakwood to teach in 1970 and continued until 1975. In 1973 the Oakwood College library was named in her honor and in 1980 she was made a Professor Emerita. In 1975 the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church presented Dykes with a Citation of Excellence honouring her for an outstanding contribution to Seventh-day Adventist education. Dykes died in Huntsville on October 29, 1986, at the age of 93.

#black history #black literature #black tumblr #black excellence #black community #civil rights #black history is american history #black girl magic #blackexcellence365

[politicalprof]

And so my 34th year as a full time university teacher — 30 of them at ISU — has come to an end.

Oh the things I could tell that young whippersnapper who first walked into a classroom at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in Fall 1990.

But knowing myself at that time, I probably wouldn’t have listened.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Theories surrounding historic supernova remnant

A team of international scientists, including Drs Stephen NG and Yi-Jung YANG from the Department of Physics at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), collaborated with NASA on research led by Nanjing University, utilising NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) telescope to capture the first polarised X-ray imagery of the supernova remnant SN 1006. The new results expand scientists’ understanding of the relationship between magnetic fields and the flow of high-energy particles from exploding stars. The discovery has been published in esteemed Scientific Journal The Astrophysical Journal. 

‘Magnetic fields are extremely difficult to measure, but IXPE provides an efficient way for us to probe them,’ said Dr Ping ZHOU, an astrophysicist at Nanjing University in Jiangsu, China, and lead author of the new paper on the findings. ‘Now we can see that SN 1006’s magnetic fields are turbulent but also present an organised direction.’ 

Situated some 6,500 light-years from Earth in the Lupus constellation, SN 1006 is all that remains after a titanic explosion, which occurred either when two white dwarfs merged or when a white dwarf pulled too much mass from a companion star. Initially spotted in the spring of 1006 CE by observers across China, Japan, Europe, and the Arab world, its light was visible to the naked eye for at least three years. Modern astronomers still consider it the brightest stellar event in recorded history.

Since modern observation began, researchers have identified the remnant’s strange double structure, markedly different from other rounded supernova remnants. It also has bright “limbs” or edges identifiable in the X-ray and gamma-ray bands. 

‘IXPE is a unique instrument. It can detect polarised X-rays, directly probing magnetic field structures in regions very close to the shock front, where high-energy particles are freshly accelerated. Such information is not available from any other telescopes,’ said Dr Stephen NG, a high-energy astrophysicist at the Department of Physics at HKU.

‘Close-proximity, X-ray-bright supernova remnants such as SN 1006 are ideally suited to IXPE measurements, given IXPE’s combination of X-ray polarisation sensitivity with the capability to resolve the emission regions spatially,’ said Dr Douglas SWARTZ, a researcher based at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, through the Universities Space Research Association. ‘This integrated capability is essential to localising cosmic-ray acceleration sites.’

Previous X-ray observations of SN 1006 offered the first evidence that supernova remnants can radically accelerate electrons and helped identify rapidly expanding nebulae around exploded stars as a birthplace for highly energetic cosmic rays, which can travel at nearly the speed of light. Scientists surmised that SN 1006’s unique structure is tied to the orientation of its magnetic field and theorised that supernova blast waves in the northeast and southwest move in the direction aligned with the magnetic field and more efficiently accelerate high-energy particles.

‘IXPE’s new findings helped validate and clarify those theories,’ said Dr Yi-Jung YANG, co-author of the paper and a high-energy astrophysicist at the Department of Physics of HKU, as well as a member of HKU Laboratory for Space Research. ‘The polarisation properties obtained from our spectral-polarimetric analysis align remarkably well with outcomes from other methods and X-ray observatories, underscoring IXPE’s reliability and strong capabilities,’ Yang said. ‘For the first time, we can map the magnetic field structures of supernova remnants at higher energies with enhanced detail and accuracy – enabling us to better understand the processes driving the acceleration of these particles.’

Researchers say the results demonstrate a connection between the magnetic fields and the remnant’s high-energy particle outflow. The magnetic fields in SN 1006’s shell are somewhat disorganised, per IXPE’s findings, yet still have a preferred orientation. As the shock wave from the original explosion goes through the surrounding gas, the magnetic fields become aligned with the shock wave’s motion. Charged particles are trapped by the magnetic fields around the original point of the supernova blast, where they quickly receive bursts of acceleration. Those speeding high-energy particles, in turn, transfer energy to keep the magnetic fields strong and turbulent. 

