Science News

One of My daughters is in Australia at the moment. She e mailed me today Quote " Hey Dad, Check out the link below. Me and Marcus were sat in a hostel on the Queensland coast of Australia last Wednesday and out of nowhere a huge meteor shower went straight past us! Was incredible! See why you should come over here? http://www.sott.net/category/17-Fire-in-the-Sky Love xay xxxxx " It seems coincidental that the visit of Ison comet is just passing this week into the suns corona, could this be fragments breaking off on its way in. It is due coming out from the sun during December for the biggest show in recent years. Note the quotes above ,alre…

The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)! My economics teacher likes to think that he knows copious amounts of fine details when it comes to computing. He keeps going on about the NSA having one of only two terahertz computers in the world. This doesn't exactly mean much of anything, as far as I'm aware there still isn't at present a terahertz transistor to design a chip on. So I decided to do a little research and it seems that the current standard in national security is the petaflop. Recent articles suggest however, that in fact there is currently a work in progress toward an exaflop security center, and this has generated so…

Inner shell electrons being shared is a wild thought to me but I am limited to high school chemistry (which I did perfectly in btw ) but a very interesting development... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=chemical-bonds-inner-shell-electrons&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20131122 How many more predictions from Star Trek have to come true before it is canonized

Physicists at the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics have developed a device that "leaves the photon untouched upon detection". After reviewing the link to the original article, I found the following that explains that "an incoming photon is reflected off an optical resonator containing a single atom prepared in a superposition of two states". So, I wouldn't say that the photons are untouched. However, the claim is that the detector allows the photons to continue on their way after being detected: This non-destructive technique of observing the photon may lead to new advances in quantum computing, communication, and information processing: Pretty cool…

The infinite monkeys Brian Cox and Robin Ince are back! http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03j9lvb/The_Infinite_Monkey_Cage_Series_9_Through_the_Doors_of_Perception/ And catch previous series here http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+infinite+monkey+cage+series+9&page=1

Molecular hydrogen is being discussed as a possible greenhouse gas to explain an early warm mars. Other models using just CO2 and H2O do not result in a warm Mars with a dim Sun but adding molecular hydrogen might do the trick. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131124200548.htm

More reason to eat your vegetables.

I wonder how much current this material can conduct?

This increase may make microalgae oil production competitive with petroleum diesel. There are many millions of acres of desert in the southwest with saline groundwater that can be used to grow marine microalgae. There is little rain in this area, which means these groundwater sources will deplete quickly if squandered. Fortunately, growing algae is best done in greenhouses or in photobioreactors that conserve water. If this development sparks the large scale production of algal oil, it will create jobs, reduce CO2 emissions, and stop the flow of dollars to oil producing countries. It would be a huge benefit for the environment and economy of the US…

Smile while you eat a few nuts, and you will be happier, too. They did not report a causal relationship, merely a correlation that is consistent with other similar studies. They did not report any specific nut as superior in this study.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ramesh_raskar_a_camera_that_takes_one_trillion_frames_per_second.html Some researchers may find this high speed photography useful for their own projects. It makes possible some things that otherwise would be impossible, including seeing around corners...really. Watch the Ted Talk above.

The double Nobel Prize winner, Frederick Sanger, best known for the technique of Sanger sequencing, has died aged 95. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25020112 The scientific community will be forever indebted to you, Sanger, for the knowledge and technologies resulting from your "messing about in the Lab" and will remember you fondly.

Several groups have now repeated the feat of the Japanese group working at the insitute headed by Nobel Prize winning stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka. That is, they have created functioning oocytes from adult female mouse cells. The groups are now trying to repeat the feat with monkey and human cells. The below story contains links to the academic papers in Nature Protocols, and Nature: link removed

Does the visible photon have a counterpart, a dark photon, that interacts with the components of dark matter? http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/november-2013/connecting-the-visible-universe-with-dark-matter

Thorium powered car could run for a century with out refueling! Nuclear power car runs on thorium!

US physicists have studied the fluid dynamics of urine "splashback" - and found tips to help men and women with their accuracy and hygiene. Using high-speed cameras, the team filmed jets of liquid striking toilet walls and studied the resulting spray. Splashback was low when the jets were used close up with a narrow "angle of attack", said the Brigham Young University team. They will present their research at an American Physical Society meeting. "In response to harsh and repeated criticisms from our mothers and several failed relationships with women, we present the splash dynamics of a simulated human male urine stream," reads their conference abstract Read…

This research is consistent with my belief (speculation) that abiogenesis is inevitable because chemicals will self assemble and create life. And, if the chemicals still exist in the right conditions, abiogenesis continues. But, whatever spontaneous life is created will have little chance of survival, because evolved forms are be much more capable of surviving and thriving.

The KNAW (Royal Dutch Science Academy) hosts this initiative that I wholeheartedly support: http://www.scienceintransition.nl/nieuws/position-paper-available-in-english 1. the myth of science being un-corrupatble 2. the wrong publish or perish culture 3 the sense of science: to much production of unnecessary research

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-man-who-would-teach-machines-to-think/309529/ A nice article in the Atlantic on Douglas Hofstadter and his counter mainstream approach to life the universe and everything. And an interesting comparison via a book review from 30 years ago in the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/hofstadter-magazine.html

Artificial neurons and networks of them are far simpler than their biological counterparts, and brainpower is more distributed and complex than previously thought. It also suggests that at least some single cell organisms may have some computing power, as well as individual cells within multicellular organisms.

From: SciTechDaily If it is so easy, why hasn't someone done it such that we would know about it. Sandberg thinks the reason is that intelligent life in the universe is very rare. Perhaps the chances of an Earth sized planet in the right orbit around a star, with a large moon to stabilize its rotation, is a very unlikely event, and it is required for an intelligent life form to develop technology. Most of the alternatives are poor outcomes for humanity.

It seems to be a step in the right direction for CO2 production and the economy. Unfortunately the reason for reduced CO2 is less heating required due to a warm winter.

Hi, I am a grade 12 student studying in Dubai Modern High School and i believe that i have found the maximum number of elements possible. Please reply to thread if interested.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2013/

This research seems to be a step toward understanding abiogenesis, and one that points in a direction not previously investigated. Will this information lead to further progress, or to another difficult road block?