February 2012
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Eye candy for your mind →
Dramatic Penn State Materials Sciences and Engineering Site
What do you think?
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mcmicali asked: what is it all about
5 Ground-Breaking Competitions →
You have to play to win!
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Famous NASA ringtones →
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Fungus that Eats Plastic →
Yale scientists recently found a fungus in the Amazonian rainforest that naturally eats polyurethane.
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Buddy Holly's big black glasses sold for $80K →
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WatchDennis Haybert (the All State guy) & Why Watch BTN TV Show, Valentine’s Day at 8 PM ET
Hint: The moon is involved. Isn’t it always?!
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light reading
Do you know what happened to the chemist who was reading a book about Helium?
[Wait for it.]
- He just couldn’t put it down.
kp0w asked: where'd you get your theme
imgonnadome asked: Love your blog! Definitely gonna follow!
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Tree rings fail to capture climate after volcanos →
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January 2012
49 posts
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MATT’S MISSION
–Recover the flash drive containing data about cosmic rays and high-energy electrons produced by exploding stars in a range no one’s seen before
HOW?
The best (very expensive) way to gather this information is from a satellite or space station; the next best thing is this ultra-long-duration 40,000,000-square-feet balloon. The balloon will go up a maximum of 120,000 feet above Antarctica....
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WatchWhy Antarctica as release location of cosmic ray research balloon???
Why not Gum Stump, Pennsylvania?
Any guesses, before you play the video?
From Chronicles of Matt Geske, Penn State Physics graduate student researching in Antarctica
Video is narrated by Stéphane Coutu, a Penn State professor of physics and of astronomy and astrophysics. Stéphane is the research supervisor of grad...
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Matte Geske Chronicles: The Plot Thickens
We’ve had an interesting past few days here—unfortunately not the good kind of interesting.
The first day we tried to fly out to do a recovery mission, our flight was cancelled because the pilots were worried that we wouldn’t be able to land near the instrument. They were basing this off of some satellite images from a few years ago, where it looked like the snow around the...
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WatchAnimals and Beauty of Antarctica Stéphane Coutu, Penn State professor
” … amazing, exotic, remarkable place… “
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Monday Flight: Recovering balloon and...
Sunday morning, 4:15 AM, Chronicles of Matt Geske
Hi, …Good news today: …we are scheduled to begin our recovery tomorrow [Monday, January 16] morning. The recovery is the job I was sent down here to do, so this is when all the work starts.
The balloon landed 250 miles from here and about 50 miles from an Italian base. We’re going to fly there in a Basler DC-3 and disassemble the...
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WatchHave what it takes to be an astrophysicist?
Learn how Matt Geske (Penn State grad student - Physics) became involved in researching cosmic rays by flying a GINORMOUS* balloon over Antarctica.
Research supervisor Stéphane Coutu explains.
*GINORMOUS = could fit two 747 jets inside it, nose to tail
from Chronicles of Matt Geske, Cosmic Ray Particle Collector
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