Curiosity: More Amazing Photos...

The main Curiosity site has a bunch of new photos up, including all those below showing the various bits of hardware strewn about the Martian landscape by Curiosity's landing.  All of these bits and pieces are within a few kilometers of each other.  MRO took these photos from its orbit around Mars, proving that the scientists know exactly where Curiosity has landed.  This is in stark contrast to past lunar and planetary missions, wherein it took weeks or even years to figure out the precise landing spot.  This is a testament to the skill of the folks operating these missions and to the capabilities of the hardware we have flying around Mars.

Below we have (click any to enlarge it):

• upper left: the heat shield, which dropped away from the sky crane assembly once the parachute was deployed
• upper right: the backshell and attached parachute
• lower left: the splat made by the sky crane assembly after it dropped off Curiosity and flew out of the way
• lower right: Curiosity itself, sitting alone on the bottom of Gale Crater, with a dark area around it where the sky crane's rockets cleared off the light colored dust

Rasterizing Curves...

Pure geek stuff, on Bresenham's algorithm for rasterizing curves...

Vomit Tea...

The farm I spent my childhood on grew holly trees (mainly Americal Holly, Ilex opaca) through the 1960s.  I got very familiar with this tree, especially the horticultural varieties that my father favored.  My dad told us kids that the American Indians used a tea made from holly leaves during their feasts.  They'd eat until they could eat no more, then drink a cup of this tea.  The tea was an emetic, so they'd go off in the bushes and puke – and then come back to eat their fill again.

Years ago, I searched for information about this, trying to either verify or debunk my father's story.  I came up empty-handed.  Now there's a bit more information available, and my father's story apparently wasn't completely wrong...