IXPE has observed three supernova remnants – Cassiopeia A, Tycho and now SN 1006 – since launching in December 2021, helping scientists develop a more comprehensive understanding of the origin and processes of the magnetic fields surrounding these phenomena. 

Scientists were surprised to find that SN 1006 is more polarised than the other two supernova remnants but that all three show magnetic fields oriented such that they are pointing outward from the centre of the explosion. As researchers continue to explore IXPE data, they are re-orienting their understanding of how particles get accelerated in extreme objects like these.

IXPE is a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency with partners and science collaborators in 12 countries. IXPE is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Ball Aerospace, headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, manages spacecraft operations together with the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder.

IMAGE....The figure shows a composite image of supernova remnant SN 1006. The upper left circle shows the IXPE observed area. The IXPE 2—4 keV emission is shown with the purple colour, with magnetic field orientation denoted with white lines. The red and white represent the soft and hard X-ray emission, respectively, taken with the Chandra X-ray observatory. The golden colour denotes the Spitzer infrared emission.  CREDIT X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO, IXPE: NASA/MSFC/P. Zhou et al.; Infrared: Spitzer.

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #astrophysics

[mariacallous]

A team of physicists has discovered that it’s possible to build a real, actual, physical warp drive and not break any known rules of physics. One caveat: The vessel doing the warping can’t exceed the speed of light, so you’re not going to get anywhere interesting anytime soon. But this research still represents an important advance in our understanding of gravity.

Moving Without Motion

Einstein’s general theory of relativity is a tool kit for solving problems involving gravity that connects mass and energy with deformations in spacetime. In turn, those spacetime deformations instruct the mass and energy how to move. In almost all cases, physicists use the equations of relativity to figure out how a particular combination of objects will move. They have some physical scenario, like a planet orbiting a star or two black holes colliding, and they ask how those objects deform spacetime and what the subsequent evolution of the system should be.

But it’s also possible to run Einstein’s math in reverse by imagining some desired motion and asking what kind of spacetime deformation can make it possible. This is how the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre discovered the physical basis for a warp drive—long a staple of the Star Trek franchise.

The goal of a warp drive is to get from A to B in the time between commercial breaks, which typically involves faster-than-light motion. But special relativity expressly forbids speeds faster than light. While this never bothered the writers of Star Trek, it did irritate Alcubierre. He discovered that it was possible to build a warp drive through a clever manipulation of spacetime, arranging it so that space in front of a vessel gets scrunched up and the space behind the vessel stretched out. This generates motion without, strictly speaking, movement.

It sounds like a contradiction, but that’s just one of the many wonderful aspects of general relativity. Alcubierre’s warp drive avoids violations of the speed-of-light limit because it never moves through space; instead space itself is manipulated to, in essence, bring the spacecraft’s destination closer to it.

While tantalizing, Alcubierre’s design has a fatal flaw. To provide the necessary distortions of spacetime, the spacecraft must contain some form of exotic matter, typically regarded as matter with negative mass. Negative mass has some conceptual problems that seem to defy our understanding of physics, like the possibility that if you kick a ball that weighs negative 5 kilograms, it will go flying backwards, violating conservation of momentum. Plus, nobody has ever seen any object with negative mass existing in the real universe, ever.

These problems with negative mass have led physicists to propose various versions of “energy conditions” as supplements to general relativity. These aren’t baked into relativity itself, but add-ons needed because general relativity allows things like negative mass that don’t appear to exist in our universe—these energy conditions keep them out of relativity’s equations. They’re scientists’ response to the unsettling fact that vanilla GR allows for things like superluminal motion, but the rest of the universe doesn’t seem to agree.

Warp Factor Zero

The energy conditions aren’t experimentally or observationally proven, but they are statements that concord with all observations of the universe, so most physicists take them rather seriously. And until recently, physicists have viewed those energy conditions as making it absolutely 100 percent clear that you can’t build a warp drive, even if you really wanted to.

But there is a way around it, discovered by an international team of physicists led by Jared Fuchs at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. (The team is also affiliated with the Applied Propulsion Laboratory of Applied Physics, a virtual think tank dedicated to the research of, among many other things, warp drives.) In a paper accepted for publication in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, the researchers dug deep into relativity to explore if any version of a warp drive could work.

