Super fast Camera

Heard some boast about the Shutter Speed of  Camera?

This super fast camera could put all boasts out of contention. With a mind blowing speed of Pico Second (1 Trillionth of a Second), the new camera in development will be a great value addition to Medical/ Space/ Graphics/ Research applications.

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It might be the size of a dustbin, but scientists have managed to invent a camera that can capture the speed of light.The super-fast camera can show a bullet-shaped pulse of light travelling from one end of a laboratory flask to another in a fraction of a second. But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said it will be some time before the camera is commercially available.

Captured: A camera with a trillionth of a second shutter speed has caught the speed of light as it travelled from one end of a laboratory flask to the other

Researchers at MIT's 'blue-sky science' think tank predict super-fast photography could benefiting mankind within 10 years. It could even lead to hand-held medical scanners being used in hospitals. 

Ramesh Raskar, associate professor of media arts at the MIT Media Lab, told The Sunday Times: 'With our ultra-fast imaging we can actually analyse how the photons are travelling through the world.' The camera can also create 3D images because it is capable of 'seeing' photons of light even inside objects.

The device was made by adapting a 'streaker tube' - used by chemists to scan and capture light. It can record the progress of light pulses through a flask of liquid.

Split second: The camera could be available to capture spectacular images in around ten years and could even lead to handheld medical scanners

Each still picture had a shutter speed of 1.7 picoseconds - a trillionth of a second. Mr Raskar added: 'Watching this it looks like light in slow motion. It is so slow you can see the light itself move across the distance.

'This is the speed of light captured: there is nothing in the universe that moves faster, so we are at the physical limit of high-speed photography.'

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What is in the Age 50?

At 50, people may celebrate Golden Jubilee Year.

What is so special about that age? You are likely to be at your competitive best! Especially men...

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The age of 50 marks the most competitive phase of our lives, when we desperately try to outperform our opponents, a new study has revealed.

The findings by US scientists contradict the conventional assumption that the need to outperform others subsides, as we get older, and could have implications for the workplace, where pushy young employees are often seen as having more drive than their older colleagues.

Psychologists from the University of Oregon set up a stall at a shopping centre and invited hundreds of volunteers to solve maths equations as quickly as possible, the Daily Mail reported.

The participants, who were aged from 25 to 75 years, at first played on their own, scoring points that could be swapped for cash prizes.

But they were then made to play against a contender and only scored points if they beat them. To measure their competitive streak, in the final round they were given the choice between playing on their own or taking on a rival.

Almost 70 per cent of men aged 45 to 54 opted to go head-to-head with an opponent, compared to half of those between 25 and 34.

A similar pattern was observed among the women, but their desire to compete was consistently lower than the men’s.

The researchers revealed that they were astonished by the findings as they had expected men’s thirst for competition to subside with age, due to falling testosterone levels, changing priorities and the decline in confidence that often comes with getting older.

However they insisted that the outcome could be explained by men’s need to feel socially dominant as they age – a feeling which research suggests also peaks at around 50.

“It is surprising that we found a gradual increase in competitive preferences until the age of 50, only then followed by a decline,” researchers said.

“Successfully engaging in competition is critical for establishing social dominance. It’s plausible that with this comes an increased taste for competition.”

“Men do so without much regard for their actual probability of winning, whereas women take this aspect into regard as would be expected from a rational decision-maker,” the researchers added.

Lunar Eclipse Facts - Some specialties in Dec 2011

This year's second total lunar eclipse on Saturday, Dec. 10, will offer a rare chance to see a strange celestial sight traditionally thought impossible.

Ringside seats for the lunar eclipse can be found in Alaska, Hawaii, northwestern Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and central and eastern Asia. Over the contiguous United States and Canada, the eastern zones will see either only the initial penumbral stages before moonset, or nothing at all. 

Over the central regions of the United States, the moon will set as it becomes progressively immersed in the Earth's umbral shadow. The Rocky Mountain states and the prairie provinces will see the moon set in total eclipse, while out west the moon will start to emerge from the shadow as it sets. 

The moon passes through the southern part of the Earth's shadow, with totality beginning at 6:06 a.m. PST and lasting 51 minutes. [Total Eclipse of the Moon (Infographic)]

For most places in the United States and Canada, there will be a chance to observe an unusual effect, one that celestial geometry seems to dictate can't happen. The little-used name for this effect is a "selenelion" (or "selenehelion") and occurs when both the sun and the eclipsed moon can be seen at the same time.

Seeing the impossible

But wait!  How is this possible?  When we have a lunar eclipse, the sun, Earth and moon are in a geometrically straight line in space, with the Earth in the middle. So if the sun is above the horizon, the moon must be below the horizon and completely out of sight (or vice versa).

