R E B L O G   T H E   P I G E O N .

2015 6/6 Jared Padalecki attended Gilmore Girls ATX reunion in Austin.

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Happy birthday, America! (x)

NASA Technology in Your Life

How does NASA technology benefit life on Earth? It probably has an impact in more ways than you think! Since 1976, our Spinoff program has profiled nearly 2,000 space technologies that have transformed into commercial products and services. In celebration of Spinoff’s 40th year of publication, we’ve assembled a collection of spinoffs that have had the greatest impact on Earth. 

Take a look and see how many you utilize on a regular basis:

Digital Image Sensors

Whether you take pictures and videos with a DSLR camera or a cell phone, or even capture action on the go with a device like a GoPro Hero, you’re using NASA technology. The CMOS active pixel sensor in most digital image- capturing devices was invented when we needed to miniaturize cameras for interplanetary missions. This technology is also widely used in medical imaging and dental X-ray devices.

Enriched Baby Formula

While developing life support for Mars missions, NASA-funded researchers discovered a natural source for an omega-3 fatty acid previously found primarily in breast milk that plays a key role in infant development. The ingredient has since been added to more than 90% of infant formula on the market and is helping babies worldwide develop healthy brains, eyes and hearts.

NASTRAN Software

NASTRAN is a software developed by our engineers that performs structural analysis in the 1960s. Still popular today, it’s been used to help design everything from airplanes and cars to nuclear reactors and even Disney’s Space Mountain roller coaster.

Food Safety Standards

Looking to ensure the absolute safety of prepackaged foods for spaceflight, we partnered with the Pillsbury Company to create a new, systematic approach to quality control. Now known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), the method has become an industry standard that benefits consumers worldwide by keeping food free from a wide range of potential chemical, physical and biological hazards.

Neutral Body Posture Specifications

What form does the human body naturally assume when all physical influences, including the pull of gravity, stop affecting it? We conducted research to find out using Skylab, America’s first space station, and later published specifications for what it called neutral body posture. The study has informed seat designs in everything from airplanes and office chairs to several models of Nissan automobiles.

Advanced Water Filtration

We recently discovered unexpected sources of water on the moon and Mars, but even so, space remains a desert for human explorers, and every drop must be recycled and reused. A nano filter devised to purify water in orbit is currently at work on Earth, in devices that supply water to remote villages as well as in a water bottle that lets hikers and adventurers stay hydrated using streams and lakes.

Swimsuit Designs

Wind-tunnel testing at our Langley Research Center played a key role in the development of Speedo’s LZR Racer swimsuit, proving which materials and seams best reduced drag as a swimmer cuts through the water. The swimsuit made a splash during its Olympic debut in 2008, as nearly every medal winner and world-record breaker wore the suit.

Air Purifier

When plants grow, they release a gas called ethylene that accelerates decay, hastening the wilting of flowers and the ripening of fruits and vegetables. Air circulation on Earth keeps the fumes from building up, but in the hermetically sealed environment of a spacecraft, ethylene poses a real challenge to the would-be space farmers. We funded the development of an ethylene scrubber for the International Space Station that has subsequently proved capable of purifying air on Earth from all kinds of pathogens and particulates. Grocery stores use it to keep produce fresh longer. It’s also been marketed for home use and has even been embraced by winemakers, who employ the scrubber to keep aging wine in barrels free from mold, mildew and musty odors.

Scratch-Resistant, UV-Reflective Lenses

Some of the earliest research into effective scratch-resistant coatings for prescription and sunglass lenses drew from work done at Ames Research Center on coatings for astronaut helmet visors and plastic membranes used in water purification systems. In the 1980s, we developed sunlight-filtering lenses to provide eye protection and enhance colors, and these lenses have found their way into sunglasses, ski goggles and safety masks for welders.

Dustbuster

An Apollo-era partnership with Black & Decker to build battery-operated tools for moon exploration and sample collection led to the development of a line of consumer, medical and industrial hand-held cordless tools. This includes the popular Dustbuster cordless vacuum.

To see even more of our spinoff technologies, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/40-years-of-nasa-spinoff

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

=rainofhell:

1. I was under the impression that Dean was the main antagonist.

2. How is the mark of Cain not a new plot idea.

3. There probably isn’t much Dean-Castiel interaction because the destiel shippers keep shoving it on the actors and then accusing the writers of queer-baiting when they do interact, so you only have yourselves to blame.