The equations of general relativity are notoriously difficult to solve, especially in complex cases such as a warp drive. So the team turned to software algorithms; instead of trying to solve the equations by hand, they explored their solutions numerically and verified that they conformed to the energy conditions.

The team did not actually attempt to construct a propulsion device. Instead, they explored various solutions to general relativity that would allow travel from point to point without a vessel undergoing any acceleration or experiencing any overwhelming gravitational tidal forces within the vessel, much to the comfort of any imagined passengers. They then checked whether these solutions adhered to the energy conditions that prevent the use of exotic matter.

The researchers did indeed discover a warp drive solution: a method of manipulating space so that travelers can move without accelerating. There is no such thing as a free lunch, however, and the physicality of this warp drive does come with a major caveat: The vessel and passengers can never travel faster than light. Also disappointing: the fact that the researchers behind the new work don’t seem to bother with figuring out what configurations of matter would allow the warping to happen.

The Future of Gravity

On one hand, that’s a gigantic letdown. We already have plenty of methods for traveling slower than light (rockets, walking, etc.), so adding one more to the list isn’t all that exciting. Plus, even if we wanted to build this warp drive, the gulf between this hyper-theoretical work and an actual, physical propulsion mechanism is the same as the difference between writing down Newton’s laws and building a Falcon 9.

But that doesn’t mean this new development isn’t interesting. We don’t fully understand gravity, and we know that Einstein’s theory is incomplete. One of the signposts that we have to a future understanding of gravity is the fact that general relativity allows for interesting, exotic solutions—like warp drives—that appear to violate other domains of physical understanding.

Us physicists like it when all of our theories line up and agree on the nature of the Universe. So if the energy conditions set real limits on physics—limits where things like negative mass don’t just not exist, but can’t exist—then we’d like a physical theory that says that from the beginning, instead of relying on add-ons like the energy conditions.

Exploring how a warp drive might (not) work, and under what conditions and restrictions, is a step in that direction. For years physicists thought that the energy conditions outlawed all kinds of warp drives, yet the new research shows a possible way around that. What comes next will be a win no matter what; whether we get a fancy superluminal warp drive or not. That’s because whatever comes out of future lines of inquiry along these directions, we’re going to learn more about the force of gravity, and just possibly revolutionize our understanding of it.

And who knows what we’ll get once we understand gravity better.

[love-and-hisses]

Daisy's in her new favorite nappin' spot. Daisy is still available for adoption - see her description below and email Forgotten Felines of Huntsville at [email protected] to inquire. She will be headed to Petsmart in a few days, so if you are local here in the Huntsville, Alabama area, you can see her at Petsmart on University Drive. (Though she will be housed at Petsmart, she is still a Forgotten Felines of Huntsville cat and will be well cared-for by wonderful FF volunteers, and the adoption will still be handled by FF.) Daisy (DOB 1/31/2020) is a black and white polydactyl (extra toes on all 4 paws!) tuxie who was living as part of a colony in Huntsville for at least two years before her feeders brought her to Forgotten Felines of Huntsville. She was scheduled for her spay surgery, but it was determined that she was pregnant, so she went into foster. She had four kittens on March 18th, and has since been a wonderful mother to them. She's ready to find her own home now, where she can be the baby.⁠ (She's fine with other cats, and would likely be fine with nice dogs as well.) Daisy is a super sweet, friendly girl who will always greet you at the door. She loves to be petted, and really loves to snooze while pressed up against you. (She has not proven to be a lap cat yet, but once her mothering duties are over, she very well might turn out to be one.) Now that her kittens are older, she has finally started to show her playful side. She is VERY fond of catnip toys, likes to bunny-kick stuffed toys, and really likes lightweight toys (like ping pong balls and toy mice) that she can bat around. When she's not playing, she likes to curl up in a patch of sunlight near a window, and watch the birds flit around. She has been spayed, microchipped, and is up to date on her vaccinations.⁠ We are located in Huntsville, Alabama. Out of area adoptions are allowed, but adopters MUST come here to complete the adoption. ⁠ Email Forgotten Felines of Huntsville at [email protected] to inquire.

[kp777]

By Olivia Rosane

Common Dreams

Oct. 3, 2023

In another sign of the climate crisis, September of 2023—following the hottest summer ever recorded over June, July, and August—also seems to be one for the record books.

