Science News

Read more here http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1134256--medical-isotopes-possible-without-a-nuclear-reactor?bn=1 What are isotopes and why are isotopes needed?

Scientists from Austria and Spain have shown that females may be at higher risk of acquiring infections when they are ovulating due to higher circulating levels of estradiol.It all seems to be a mild trade-off of an significant trait evolved for the protection of spermatozoa. LINK : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120103135333.htm

Transistor Made Using a Single Atom May Help Beat Moore's Law this is an article I found today about quantum computing research that could potentially break Moore's Law.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/boy-who-played-fusion "...Kenneth [Taylor's father] feels the weight coming down on him again. What he doesn’t understand just yet is that he will come to look back on these days as the uncomplicated ones, when his scary-smart son was into simple things, like rocket science..." Worth a read, I think, pretty crazy, too many areas worth citing. -That is, if it isn't already covered somewhere around here and a fair bit of semi-interesting conversation follows in comments.

The Beeb has this article on the MIT initiative MIT launches free online 'fully automated' course

"Translating Energy Research Ideas in to Industry"—Cal State L.A.'s Lloyd N. Ferguson Distinguished Lecture Series for 2012—will be presented on Friday, Feb. 17, 1 p.m., at Cal State L.A.'s Golden Eagle Ballroom. Theodore Goodson III, the Richard Barry Bernstein Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan, will deliver the lecture. Goodson's research centers on the investigation of nonlinear optical and energy transfer in organic multi-chromophore systems for particular optical and electronic applications. He has investigated new quantum optical effects in organic systems, which have applications in discrete communication systems and sensing. Establish…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16163931 http://web.media.mit.edu/~raskar/trillionfps/ I would be curious as to how they deal with storing the frames. If we assume 1kb/frame, which is probably way less than the actual size, we get 30 PB of data per second, which according to WA is about 1/30 of the estimated data content of the internet.

According to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service there has been a raise in the number of students applying for physics courses at university this year in the UK. This is despite an overall decrease across the board. Physics is up by 8.3% as compared to last year. See the IOP news report here. It seems that the number of students applying for a university place in England has gone down 9.9% as compared to last year. Wales and Scotland, who have different levels of student funding have different statistics. The drop in Scotland is about 1.5%, Wales 1.9% and Northern Ireland 4%. See the BBC news report here.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tame-theory-did-bonobos&WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20120125

Terrible, this ocean acidification is huge! Life underwater will be in serious danger if it keeps growing and growing! “When Earth started to warm 17,000 years ago, terminating the last glacial period, atmospheric CO2 levels rose from 190 parts per million (ppm) to 280 ppm over 6,000 years. Marine ecosystems had ample time to adjust. Now, for a similar rise in CO2 concentration to the present level of 392 ppm, the adjustment time is reduced to only 100 – 200 years.” From United Academics

Breakthrough?

Professor Steven Rawlings of Oxford University was found dead at the home of Dr Devinder Sivia. Both men had co-authored books together. Read more details (Daily Mirror)here. The BBC news report can be found here.

Hi all, Some UCLA research group using LED, pinhole, and webcam to make microscope (from more videos in the same account). It feels easy to make, but it looks like it's the (some youtube how to video) + holographic microscope (wikipedia).I think the only difference to the home-made one is just the pinhole and CMOS resolution, UCLA one can see blood cells. If that is the only difference, feels like anyone can re-create it easily tho. Just that holographic shadows... even though it says "simple algorithm," it might be hard to do it still...

First of all, there's no real danger to people. The problems I describe below are minor. And the main problem is excess rainwater, which cannot drain away because we're below sea level. We've had a pretty wet december, and last week we've had strong winds and lots of rain on top of it. It's been wind force 8-9 for 3 days in a row now. Nothing really out of the ordinary, and the types of problems below are also something that will occur almost once every year in some form or another. But still, it's in the news all over the country, and I thought this would be entertaining to read. So, the situation is the following: we've had lots of rain. All that rainwater coll…

Found this via slashdot: http://peswiki.com/index.php/News:Real-Time_Updates_on_the_October_6%2C_2011_E-Cat_Test http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/06/1430210/does-italian-demo-show-cold-fusion-or-snake-oil I've seen hydrogen-nickel fusion rolling around the crazier corners of the internet for a while, but this event and the commentary around it are merely ringing most of my crank alarms loudly. The others are only jangling. Anyone have anything more to say on the matter?

The Independent UK (emphasis is my own - jimmy) Some may ask: 'What is the bloody point?'

What's going on with these mysterious, ultra-red galaxies http://io9.com/58649...ra+red-galaxies From their appearance astronomers cannot explain such old appearing very red galaxies accordingly within the first ~700 million years of the universe, according to the Big Bang model. Discuss your mainstream ideas/ possibilities on this thread. If you have a non-mainstream alternative explanation, discuss them here in the speculation forum. //

I was listening to the news yesterday morning, and I heard a short mention that the gang down at the LHC had discovered a new particle, the Chib (3P) particle, as they call it, which is composed of a bottom - antibottom pair. It's is supposedly involved in the Nuclear Force, somehow, and I have always had an extremely deep interest in particle physics and fundamental forces, so I'd be excited to know how this particle is involved. If anyone knows anything about it, or has any links to experimental documents, I'd be very interest, and I'm sure the rest of the forum would be too.

In wissen.blog.com K. Muellen (Prof of MPIP) — T. Weil (Prof of Uni-Ulm & KM’s PhD student) — U. Ziener (TW’s associate & collaborator of KL) — K. Landfester (Prof of Uni-Ulm & MPIP) From G Lu Sent: 2011-05-19 14:56 To: E. P. K CC: Eagling Re: Accusation on paper b816751f Dear Prof. Kundig, I acknowledge you for your kind comfort and sincere counsel on the rules in scientific activities. As I told you before, I was actually kidnapped by the institute that I am currently staying in, so it is impossible for me to carry out research under such circumstances. I had also attempted twice to publish my paper b719277k to JACS and then Chem. Commu.. H…

. Read more here http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g-eXC0s8-oqFHfZpGTu5Bp91m4_A?docId=aa2d83576c02480f84878b53aab593e6 wow interesting stuff !!

Did a giant octopus really make art? I have kept many and they do indeed seem to be obsessed with objects and their placement in the shelters they build but could it have been art? http://www.world-science.net/othernews/111010_ichthyosaur

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/08/mercury-ufo_n_1135855.html

http://www.guardian....article/9643229 For sanity, here's the abstract of the actual paper: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6031/862.abstract Admittedly the study is limited: it tracked one week of lectures and used a single quiz to evaluate learning. It's certainly not definitive. But a change in instructional technique that results in twice the learning? That's pretty impressive. (Incidentally, my university is adopting a "learning assistant" program in which undergraduate physics students who have already taken the introductory courses are paid to sit in and help out students in group discussions and interactive parts of class -- I'm try…

As usual with pop-media, the title is a tad bombastic; the effect seems to be that the brain takes less processing time with nude bodies than it does with clothed ones, which I guess makes a lot of sense. There's less to analyze. Still, it was too good not to share. http://cnews.canoe.c...3/19013771.html If anyone can find the original science study, I will be happy to stare at it.

http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/mg21228403.300 I say creepy, it's too weird, imo.--You?