And indeed, during a lunar eclipse, the sun and moon are exactly 180 degrees apart in the sky; so in a perfect alignment like this (a "syzygy") such an observation would seem impossible. 

But it is atmospheric refraction that makes a selenelion possible.

Atmospheric refraction causes astronomical objects to appear higher in the sky than they are in reality.

For example: when you see the sun sitting on the horizon, it is not there really. It's actually below the edge of the horizon, but our atmosphere acts like a lens and bends the sun's image just above the horizon, allowing us to see it.

This effect actually lengthens the amount of daylight for several minutes or more each day; we end up seeing the sun for a few minutes in the morning before it has actually risen and for a few extra minutes in the evening after it actually already has set. 

The same holds true with the moon, as well.

As a consequence of this atmospheric trick, for many localities there will be an unusual chance to observe a senelion firsthand with Saturday morning's shadowy event. There will be a short window of roughly 1-to-6 minutes (depending on your location) when you may be able to simultaneously spot the sun rising in the east-southeast and the eclipsed full moon setting in the west-northwest.

Regions of visibility

For places to the east of the Appalachian Range, this will, unfortunately, be a non-event. Although the moon will still be above the horizon when it begins to enter the Earth's shadow at 6:33 a.m. EST, it initially is the penumbral shadow that first contacts the moon. 

This shadow is so faint that at least three-quarters of the moon's diameter must be immersed within it before you would have a chance of detecting it visually, either with your naked eyes or using an optical aid. That means, if you live in places such as Boston, New York or Miami, the moon will look perfectly normal as it sets.

But from southeast Ontario, through the Ohio Valley and continuing south to the central Gulf Coast, the upper-left portion of the moon will begin appearing somewhat darker or "smudged" as it begins to disappear beyond the horizon.  As you head farther west, the moon's entry into the much-darker part of the Earth's shadow (the umbra) will become evident at 7:45 a.m. Eastern Time or 6:45 a.m. Central.

Across portions of the Upper Midwest, the Nation's Heartland, down into the central parts of Oklahoma and Texas, about half of the setting moon will be immersed in the umbra. The shadow will appear to be creeping almost straight down across the moon's face from its upper limb.

Across the Central and Southern Plains only the lowermost portion of the moon will remain in view as it moves down below the west-southwest horizon. Farther west and north, across the Desert Southwest and High Plains, the moon will rise completely immersed in the Earth's shadow, while for parts of the Intermountain Region, Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, the moon will begin to emerge from the umbra as it sets.  

Important facts to consider

In order to observe the selenelion, you should make sure that both your east-southeast and west-northwest horizons are free of any tall obstructions that might block your views of the setting moon or rising sun.

Also, keep in mind that, depending on the clarity of your sky, you might actually lose sight of the moon about 10 or 15 minutes before sunrise thanks to the brightening morning twilight and the moon sinking into any horizon haze (atmospheric "schmutz").

Keep in mind that this holds only for the uneclipsed portion of the moon. Indeed, if the moon is totally eclipsed at moonset, you will probably have to scan the western horizon as the twilight increases in order to detect the moon, which will perhaps resemble a dim and eerily illuminated softball.

Physical Exercises for longer period is harmful, even fatal

Jogging may be okay, but going for extreme endurance events like marathons could take a toll on your heart, says a new study.

It's said that putting the heart under heavy strain for long periods causes scarring of the heart muscle, known as fibrosis. This damage is normally reversed within a week of an event, the repairal process serving to make the heart fitter.

However, researchers who followed 40 elite Australian athletes have found evidence of ‘more permanent damage’ in five of them, the European Heart Journal reported.

According to them, fibrosis can impair how well the heart performs when a person is exercising intensively. It can also lead to irregular heartbeats, called arrhythmias. And serious arrhythmias can be life-threatening.

Lead researchers Dr André La Gerche at the University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium said: "It is likely to affect only a minority of athletes, particularly those in whom more intense training fails to result in further improvements in their performance."

He said that the five who saw longer-term damage had been training and competing for longer than the others. "It is most important that our findings are not over-extrapolated to infer that endurance exercise is unhealthy. Our data do not support this premise," he added.

The researchers found damage in the right ventricle, one of the four chambers of the heart, using MRI scanning.

They found no damage in the left ventricle. However, experts are fully convinced. Professor Sanjay Sharma, a consultant cardiologist and medical director of the London Marathon, was quoted by The Daily Telegraph as saying, "It is too early to say that taking part in endurance sports causes long-term damage to the right ventricle."

But, this study is an indication that it might cause a problem in some endurance athletes with a predisposition and, therefore, it should be studied further, he added.