Christmas is magical at a national park lodge

1 day

A. Pawlowski , NBC News contributor

Built smack in the middle of some of the most gorgeous, pristine scenery in America; warmed by crackling fireplaces and full of rustic charm, there?s something special about spending Christmas at a grand National Park lodge.

Besieged by tourists in the summer, they?re calmer, quieter and decked out for the season in the wintertime.

The weather outside may be frightful, but these historic lodges ? with log-beamed ceilings, grand lobbies and scrumptious holiday feasts ? promise warm Christmas memories.

Old Faithful Snow Lodge, Yellowstone National Park
Carolers may sing about walking in?a winter wonderland, but visitors who come to Yellowstone when it is covered in snow get to experience the real thing.

?It?s gorgeous,? said park spokeswoman Amy Bartlett. ?It?s a whole different world here in the wintertime versus the summertime.?

The Old Faithful Snow Lodge is one of two inns catering to guests who want to stay inside Yellowstone when the weather gets cold, and its 100 rooms and 30 cabins usually fill to capacity during the week between Christmas and New Year?s, said Rick Hoeninghausen, a spokesman for Xanterra, which runs the park?s accommodations.

The lodge is in a festive mood for the holidays, with a big Christmas tree and live music in the evening for guests who want to sing Christmas standards. A special dinner will be served to mark the big day.

But the main attraction, as always, are the park?s geysers, steam vents and hot springs, made more dramatic by the freezing temperatures.

?In a geyser basin, it just becomes otherworldly because of the play of the steam and the cold,? Hoeninghausen said.

Many guests also enjoy the scenery at night, fascinated by the starry sky that can only be visible away from city lights.

?People think we have more stars here because you see them more. If you let your eyes adjust, you can actually see star shadows ? the shadow on the white snow just from star light,? Hoeninghausen said.

Wondering how to ring in Jan. 1 in Yellowstone? Visitors mark the occasion by watching the first eruption of Old Faithful in the New Year.

The Ahwahnee, Yosemite National Park
With spectacular views of Half Dome, Yosemite Falls and Glacier Point at Yosemite National Park, this grand lodge fills up quickly during the summer, but also lures visitors with its cozy atmosphere in the winter.

??It?s a really popular time of year at The Ahwanee,? said Lisa Cesaro, a spokeswoman for DNC Parks & Resorts, which manages lodging at Yosemite. ?It?s just really festive and wonderful.?

The heart of the hotel is the Great Lounge with its 24-foot-high ceilings and a massive stone fireplace. This is where guests tend to congregate, drinking hot cocoa, playing games and feeling as though they were in their own living room, Cesaro said.

But perhaps the best-known Ahwahnee Christmas tradition is the Bracebridge Dinner, which the hotel describes as ?a four-hour pageant of classic carols, Renaissance rituals and entertainment of the Middle Ages.?

First held in 1927 when the hotel opened, the event was meant to encourage people to come visit Yosemite in the winter, Cesaro said. Today, it?s so popular that there are eight Bracebridge Dinner performances. Guests are served a seven-course meal in the elegant Ahwahnee Dining Room during the production.

Don?t want to splurge on the dinner, which starts at $299 for adults? The Ahwahnee hosts concerts in the Great Lounge throughout the season, which are complimentary and open to the public.

For New Year?s, guests can dress up for the ?Black and White Ball? dinner dance celebration.

El Tovar, Grand Canyon National Park
A Grand Canyon vacation usually guarantees two things: hordes of tourists and sweltering heat. Visit the park during the holidays, however, and it?s a whole different experience.

?It?s a quiet getaway ? the park is not crowded. Often it has snow and that adds to the romance,? said Bruce Brossman, a spokesman for Xanterra, which runs the park?s accommodations.

With a prime location on the Canyon rim, the El Tovar Hotel is even more stunning for the holidays, with a 15-foot Christmas tree in the main lobby and poinsettias adding a bright touch to the wood d?cor.

It?s been snowing steadily at the Grand Canyon, so visitors will experience a white Christmas, a time of year that?s so popular at the lodge that the hotel usually sells out, Brossman said, adding that shouldn't stop people from dropping by.

?You don?t have to sleep at El Tovar to enjoy El Tovar. We can?t accommodate all the people who actually want to stay there, but the lobby and the lounge and the dining room and the porches are all public spaces,? he said.

The hotel hosts special dinners on Christmas and New Year?s, though there are no official parties scheduled.

