Re: Headline of the Day: Beer Spas -- Yeast of Eden

["Dude VanWinkle" <dudevanwinkle () gmail com>]

On 5/2/06, Fergie <fergdawg () netzero net> wrote:
> Hey, Gadi!  :-)
>
> Via The New York Times.
>
> [snip]
>
> THERE is something perversely satisfying about soaking in a tub of beer. First there is the yeasty aroma of malt and hops, 
> followed by a warm and sticky sensation as the brown liquid envelopes your body. You think to yourself: this must be every 
> lad's dream. Whatever comes next will surely have to involve a supermodel, an Aston Martin and a fat cigar.
>
> [snip]


Thats nothing, how about this 'little" gem

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/06/alcohol_cloud/

Astronomers at the UK's Jodrell Bank Observatory have discovered what
is surely the strongest argument to date in favour of ploughing huge
resources into space exploration: a giant "bridge" of methyl alcohol
spanning around 288bn miles, within which is nestled a stellar
nursery.

The booze cloud was spotted using the UK's MERLIN radio telescopes in
an area of our own galaxy rather uninspiringly called W3(OH).
According to the Royal Astronomical Society blurb, this is a region
where "stars are being formed by the gravitational collapse of a cloud
of gas and dust".
Click Here

The area is also a hotbed of "maser" activity - "clumps of
interstellar gas in which radio waves are amplified many thousands of
times, due to the molecular gases being excited by infra-red radiation
from the nearby young stars", according to principal investigator Lisa
Harvey-Smith, nicely dubbed "Radio Astronomer to the Stars" - and
several maser spots had already been observed in W3(OH).

However, the new data shows filaments of masing gas bridging the space
between said maser spots. The largest, as noted above, is a whopping
463bn kilometres, for those of you who like your measures in metric,
and appears to be "rotating as a disc around a central star, in a
similar manner to the accretion discs in which planets form around
young stars".

The discovery is important because, as Dr Harvey-Smith put it: "There
are still many unanswered questions about the birth of massive stars
because the formation centres are shrouded by dust. The only radiation
that can escape is at radio wavelengths and the upgraded MERLIN
network is now giving us the first opportunity to look deep into these
star forming regions and see what's really going on."

Sadly, methyl alcohol is not currently suitable for human consumption,
although we have no doubt that by the time mankind develops the
technology necessary to reach W3(OH) it will also have evolved the
capacity to successfully metabolise this molecule. In which case, last
person to the masing gas bridge stumps up for the first round. See you
there.

-JP

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