Eideard

Dakar 2012 has a new twist for the competitors in all four classes: Bike, Car, Quad and Truck. Instead of the past routes taking them through Argentina to Chile and back, Peru has been added to make the event a coast-to-coast adventure in South America. In addition to the new route, one of the top teams in recent years has withdrawn. It is not surprising that changes occur to what is one of the most demanding endurance events: The Dakar!

The first Dakar was the brainstorm of Thierry Sabine who discovered that the changing landscape in Africa offered a unique challenge. He was lost during a rally event in Africa and upon his return to France, Sabine proceeded to design a rally raid that would start in Europe on a route to Algiers before crossing the Agadez and would take the challengers to Dakar.

Sabine commented on his idea that it would be “a challenge for those who go. A dream for those who stay behind.” Since the first event in 1978, the Paris to Dakar rally has seen changes and the start moved over the years. No matter its start, the ending was at Dakar until the organizers deemed it unsafe due to terrorists’ attacks in the African Continent and they cancelled the Dakar in 2008…

In 2009, the new route in South America became the “Dakar”. Argentina and Chile were the host countries but for the 2012 edition, Peru has been added to the 2012 route that over a 30 year span has seen 27 countries become a host nation for the legendary rally raid event. The historic event this New Year will cover territory in three countries with roads from soft sand to rocky trails. The route will take the competitors across the Andes mountains, the deserts, the rivers and, of course, a variety of sand dunes…

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Click on Guillaume Blanchard’s photo to enlarge

The recently discovered Comet Lovejoy has been captured in stunning photos and time-lapse video taken from ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The comet graced the southern sky after it had unexpectedly survived a close encounter with the Sun…

ESO optician Guillaume Blanchard made a marvellous wide-angle photo of Comet Lovejoy…Blanchard said: “For me this comet is a Christmas present to the people who will stay at Paranal over Christmas”.

This bright comet was also seen from the International Space Station in another stunning time-lapse sequence on 21 December as the crew filmed lightning on the Earth’s night side.

Comet Lovejoy has been the talk of the astronomy community over the past few weeks. It was discovered on 27 November by the Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy and was classified as a Kreutz sungrazer, with its orbit taking it very close to the Sun. Just last week, the comet entered the Sun’s corona, a much-anticipated event, passing a mere 140 000 kilometres from the Sun’s surface. A close shave indeed…

The comet was expected to break up and vaporise, but instead it survived its steaming hot encounter with the Sun and re-emerged a few days later, much to everyone’s surprise. It is now visible from the southern hemisphere, appearing at dawn, and features a bright tail millions of kilometres long, composed of dust particles that are being blown ahead of the comet by the solar wind.

Some of the earliest recorded space phenomenon are comets. Ignorant primitives regard[ed] them as omens, demons, messengers from some invisible dude in the sky.

I’m pretty well satisfied simply appreciating their beauty, their history, their passage from birth to death.

Joyce Horman holding a photo of her journalist husband Charles Horman

A Chilean judge requested the extradition of a retired U.S. military officer Tuesday, accusing him of involvement in the 1973 killing of an American journalist that inspired an Oscar-winning movie.

An indictment charges former Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis with the homicides of journalist Charles Horman and student Frank Teruggi. Former Chilean military official Pedro Octavio Espinoza was also charged in the killings, which occurred shortly after the South American nation’s military coup.

Horman’s disappearance and his family’s attempts to find him inspired the 1982 movie “Missing,” starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. The film won an Academy Award for best screenplay, and also sparked a libel lawsuit from several U.S. officials for the way the movie portrayed them.

The libel lawsuit was dismissed, but the homicide cases have continued for decades…

The deaths of Horman and Teruggi occurred in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende — a move which pleased U.S. authorities at the time. Allende, a socialist with ties to Cuban leader Fidel Castro and other Cold War opponents of the United States, was replaced by a right-wing military dictatorship headed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Pinochet’s subsequent 16-year rule was marked by the death and disappearance of thousands of alleged enemies of the regime.

At the time, Davis headed an American military group tied to the U.S. Embassy in Santiago…Chilean Judge Jorge Zepeda’s indictment says the former military official now resides in the United States and asks Chile’s Supreme Court to consider an extradition request to bring him to trial in Chile…

Horman’s widow, 66-year-old Joyce Horman, said she was surprised to learn of Tuesday’s indictment.

“I was quite stunned, frankly. It’s taken me a little while to get used to the idea that there’s this big step that’s finally being taken that we’ve been waiting for, for so long,” she said. “I am very glad for this step forward. I’m very grateful for it, and I hope it keeps going.”

Just one more tale of American foreign policy consistent with events from the “adopting” of Nazis at the end of World War 2 and continued as policy through decades of White House administrations that were purportedly different from one another. The world has memories engraved in steel and blood of collusion between US diplomats and Pentagon flunkies whose tasks ranged from training death squads in torture techniques to assassination to the overthrow of democratically-elected governments.