"It?s just a very peaceful, quiet place to spend the holidays,"?Brossman said.?"And, of course, when it does snow, walking along the rim is just spectacular."

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/itineraries/christmas-magical-national-park-lodge-1C7661428

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Geminid meteor shower reigns in the night sky (+video)

Geminid meteor shower: Last night's annual meteor shower was a crowd pleaser. The Gemind meteor shower comes from debris shed by a 3-mile-wide? asteroid called 3200 Phaethon.

By Mike Wall,?Space.com / December 14, 2012

The annual Geminid meteor shower peaked overnight last night (Dec. 13), dazzling skywatchers around the world with a bounty of brilliant shooting stars.

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The Geminids' peak was supposed to be good this year, as it occurred in a sky left dark by the new moon. Experts had predicted that viewers in rural areas might see 100 meteors per hour early Friday morning (Dec. 14) ? and perhaps even more.

Judging by the reactions of some SPACE.com readers, the Geminids did not disappoint.

"What an incredible show we had here!" Sean Parker, who watched the shower early Friday just west of Tucson, Ariz., told SPACE.com via email. "I was able to see about 50 per hour." [Photos: Geminid Meteors of 2012]

Parker constructed a gorgeous composite image of about 30 frames, which captured dozens of shooting stars streaking through the skies above a saguaro-studded desert mountain.

"This image took a lot of work, as I had to scroll through about 400 frames and find which frames had shooting stars in them, then cut out every meteor and blend," Parker said.

Skywatchers on the other side of the world were enthralled by the Geminids as well.

"Awesome experience," said Mumbai, India-based Swaroop Hangal, who also captured a photo of a fast-moving meteor.

"Today, I had planned to see 50 streaks and then quit with or without a pic," Hangal said. "Had almost lost hope when I could capture the 50th one, just between Betelgeuse at the bottom & Alhena in the Gemini constellation."

The Geminids? so named because they appear to emanate from the constellation Gemini (The Twins) ? are one of the most dependably impressive annual meteor showers.

They result when Earth plows through debris shed by a 3-mile-wide (5 kilometers) asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. These tiny particles burn up in our planet's atmosphere, leaving bright streaks in the sky to commemorate their passing.

The Geminids' source is unusual for?meteor showers, which are typically caused by streams of sloughed-off comet particles. Debris streams from the famous Halley's Comet, for example, produce the Orionids every October and the Eta Aquarids, which peak in early May.

If you missed the Geminid peak last night, don't fret; you still have a few days to catch the shower this year. The Geminids should linger until Sunday (Dec. 16) or so before fizzling out completely.

Editor's Note: If you take a photo of this year's Geminids that you'd like to share with SPACE.com for a possible story or gallery, please send it, along with your comments, to spacephotos@space.com.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall?or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?and?Google+.?

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/FXHxmvVP7I0/Geminid-meteor-shower-reigns-in-the-night-sky-video

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Spaghetti Carbonara, Magic Ice Cream (5 Ways), Food Writers ...

15 Fresh, Simple Cocktails for Spring

What was popular in May 2012? Let's see: Pasta carbonara (an authentic recipe!), and 25 food writers' safety drinks to order at bad bars. Plus, flavor variations for magic banana ice cream and why recipe writers lie about caramelizing onions.

Top 10 Posts of May 2012

? 1 15 Fresh, Simple Cocktails for Spring
? 2 14 Simple, Delicious Recipes with Just 6 Ingredients (Plus Salt)
? 3 Sunday Cooking: 10 Meals That Will Last the Entire Week
? 4 What Drink Do You Order at a Bad Bar? - 25 Food Writers Share Their Safety Drinks
? 5 Feeling Hungry? Grab an Orange!
? 6 20 Scrumptious Brunch Recipes
? 7 Magic One-Ingredient Ice Cream 5 Ways: Peanut Butter, Nutella, and More
? 8 Chocolate, Strawberry, Banana & Beyond: 15 Homemade Ice Cream Recipes
? 9 Why Recipe Writers Lie About Caramelizing Onions
? 10 Authentic Spaghetti alla Carbonara

* * *

Welcome to The Kitchn's Best of 2012 roundup!
From December 17 through January 1 we are rounding up some of our favorite (and your favorite) posts from the past year.

(Images: See linked posts for full image credits)

Source: http://www.thekitchn.com/-the-kitchns-top-posts-of-may-2012-181739

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Meeting With A Southside Personal Injury Lawyer - NCWT Legal ...

