Discovery News: Reporter Journal

The Big Natural Musical Apple

I'm in New York, and to say that it is simply hot and muggy here is to mock Mother Nature's ability to make us feel sticky during the summertime. I write you this post as I peel my tube socks from feet that during the past two days of walking have begun to look more like soggy, awkward flapjacks rather than the combination of toes, heels, and ankles I remember. But like anyone else in the New York, I revel in it and find myself muttering time and time again, "What a city!"

Aside from weather, my trip to the Big Apple has reminded me of just how unknowingly revolutionary New York, and New Yorkers, can be.

I came to the city to research and report on two topics: the New York Waterfalls, an art installation that is challenging New Yorkers to recognize nature in urban environments, and Indaba Music, a web-based application that is transforming music collaboration by removing the need for musicians to live and work close to each other.

Yesterday, I began reporting on the waterfalls that were installed last month in New York City by asking locals about how they felt being surrounded by inordinate amounts of concrete. If the creator of the waterfalls, Olafur Eliasson, intended to raise awareness of nature in New York, I first wanted to know whether locals even cared to see a tree, let alone a four waterfalls. So, I camped out in New York’s Union Square to pounce on passersby asking whether they felt nature was as prevalent in New York as it could or should be. To my surprise, not only were the strangers I stopped receptive, but they had an incredible amount of suggestions on how New York can go green (in the literal sense). Whether or not the New York Waterfalls filled this void is debatable. You’ll just have to tune in to Discovery-news.com this Friday for that answer.

I then finished up the trip today with a stop at Indaba Music. Indaba has created a social network for musicians online, which allows individuals who otherwise may have never found one another to meet and record music via digital means. These musicians record their music, upload their open-ended sessions to the Internet, and wait for others to add on to what they have already recorded. Indaba’s story is important because less than a decade ago the same manner of technology nearly killed the music industry through file-trading, while today digital communication is providing tools for musicians to fight back.

Well, it’s time to wash some socks and prepare for a breezy drive back to Washington, DC tomorrow morning. Check out Discovery-news.com for more on these stories soon!

One, Two, Three Times a Spacecraft

Dave Mosher of Discovery Space here, and VERY tired.

It's been a whirlwind couple of days at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD for myself and Jorge Ribas. We got some great video of not one, not two, but three spacecraft!

Our first stop was the gigantic cleanroom where the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission's payload can be found. Ok, so it's not a spacecraft proper -- but it is a bunch of neat hardware which astronauts will plug into a spacecraft.

If all goes as planned, Hubble will be left with a "full tool kit" to probe the universe. And that means even more amazing images than we get already. (This one is a great example.)

We couldn't drive on Goddard's grounds that day, thanks to NASA's authoritarian hyperactivity, so Ed Campion -- Goddard's news chief -- had to drive us to the building to scope out Hubble's new gear.

So there we are waiting in a building that just hosted a press conference, and Ed parks his car outside. He comes in for about five minutes and we go outside to an unpleasant site. To the right is my caught-on-camera parking violation shot. (Sorry Ed!)

We avoided further security breaches the rest of our trip, thankfully.

They had a nice mock up of the Wide Field Camera 3 outside of the Hubble servicing cleanroom, so Jorge swept his camera over it for some cool point-of-view shots. It looked like he was vacuuming the thing, so I took a picture. Which was apparently funny.

And we not only bumped into blogger Ray Villard during the trip, but also CollectSPACE.com founder Robert Pearlman (guy in the gray-blue shirt). Robert recently wrote a "My Take" for Discovery Space on preserving the flame trench bricks from launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, which were blown all over the place during the STS-124 space shuttle mission. (Oh, and that's me on the right.)

Jorge and I came back the next day to check out the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). LRO is headed to the moon to scope out spots for new lunar bases, while SDO will float a few thousand miles above New Mexico to keep an eye on the sun for any solar misbehavior. Cool stuff.

I'm going to post shortly on Space Disco about the nitty-gritty of these two spacecraft, including some behind-the-scenes shots from Jorge's and my trip. Be sure to check it out!

Swimming with Sharks And...

Shark Week is just around the corner here at the Discovery Channel. And when such a big week comes around, the news team is always looking for interesting stories to cover. A few weeks ago, I came across a new program that just opened at the Georgia Aquarium, Swimming With Gentle Giants, aka swimming with sharks. I pitched the story to my boss and two weeks later I have just experienced something very, very rare -- the opportunity to swim with four Whale Sharks! The Georgia Aquarium is the one of only a few aquariums in the world to have Whale Sharks in captivity and the only place that offers this opportunity.

Whale sharks are the largest fish in the ocean --- they can grow up to 60 feet! They're filter feeders, who prefer plankton over people (whew), very gentle,  and are extremely curious creatures.  They really like to get all up in your grill and scare the life out of you.

I spent all day at the aquarium learning about the plight of sharks, conservation methods, habitats, caring for sharks ... but the most exciting 30 minutes came at the end of the day. I was able to hop spend a half an hour in the tank, seeing the sharks up close.