From Iran to Chile, the people of those lands are as unlikely to forget – as American citizens are to have the slightest knowledge of what was done in their name to “preserve” our freedom.

There are many weird viruses on this planet, but none weirder–in a fundamentally important way–than a group known as the giant viruses.

For years, they were hiding in plain sight. They were so big – about a hundred times bigger than typical viruses – that scientists mistook them for bacteria. But a close look revealed that they infected amoebae and built new copies of themselves, as all viruses do. And yet, as I point out in A Planet of Viruses, giant viruses certainly straddle the boundary between viruses and cellular life.

Flu viruses may only have ten genes, but giant viruses may have 1,000 or more. When giant viruses invade a host cell, they don’t burst open like other viruses, so that their genes and proteins can disperse to do their different jobs. Instead, they assemble into a “virus factory” that sucks in building blocks and spits out large pieces of future giant viruses. Giant viruses even get infected with their own viruses. People often ask me if I think viruses are alive. If giant viruses aren’t alive, they sure are close.

Ever since giant viruses were first unveiled seven years ago, scientists have argued about the origins of these not-so-wee beasties. Many of their genes are different from those found in cellular life forms, or even other viruses. It’s possible that giant viruses amassed their enormous genetic armamentarium over billions of years, picking up genes from long-extinct host or swapping them with other viruses we have yet to find. Other scientists have suggested that giant viruses started out giant – or even bigger than they are today. Some have even argued that they represent a new domain of life, although others aren’t so sure.

A new study suggests that giant viruses are indeed ancient. It is the work of a team of French researchers led by Jean-Michel Claverie, who went searching for new giant viruses in the waters near a marine biology station in Chile. They found a new kind so different from other giant viruses that they gave it a name of its own: Megavirus.

Carl Zimmer’s blog post is enjoyable – as ever.

RTFA for the methods Claverie’s research crew used to isolate Megavirus. And look forward to the next installment in this adventure.

Combined view of the Antennae Galaxies, ALMA and Hubble

After years of planning, construction and assembly, a gigantic observatory billed as the world’s most complex array of ground-based telescopes has opened its eyes in South America and captured its first image.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA, is now officially open for business high in the Chilean Andes. The huge $1.3 billion radio telescope, a collaboration of many nations and institutions, should help astronomers explore some of the coldest and most distant objects in the universe, researchers said…

To mark the moment, scientists released an early image snapped by ALMA. It shows the Antennae Galaxies (also known as NGC 4038 and 4039), a pair of colliding spiral galaxies found about 70 million light-years away in the constellation Corvus (The Crow)…

ALMA is a complex of 12-meter radio telescopes sitting at an elevation of 5,000 meters on the Chajnantor plateau in northern Chile. These individual antennas each pick up light in the millimeter/submillimeter range — about 1,000 times longer than visible-light wavelengths.

Observing in these long wavelengths will allow ALMA to detect extremely cold objects, such as the gas clouds from which stars and planets form, researchers said. The observatory should also be able to peer at very distant objects, opening a window in the early universe.

Rock on, ALMA. Basic science, basic research into astrophysics and astronomy will serve mankind well – as it always does.

I’m exceedingly jealous of the geeks who get to work there – whatever the job description.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Apple’s Find My iPhone feature led searchers to find a Chilean Air Force airplane that crashed and is believed to have killed 21 people.

Search and rescue teams were unable to find the airplane, which prompted one of the victims’ relatives to try locating them with the Find My iPhone functionality, which uses an iPhone’s GPS receiver to track the device’s location. According to infobae.com (via Gizmodo), the relative shared the location data with military officials in charge of the search operation.

“One of the passengers carried (an iPhone). When it fell into the sea, it was located and one of the relatives sent us that information,” the military official reportedly said.

Unfortunately the remains of the CASA 212 vehicle were found with no survivors. Parts from the destroyed plane were found floating in the sea near Tierra Banca and Playa Larga.

The plane was said to have been severely damaged by the crash, with no pieces larger than 20 inches recovered from the crash site thus far.

iPhones and iPads are built to be tough – but, not that tough. Outstanding software and hardware. Too bad the point was proven in such a sad context.

Chilean rescuers have saved two tourists who got into trouble on an Andean mountain and raised the alarm by calling an emergency number in the US.

The two – an Italian and a Czech – used a satellite device to send their location to a rescue centre in Texas.

Local teams then had to contend with heavy snow, rain and high winds to reach the pair, who were sheltering on the slopes of the Quetrupillan volcano.

After the rescue, the tourists said they were lucky to be alive. “It was very serious. At times we thought that we were going to die,” said Czech Phillip Kunk. Italian Analissa Lombardo said it was the most frightening experience of her life.

