Extinction is nothing new; more than 99% of all species that have ever lived we will never know about.  Extinction is entirely natural and, if you've ever watched someone's car weaving on the highway while they talk on the phone and drink a coffee, you have probably hoped it will remain a fundamental process of evolution.

But survival of the fitter(1) can be a fickle mistress.  Why, after 800,000 years of successful survival did the Hundsheim rhino (Stephanorhinus hundsheimensis) suddenly and irrecoverably disappear?

Some estimates claim that within the first week after giving birth, up to 70 percent of women experience symptoms of the 'baby blues' - obviously a different thing than clinical postpartum depression, which perhaps 13 percent of new mothers show symptoms of having and is defined as a major depressive episode starting within 4 weeks after delivery.

Milder postpartum blues are obviously a major risk factor for developing postpartum depression and severe postpartum blues symptoms can be viewed as a prodromal stage for postpartum depression, say researchers, and in a new paper they reveal an increase of the enzyme MAO-A throughout the female brain in the immediate postpartum period and propose a neurobiological model for postpartum blues.

Hydrogen is the fuel-cell future but currently it has a number of issues, primarily related to storage(1) and cost.   Cost because getting hydrogen out of a molecule requires a catalyst and efficient catalysts, like platinum, dissolve during the stop-and-go driving of a fuel-cell-powered electric car - as much as 45 percent of the catalyst can be lost during five days. 

You know when gold looks cheap by comparison your energy technology is not ready for the mass market.

Light beams travel in straight lines and don't go around corners, they instead spread through a process known as diffraction.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered that small beams of light can indeed be bent in a laboratory setting, diffracting much less than a "regular" beam.    These rays are called "Airy beams" after English astronomer Sir George Biddell Airy, who studied the parabolic trajectories of light in rainbows. 

Please indulge me a charming aside from A.A. Milne in order to set the stage for my essay…. (don’t worry, it’s charming)


The House at Pooh Corner (pg 93-94)
In Which Pooh Invents a New Game and Eeyore Joins In

Regarding the recent Nature News article (Transcription: Enhancer makes non-coding RNA. Nature 465, 173-174; 2010) about the discovery of enhancer RNAs (eRNAs) and their apparent link with neuronal activity, an initial question that arises is whether these eRNAs are really a new class of small RNAs. The question stems from the striking similarities between eRNAs and microRNAs.

Autonomous Satellites

How smart does a satellite have to be to function? I'm working on the design of the Project Calliope satellite, and near as I can tell, it doesn't need a brain. All it needs is energy, sensors, the ability to yell or shut up, and a small stuffed animal.

Let's back up a bit. My picosatellite kid has a computer core and a Radiometrix transmitter. I unpacked it and then discussed how the pieces went together. But how minimal can I go?

Arctic Summer 2010 - Hot Or Not?


Will it get very warm in the Arctic this summer?

It is already so warm in many parts of the Arctic that floes which would normally obstruct the free flow of ice for weeks or months are now surviving only days before breaking up.  That is abnormal.  The long term trend in summer peak temperatures shows little rise.  That is because most of the rise has occurred outside of the summer season.

Before moving on, I have to give credit to Neven for the astute observation about summer temperatures.

It's no secret social media is big - every marketing group latches on to the latest fad (even us - we gots the Tweetypages, we gots the Faceyspaceys) and people are using it more and more.   But in the recent past, for many the Internet was just another way to get 'traditional' news, preferably for free.

The CDF Collaboration has recently produced results of a search for Supersymmetric Higgs bosons in events with three or more bottom-quark jets. Here I wish to give just the highlights of this analysis, but before I do I will try to spend 5' on making sense of the previous sentence.

In good order, below I explain first of all 1) what is CDF, 2) what is the Tevatron, 3) what are Higgs bosons from Supersymmetry, 4) how can these be sought with bottom quarks, and 5) what are bottom quark jets. After I am done with these five explanations, those of you who are still here will no doubt appreciate the results I am showing today. Can I make it in 5 minutes ? Sure, but can you read forty lines of text in the same amount of time ?