A data set out of Japan found that September 2023 was 0.5°C warmer than the previous warmest September on record and around 1.8°C warmer than temperatures in the preindustrial era, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather wrote on Tuesday on the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

"This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist—absolutely gobsmackingly bananas," he said.

Hausfather was looking at the the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55), which draws on a wide range of weather observations dating back to 1958. The more than half-a-degree jump from the previous September record is the steepest increase between monthly records to date, The Washington Post reported.

"We've never seen a record smashed by anything close to this margin," Hausfather told the Post.

"This September would not have been out of place as a typical July this decade in terms of global temperatures," he added on X, formerly Twitter.

Another data set, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' ERA5, also shows September shattering the previous record by around the same margin, according to Hausfather.

"I'm still struggling to comprehend how a single year can jump so much compared to previous years," Finnish Meteorological Institute researcher Mika Rantanen tweeted of the ERA5 data. "Just by adding the latest data point, the linear warming trend since 1979 increased by 10%."

The JRA-55 and ERA5 data sets are more immediately available than the monthly analyses from NOAA and NASA, which take longer to complete, The Washington Post explained. The satellite-based data from the University of Alabama in Huntsville is also showing a record September.

2023 has been a record-breaking year in part because an El Niño weather pattern emerged in June, but the primary driver is atmospheric warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of natural carbon sinks. This year has been much hotter than the previous El Niño years in 2015 and 2016.

On a local and regional level, many countries experienced their hottest Septembers on record, among them Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, and Switzerland, according to The Guardian. France's September beat the previous record by more than 1°C, and Belgium's September was even hotter than its July and August for the first time since 1961.

"Belgium has never experienced a month of September this warm," David Dehenauw of the Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute told The Guardian.

On the other side of the world, Japan also had its hottest September at 2.66℃ higher than normal.

"We can't believe just how high temperatures got," a representative from the Japan Meteorological Agency toldJapan Today. "It became a record-breaking phenomenon after multiple factors overlapped on top of climate change."

September also saw a number of extreme weather events, from deadly flooding in Libya to record-breaking rainfall in New York. Warmer temperatures are linked to heavy rainfall, as warmer air can hold more moisture. Separate studies also said the climate crisis made both events more extreme.

So far, October looks set to continue the historic weather trend. The central U.S. began the month with record heat, according to The Washington Post. And Spain had its warmest start to October on record, Reuters reported.

"The bad news is that we don't see any sign of global temperatures reverting to what is normal for this time of year," Hausfather tweeted. "They remain close to to the highest anomalies we saw in the month of September as we go into October."

See original article with functional X links.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

#Sept 2023 #extreme weather #extreme heat #climate change #climate emergency #science #fossil fuels

[spacenutspod]

