The first photograph of Earthrise was taken in 1966 by NASA's robotic probe Lunar Orbiter 1. After the Apollo manned lunar missions brought back better pictures, the original image and other priceless photographs stored on 2-inch tape were dumped into storage and forgotten. In the 70s, NASA hired Nancy Evans to look after their archives. Evans was appalled that a lot of the space agency's original data was regularly dumped to save on storage costs.
When the clerk came in to ask about the Lunar Orbiter tapes, she didn't hesitate.
"Do not destroy those tapes," Evans commanded.
She talked her bosses at JPL into storing them in a lab warehouse. "I could not morally get rid of this stuff," said Evans, 71, in an interview at her Sun Valley home.
She had no idea what she was letting herself in for. The full collection of Lunar Orbiter data amounted to 2,500 tapes. Assembled on pallets, they constituted an imposing monolith 10 feet wide, 20 feet long and 6 feet high.
The mountain of tapes was just part of Evans' new burden.
There was no point, she realized, in preserving the tapes unless she also had an FR-900 Ampex tape drive to read them. But only a few dozen of the machines had been made for the military. The $330,000 tape drives were electronic behemoths, each 7 feet tall and weighing nearly a ton.
The L.A. Times has the story of how Evans fought bureaucracy and outmoded technology for 30 years to preserve the 1966 pictures. Link -via Metafilter
Also see a post with photographs that follow the story of the recovery. Link
Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss revolves around the site's mascot, Albert Einstein. Think you know Einstein? I scored a miserable 40%, which, as a mental_floss blogger, I should be ashamed to admit. No doubt you will do better! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/23975
The Swedish tattoo magazine Tare Lugnt "published" its third issue as a tattoo! I can't find who the person tattooed is, but I suspect it might be Marc Strömberg. That's what you call a "limited edition"! Link to story (with video). Link to magazine site. -via Buzzfeed
Sakhan Dosova of Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan has documents that say she will celebrate her 130th birthday on Friday. Census officials discovered that her documents all agree that her birthdate is March 27, 1879. Records show she was on the books as 47 years old when a census was taken under the Stalinist regime in 1926.
Nailya Dosayeva, head of social and demographical department of Karaganga regional statistics bureau, said there is no doubt that her claim is authentic.
'Sakhan Dosova was found during our census held in February and March. She has an old passport and documents which are genuine, and based on these we can judge her age as being correct.'
The local mayor Islam Togaybayev went to visit her 'to personally congratulate her on such an achievement and show his respect', said his spokesman.
Other officials are not so sure.
Some Kazakh bureaucrats want more checks to be done to ascertain the accuracy of her claim, pointing out that birth records in Kazakhstan in the 19th century are notoriously unreliable.
'We can see that this is turning into a big story and for the sake of our country, we need to be sure her claim is correct,' said one official.
According to one version of her life, she must have given birth to several children over the age of 60, he said.
'There is no doubt she is very old. But is she really 130? Or was there a white lie long ago which was never corrected? We need to find out.'
Dosova attributes her longevity to a sense of humor. Link -via Unique Daily
Today brings another installment of the continuing adventures of sculptor Joel Haas in Taiwan, in which Joel has his name translated phonetically into Chinese, yielding a memorable, if embarrassing phrase. He then has a chop made with his characters. Link
Daniel Edwards {wiki}, the sculptor who brought you Pregnant Britney Spears and Dead Paris Hilton, has a new work out featuring "Octomom" Nadya Suleman. The statue is made of pink rubber and is entitled String of Babies. You can have one of your own for just $199. Link -via YesButNoButYes
Also see previous posts on Suleman, who delivered octuplets in January.
Do you ever think bad luck follows you around? Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on a business trip to Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945 when the US dropped the first atomic bomb on the city. He suffered serious burns and stayed overnight before going home -to Nagasaki. Now 93 years old, Yamaguchi has been certified as the only person to survive both atomic bombs.
“As far as we know, he is the first one to be officially recognized as a survivor of atomic bombings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Nagasaki city official Toshiro Miyamoto said. “It's such an unfortunate case, but it is possible that there are more people like him.”
Certification qualifies survivors for government compensation — including monthly allowances, free medical checkups and funeral costs — but Mr. Yamaguchi's compensation will not increase, Mr. Miyamoto said.
or North Carolina, either--odds and ends-- observations at random on Taiwanese daily life Once again, Neatorama welcomes guest blogger Joel Haas, North Carolina sculptor and author, as he posts his adventures in Taiwan.
