A few days ago I produced a summary of a poster I presented at Physics in Collisions this week, which dealt with the searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson that CMS will undertake, and the results it can obtain in a scenario when a certain amount of data is collected at the full design energy of the LHC.

Here, instead, I wish to summarize the other poster I presented at the same venue, which concerned the combination of the most sensitive search channels, the sensitivity of CMS with a given amount of data, and the derating of its significance reach or observation power entailed by the running of LHC at a smaller-than-design beam energy. But I will do this only as a way of introducing a more interesting discussion, as you will see below.

Flat-panel televisions are nothing new.   I think even my father has one in his toolshed by now.  But legitimate flat-panel loudspeakers are harder to come by.    

There are single-speaker surround sound systems, and those are admirable, but speakers, unlike today's televisions, require a great deal of old-fashioned physics, analog-style, because that's how sound reaches our ears - so flat panel ones, though a terrific concept in size, haven't been great in practice.   

Being a skeptic is a rather lonely art. People often confuse you for a cynic, and I’m not using either term in the classical philosophical sense, of course.

Was an almighty God required to boot up the universe, or would a blindfolded monkey have sufficed?

What a silly question. Isn't it obvious that truly divine powers were needed to create our amazing universe capable of evolving systems of supreme complexity called 'life'? Maybe. Maybe not. It all boils down to the question: How special was the big boot, the mother of all boot-ups commonly referred to as the big bang?

Everyone says they want to get kids to get a better science - now we can all actually do something about it.

We're doing a small beta test of our Science For Kids site.(1)  It isn't perfect yet but that's why we need people to try it out.   Once we find any glaring bugs we can sort those out and finish the cosmetic stuff.  

For Scientific Blogging columnists, you can just log in and go to it.  Everything is all set.   For new people who sign up the articles will go into moderation, because, let's face it, we're writing for kids and our names are on the thing so we can't make it a free-for-all.

Proving myself wrong in record time (see comments on my first post, where I claimed I wouldn't be discussing squid recipes), today's squid is served with chiles, lime, and herbs.

Why?

The coincidence was just too good to pass up. Another commenter suggested that squid popularity these days isn't just a flash in the pan--and then a recipe blog in the Village Voice by that very name posts a squid dish!

I've been trying to figure out why "transhumanists" and their predictions irritate me so much.  Perhaps it's seeing humanity reduced to a simplistic engineering problem to be solved.  Or maybe it's the love affair that appears to be happening between them and technology.  Or maybe it's the fact that they all sound like psychics, except that their subject is the human race instead of an individual. Back in July, Massimo Pigliucci addressed some of the problems with transhumanism, however it seems that this is a rather persistent idea.

Antioxidants cause cancer. Or at least that is the headline you may read in some less reputable sources of science news, reporting this study out this week in Nature. Before you go rushing off to toss out your Teavana supercharged antioxidant green tea and your expensive GNC herbal supplements, let's take a closer look at what the research shows. (Well, to be frank, you can go throw out those supplements, and only keep your tea if you enjoy drinking it.)

A couple of years ago, I talked about some of the search terms that people have used when they’ve found my blog pages. In the comments, Donna was amazed at the information that’s available to the web sites you visit.

My response to Donna’s comment discussed some stuff that’s available, but there are other issues too.

Stanford scientists say they will reinvent digital photography with the introduction of an 'open-source' digital camera.

If the technology catches on, camera performance will be no longer be limited by the software that comes pre-installed by the manufacturer because virtually all of the features of the Stanford camera – focus, exposure, shutter speed, flash, etc – are at the command of software that can be created by inspired programmers anywhere. "The premise of the project is to build a camera that is open source," said computer science professor Marc Levoy.