Eid al-Adha

Do you remember a time when we Americans imagined the only religious holidays were Christian ones?

another fine photo from our friend Sam at photos8.com

Gratefully, the world is a much more interesting and diverse place than we Baby Boomers thought we grew up in.  In the Muslim tradition the patriarch Abraham was instructed by God to sacrifice his son Ishmael (instead of Isaac, as in the Jewish and Christian traditions).  At the last moment this test of ultimate obedience was called off and a ram was offered as a sacrifice instead.  Eid al-Adha is a family holiday that celebrates the event.  As with other Muslim holidays, Eid al-Adha is determined by the lunar calendar. In 2010 Eid al-Adha is on Tuesday, the 16th of November.  Happy Eid to all our Muslim brothers and sisters around this world we share.

The Other Brain

Neurons comprise 15% of the human brain; the rest are glial cells...

The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science by R. Douglas Fields, Ph.D. is an in depth look at the roles, positive and negative, played by glial cells in the central nervous system.  This accessible book lays out the many ways the various glia affect early childhood development, recovery from brain and spinal cord injury, psychiatric illness, neurodegenerative disorders, addiction, and stroke.  Fields was featured on episode 69 of the Brain Science podcast if you'd care for a sample of his research on this fascinating topic.

The Orbital Dance of Epimetheus and Janus

This is just too cool...

Two small moons of Saturn - Epimetheus and Janus - actually swap orbits every four years!  How incredible is that?  More details here at APOD.  Of course, the entire Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn is utterly awesome, and the source of many wondrous and very expensive computer wallpapers.

A New Sort Of Scope Failure

Broken scopes don't always tell you when they quit.  This malfunction was more obvious...

The other afternoon I was at the range refining the 200 yard zero of Erik's Kimber and my Remington. That mission accomplished, I wandered over to the range officer's bench to wait for a cease fire. He was spotting for his sons who were attempting to zero their Savage 110 30'06 rifles at the 100 yard line. Since being put away last season the elder son's rifle developed a need for a foot of left windage correction. When he tried to removed the turret cover to get at the adjustment knob the entire turret came off in his hand, leaving a sad little hole in the side of his scope. The scope was a $60.00 Tasco 3-9x, aged about ten years. As I left he said he'd be visiting the local Gander Mountain that evening to buy a Redfield (the one with the Leupold lifetime warranty).  When a Redfield 2-7x costs but $130 there is no reason to put up with a cheaper or less reliable scope.  Remember, buying a good scope once is better than buying cheap scopes a couple times. 

Another Podcast Leads To Another Author Leads To Another Book...

When will it end?

The podcast, RSA Events.

The author, Richard Watson.

The book, Future Minds.

The reading list continues to swell...