But what I didn't know going into the dive was that the tank (a 6.3 million gallon tank with around 55,000 thousand fish --the world's largest tank of it's kind) also is home to other sharks too .... like a Hammerhead that I honestly thought was stalking me. Do sharks smell fear? Maybe that's bears....

Other fun fishes I got to spend some time with were the  Blacktip Reef Shark, Zebra Shark, Spotted wobbegong, Leopard whipray, the Largetooth sawfish, among many others.

Check out Discovery News in the next week or so, I've captured the whole experience on camera.

Dinnertime --- I am sticking with a chicken salad tonight.

Cheers,

Kasey-Dee

Treasures in Arizona

Dave Mosher here again, and lots of catching up to do!

Kasey-Dee Gardner (video journalist extraordinaire) and I have been bugging people across Arizona with a big ol' camera these past few days – especially our gracious hosts at the University of Arizona.

We got a first-hand peek at UA's Science Operations Center, where scientists and engineers are breaking a sweat as the Phoenix Mars Lander closes in on a May 25th appointment with Mars. One way or another, project scientist Mark Lemmon told us, it's going to meet the Red Planet… here's to hoping for a safe landing!

You can see the full-scale, completely operational model of the lander in an area called "the pit," where specialists run the insectoid-looking machine through its paces. After landing, the idea is to arrange all the rocks and dirt to match the yet-to-be-seen landing site, and then plan out the spacecraft's maneuvers. I guess you'd say Phoenix is a big shot CEO, and the operations team is like a top-notch secretary. (Ok, so that might be a bit stinky – but I challenge all of you smarty pants out there to invent a better analogy.)

Also: Peter Smith, the mission's principal investigator/head honcho, was around with Phoenix juice flowing through his veins, and showed us his new (fake) tattoo. Having brains *and* brawn is never a bad thing for sending a big robot to Mars, I suppose…

And as if a really cool Martian spacecraft wasn't cool enough, Kasey and I also got a sneak peek at the ginormous Discovery Channel telescope mirror. At 14 feet in diameter and 6,700 lbs, it's quite a monster! Opticians are still slowly grinding this bad boy down to size, and polishing it to a shine should start in June. Stay tuned for some video on this super-cool process.

I shall close with a fascinating find in downtown Tucson: The floor of a fine eatery called the Cup Café is made entirely of pennies! How many, you ask? Let's get a few guesses in the comments section, and then I shall share the magic number. Sorry, no recess passes to hand out for the winner :)

Arizona Adventures

I haven't blogged since my Alaska Iditarod adventure and I can tell you, this current trip to Arizona is about as polar opposite as you can get. No snow, no cold, no layering of clothes, no Jorge, and of course no puppies.

Instead, space producer Dave Mosher and myself are out in the hot Arizona sun (it's well over 100 degrees today) covering the Discovery Channel Telescope the current Mars Phoenix mission. There's been some bumps, brusies, and snakes along the way.

Yesterday we were at the Happy Jack site -- the future home of the Discovery Channel Telescope -- and we decided to get "creative" with our shots. We climbed up a small formation where Dave quickly saw a snake -- no rattle though. We were able to get our standup shots atop a small rock formation with the observatory in the background....but on the way down back down...I lost my footing and slide down the hill. It hurt, but at least I didn't land on the snake and the camera is still okay ( don't worry James and Lori).

Now, we're off to Mars.....

Big Telescopes, Beef Jerky and Heat

This will be the first-ever post for yours truly: Dave Mosher, Discovery's new Space Producer. Think astronomy, spacecraft, and floating in zero-gravity – not that TV show where they come in and clean up your house real good.

I'm on the road in Arizona with Kasey-Dee Gardner and we're headed to Flagstaff to get the skinny on the new Discovery Channel telescope, which will be part of the Lowell Observatory. When the $40 million eye on the sky is done next year, it'll sport a 4.2-meter mirror (or 13.8 feet for you non-metric folks) and will be the fifth largest observatory in the contiguous U.S. That's about as big as a backyard trampoline that will do a number on your home insurance policy.

We're going to find out how the telescope is shaping up and what astronomers plan to look for with it. Construction began about 4 years ago, and they have only a couple more to wait, so I'm sure they're getting pumped about the big day.

Anywho, the hot Arizona sun is baking my keyboard a bit, so I'm going to go before my fingertips blister. Check back later as we post updates on our tour-de-Arizona, including visits to the University of Arizona to see how things are going with NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander.

P.S. Kasey-Dee has never had beef jerky before – until now. The yuck face says it all: "It's like eating meat-flavored plastic… how can anyone eat this (expletive)?!"

I'm Seeing Things In Boston

I'm in Beantown with fellow Discovery News-er Tracy Steadter for a couple days visiting various labs to learn why some of them are so darn interesting. Yesterday it was a nuclear fusion lab with floating wooden cheerios and huge magnets, then the Tufts Visualization Lab (pictured). Sadly, they didn't let us keep the googly 3-D sunglasses. Today it's Boston University then a visit to Boston's greenest building.