After my friend was injured in an accident, she knew that she was going to need a lawyer. Her injuries were pretty severe and she was going to need to go through a lot of rehabilitation in order to recover. She decided to contact a southside personal injury lawyer and set up an appointment. She chose someone who is experienced in matters such as these. She is very pleased with her choice and she feels much better in knowing that she has legal representation.

Comments are closed.

Source: http://www.ncwt.org/legal/meeting-with-a-southside-personal-injury-lawyer/

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The 500 phases of matter: New system successfully classifies symmetry-protected phases

Dec. 21, 2012 ? Forget solid, liquid, and gas: there are in fact more than 500 phases of matter. In a major paper in a recent issue of Science, Perimeter Faculty member Xiao-Gang Wen reveals a modern reclassification of all of them.

Condensed matter physics -- the branch of physics responsible for discovering and describing most of these phases -- has traditionally classified phases by the way their fundamental building blocks -- usually atoms -- are arranged. The key is something called symmetry.

To understand symmetry, imagine flying through liquid water in an impossibly tiny ship: the atoms would swirl randomly around you and every direction -- whether up, down, or sideways -- would be the same. The technical term for this is "symmetry" -- and liquids are highly symmetric. Crystal ice, another phase of water, is less symmetric. If you flew through ice in the same way, you would see the straight rows of crystalline structures passing as regularly as the girders of an unfinished skyscraper. Certain angles would give you different views. Certain paths would be blocked, others wide open. Ice has many symmetries -- every "floor" and every "room" would look the same, for instance -- but physicists would say that the high symmetry of liquid water is broken.

Classifying the phases of matter by describing their symmetries and where and how those symmetries break is known as the Landau paradigm. More than simply a way of arranging the phases of matter into a chart, Landau's theory is a powerful tool which both guides scientists in discovering new phases of matter and helps them grapple with the behaviours of the known phases. Physicists were so pleased with Landau's theory that for a long time they believed that all phases of matter could be described by symmetries. That's why it was such an eye-opening experience when they discovered a handful of phases that Landau couldn't describe.

Beginning in the 1980s, condensed matter researchers, including Xiao-Gang Wen -- now a faculty member at Perimeter Institute -- investigated new quantum systems where numerous ground states existed with the same symmetry. Wen pointed out that those new states contain a new kind of order: topological order. Topological order is a quantum mechanical phenomenon: it is not related to the symmetry of the ground state, but instead to the global properties of the ground state's wave function. Therefore, it transcends the Landau paradigm, which is based on classical physics concepts.

Topological order is a more general understanding of quantum phases and the transitions between them. In the new framework, the phases of matter were described not by the patterns of symmetry in the ground state, but by the patterns of a decidedly quantum property -- entanglement. When two particles are entangled, certain measurements performed on one of them immediately affect the other, no matter how far apart the particles are. The patterns of such quantum effects, unlike the patterns of the atomic positions, could not be described by their symmetries. If you were to describe a city as a topologically ordered state from the cockpit of your impossibly tiny ship, you'd no longer be describing the girders and buildings of the crystals you passed, but rather invisible connections between them -- rather like describing a city based on the information flow in its telephone system.

This more general description of matter developed by Wen and collaborators was powerful -- but there were still a few phases that didn't fit. Specifically, there were a set of short-range entangled phases that did not break the symmetry, the so-called symmetry-protected topological phases. Examples of symmetry-protected phases include some topological superconductors and topological insulators, which are of widespread immediate interest because they show promise for use in the coming first generation of quantum electronics.

In the paper featured in Science, Wen and collaborators reveal a new system which can, at last, successfully classify these symmetry-protected phases.

Using modern mathematics -- specifically group cohomology theory and group super-cohomology theory -- the researchers have constructed and classified the symmetry-protected phases in any number of dimensions and for any symmetries. Their new classification system will provide insight about these quantum phases of matter, which may in turn increase our ability to design states of matter for use in superconductors or quantum computers.

This paper is a revealing look at the intricate and fascinating world of quantum entanglement, and an important step toward a modern reclassification of all phases of matter.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. X. Chen, Z.-C. Gu, Z.-X. Liu, X.-G. Wen. Symmetry-Protected Topological Orders in Interacting Bosonic Systems. Science, 2012; 338 (6114): 1604 DOI: 10.1126/science.1227224

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/4yRefulfhq8/121221233120.htm

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Unlocking new talents in nature

Friday, December 21, 2012

Protein engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have tapped into a hidden talent of one of nature's most versatile catalysts. The enzyme cytochrome P450 is nature's premier oxidation catalyst?a protein that typically promotes reactions that add oxygen atoms to other chemicals. Now the Caltech researchers have engineered new versions of the enzyme, unlocking its ability to drive a completely different and synthetically useful reaction that does not take place in nature.