The two were taken a local hospital to be treated for symptoms of hypothermia…

They entered the national park on Monday, planning to walk along a trail that usually takes five days. But they got into trouble by the early hours of Friday, and raised the alarm with Texas rescuers.

The Americans then alerted the Chilean authorities, and a rescue team was despatched to the area, near the resort town of Pucon.

This is one of those terrific solutions that finally becomes affordable. The usual satellite phone costs way too much for most adventure trekkers; but, a few firms now maintain a communications service for small, portable – affordable – phones that are only good for [a] sending an emergency alert and [b] identifying where you are.

No long conversations with the family dog; but – as in this case – the folks providing the service contact the authorities where you are cramped and send help.

Nasser Al-Attiyah (R), co-driver Timo Gottschalk (L) and VW team manager Chris Niessen
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Qatari driver Nasser Al-Attiyah described winning his first Dakar Rally title as “the biggest moment in my career” following Saturday’s final stage of the testing endurance race.

Carlos Sainz won the 13th leg into Buenos Aires from Cordoba to extend his career record of stage wins to 24, but the defending car champion finished third overall behind South African Giniel De Villiers as their Volkswagen team filled the podium.

The 40-year-old Al-Attiyah was delighted following his second-place finish last year, and a disqualification in 2009.
“It means a lot to win a Dakar, for me, for my people, for my country and for my team,” he told the race’s official website after finishing second in the final stage to head off De Villiers by almost 50 minutes.

“It is a great victory. It’s hard to explain everything that goes through your head. But it is a very nice feeling. We demonstrated that we have the strongest team in the world. It is the third time the team has won a Dakar.

I’m the primo maniac in a family of Dakar nuts. It’s the singular form of motorsports that brings together the greatest portion of our extended family.

I’ve been a Carlos Sainze fan for many years; but, I’ve followed Al-Attiyah’s progression through the ranks – mostly driving as a BMW privateer. It’s truly satisfying to watch and witness his first win in the Dakar.

Carlos Sainz and co-driver Lucas Cruz [L] wave from their Touareg diesel Volkswagen
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Thousands of spectators turned out to cheer on competitors in the 2011 Dakar Rally as the historic race got underway in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Saturday.

The 15-day race will see 407 vehicles (of 430 original entries) embark on a grueling 13 stages and attempt to cover a distance of 9,500 kilometers before crossing the finish line back in the Argentine capital on January 15.

A total of 140 cars, 170 motorbikes, 67 lorries and 30 quadbikes started stage one of the race from the Buenos Aires’ Avenue of July 9. All competitors are heading northwest to Victoria, in the Argentine province of Entre Rios, 377 kilometer away.

The race will begin in earnest on Sunday with the second stage to Cordoba…

American fans can follow the race via daily reports on the Versus TV channel. It’s carried 2 or 3 times a day. Kickoff is 10PM, Sunday night.

The rally which began in 1978 was traditionally held in Europe and Africa. But after concerns about terrorism forced the cancellation of the 2008, the rally was relocated to Argentina and Chile the following year.

Last year’s winner in the car race, Spain’s Carlos Sainz — driving for Volkswagen Motorsport — is back to defend his title, but he’ll face a stiff challenge from the likes of Nasser al-Attiyah from Qatar and Mark Miller from the United States.

Rock on, Carlos!

Those tiny figures are human-size for comparison to the telescope

A new telescope will use the world’s largest digital camera to capture 20 terabytes of image data every day.

Much has been made of the ‘unprecedented’ scale of the IT infrastructure required to store all the data coming from the world’s largest physics experiment – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland. But another gigantic science experiment, one you’ve probably never heard of, will some day pump out data on a similar scale. And, unlike the LHC, the data it produces will be comprehensible by non-scientists, and made freely available.

Once it’s complete, The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope on top of Cerro Pachón ridge in Chile will sport the world’s largest digital camera. It will peer deep into space yet have a field of view unprecedented in modern telescopes — ten square degrees of the heavens encompassed by a collecting area of forty square meters. The telescope will take 800 panoramic pictures a night, covering the entire night sky twice each week.

The result will be an unfathomably huge photo collection: 20 terabytes of data stored every 24 hours. Running all-out (and telescopes this expensive are usually booked year round) that’s 7.3 petabytes of data a year — half as much data as the 15 petabytes the LHC is producing each year. (To put that in perspective, over its lifetime LHC will produce as much data as all the words spoken by humankind since its appearance on earth.)

In order to handle that much data, once a day all the raw images from the telescope will be transferred to the Archive Center at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where 100 teraflops of processing power will digest and archive it on what will initially be 15 petabytes of storage (to be expanded as the experiment continues).

The results will be freely available to the public via existing open standards, and could help with everything from tracking killer asteroids to unraveling the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter. According to the LSST’s homepage, “Anyone with a computer will be able to fly through the Universe, zooming past objects a hundred million times fainter than can be observed with the unaided eye.”

There will be an app for that. No doubt.