Featured Articles

Unnatural Selection - The Abortion War On Girls?

Unnatural Selection - The Abortion War On Girls?

Jun 21 2011 | comment(s)

Abortion is barely a controversy in America these days.  Most people, men and women, are against it for themselves but it has been the law of the land for two generations.   Crazy politicians like Barbara Boxer of California still campaign on abortion by insisting if a Republican beats her in a Senate race they could somehow overturn it but for the most part it is a non-issue outside zealots.   It isn't going anywhere.
Nano-Team Takes On Tumors

Nano-Team Takes On Tumors

Jun 21 2011 | comment(s)

By using two types of nanoparticles, drug delivery to tumors could be increased significantly. At the moment, several drug-delivering nanoparticles are already being used in clinical trials to combat tumors. A team at MIT decided to use two distinct particles, each with its own job, one to locate the tumor, and another one to deliver the drugs, all the while making use of the body’s own blood clotting system.

Light-Emitting Top Quark Pairs

Light-Emitting Top Quark Pairs

Jun 21 2011 | comment(s)

A paper describing the first evidence of top pair production in association with a energetic photon has just appeared on the Cornell Arxiv. This search has been performed by the CDF collaboration in a sample of 6 inverse femtobarns of proton-antiproton collisions.

There is nothing strange or particular about the fact that any hard production process at a hadron collider can produce, in addition with a massive state such as a top pair, additional energetic photons. That is because any charged particle involved in the process will have a small but finite chance of radiating electromagnetic energy, with a strength governed by our good-old fine-structure constant.
Snarky Puzzle Answers 3

Snarky Puzzle Answers 3

Jun 21 2011 | comment(s)

A great title is key to getting lots of views. For my blogs, ones with the fewest views include “Snarky Puzzle Answers”, and “Snarky Puzzle Answers 2”. Do I have high expectations for SPA 3, Revenge of the Nerds? Nope, I expect the community to be consistent. This is an observation, not a complaint, honest.

What is exciting to me is that I am asking questions and developing answers. I want to emphasize the plural. This is not a one trick pony (quaternions can do 3D rotations and nothing else of interest). Many different topics are being raised and looked at from odd angles. I didn’t have a plan to write these puzzles, but am glad they emerged from the blog writing process. Now back to the questions and their answers.
Official Quantum Randi Challenge

Official Quantum Randi Challenge

Jun 21 2011 | comment(s)

The Quantum Randi Challenge (QRC), first introduced here, exists in order to stop the spread of pseudo-science by simply teaching quantum mechanics. Here is the official version of the challenge (also published here and partially in Annals of Physics 339: 81-88). [We are still looking for people who can help to turn it into a multiplayer internet app.*]


What is a “Randi-type” challenge?

The 2-Slit Experiment Revisited (1: Calculation)

The 2-Slit Experiment Revisited (1: Calculation)

Jun 21 2011 | comment(s)

According to Feynman, the 2-slit experiment with electrons "has in it the heart of quantum mechanics" and "is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way". To begin with, it may not be amiss to inform the never-ending discussion of this experiment with a knowledge of the rules that go into calculating the predicted and observed interference pattern.

The mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics can be built up on the basis of the following rules. Suppose that you want to calculate the probability of a particular outcome of a measurement M2, given the outcome of am earlier measurement M1. Here is what you have to do:
Do Any Science Publishers Care About Scientists?

Do Any Science Publishers Care About Scientists?

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

When is a multi-million dollar business that charges money before a science article can be seen by the public superior to another multi-million dollar business that charges money before a science article can be seen by the public? 

Apparently only if they claim to be non-profit.

Scientists are not business people so it is easy to understand why anyone would confuse non-profit status with "doesn't make money".   They all want to make money.   So if one publisher can charge you $1,200 to buy out the copyright and another charges readers $150 to read science, who is superior?

It basically only depends on who you like.   
Texas Sets Out To Avoid Light Bulb Ban

Texas Sets Out To Avoid Light Bulb Ban

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

Hate compact fluorescent bulbs?   Outside lobbyists for billion-dollar bulb companies and Treehugger, we can't find anyone who likes the things.   Heck, as long as the government bans alternatives, their ad campaign could be "Want a fragile box of toxic mercury in your child's bedroom?  Buy our CFLs!" and people would still dutifully buy them if someone slapped "green" on the label.
Pres. Obama Doesn't Seem To Know What Evolution Is - Or Maybe Gay Marriage

Pres. Obama Doesn't Seem To Know What Evolution Is - Or Maybe Gay Marriage

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

Did Pres. Obama sign a questionnaire supporting same-sex marriage or not?  His aides said he didn't.  Until he did.  Basically, even the White House doesn't seem to know.

