Featured Articles

Get Your Own LHC Killer (BYOB)

Get Your Own LHC Killer (BYOB)

Dec 07 2011 | comment(s)

If on occasions you dream about owning the world's largest particle smasher, I have good news for you. The Superconducting Super Collider is for sale "at a significant discount". However, to stand a chance in beating the LHC in the race for the Higgs, you better act quickly. And uhh... did I tell you the sale is a 'BYOB' (bring your own beam) deal?
Spinops Sternbergorum - Horned Dinosaur Discovery 100 Years In The Making

Spinops Sternbergorum - Horned Dinosaur Discovery 100 Years In The Making

Dec 06 2011 | comment(s)

A new species of horned dinosaur, Spinops sternbergorum, was announced today by an international team of scientists nearly 100 years after the initial discovery of the fossil.
Last Gasp For The UNFCCC And Climate Change Negotiations?

Last Gasp For The UNFCCC And Climate Change Negotiations?

Dec 06 2011 | comment(s)

When rational people give up, all that is left are zealots - that means the conduct of some nations at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP-17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) could be a sign reasonable discussion of controlling emissions are out the window.

It has been hoped for years that a meaningful successor to the Kyoto agreement could be in reach soon but it's a little silly to have the world's top CO2 emitter exempt from CO2 emissions cutbacks - not to mention India, Brazil and Mexico, who are also exempt and don't want that to change, since they are much poorer than China and China remains exempt.
When Dreams Haunt: The Inevitability of Loss

When Dreams Haunt: The Inevitability of Loss

Dec 06 2011 | comment(s)

It's a wonder I haven't had these sorts of dreams sooner, when one thinks about it. I started volunteering with hospice in July, and I've had three patients that I volunteered with die in that time. I also call about a dozen different grieving families every week to check on them. I've been to more visitations and funerals in the last six months than I have in the last decade. I will, as a volunteer for hospice, deal with death regularly. And yet I know that I will still be insulated; the full-time staff of nurses, aides, chaplains, and social workers deal with it constantly. It is their livelihood to help people have a dignified and comfortable last few months (or even days).
Spinning the Interaction Story: Spin 1 (1 of 3)

Spinning the Interaction Story: Spin 1 (1 of 3)

Dec 06 2011 | comment(s)

So much action happens with with interaction term of a Lagrangian, it is easy for those not initiated into the refined arts of field theory to skip over issues. In this blog I will dive into the details of a vector current coupling which should indicate why a spin 1 field must be associated with the interaction. The next blog will follow a similar road for a set of symmetric rank 2 tensors that requires a spin 2 field. The final blog examines how charges attract or repel for either spin. Hopefully I will include critical caveats for these subjects. If not, the comments may have a pearl or two worth reading.

Where Am I?

Where Am I?

Dec 06 2011 | comment(s)

I looked at my watch after the English gentleman walked away. The half hour discussion had begun with my question, “Excuse me sir, could you please tell me about places to see in this town?” I had to stop this person and ask him because unlike anyone else my age, I lacked a 3G-enabled phone with maps. Liverpool had just started to feel the right place to walk around and explore.

Marco Polo beat Columbus

Marco Polo beat Columbus

Dec 06 2011 | comment(s)

A trunk-load of maps and letters reveals Marco Polo’s greatest secrets. He served as a “field agent” for the Polo Brothers’ Spy Team.

Sent to observe and infiltrate the government of Kublai Khan, Marco participated in Chinese explorations in the Canadian Arctic and along America’s West Coast during the 13th century. Examination of the documents by researchers at the New World Discovery Institute in Seattle was completed in October of 2011.
Ask, And Ye Shall Receive*

Ask, And Ye Shall Receive*

Dec 05 2011 | comment(s)

Yesterday I complained that none of the articles about the New Zealand squid fishery had any quotes from fishing reps. I had only to wait 24 hours for my complaint to be answered!
Habitable Zone - G5 Star Planet Kepler 22b Is A Warm Super-Earth

Habitable Zone - G5 Star Planet Kepler 22b Is A Warm Super-Earth

Dec 05 2011 | comment(s)

Queue the 'life on other planets' media buzz.  NASA's Kepler Mission has discovered the first super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun.
BeautifulPeople.Com Thinks The Virgin Mary Was One Of Its Members

BeautifulPeople.Com Thinks The Virgin Mary Was One Of Its Members

Dec 05 2011 | comment(s)

BeautifulPeople.com, the dating community exclusively for good-looking people, is offering the chance to win a date with Joseph and the Virgin Mary - namely by spending a lot of money.  Well, not really the Virgin Mary, they don't want frogs raining on you or locusts infesting your kitchen this Christmas season. 