The new biocatalysts can be used to make natural products?such as hormones, pheromones, and insecticides?as well as pharmaceutical drugs, like antibiotics, in a "greener" way.

"Using the power of protein engineering and evolution, we can convince enzymes to take what they do poorly and do it really well," says Frances Arnold, the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at Caltech and principal investigator on a paper about the enzymes that appears online in Science. "Here, we've asked a natural enzyme to catalyze a reaction that had been devised by chemists but that nature could never do."

Arnold's lab has been working for years with a bacterial cytochrome P450. In nature, enzymes in this family insert oxygen into a variety of molecules that contain either a carbon-carbon double bond or a carbon-hydrogen single bond. Most of these insertions require the formation of a highly reactive intermediate called an oxene.

Arnold and her colleagues Pedro Coelho and Eric Brustad noted that this reaction has a lot in common with another reaction that synthetic chemists came up with to create products that incorporate a cyclopropane?a chemical group containing three carbon atoms arranged in a triangle. Cyclopropanes are a necessary part of many natural-product intermediates and pharmaceuticals, but nature forms them through a complicated series of steps that no chemist would want to replicate.

"Nature has a limited chemical repertoire," Brustad says. "But as chemists, we can create conditions and use reagents and substrates that are not available to the biological world."

The cyclopropanation reaction that the synthetic chemists came up with inserts carbon using intermediates called carbenes, which have an electronic structure similar to oxenes. This reaction provides a direct route to the formation of diverse cyclopropane-containing products that would not be accessible by natural pathways. However, even this reaction is not a perfect solution because some of the solvents needed to run the reaction are toxic, and it is typically driven by catalysts based on expensive transition metals, such as copper and rhodium. Furthermore, tweaking these catalysts to predictably make specific products remains a significant challenge?one the researchers hoped nature could overcome with evolution's help.

Given the similarities between the two reaction systems?cytochrome P450's natural oxidation reactions and the synthetic chemists' cyclopropanation reaction? Arnold and her colleagues argued that it might be possible to convince the bacterial cytochrome P450 to create cyclopropane-bearing compounds through this more direct route. Their experiments showed that the natural enzyme (cytochrome P450) could in fact catalyze the reaction, but only very poorly; it generated a low yield of products, didn't make the specific mix of products desired, and catalyzed the reaction only a few times. In comparison, transition-metal catalysts can be used hundreds of times.

That's where protein engineering came in. Over the years, Arnold's lab has created thousands of cytochrome P450 variants by mutating the enzyme's natural sequence of amino acids, using a process called directed evolution. The researchers tested variants from their collections to see how well they catalyzed the cyclopropane-forming reaction. A handful ended up being hits, driving the reaction hundreds of times.

Being able to catalyze a reaction is a crucial first step, but for a chemical process to be truly useful it has to generate high yields of specific products. Many chemical compounds exist in more than one form, so although the chemical formulas of various products may be identical, they might, for example, be mirror images of each other or have slightly different bonding structures, leading to dissimilar behavior. Therefore, being able to control what forms are produced and in what ratio?a quality called selectivity?is especially important.

Controlling selectivity is difficult. It is something that chemists struggle to do, while nature excels at it. That was another reason Arnold and her team wanted to investigate cytochrome P450's ability to catalyze the reaction.

"We should be able to marry the impressive repertoire of catalysts that chemists have invented with the power of nature to do highly selective chemistry under green conditions," Arnold says.

So the researchers further "evolved" enzyme variants that had worked well in the cyclopropanation reaction, to come up with a spectrum of new enzymes. And those enzymes worked?they were able to drive the reaction many times and produced many of the selectivities a chemist could desire for various substrates.

Coelho says this work highlights the utility of synthetic chemistry in expanding nature's catalytic potential. "This field is still in its infancy," he says. "There are many more reactions out there waiting to be installed in the biological world."

###

California Institute of Technology: http://www.caltech.edu

Thanks to California Institute of Technology for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126058/Unlocking_new_talents_in_nature

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"Diver Down" by Michael R. Ange - Book Review - Scuba Diving ...

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Source: http://scuba.about.com/b/2012/12/20/diver-down-by-michael-r-ange-book-review.htm

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