Culture shock happens when you pick up the live wire of daily life in another country, particularly another continent. It can be the big thing such as finding yourself a racial minority and oddity in the street, or small things such as wondering what all those fires in front of every business and home mean--it's not the least bit cold. Why do people stuff their sales receipts in special clear plastic boxes on the sidewalks--and, speaking of sidewalks, why is the sidewalk a different height and design in front of each business or home? and speaking of home and business, what is it like to have the family living room open out into the street and double as a place of business where every body who wants to, say, have your dad fix their scooter, can bring it right up to the family couch and television? Does everybody have their family shrine right over the TV and DVD player?
Before we get into the genuinely amusing, strange stuff (from an American perspective) about Taiwan, let me get several things off my chest:
Don't they all look alike? I mean, really how can you tell those people apart? This is the one comment that pushes my button. Really. Stand around on any street here for five minutes and you'll see Taiwanese don't look any more alike than Caucasians. Even without the admixture of the American Armed Forces stirring the genetic pot for decades, the advent of modern hair coloring means the average school girl with blond hair here is no more likely to be a real blond than an American one. There has been a disquieting fad for wearing enormous blue contacts in their eyes.
a shot of this promotional poster is as well as I can do since I couldn't take photos of the elevator operators in Shin Kong Department Store
Don't they eat dogs and other odd stuff like snakes? No. They don't eat dogs. Most dogs I've seen here are as pampered as ones in America. On the way to a concert today, I saw no less than three dogs in, so help me God, knitted sweaters. In this heat, that may cook them, but not by design.
What people eat is always an interesting question. Food often is a major definition of culture. My culture in North Carolina is only a generation or two removed from widespread consumption of chitlin's, possum, squirrel, and fat back. Frog legs are considered a delicacy in French restaurants, so let's not get carried away with what other people think is down home cookin'. There is a place in Taipei called Snake Alley that sells snake meat. It's mostly a tourist attraction now. The average Taiwanese eats no more snake than the average American eats rattlesnake or alligator meat.
Don't you get tired of eating rice? No. Mainly because they don't serve a lot of rice here. Look back through all my food photos, in my travel letters and my extra photos on Flickr; don't see any rice do you? Rice is served like a roll might be served to you in the States. I have been served rice three times in the more than two weeks I have been here. Each time it was simply in a small bowl to the side, a bowl no bigger than a coffee cup at home. The average Taiwanese's reaction to a serving of Kung Pow chicken from an AMERICAN Chinese restaurant would be about the same as an American's if served field peas, collards, carrots and fried pork chops glopped together on a bed of twelve slices of bread.
WITH THOSE ITEMS OFF MY CHEST, LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT SOME STUFF THAT AIN'T LIKE IT IS AT HOME.
7-11s run this country. It's not a democracy nor a dictatorship. It is "quick-stop-ocracy."
There are competing chains, Circle K, Family Store, Happy Store, etc. but they're all the same as a 7-11 which remains the dominant brand. You can do anything at a 7-11; pay your bills, taxes, traffic tickets; buy French wine, pickled duck eggs, Love Milk, and videos.
Every receipt comes with a lottery ticket. Now wouldn't that just get all the Baptists' panties in a twist back home in the South!
It's bad enough when someone gets a celebrity tattoo, but it's even worse when no one can figure out who it's supposed to be! Take your best guess at a dozen mysterious tattoos at City Rag. Link -via Gorilla Mask
We love chili peppers, the hotter, the better! The ingredient that gives spicy peppers their heat is capsaicin, but what is the purpose of capsaicin in nature? To find the answer, ecologist Joshua Tewksbury traveled to Bolivia, home of many kinds of peppers.
"Capsaicin demonstrates the incredible elegance of evolution," says Tewksbury. The specialized chemical deters microbes—humans harness this ability when they use chilies to preserve food—but capsaicin doesn't deter birds from eating chili fruits and spreading seeds. "Once in a while, the complex, often conflicting demands that natural selection places on complex traits results in a truly elegant solution. This is one of those times."
If you are a longtime fan of The Simpsons, you'll do well on today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. How well do you think you know the Simpson's next door neighbor, Ned Flanders? I don't -I would have probably scored 0% if I had tried! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/23901
Spanish police seized a 42-piece dinnerware set from a man who received the delivery. The blue plates, cups, and bowls decorated with sunflowers turned out to be made from 45 pounds of cocaine!
It was sent by recorded delivery from Venezuela to Barcelona via London.
Now police have arrested a 35-year-old Spanish man, known only as JVLL, who is believed to have received the crockery in the mail, after an international investigation.
They believe JVLL was forced into the deal by Venezuelan drug lords. The dealers had hoped to treat the drug and then sell it in Catalonia, police said.
