Scientists Turn Water into Wine (Even in a Drought)

Written by Courtney Carlisle

Their science is impressive, but their timing is dead on. It doesn’t quite seem fair that California has been blessed with the perfect growing climate for some of the world’s best agriculture (and of course, wine) but saddled with a water shortage.

To help the Napa winemakers and wineries worldwide oversee their crop irrigation and management, Sebastian Payen and Thibaut Scholasch, of Fruition Sciences have turned the science of hydration monitoring into an art. The business partners’ techniques come from the marriage of research and technology that they have developed over more than seven years working at prestigious universities and with premier vineyards.

Using a proprietary technology, Fruition Sciences is able to monitor real time viticulture information and deliver the statistics via a web-based application to the winemakers instantly. The ability to monitor the vineyard status in real time allows vintners to make decisions about irrigation and canopy management that can have immediate repercussions as well as a long term effect on the crop.

The team is currently working with winemakers around the world in California, France and Spain to monitor vine conditions. Implementing this technology at some of the large producers worldwide could have an interesting impact on water usage and vine care and maintenance by leaving a little less up to chance and putting a little faith in technology.

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House of Representatives Passes Bill to Protect Us from Asteroids

Don't worry, folks: Our trusted representatives in government just saw the movie Armageddon, and they aren't going to take the threat posed by this mediocre 1998 action movie lying down. They're going to pass laws to make sure we're prepared to face any asteroid-related threat without having to send a bunch of oil drillers into space.

The House of Representatives just passed bill H.R. 6063, directing NASA to come up with plans for a cheap mission to send a craft to the Apophis asteroid to attach a tracking device. Apophis is on route to come closer to Earth than geostational satellites in 2029, and if it smacked into the planet we'd be a little bit screwed.

In addition to paying close attention to Apophis, the bill requires the Director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy to come up with a policy for notifying Federal agencies and other emergency response groups of an impending near-Earth object threat. Hopefully they'll come up with better plans than whatever it is they have enacted for natural disasters now, because their track record doesn't really inspire confidence. [KurzweilAI]

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2008 June 28

Fireball at Ayers Rock
Credit & Copyright: Joseph Brimacombe

Explanation: A weekend trip for astrophotography in central Australia can result in gorgeous skyscapes. In this example recorded in March of 2006, the center of our Milky Way Galaxy rises over planet Earth's horizon and the large sandstone formation called Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock. After setting up two cameras to automatically image this celestial scene in a series of exposures, one through a wide-angle and the other through a telephoto lens, photographer Joseph Brimacombe briefly turned his back to set up other equipment. To his surprise, the ground around him suddenly lit up with the brilliant flash of a fireball meteor. To his delight, both cameras captured the bright meteor streak. Highlighted in the telephoto view (inset), the fireball trail shines through cloud banks, just left of Ayers Rock.

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