Nerd News: Spore is coming to the Mac

At MacWorld '08, EA announced that Spore will be simultaneously released on Mac and PC. That would be great news for me, because the computer I built two years ago (when some folks first thought Spore would come out) is looking less and less capable with the new generation of games that has been released since then.

Unfortunately, they're using Cider to port the game, so it's only going to run on the newer, Intel-based Macs. Which means that the G5 we bought less than two years ago is already obsolete. Oh well, that's why our family has a Mac and a PC. To play games on.

Somebody filmed an extremely short clip of the game running on Macs, but that's not exciting. What is fun to watch is this half-hour video of Will Wright speaking at NASA in January.

Photos aquatic & microscopic

Image credit: Charles Krebs, water-scavenger beetle larva (Hydrophilidae sp.)

Today, links to a couple of recent photography galleries.

At Wired, winning photomicrograph images from Nikon's Small World competition.

The Smithsonian gallery shows photos of fantastic deep-sea animals. There is an amazing diversity of life on earth. I am getting some great ideas for my Spore creatures!

Galaxy Zoo

Last year I posted about Stardust@home, an open effort to locate interstellar dust particles with a virtual microscope. If you like astronomy but searching for tiny impacts is too small-scale, here's something you might find exciting. On the opposite end of the size spectrum, we have Galaxy Zoo, a project for identifying entire galaxies.

Computers can't keep up with the vast reams of data being collected by digital survey telescopes. Humans are needed to catalogue hundreds of thousands of galaxies that might slip through the cracks of software analysis. Just like with Stardust@home, you take a short test to learn about galactic identification, and then get to work categorizing images.

Click here to learn more about the project and enlist as an amateur space explorer.

Macaroni penguin

I was watching puffins at the Como Zoo when a child ran up to the glass and shouted, "macaroni penguins!" I thought it was a cute and clever made-up name for these birds, with their bright orange beaks and noodley eyebrows. As it turns out, macaroni penguins are not only a real animal, but "the most numerous of all the world's penguins" according to Wikipedia. Look how cute!

Red moon rising

image from Flickr

Hey astrono-nerds! Do you want to see something that is pretty cool? The next lunar eclipse is scheduled for Saturday, March 3.

In the USA, the eclipse will already be underway when the moon rises on Saturday evening [NOTE: My fans in Japan might be able to view this phenomenon at moonset]. Observing tip: Find a place with a clear view of the eastern horizon and station yourself there at sunset. As the sun goes down behind you, a red moon will rise before your eyes.

Rising moons are often reddened by clouds or pollution, but this moon will be the deep, extraordinary red only seen during a lunar eclipse.

I'm sort of interested in astronomy, but not so much in the science parts. Mostly, I just enjoy looking at the pretty pictures. Check out that Flickr page for more great astrophotography and nature shots. Better, try to be outside at moonrise on Saturday evening. It might be too overcast on account of the snow clouds they forecasted, but it's worth a shot. Look to the east.

Cider racking

Today I 'racked' my hard cider. Racking is a fancy brewing term for siphoning the juice through a tube from one bucket into another bucket. It's not very complicated, but I still prepared a multi-photo blog post to display the process. It turns out that homebrewing is just a few simple activities, separated by long periods of waiting. Dump stuff into a bucket, wait; transfer it to another bucket, wait; open it up and drink it. In that framework, racking is an EVENT! and that makes it noteworthy by default. Nearly two full months after I started the process, I was very excited to pop open the airtight seal on my primary fermenting bucket, and see what was inside. Before I got to that, though, my first step was sterilizing all the equipment I'd be using (we're at the first image now, if you would like to follow along). This is a very important step. It ensures that we don't get any crap into the cider and mess stuff up. Interestingly, I am doing some research at work that has to do with sterilization of medical equipment, so it's a topic that has been on my mind lately. For homebrewing, I fill the bucket with water and cleaning solution and just dump everything inside. It is clean like magic! On the second photo, you can see my improvised mortar and pestle. I crushed 5 Campden tablets and put the powder into my secondary bucket. This stuff will help to kill bacteria and preserve the cider. If I was labeling my drinks, I would have to write 'contains preservatives' on the label. Okay, time to open up the bucket and make the transfer! The third and fourth images show different stages of the racking process. The cider in the primary bucket (on the right) is a very deep color, kind of like, well, fresh apple cider. With only a little juice in the secondary bucket, it's very light and yellow. Once a gallon has been siphoned across, it has already darkened significantly. When I got to the bottom of the bucket and took out the siphon, there was a layer of dark muck on the bottom. This sludge is full of the dead yeasts that fermented my cider for me. Their sacrifice was not in vain. But although we appreciate their contribution, we don't want to drink them, so they got left behind. The lid goes on the secondary bucket, full of fermented apple juice (minus yeast). It was probably a bit lighter in color than the cloudy juice in the primary. I didn't take a picture, though, so the world may never know. Now that it's sealed around the rim and air-tight with a fancy airlock, I can forget about it again for several months. It's supposed to 'clarify' during that time, improving in taste and appearance. But... what does it taste like now? I was a little nervous to find out. Before we get to the tasting, let's have a Science Moment. Next slide, please. In the second-to-last photo, you can see the bottom of a half gallon apple juice bottle. I was saving these on purpose. I planned to use them for storing the finished cider. I changed my mind about that, because I learned an important lesson today about cleaning: if you don't wash out all the juice from your bottles, you'll get to see the results of natural fermentation! That's two months' worth of mold and slime. Gross. But also kind of cool. Finally, I worked up the nerve to actually taste my hard cider. The juice is cloudy, which should decrease over time. I tapped all my wine tasting experience, took a sip, and detected... a distinct taste of apples. It seems to be on the low end of ABV, somewhere around 5% alcohol, which would be about right. Next time I'll buy a hydrometer and find out for sure. Overall, it tastes pretty good, so I'm happy! It would probably be fine to drink it all now, but I've got five gallons of the stuff and besides, I'm eager to see how it changes with aging.