Pollin', Pollin', Pollin', Rawhide!

Don’t try to understand this
Just knock, ring and canvass
Soon we’ll be votin’ high and wide

Obama Takes Lead in Galactic Polls

M83, known sometimes as the “Southern Pinwheel”, is a more complicated case, as its electoral votes are divided following Interstellar Congressional districts. The rural regions continue to hold out for McCain, with disaffected liberals in the more tech-heavy globular clusters opting to vote Nader in protest.

I've Seen Fire, and I've Seen Rainbow

The Fire Rainbow: An Astonishing and Rare Marvel of Nature

To name it properly, a fire rainbow is a circumhorizontal arc. It is also known as a circumhorizon arc but whichever you chose, scientists (and aficionados) call it a CHA. It is given its name because it looks as if a rainbow has spontaneously combusted as it made its way across the sky.

Contrast with the circumzenithal arc (upside-down rainbow)

Nanograffiti

More atomic force microscope writing. (Like spelling out ‘IBM’)

‘Atomic pen’ writes with individual atoms

An Osaka University research team has demonstrated an “atomic pen” that can inscribe nano-sized text on metal by manipulating individual atoms on the surface.

According to the researchers, whose results appear in the October 17 edition of Science magazine, the atomic pen is built on a previous discovery that silicon atoms at the tip of an atomic force microscope probe will interchange with the tin atoms in the surface of a semiconductor sample when in close proximity.

Zombie Water

Mysterious ‘dead water’ effect caught on film

Research has already shown that dead water occurs when an area of water consists of two or more layers of water with different salinity, and hence density – for example, when fresh water from a melting glacier forms a relatively thin layer on top of denser seawater. Waves that form in the hidden layer can slow the boat with no visible trace.

Now French scientists recreating that scenario in a lab tank have revealed new detail of the phenomenon and even captured the effect on video. The work will help scientists to better understand dead water and the behaviour of stratified sea patches.