4. I actually agree about Charlie, though apparently felicia day filmed for 10.23 so she might be coming back.

The ratings trends are interesting but reasoning that the decline is a direct result of writing choices in this case ignores the reality of how switching nights after a late-season hiatus of a month (something that has never been done before with Supernatural) killed the ratings. Since switching to Wednesdays, the ratings have actually been pretty consistent (around 1.7 mil), though about a half million less than we had on Tuesdays (around 2.2 mil).

Keep in mind also that The CW is more interested in the A18-34 demographic rather than these total viewers numbers or the A18-49 ratings which get widely distributed. One can only guess that they follow the same trends. Also, the networks get detailed breakdowns of viewers in a variety of different demographics so they know who is tuning in (or tuning out) each week.

As I understand it, Supernatural was moved to Wednesdays to give iZombie a chance at higher ratings do to a higher rated lead-in and less competition on Tuesday nights vs. Wednesday nights.

Heads up, Supernatural Showrunners: Season 10 is losing viewers faster than ever before in the show’s history

So, Dark Dynasty was the worst-rated episode ever in Supernatural’s history. I was adding that data point in to my little graph of Live+SameDay ratings that I post regularly to fandomnatural, because I am a geeky little PhD nerd like that, and I noticed a few things. First off Supernatural’s seasons always tend to lose some viewers across the season - that’s normal - but usually at a gentle rate. For example look at Gamble’s seasons in green, below. Ratings for her seasons weren’t that great but at least they were somewhat consistent. There was a nice gentle downward slope…  like a condor sailing down on a gentle breeze… 

As opposed to Carver’s three seasons, which bounce up and down like a pigeon caught in a hurricane. There’s first a huge bounce upward in week 2 of season 8. This happens to be exactly the week when the first crop of Netflix viewers would have caught up to the live show. Netflix has been feeding viewers steadily to the live show ever since, but there’s still a lot of bounces. Most of these are attributable to certain events like: Jared Padalecki’s Bieber twitter fiasco, Misha Collins’ directorial debut, Fan Fiction and the bounce it caused the following week, and of course the “Castiel and Dean actually have a conversation” lunch date promo (which resulted in the best ratings in nearly a year, and the best of all of season 10.)  The overall trend was: fans might check out for a while but they were willing to check back in when something caught their attention.

But the Carver ratings pigeon appears to have died in the middle of S10. Shortly after that Castiel/Dean lunch date promo, the ratings switch from erratic bouncing to a sudden steady downward slide that is unusually steep. This has given S10 dramatically increased variation in average ratings:

This seems to be because there was a sudden switch in ratings in the middle of the season. (the moment the Carver ratings pigeon died and began plummeting like a rock)  Check out S10′s massive drop in average # viewers per episode before vs. after the Christmas hiatus. Something changed as the show came out of that hiatus:

These numbers are still preliminary because S10 is not quite done, but this a huge drop. (note I have excluded the last two episodes from every season, so as to enable fair comparison to S10, which still hasn’t aired its last two episodes.) But it’s clear that right now, Supernatural is losing viewers more rapidly than at almost any other time in the show’s history. (exceeded, very slightly, only by season 1 when the show was still finding its legs, and finding its fandom.) 

So, what’s so different about Season 10? Several things:

- No antagonist / no greater good to fight for; “personal journey” approach; less emphasis on Sam/Dean as heroes

- Extremely slow plot progression and lack of new plot ideas: “accordioning out” of S9′s Mark of Cain plot to stretch over 1.5 years, rather than a new plot

- Extreme reduction in interactions, conversation and friendship between Dean and Castiel. (Whatever you’re trying to do here, CW, you’re doing it wrong)

- Too many “family/friends” lost w/o compelling replacements; most recently, death of the character who was supposed to represent the fandom (I know this only just happened, but there was such an instant outcry that it may have affected west coast viewership and same-day ratings). 

Message to the showrunners and to CW execs: Look at your numbers. Something is going very wrong with Supernatural and you need to fix it.

- 

Supernatural’s beer of choice thanks to Wisconsin boy, Jerry Wanek, producer and production designer for the show. He named the beer after his mother and the Wisconsin beer Leinenkugel.  

J2 + Jensen making Jared laugh uwu

Jurassic Park (1993)