Students from Universidad Católica Boliviana prepare to traverse the course at the 2024 Human Exploration Rover Challenge at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.Credits: NASA/Taylor Goodwin NASA announced the winners of the 30th Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) April 22, with Parish Episcopal School, from Dallas, winning first place in the high school division, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville, capturing the college/university title. The annual engineering competition – one of NASA’s longest standing challenges – held its concluding event April 19 and April 20, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The complete list of 2024 award winners is provided below: High School Division  First Place: Parish Episcopal School, Dallas Second Place: Academy of Arts, Careers and Technology, Reno, Nevada Third Place: Escambia High School, Pensacola, Florida College/University Division  First Place: University of Alabama in Huntsville Second Place: Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Third Place: Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina Ingenuity Award  University of West Florida, Pensacola, Florida Phoenix Award  High School Division: East Central High School, Moss Point, Mississippi College/University Division: North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota Task Challenge Award  High School Division: Erie High School, Erie, Colorado College/University Division: South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota Project Review Award  High School Division: Parish Episcopal School, Dallas College/University Division: University of Alabama in Huntsville Featherweight Award  Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island Safety Award  High School Division: NPS International School, Singapore College/University Division: Instituto Especializado de Estudios Superiores Loyola, San Cristobal, Dominican Republic Crash and Burn Award  KIET Group of Institutions, Delhi-NCR, India Jeff Norris and Joe Sexton Memorial Pit Crew Award  High School Division: Erie High School, Erie, Colorado College/University Division: Campbell University, Buies Creek, North Carolina Team Spirit Award  Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Most Improved Performance Award High School Division: Jesco von Puttkamer School, Leipzig, Germany College/University Division: Universidad Católica Boliviana – San Pablo, La Paz, Bolivia Social Media Award  High School Division: Bledsoe County High School, Pikeville, Tennessee College/University Division: Universidad de Piura, Peru STEM Engagement Award  High School Division: Princess Margaret Secondary School, Surrey, British Columbia College/University Division: Trine University, Angola, Indiana Artemis Educator Award Sadif Safarov from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey Rookie of the Year Kanakia International School, Mumbai, India More than 600 students with 72 teams from around the world participated as HERC celebrated its 30th anniversary as a NASA competition. Participating teams represented 42 colleges and universities and 30 high schools from 24 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 13 other nations from around the world. Teams were awarded points based on navigating a half-mile obstacle course, conducting mission-specific task challenges, and completing multiple safety and design reviews with NASA engineers.  “This student design challenge encourages the next generation of scientists and engineers to engage in the design process by providing innovative concepts and unique perspectives,” said Vemitra Alexander, HERC activity lead for NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement at Marshall. “While celebrating the 30th anniversary of the challenge, HERC also continues NASA’s legacy of providing valuable experiences to students who may be responsible for planning future space missions including crewed missions to other worlds.” HERC is one of NASA’s eight Artemis Student Challenges reflecting the goals of the Artemis program, which seeks to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon while establishing a long-term presence for science and exploration. NASA uses such challenges to encourage students to pursue degrees and careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  HERC is managed by NASA’s Southeast Regional Office of STEM Engagement at Marshall. Since its inception in 1994, more than 15,000 students have participated in HERC – with many former students now working at NASA, or within the aerospace industry.     To learn more about HERC, please visit:  https://www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge/home/index.html    -end- Gerelle DodsonNASA Headquarters, [email protected] Taylor Goodwin Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. [email protected] Share Details Last Updated Apr 22, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related TermsSTEM Engagement at NASAArtemisGet InvolvedMarshall Space Flight CenterOpportunities For Students to Get InvolvedPrizes, Challenges & Crowdsourcing

#space #astronomy #news #science

[astro-studying]

ain't no way it's been a month since I last posted. that's embarrassing for me. In honor of posting again, I'm gonna change my updates format to pictures first and then words.

- Monday April 24, 2023 -

So it's finals week and I'm way behind. I've had a bunch of things happening all at once, but I'm ready to grind it all out now.

A few notable things:

I was accepted to participate in this year's summer research experience for undergrads at the University of Alabama in Huntsville!! I will be spending 10 weeks in Huntsville studying heliophysics with university astrophysicists and NASA scientists. Only 10 students got selected nationally, so im BEYOND excited!!!

I passed my 2nd calculus exam (I was convinced I bombed it miserably lol) with a much higher grade than I expected

I declared two minors: one in computer science and the other in philosophy :D

I got to spend the weekend in DC with my partner! We saw Sullivan King at echostage and went sightseeing. We rode the amtrak train to and from DC which makes this my first train experience aside from the metro lol

Feeling really good right now, albeit really sleepy, and I plan on writing here a lot more frequently especially with my REU coming up soon!

For my own mental notes, here's a list of things I need to finish by the end of next week:

Computer Science multiple choice final exam

Calculus last module and final exam

Philosophy; Nietzsche paper, final paper

Observational Astronomy project/presentation

That's all for now, I'm off to study and then go to work now! Much love 🖤

#college #study blog #studyblr #studying #stem students #uni #college student #spotify #study aesthetic #study with me #dc #washington #washington dc #echostage #dubstep #sullivan king #train #amtrak #finals week #finals #computer science #philosophy #astrophysics #astrophysics major #society of physics students #summer REU #Research Experience for Undergraduates #UAH #NASA #Heliophysics

[abwwia]

Eva Beatrice Dykes (13 August 1893 – 29 October 1986) was a prominent educator and the third black American woman to be awarded a PhD. (Source)