I am sure gay groups, who likely voted 90% for him, are concerned about being told things like it has been "very clear that his position is evolving."  Well, no, there is nothing clear at all about that sentence, much less his position.
Sea Levels Are Rising - And Temperature Is To Blame

Sea Levels Are Rising - And Temperature Is To Blame

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

A new study shows that the rate of sea-level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years - and a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.
Taming Of The Whales - Sometimes You Have To Get A Little Naked

Taming Of The Whales - Sometimes You Have To Get A Little Naked

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

Beluga whales, famous for their human-like facial expressions, don't like artificial materials such as neoprene diving suits, it seems.   So when Natalia Avseenko wanted to help two belugas adjust to humans in order to tame them for dolphinariums around the world, she got naked.

In sub-zero water temperatures.   Most people would die in 5 minutes or less in those temperatures but Avseenko credits yoga and meditation with her ability to last an incredible 10 minutes and 40 seconds.   


History, Science And The TMT Boundary

History, Science And The TMT Boundary

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

History, Science and the TMT Boundary


To the extent that written records show political, religious or other personal bias, it may be truly said that history is bunk.  Or we may say with Henry Ford that history - as a list of dates of political events - is bunk.  But if we take the term 'history' as inclusive of everything known about the past that has a bearing on our current collective human knowledge, then history is a most valuable asset.
Discovery - 7 New Mouse Species In The Philippines

Discovery - 7 New Mouse Species In The Philippines

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

A group of biologists have discovered seven previously unknown species of mammals on Luzon Island in the Philippines. 

All of the species are forest mice, and each species lives only in a small part of Luzon.   Two of the new species live only in the Zambales Mountains (on Mt. Tapulao), two live only on Mt. Banahaw (south of Manila), two only in the Mingan Mountains of Aurora Province, and one lives only in the Sierra Madre of northeastern Luzon.
DCDC2 - Dyslexia Gene Also Controls Cilia

DCDC2 - Dyslexia Gene Also Controls Cilia

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet and Helsinki University are reporting that DCDC2, a gene linked to dyslexia, has a surprising biological function: it controls cilia, the antenna-like projections that cells use to communicate. 
Sexting - Why Do Women Do It More?

Sexting - Why Do Women Do It More?

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

Sexting, where people send photographs and sexually explicit text messages to titillate them  and perhaps increase the likelihood of a sexual relationship,  is a fairly new phenomenon.

The Internet has made the act of infidelity much easier and though sex and infidelity are now only a keyboard away, the goal for many seems to remain physical, face-to-face contact, at least in sexual relationships.   Obviously plenty of people lie or try to initiate cyber-relationships with no interest in actual human contact.
An AOL Content Farm Slave Speaks Out

An AOL Content Farm Slave Speaks Out

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

As creators of actual good content, we're pretty critical of content farms like Huffington Post or Answers.com or the rest of them - if HuffPo steals a fair-use snippet from our site it will rank higher in Google than the actual article, though not because their content is better but simply because they learned how to game the Google algorithm.

Well, who can we criticize when HuffPo socked away over $300 million from AOL doing what it does?   But at least a few people have been disgruntled at the content farm mentality - though not because they had the sort-of sense of entitlement journalists get about how media exists to keep them employed.
Geological Record: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Won't Cause Rapid Climate Change

Geological Record: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Won't Cause Rapid Climate Change

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

You've heard or read the scenarios - rapidly escalating levels of CO2 could cause rapidly escalating temperatures, even as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit.    The problem is that they are just scenarios based on a growing, yet incomplete, understanding of how climate works.

During some periods in the past, there has been 10 times the CO2 present today with little change in temperature.  At other times, temperatures have spiked rapidly but it had little to do with CO2.
World Association of Organic Chemists limits use of “organic”

World Association of Organic Chemists limits use of “organic”

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

A satire site composed of lefty science bloggers (well, is there any other kind) at least is not siding with progressives when it comes to their anti-science agenda regarding food.    So they wrote what many of us would like to write, except to do it we'd have to be pseudonyms like they are, and that doesn't do much for credibility.

But credibility doesn't matter in satire.  Anyone can be funny.
Death In The Snow

Death In The Snow

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

Climate change is very complex, and, consequentially, models predicting it need to take into account many different aspects, from wind patterns to plant and algal growth. One of the expected consequences of the changing climate is that some regions will be drier, while others will be subjected to higher rates of precipitation, which, up in the north, means more snow.

Phantom Words

Phantom Words

Jun 20 2011 | comment(s)

Diana Deutsch, professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego (see webpage), is well-known for her work on perception and memory for sounds. She has discovered numerous auditory illusions, one of them know as 'phantom words', a sequence of repeating words or phrases that arise simultaneously from different regions of space, which leads listeners to hear words and phrases that are not really there.