The world’s most powerful radio telescope is now functioning!

13 Replies Christopher Roberts

One of the best places to put a telescope is in the Atacama Desert, which is on the boarder of Chile and Peru – currently there are around 20 telescopes (both radio and optical) functioning in the area.

The Alma telescope

In the last few days, the world’s largest radio telescope, the Alma telescope, has began to function. Currently the telescope is made up of around 20 massive antenna dishes, which work in harmony to produce amazingly detailed pictures of outer space.

The project has input from all around the world, with Europe, North America, East Asia and the Republic of Chile forming a partnership, all doing their bit to add more antenna dishes and improve the telescope.

The ALMA Telescope

The antenna dishes that currently make up the telescope ALMA Telescope

When the project is completed, (hopefully within the next 20 years if all goes to plan) the telescope will have a whopping 66 dishes at its disposal, all of which it can use to gaze at the stars in fantastic detail!

Why the Atacama Desert?

You are probably wondering why the Atacama Desert is such a hotspot for telescope activity. Well there are a number of reasons, but the main ones are that it has clear skies almost all the time, in addition to very dry air – meaning that its hard for humans to breath there due to low oxygen levels, but for the telescopes, that means very little interference from anything in the space above.

Furthermore, the desert has many high flat areas, meaning that telescopes can be closer to the atmosphere, meaning even less interference. In addition to this, because the Atacama is a desert, it has virtually no light pollution. Basically it is an astronomer’s dream location!

Is it working?

The project has only been live for less than a week now, but already some stunning high detailed pictures of space area already beginning to emerge. Below is one of these great pictures:

ALMA Telescope deep space picture

A picture of deep space made possible by the ALMA Telescope

Because the light we can see here on earth is often millions, if not billions of years old, we are able to see into the past when looking up at the sky, using super powerful telescopes like the Alma one.

Scientists believe that we will be able to see events that happened just 400 million years after the big bang, due to the light delay, hence enabling us to understand better than ever before the formation of the early universe.

The Alma telescope is just one small cog in our planets fascinating scientific road of discovery, however one thing’s for sure: this ‘small cog’ should be able to help us understand a lot more about the universe than ever before!

Learn Japanese from your iPhone

29 Replies RonF

The other day, I was thinking of enrolling for a crash course in Japanese when my friend, Gina, recommended an app which she said was as good as having a personal tutor. On her advice, I downloaded the Japanese Phrases iPhone app and found it to be a handy application that helps users sharpen their listening, pronunciation, reading and speaking skills. It lets you learn conversational Nihongo (the Japanese lingo) wherever you are – at school, at home, while commuting to office or at the gym.

The Japanese Phrases app is more than just a learning resource. It gives users adequate training and practice to pick up a language that is not their own. The app teaches the basics of the language through more than 700 words and phrases that are used in day-to-day conversations.

Japanese Phrases iPhone App Screenshot

It is a practical app that has the right tools to facilitate easy comprehension and retention. As the phrases are voiced by a native speaker, users learn them with the correct pronunciation. And by repeating the phrases continuously, it becomes easy to memorize them. As all the phrases are displayed as flashcards, learning the language is quick and interactive. The grammar lessons are interesting and I was able to grasp the concepts almost instantly although a little effort was needed. There is also an email option that helps users to mail phrases and I used it to get a few clarifications from Sun, my friend who introduced this app to me in the first place.

I like the idea of displaying phrases and words in a random manner as it helps me recall the familiar ones and learn the new ones as well. The study bank helps in saving favourite phrases or ones that you would like to refer to later. The phrases are categorized to make learning easy. Japanese Phrases has also a search tool that helps in looking up phrases both in Japanese and English.

This app helps you learn the language at your own pace. You can quiz yourself to find out about the progress you are making, The app eliminated all the apprehension I had about learning a foreign language. It made me feel confident and helped me build my Japanese vocabulary in no time.

All said and done, this app will attract only a few people as it caters to a very niche audience. The app is available in the Apple iTunes store and can be downloaded for free.

How to be a smart online buyer

20 Replies Christopher Roberts

When you decide you want to buy something off the internet, how do you go about doing so? I’m not talking about getting your shopping delivered to your door, I am talking about buying something like maybe a laptop, digital camera or a new mobile phone.

Many people just look for the make and model they want and they go straight in for the buy. Do you? If so, you may want to read on, as you could save yourself a lot of money!

Say I wanted to buy a laptop, one of the first things I would do would be to go to a money saving site like Money Saving Expert in order to establish whether there are currently any great offers on laptops that other people on the web have noticed.

If you are still looking for the best type of laptop for you, try review and comparison sites like Test Freaks. These can help you decide what laptop to buy, as they can give you reviews that people who have bought laptops have written. They often also present data in a very easy way, often giving the product a score, based on its price, spec (and therefore value for money) and what peoples reviews are like – i.e. positive or negative.

Test Freaks LogoIf/once you have your heart set on a particular laptop, then your next step is to look for discount codes for that sit/product. Sites like My Voucher Codes can often save you 5-10% on your goods, simply because they know the latest discounts for your product. 5-10% might not sound that much, but if you are buying a £350 laptop (lets say $500) 10% is £35/$50 which is enough to buy you a really good travel case as well as a decent wireless laser mouse and a USB hub.

The final bit of advice I would give you is to take your time. When spending a large amount of money over the internet check reviews of the site you are buying off, to see if it is reputable, check that the item is exactly what you want and make sure you get the best price!

Often online sites have deals which change all the time, meaning that tomorrow that perfect laptop may now be 25% cheaper, as it was only higher priced so that they could bring it down and slap a ‘25% off!’ label on it.


Good luck making any online purchases 🙂

Anyone got any other advice/experiences to share?