Dykes was born in Washington, D.C., on August 13, 1893, the daughter of Martha Ann (née Howard) and James Stanley Dykes. She attended M Street High School (later renamed Dunbar High School). She graduated summa cum laude from Howard University with a B.A. in 1914. While attending Howard University, where several family members had studied, Eva was initiated into the Alpha chapter of Delta Sigma Theta. At the end of her last semester she was awarded Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated's first official scholarship. After a short stint of teaching at Walden University in Nashville, Tennessee, Dykes attended Radcliffe College graduating magna cum laude with a second B.A. in 1917 and a M.A in 1918. While at Radcliffe she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1920 Dykes began teaching at Dunbar High School, and in 1921 she received a PhD from Radcliffe (now a part of Harvard University). Her dissertation was titled “Pope and His influence in America from 1715 to 1815”, and explored the attitudes of Alexander Pope towards slavery and his influence on American writers. Dykes was the first black American woman to complete the requirements for a doctoral degree, however, because Radcliffe College held its graduation ceremonies later in the spring, she was the third to graduate, behind Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (1921, University of Pennsylvania) and Georgiana R. Simpson (1921, University of Chicago).

After her graduation from Radcliffe in 1921, Dykes continued to teach at Dunbar High School until 1929 when she returned to Howard University as a member of the English Faculty. An excellent teacher, Dykes won a number of teaching awards during her 15 years of service at Howard University. Her publications include Readings from Negro Authors for Schools and Colleges co-authored with Lorenzo Dow Turner and Otelia Cromwell (1931) and The Negro in English Romantic Thought: Or a Study in Sympathy for the Oppressed (1942). In 1934 Dykes began writing a column in the Seventh-day Adventist periodical Message Magazine, this continued until 1984.

In 1920 Dykes joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and in 1944 she joined the faculty of the then small and unaccredited Seventh-day Adventist Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, as the Chair of the English Department. She was the first staff member at Oakwood to hold a doctoral qualification and was instrumental in assisting the college to gain accreditation. Dykes retired in 1968 but returned to Oakwood to teach in 1970 and continued until 1975. In 1973 the Oakwood College library was named in her honor and in 1980 she was made a Professor Emerita. In 1975 the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church presented Dykes with a Citation of Excellence honouring her for an outstanding contribution to Seventh-day Adventist education. Dykes died in Huntsville on October 29, 1986, at the age of 93.

#Eva Beatrice Dykes #herstory #black herstory

[bigcatrescue]

ACTION ALERT: We heard the Alabama A & M University will be hosting the Brian Franzen’s Tigers via Loomis Brothers Circus show at the Agribition Center 4925 Moores Mill Rd, Huntsville, AL. I can't believe this is still happening in 2023 and we need you to roar out against it!

Shows are Jan 27th-29th 2023 --

PLEASE, go to the link below to use the easy quick form there to voice your opinion. Speak up for big cats who cannot speak up for themselves. YOU Can BE the DIFFERENCE between stopping the abuse or you can sit back, do nothing, and just ignore it while animals who have no voice continue to suffer.

https://bigcatrescue.salsalabs.org/2023LoomisBrosCircus/index.html

#stop #stoptheabuse #circus #tigers #tiger #tiger #you #makeadifference #makeadifferencetoday #youcan #youcandoit #YouCanDoThis #betheirvoice #Alabama #university #bigcats #BigCatRescue #SpeakUp #speakout #ActionAlert

[news4dzhozhar]

‘Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks’ by Patrick Radden Keefe

Patrick Radden Keefe tells us in the preface to in his new book, Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks, that the 12 long-form essays “reflect some of my abiding preoccupations: crime and corruption, secrets and lies, the permeable membrane separating licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of family, the power of denial.” In this, of course, the stories are similar to the concerns in his previous two books: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland and Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. It’s a muddied world he covers, where just about everyone is tainted, though even the most sinister rogues have some mediating human qualities.

Among the more menacing group of transgressors Keefe writes about is Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whose pre-terrorist college life displayed “a painfully American banality: cinder-block dorm rooms, big-screen TVs, mammoth boxes of Cheez-Its.” Wim Holleeder, the Dutch gangster who allegedly has a hit out for his own sister, comes across as wily and even quirky during his trial — “shifting in his chair, shaking his head, taking his eyeglasses off and twirling them like a propeller” — though Keefe makes no bones about the man’s overall brutality; and drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera, “El Chapo” — at one point one of the most feared criminals in the world — “distinguished himself as a trafficker who brought an unusual sense of imagination and play to the trade.”

