[PHOTO] A rose from the Island, August 2012

[LINK] "On the habitability of exoplanets orbiting Proxima Centauri"

The Dragon's Tales linked to a Spanish-language arXiv paper paper, written by Rodriguez et al., that speculates as to whether or not life, and habitable planets, could exist at Proxima Centauri.

We apply a mathematical model for photosynthesis to quantitatively assess the habitability of a hypothetical planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, inside the so called habitability zone. Results suggest significant viability for primary biological productivity, provided living organisms have evolved to reach the ability of using infrared light for photosynthesis.

This is very important. Not only is it quite relevant to us since Proxima, the distant red dwarf companion of Alpha Centauri's brighter A-B pair, is the nearest star to our Sun, but it's important in that Proxima--dim, prone to flares--can be taken as a prototype for red dwarfs across the galaxy.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Acts of Minor Treason's Andrew Barton considers the future of Chinese science fiction and wonders about having a future con in Beijing.


• BlogTO notes the impending shutdown of the Global Village Backpackers hostel. I've good memories from a 2004 stay there.


• Centauri Dreams examines the ESA's Rosetta probe, set to wake up today to examine comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.


• Joe. My. God. starts an interesting discussion about homophobes treating Putin's Russia as a freer society than a United States that recognizes GLBT rights.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money's Erik Loomis argues that NAFTA, like other globalization-related accords, allow for transnational exploitation and minimize the potential for fighting against the ills of globalization.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen suggests that the United States doesn't benefit from globalization as much per capita as smaller, more outwards-looking countries.


• The Pagan Prattle's Feórag notes the lightning strike on Rio De Janerio's Christ statue and remarks on a UKIP man's blaming British floods on same-sex marriage.


• Towleroad observes the ways in which two gay African-American dads' pictures with their children have gone viral.


• Transit Toronto's Robert Mackenzie notes the conviction of a man for assaulting a TTC worker.


• Understanding Society's David Little wonders about the mechanisms that can trigger paradigm shifts.

[NEWS] Some Monday links

• Livejournal community ohnotheydidnt shares the unretouched photos of Lena Dunham in Vogue, showing how
  
• Inter Press Service reports on criminals in Kyrgyzstan who are targeting
  
• Open Democracy's Aleksei Mazur writes about the gradual birth of civil society in the modern cities of post-Soviet Siberia.


• CBC notes that the Crown in Ontario contests the rights to community visits of mentally ill Richard Kachkar, who was found not criminally responsible of killing a Toronto policeman.


• The Atlantic Cities writes about strategies to make living in San Francisco affordable again.


• China is on the verge of having the credit bubble that has propped up its economy pop, notes The Atlantic.

[LINK] "Rosetta Wakes Up, Phones Home, Starts Tweeting"

The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe, set to explore Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, has woken up from its hibernation. Universe Today's Nancy Atkinson reports.

The silence from the live video feed from the ESA’s space operations center in Darmstadt, Germany was almost deafening. Scientists and engineers were waiting to receive a signal from the Rosetta spacecraft, which was supposed to come out of hibernation today to begin its mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in earnest. Finally, after waiting nearly 45 minutes into the window of time when the spacecraft was supposed to send a signal, a little blip appeared on the screens of the spectrum analyzers and the room erupted in cheers.

“After waiting over two and a half years, what is three-quarters of an hour!” said Fred Jansen, ESA’s Rosetta mission manager. “The spacecraft is there, it’s awake and the science team knows there are two busy years ahead of them. Now we have to work hard. Thanks to the team that achieved this.”

“I think I can speak on behalf of everyone here and everyone on Twitter: that was rather stressful!” said Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist. “The work begins now and I think we’ll have a fun-filled two years ahead, so let’s get on it!”

[. . .]

Rosetta was placed into hibernation in June 2011, with only the computer and several heaters remaining active as the spacecraft cruised out to nearly 800 million km from the warmth of the Sun, beyond the orbit of Jupiter.

Today, as Rosetta’s orbit came back to within 673 million km from the Sun, there was enough solar energy to power the spacecraft fully again and Rosetta’s pre-programmed internal ‘alarm clock’ woke up the spacecraft after a record 957 days of hibernation. After warming up its key navigation instruments, coming out of a stabilizing spin, and aiming its main radio antenna at Earth, Rosetta sent a signal to let mission operators know it had survived the most distant part of its journey.