Instead, they are shamelessly whoring themselves, and willing attention-whore members, out in a vaguely disconcerting publicity stunt.  They convinced their members Heather and Dorion, who also appear as the parents of Jesus in their website's Nativity scene, to take one for the team and go on a date with whoever wins the auction, including *gasp*, an ugly person, should they be rich. 

Muscle Fatigue May Be In Your Head

Muscle Fatigue May Be In Your Head

Dec 05 2011 | comment(s)

Research on muscle fatigue has largely been confined to the muscle itself. That makes sense, where there is burn, there is fire.  But motivation and will power turns out to have a greater impact on muscle fatigue than previously believed, according to a joint research project between the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich has shifted the focus to brain research.

The researchers discovered neuronal processes for the first time that are responsible for reducing muscle activity during muscle-fatiguing exercise. The third and final part of this series of experiments, which was conducted by Lea Hilty as part of her doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich, has now been published in the European Journal of Neuroscience.
Earth Science Bonanza - American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall meeting 2011

Earth Science Bonanza - American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall meeting 2011

Dec 05 2011 | comment(s)

Earth Science Bonanza is the best way of describing a meeting where 20 000 Earth science scientists gather from around the entire world. For a whole week San Francisco is saturated with scientists. The highest density can be found around Union Square more specifically at Moscone center. The yearly AGU Fall meeting has started....
Not Lazy Enough Yet? Kinect For Xbox 360 Gives You A Voice Remote

Not Lazy Enough Yet? Kinect For Xbox 360 Gives You A Voice Remote

Dec 05 2011 | comment(s)

Kinect for Xbox 360 has an update coming today that brings voice control to living room entertainment. 

 They are launching an all-new Xbox 360 experience including the first group of new, custom applications from world leading TV and entertainment content providers on Xbox LIVE. 

 You Say It, Xbox Finds It 

How long does it take you to search and find your favorite movie or TV show? Do you find yourself searching hundreds of channels and multiple services and TV inputs? What if the entertainment you craved was simple, discoverable and exactly what you wanted at that particular moment?

Many Worlds Tautological Truth: To Be Or Not To Be Is Not The Question

Many Worlds Tautological Truth: To Be Or Not To Be Is Not The Question

Dec 05 2011 | comment(s)

Susskind and other usual suspects try hard to convince the world that they are the ones who finally understood 'Many Worlds' and that such is a success of string theory and all that. A media spectacle is going on right now, see here at the New Scientist’s “Ultimate Guide to the Multiverse”, Brian Greene chipping in with the Multiverse episode of the “Fabric of the Cosmos” series on PBS, and many others.

Sea Lions Compete With Humans For Squid; Lose

Sea Lions Compete With Humans For Squid; Lose

Dec 05 2011 | comment(s)

Today's squid news comprises four journalistic angles on the same story. See if you can figure out what it is:
The Meme Meme, The Self-Reflexive Meme and the New Dawn of Memetics

The Meme Meme, The Self-Reflexive Meme and the New Dawn of Memetics

Dec 04 2011 | comment(s)

Excerpts from “The Empires of the Mind” and $ Memetics is the study of memes, but a meme is not just any idea, though; memes are ideas that behave as life. The word meme is a contraction of mind gene, a concept developed by Richard Dawkins to describe ideas will to exist, grow and propagate in a very similar way that life does. The concept of memetics is founded on the realization that since the word meme is itself an idea, it is descriptive of itself.
Violent Video Games Alter Young Brains

Violent Video Games Alter Young Brains

Dec 04 2011 | comment(s)

The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to players has been debated for many years, even making it to the Supreme Court in 2010. There has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect but sustained changes in the region of the brain associated with cognitive function and emotional control were found in young adult men after one week of playing violent video games, according to study results presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
Antioxidants Reduce Stroke Risk In Women

Antioxidants Reduce Stroke Risk In Women

Dec 04 2011 | comment(s)

The debate over the actual benefit of antioxidants may be ongoing but the studies keep coming in. Regardless of cardiovascular disease medical history, Swedish women who ate an antioxidant-rich diet had fewer strokes, shows the results of a new survey.

Oxidative stress is an imbalance between the production of cell-damaging free radicals and the body's ability to neutralize them. It leads to inflammation, blood vessel damage and stiffening.

Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, carotenoids and flavonoids can inhibit oxidative stress and inflammation by scavenging the free radicals. Antioxidants, especially flavonoids, may also help improve endothelial function and reduce blood clotting, blood pressure and inflammation.

USA Shows Sharp Decline In Coal Power Pollution

USA Shows Sharp Decline In Coal Power Pollution

Dec 04 2011 | comment(s)

Researchers using the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite have confirmed major reductions in the levels of sulfur dioxide, a key pollutant generated by coal power plants which contributes to the formation of acid rain, in the eastern United States.