Then there’s Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist denied tenure at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, who, during the last department meeting of the semester, blocked the conference room door and shot six of her colleagues, killing three. Bishop grew up in a Boston suburb where she had shot and killed her brother, and Keefe thoroughly investigates this act, and its ultimate lack of consequence (the killing was ruled accidental), as a possible precursor to the later crime. Discussing whether or not the murder was intentional, Keefe writes, “When violence suddenly ruptures the course of our lives, we tend to tell ourselves stories in order to make it explicable. Confronted with scrambled pieces of evidence, we arrange them into a narrative.” Keefe concludes that “neither story” about the killing “was especially convincing,” and this willingness to live with ambiguity and irresolution is a hallmark of his journalism.

While the profiles of people who might rightly be considered villains is riveting, I found myself drawn more to the stories about genteel rogues. There is German wine forger Hardy Rodenstock, whose hustle was to convince wealthy people that the bottles he was selling were originally from the cellar of Thomas Jefferson. When uber-conservative and wine connoisseur Bill Koch, brother of Charles and David, goes mercilessly after Rodenstock, it’s hard not to side with the “bad guy” of the story. Similarly, HSBC computer technician Hervé Falciani may have broken the law when he disclosed which wealthy bank customers were laundering money and evading taxes, but our sympathies are generally with the whistleblower, whatever his motives might have been.

The book ends with a chapter on Anthony Bourdain, who is perhaps less of a rogue than the other scoundrels in the book. Though he periodically raises a cynical eyebrow over Bourdain’s antics, Keefe is clearly drawn to the celebrity chef’s star power, this man with the magnetism of “an aging rocker,” who “transformed himself into a well-heeled nomad who wanders the planet meeting fascinating people and eating delicious food,” fully enjoying his “fantasy profession.” The story was published in The New Yorker (where all these pieces first appeared) before Bourdain’s suicide, and it ends on an upbeat note, which is undercut by the tragedy that will follow. It’s an irony one can imagine that Keefe, whose profiles display a boundless interest in other people, feels deeply.

#patrick raden keefe #jahar tsarnaev #dzhokhar tsarnaev #tamerlan tsarnaev #book review #true crime

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Evolved adapter for future NASA space launch system flights readied for testing

A test version of the universal stage adapter for NASA's more powerful version of its SLS (Space Launch System) rocket arrived at Building 4619 at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on Feb. 22 from Leidos in Decatur, Alabama. The universal stage adapter will connect the rocket's upgraded in-space propulsion stage, called the exploration upper stage, to NASA's Orion spacecraft as part of the evolved Block 1B configuration of the SLS rocket.

It will also serve as a compartment capable of accommodating large payloads, such as modules or other exploration spacecraft. The SLS Block 1B variant will debut on Artemis IV and will increase SLS's payload capability to send more than 84,000 pounds to the moon in a single launch.

In Building 4619's Load Test Annex High Bay at Marshall, the development test article will first undergo modal testing that will shake the hardware to validate dynamic models. Later, during ultimate load testing, force will be applied vertically and to the sides of the hardware. Unlike the flight hardware, the development test article has flaws intentionally included in its design, which will help engineers verify that the adapter can withstand the extreme forces it will face during launch and flight.

The test article joins an already-rich history of rocket hardware that has undergone high-and-low pressure, acoustic, and extreme temperature testing in the multipurpose, high-bay test facility; it will be tested in the same location that once bent, compressed, and torqued the core stage intertank test article for SLS rocket's Block 1 configuration. Leidos, the prime contractor for the universal stage adapter, manufactured the full-scale prototype at its Aerospace Structures Complex in Decatur.

NASA is working to land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA's backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft and Gateway in orbit around the moon and commercial human landing systems, next-generational spacesuits, and rovers on the lunar surface. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the moon in a single launch.

#science #space #astronomy #physics #news #nasa #astrophysics

[shedontknowbutsheknows]

The animals also aren’t particularly sociable—they only mate about once every 12 years—and have no predators. The crustaceans and snails that olms snack on are both scarce and evenly distributed in their caves. It appears that if olms won’t benefit from moving, they just don’t, as Matthew Niemiller, a cave biologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who wasn’t involved in the study, tells Science News.

“If you’re a salamander trying to survive in this…food-poor environment and you find a nice area to establish a home or territory, why would you leave?” Niemiller says.

#Salamanders #articles