Ah, the joy to see bosons in our first 7-TeV proton-proton collisions at LHC! The CMS experiment has released two days ago its first results on W and Z bosons, plus many other riches. Of course, these plots are only demonstrative, since the statistics is still ridiculously poor if compared with the wealth of data available at the Tevatron. But still, these are collisions at 3.5 times more energy, and the machine is doubling its luminosity every week or so, so I expect that very soon the distributions will stop looking rough and will start containing real information, to be converted in meaningful measurements of the relevant physical quantities.

J/Psi mesons

Researchers have come a long way from initially cracking the DNA code since the time of Watson and Crick, to now unveiling the complex layers of molecular codes that make up the cell’s molecular fingerprint.

These codes are no longer restricted to the 4 nucleotide codes of the DNA sequence, but rather a complex web of coding systems that regulate every stage of gene expression, including the epigenetic codes (transcriptional), microRNA codes (translational), as well as codes derived from alternative splicing of RNA transcripts (post-translational). While the existence of these codes are now dogma to most cell biologists, precisely how these codes dictate the identity of cells in a multicellular organism still remains elusive.

Wikipedia's Science 2.0 Article - I Call Poe


This article was inspired by Hontas Farmer's recent article and the subsequent comments: Science 2.0 - Darwinian Selection Of The Best Paper.

You are an idea-monger. Science, art, technology – it doesn’t matter which. What matters is that you’re all about the idea. You live for it. You’re the one who wakes your spouse at 3 AM to describe your new inspiration. You’re the person who suddenly veers the car to the shoulder to scribble some thoughts on the back of an unpaid parking ticket. You’re the one who, during your wedding speech, interrupts yourself to say, “Hey, I just thought of something neat.” You’re not merely interested in science, art or technology – you want to be part of the story of these broad communities.

Sexsomnia may be more common than previously believed and is more common in men than women, according to new research presented today at SLEEP 2010.   Their results indicate that 7.6 percent of patients (63 of 832) at a sleep disorders center reported that they had initiated or engaged in sexual activity with a bed partner while still asleep.

The prevalence of reported sexsomnia was nearly three times higher in men (11 percent) than in women (four percent).

Are you a bold personality?  High self-esteem, action-oriented, eager, tenacious?  If so, you are more likely to be a religious extremist when anxiety occurs, according to findings by York University researchers in this month's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In a series of studies, over 600 participants were placed in anxiety-provoking or neutral situations and then asked to describe their personal goals and rate their degree of conviction for their religious ideals. This included asking participants whether they would give their lives for their faith or support a war in its defense.

Using an implicit task, scholars used two experiments, how people automatically responded to words, to predict break-ups. They showed it was easier to link words referring to their partner to words with pleasant or unpleasant meanings, a harbinger of couples about to split up.

Most of the time happiness determination in relationships involves asking people but surveys have little value there. Finland always tops 'happiest country' charts even though they aren't happy at all, they just have cultural sisu and claim they are happy when asked.

A tornado is a rotating column of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground.  Tornadoes are capable of 250 MPH wind speeds, cutting a swath of destruction in excess of one mile width and dozens of miles in length.

If you see a dark, greenish sky or a wall cloud and hail, you might be getting a tornado.  If you have something that sounds like a freight train, you definitely are.

Written two years after the catastrophic destruction of World War II ended with the initiation of the nuclear age, Aldous Huxley's Ape and Essence is a graphically violent, sexually explicit, and surrealistic expression of Huxley’s bitter disappointment in humanity.

Iceberg Alley And Global Warming

In 1912 there were 1,019 icebergs reported in the North Atlantic shipping lane throughout the iceberg season.  Many of those icebergs were reported in April 1912.

This year, as of June 06 2010, no icebergs have been reported in that same shipping lane.

Is this evidence of global warming?

It is so intuitive to assume that, if  Arctic ice retreat is due to global warming, then a lack of Atlantic icebergs must also be due to global warming.

It doesn't work that way: there is only an indirect link between sea ice loss and iceberg melt mechanisms.


R.M.S. titanic