The probe's Twitter account is @ESA_Rosetta.

[URBAN NOTE] "The Unique Genius of Hong Kong's Public Transportation System"

The Atlantic's Neil Padukone has an article up suggesting that Hong Kong's Mass Transit Railway public transit system should be a model for other urban areas' mass transit systems. It's hugely profitable. How? Real estate.

Like no other system in the world, the MTR understands the monetary value of urban density—in other words, what economists call "agglomeration.” Hong Kong is one of the world’s densest cities, and businesses depend on the metro to ferry customers from one side of the territory to another. As a result, the MTR strikes a bargain with shop owners: In exchange for transporting customers, the transit agency receives a cut of the mall’s profit, signs a co-ownership agreement, or accepts a percentage of property development fees. In many cases, the MTR owns the entire mall itself. The Hong Kong metro essentially functions as part of a vertically integrated business that, through a "rail plus property" model, controls both the means of transit and the places passengers visit upon departure. Two of the tallest skyscrapers in Hong Kong are MTR properties, as are many of the offices, malls, and residences next to every transit station (some of which even have direct underground connections to the train). Not to mention, all of the retail within subway stations, which themselves double as large shopping complexes, is leased from MTR.

The profits from these real estate ventures, as well as that 85 percent farebox surplus, subsidize transit development: proceeds pay for capital expansion as well as upgrades. The MTR’s financial largesse means that the transit system requires less maintenance and service interruptions, which in turn reduces operating costs, streamlines capital investments, and encourages more people to use transit to get around. And more customers means more money, even if fares are relatively cheap: most commutes fall between HK $4 and HK$20 (about 50 cents to $3), depending on distance. (In London, by comparison, a Tube journey can cost as much as $18). Fare increases in Hong Kong are limited by regulations linking fares to inflation and profits, and the territory’s government recently started giving a HK $600-per-month travel stipend to low-income households, defined as those earning less than HK $10,000 a month.

This model of transit management works partly because Hong Kong is a closed system: There are no suburbs from which people can commute by car, so there are strong incentives for everyone within the territory to use the system. This feature, combined with other regulations, has kept car ownership low: 6 of every 100 vehicles in Hong Kong are for personal use, whereas the number in the U.S. is closer to 70. And while the NYC subway was built over a century ago and was neglected during much of the 20th century’s suburban sprawl, Hong Kong’s metro was only developed in the late 1970s. As a result, it doesn’t have to rely on signals technologies from the 1930s that are only slowly being upgraded (hence the track closures in New York).

As an independent corporation with the government serving as majority shareholder (rather than a public agency, ministry, or authority), the MTR has the freedom to develop real estate, to hire and fire who it will, and to take business-minded decisions—whereas other transit systems, including the one in New York, must deal with union contracts and legal restrictions. In Hong Kong, these value charges are often displaced onto consumers, causing real estate prices to go up a little faster than they otherwise might.

[LINK] "Amid increasing persecution of gays in Africa, author Binyavanga Wainaina comes out"

Via Towleroad, I came across Tristan McConnell's Global Post article describing how Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina--known for, among other works, his satirical essay "How to Write about Africa"--has come out.

Binyavanga Wainaina has a hangover. Last night friends gathered for his birthday party, which turned into a coming out party, because Wainaina, one of Africa’s most powerful modern literary voices, had just published an article entitled, “I am a homosexual, Mum.”

On a continent where secrecy defines the gay experience and where a majority of countries outlaw homosexuality, coming out is a rare step for a public figure. Wainana’s piece, first published on Saturday, is being shared widely across social networks. “My dear @BinyavangaW writes a piece that springs open the prison doors of the heart,” tweeted Nigerian-born writer Teju Cole.

[. . .]

Last year Wainaina — perhaps best known abroad as the author of the satirical essay "How to Write About Africa" — returned home to live in Kenya after a prolonged period of international nomadism and began to feel “a certain falsity in the way I lived my life,” he said.

Wainaina struggled with the relative ease of being clandestinely gay while surrounded by his artist friends in cosmopolitan Nairobi, while elsewhere in Africa homosexuals faced increasing oppression.

[. . .]