One sort of peripheral question I have about Boston: Why are there so many Dunkin' Donuts? Seriously, Tracey says in some places there are Dunkin' Donuts across the street from Dunkin Donuts. If you've been here, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. It…uh, it sort of makes me hungry.

P.S. From the Promised Land

Hi all, sorry for the time warp. We've had some busy weeks at Discovery News since I returned from my trip to Israel (which, I've been meaning to say, was generously sponsored by the American Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev).  But that's no excuse for not saying a peep about what was, for me, the most exciting experiment I saw there. It was all about how to feed an ever-growing human population, in Israel and beyond. For the long haul. I never would have guessed there were people trying to do that in the desert.

Sure, there's plenty of sun and space. But sand isn't known for its fertility, and water? Isn't a desert dry, by definition?

Not always. Hundreds of feet below the Negev desert sits a deep well of water. It's brackish -- 1/10th the salinity of seawater -- and bathwater-warm, heated by the Earth's internal energy. Not surprisingly, some creative farmers and scientists are putting this vast aquifer to use. Drylands, they told me, don't have to be barren -- in fact, they almost never are. And if they haven't been thought of as potential farmland, well, it's time to think again.

The Negev is peppered with experimental farms. They have mastered the art of penny-pinching, a necessity obvious to anyone who has ever tried to make a buck growing and selling food sustainably. The aquifer helps, but pumping the water up is expensive.

One of the farms really wowed me -- in its simplicity, pragmatism, and especially its contrast to the mainstream American way of agriculture (for a primer on that, I recommend Michael Polan's "Omnivore's Dilemma").

Here's how it works. That unpolluted geothermal water is pumped to modest ponds that house fish imported from Australia, so they're accustomed to warmish, salty water. If any alarm bells go off at the thought of using non-native species in aquaculture, remember...this is the middle of the desert. If the fish escape -- and some do -- there's no chance they'll end up in a river or stream, displacing the natives. They just dry out  in the sun. Poor little guys, but that's not my point.

Another thing I think knee-jerkedly when I hear "fish farm" is, of course, pollution. When fish are raised in close quarters, netted off from the rest of a lake or ocean ecosystem but leaking into it, the concentration of their waste (and whatever food/medicine they're being fed) can throw of the balance of the surrounding area. Offshore farms avoid that problem, obviously, but the Negev farmers I met are doing something a lot more interesting with the "waste" than disposing of it. They use it as fertilizer. After the pond water becomes too concentrated with nitrogen and phosphates to house fish, it's used to irrigate greenhouses full of peppers or other delicate crops. Together with the fish (and in some cases, an outdoor crop of jojoba or date palms that tolerate salty third-gen water -- you can see date palms in the distance in this photo), the farms can pull a profit while brilliantly minimizing their use of water.

Watch and learn, world.

--Sarah

Iditarod Champ, Again

Lance Mackey, the reigning Iditarod champion, has done it again. Mackey, along with 11 dogs, crossed the finish line in Nome, early Wednesday morning at 2:46 a.m ADT ( 6:46 a.m for all us eEst Coasters).

It took Mackey about nine and a half days to make the 1,100-mile trek across Alaska.

Mackey is a 36-year-old throat cancer survivor whose father and brother are both past Iditarod winners. Mackey set a record last year by  winning the Iditarod after also winning the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race a month beforehand -- which was his fourth Yukon win.

Four-time champ Jeff King came in just under two hours behind Mackey.

Martin Buser holds the record for fastest finish time in Iditarod history -- in 2002 his team finished the race in 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes, and 2 seconds.

You can find out where everyone is on the trail by clicking here.

Goodbye Desert, Hello Home

Well, I’m happy to report that I made it home uneventfully, unless you count the EIGHT security checkpoints I had to clear at the airport in Tel Aviv on my way out. I got quizzed on everything from my brother’s middle name (sorry, bro, I gave you up) to my job, to the contents of the scientific papers in my backpack. Had I crossed any borders? Met any Palestinians? Did the hotel give me gifts? Serious business, but anybody could understand why.

Anyhow, I wasn’t home 24 hours before I said hello to a guy on my street and got: “Would you like to buy some drugs from me today?” Ah, we’re direct in the District, too. Home sweet home.

My head, however, is still swimming with thoughts of Israel. I hope it doesn’t give you vertigo if I add a few posts written on the road in the midst of Kasey and Jorge’s fine reporting on the Iditarod. Alaska and Israel could hardly be more different, geographically speaking, but they have one thing in common: passionate people who thrive in extreme environments. I’m back at the editing desk with plenty of science news to keep me busy, but this weekend I promise to make good on all those “more on that later” promises. Coming up: desert architecture, dolphins in the Red Sea, and the cleverest use of salty water I’ve heard of. It's amazing. Really.

P.S. I'm not big on shopping, but I did pick up some wine, olive oil, and date preserves for friends. Why, oh why, didn't I bring the bell peppers?

--Sarah