Shorts: Launches, debris, and smoothies

Wow, there was a lot of interesting stuff to talk about. I find with this low-traffic blog there is lots I could say; I can say almost anything knowing the limits of my reach. But still, there is lots of interesting stuff I can archive publically, so I'll just keep posting as I have chances. Enough stuff for six posts, just today. But we'll stick to space.

1. Herschel and Planck got off alright on the Ariane-5:

Here's two links to good shots of the launch. Launches are exciting, especially when they actually deliver the payload all the way into orbit! (Sorry about that, Orbiting Carbon Observatory):

Double the thrust


Ariane-5 heads skyward

2. China space debris passes near the Shubble:

Shuttle astronauts begin spacewalk to repair and upgrade Hubble (actually, the first spacewalk went well, despite a stubborn bolt), but there are much tougher tasks ahead.

"Hubble and Atlantis are flying 350 miles (563 kilometres) above the Earth. The orbit is littered with space junk, some of which led to a minor scare for NASA last night. The US Air Force noticed that a 10cm piece of space debris was on course to come close to the shuttle. Left over from the destruction of a satellite by China in 2007 during a weapon test, the debris was predicted to come within 2.7 kilometres of Atlantis."

3. Anti-oxidants in smoothies not as healthy as thought, but anti-oxidant foods are fine (so eat spinach and drink wine!):

Skip that post-workout smoothie

"The increased levels of free-radicals stimulates your body to take certain steps to protect itself -- like increasing insulin sensitivity. Taking those antioxidant vitamins may wipe out enough free-radicals so that threshold isn't reached. It doesn't mean the exercise isn't beneficial for other reasons, but at least in this study, the lack of free radicals appear to have reduced some of the benefit of exercise."

Here's the actual study

And here's the money quote from the actual study:

"While this remains to be determined, one metaanalysis
of previously published studies (27) suggests that high dietary
intake of fruits and vegetables, a source of antioxidants but also
of numerous other bio-active compounds, may actually decrease
the risk for type 2 diabetes. Nevertheless, and as stated by Hamer
and Chida (27), all larger intervention trials evaluating the
diabetes-preventive potential of defined antioxidant supplements
have been unable to find any positive effects of supplementation
(28–30). Moreover, antioxidant use in type 2 diabetics
has been linked to increased prevalence of hypertension (31) and
use of antioxidant supplements has recently been proposed to
increase overall mortality in the general population (32). Taken
together, these previously published findings tentatively suggest
that fruits and vegetables may exert health-promoting effects
despite their antioxidant content and possibly due to other
bio-active compounds. However, it should be noted that the
current study applied comparably high doses of oral antioxidants,
which have been tested in healthy young men only."

So the problem is the post-exercise drink. That means; stick to Gatorade after practice, and eat your fruits and veggies like you should.

OK, so in the next few days, lots of good stuff, including international bird-watching.