Openly declaring his sexual orientation is both brave and potentially powerful, given Wainana’s reach. He has taught at Bard College in New York State, was awarded the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing, and won acclaim for his brilliant "How To Write About Africa.” His smart brevity has earned Wainaina a growing Twitter following, and last year Foreign Policy included him in its annual Twitterati 100.

Wainana believes his honesty will be embraced in his home and in other African countries. “People who live in societies where you are being lied to a lot value truth,” he said.

Wainaina is set to become a still-louder voice for gay rights, a struggle that he sees as part of a wider defiance, an effort to break apart “the very, very hardwired restrictions that were imposed in 1885” by colonialists and which “are very alive in every facet of African life.”

“I want to be part of a generation of people in Kenya and Africa who change [Africa] to be accountable to itself,” he said.

The essay in question, "I am a homosexual, mum", is quite worth reading.

[LINK] "Phobos may not be a Captured Asteroid"

The Dragon's Tales linked to a new paper arguing that, based on its density, Mars' inner moon Phobos is not a captured asteroid but rather a "second-generation object" assembled from debris in Mars' orbit after some sort of collision.

This work is a review of the mass determinations of the Mars moon Phobos by spacecraft close flybys, by solving for the Martian gravity field and by the analysis of secular orbit perturbations. The absolute value and accuracy is sensitive on the knowledge and accuracy of the Phobos ephemeris, of the spacecraft orbit, other perturbing forces acting on the spacecraft and the resolution of the Martian gravity field besides the measurement accuracy of the radio tracking data. The mass value and its error improved from spacecraft mission to mission or from the modern analysis of “old” tracking data but these solutions depend on the accuracy of the ephemeris at the time of observation. The mass value seems to settle within the range of GMPh=(7.11 +/−0.09)∙10−4 km3s-2 which covers almost all mass values from close flybys and “distant” encounters within its 3-σ error (1.5%). Using the volume value determined from MEX HRSC imaging, the bulk density is (1873 +/−31) kg/m3 (3-σ error or 1.7%), a low value which suggests that Phobos is either highly porous, is composed partially of light material or both. The determination of the gravity coefficients C20 and C22 from the Mars Express 2010 close flyby does not allow to draw conclusion on the internal structure. The large errors do not distinguish whether Phobos is homogeneous or not. In view of theories of the Phobos' origin, one possibility is that Phobos is not a captured asteroid but accreted from a debris disk in Mars orbit as a second generation solar system object.

I'd first heard suggestions of this origin back in 2010, in the aftermath of the European Space Agency's successful Mass Express probe. I'd thought it settled that Phobos--and its companion moon Deimos--were captured asteroids. If Phobos was too fragile to be captured by Mars without falling apart, as this may suggest, then formation in orbit may be the only explanation.

[LINK] "'Black widow' eyed as threat to Sochi Olympics"

Googling with the keywords "black widows sochi" turns up a whole mass of article, like CBS' coverage.

I'm surely not the only person thinking of the Munich Olympics, right?

Russian authorities are hunting in and around the southern city of Sochi for a so-called "black widow" who they fear may be plotting to carry out a terror attack at the upcoming Winter Olympics.

The woman, identified as Ruzana Ibragimova, has promised to get revenge for the death of her husband, an Islamic militant killed last year by Russian security forces, CBS News investigative producer Pat Milton reported.

Police have been visiting hotels in the Sochi area inquiring if Ibragimova has been seen and have been distributing posters seeking information about her. CBS News has confirmed eyewitness accounts from Sochi that these posters have been put up in the area of the Olympic venues.

There is also a concern that other widows whose husbands were killed may be used by the Islamic terrorists as well to carry out an attack, possibly suicide attacks, Milton reported.

Last month, CBS News national security analyst Juan Zarate noted that Chechen rebels are famous for using "black widows" – widows of fighters who become suicide attackers. Zarate pointed out that women brought down two airliners in 2004 (one, ironically, was headed to Sochi) and a woman is believed to have been involved in a bombing attack in the southern Russian city of Volgograd two months ago that killed more than 30 people.

With the opening ceremony less than three weeks away, doubts have been increasing about how the Russians can guarantee security at the Winter Games. CBS News' David Martin has confirmed that the U.S. military has plans to put transport planes at European bases on alert and is deploying two Navy ships to the Black Sea in case Americans need to be evacuated from Sochi.