High School Student Co-Authors PT-Symmetric Chain Paper

Dec 07 2010 | comment(s)

In the midst of all the lamentations that their isn't enough spending on science outreach (read: grants to do it rather than simply doing it, like we do here) or enough spending on turning people who want to be veterinarians (insert any alternative career choice here) into scientists, young people who want to excel in science are still doing it, just like they always have.

Guerin Catholic High School senior Mark Babbey is co-author of a paper in Physical Review A on the properties of quantum particles that hop from site to site on a chain in which one site can absorb them and another can emit them, known as a PT-symmetric chain.

Religion's Secret 'Happiness' Ingredient Isn't Theological - Study

Dec 07 2010 | comment(s)

Why does religion still exist? It is something we have pondered many times because its demise has been predicted for centuries. It turns out that religious people are happier, studies show, and that makes sense; answers to otherwise unsolvable puzzles are comforting and if you've ever been to an 'skeptic' conference, the only times they are happy are when they are making fun of religion so, technically, religion even makes atheists happier.

Squid Bacteria Point the Way to a New Kind of Medicine

Dec 07 2010 | comment(s)

Cephalove recently had a couple of lovely posts about that most famous of squid symbioses: the bobtail squid Euprymna scolopes and the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fischeri. It's become a model system for all kinds of questions about bacteria-host relationships, including pathogenic ones (read: bacterial disease). And it's an excuse to add adorable photos to otherwise not-very-photogenic stories about microbes! See:

Photo Upload Dec 6 2010 16:06

Dec 06 2010 | comment(s)

Despite widespread acceptance, I reject the renormalization ideology in QFT.

Solar Sails Are Already Old Tech - Get Ready For Solar Wings

Dec 06 2010 | comment(s)

We know that light has mass and that beaming enough light at something can push it away - solar sails that will move a craft through the cosmos are based on this idea and NASA tested that concept earlier today when it launched NanoSail-D, a nanosatellite (cubesat) which will unfold to a 100 square foot polymer sail and travel in low earth orbit for a few months.

solar sail on a cubesat.

Sails? We don't need no stinking sails. Credit: NASA

Venezuela: Hugo Chavez blames capitalism for rain

Dec 06 2010 | comment(s)

Own a company in Venezuela? If you are one of the few successful companies left that hasn't been nationalized, you won't be much longer because they are getting too much rain.

The recent rains have left 70,000 people homeless, mostly in the coastal area where millions live in hillside shantytowns and have had mudslides ruin homes.

Wait, isn't Venezuela an OPEC nation? And rich as all get out? Indeed they are, so it seems odd that Chavez blames other capitalists - the ones making him rich - for rain yet doesn't spend any money to get his people out of cardboard boxes.

Photo Upload Dec 6 2010 11:22

Dec 06 2010 | comment(s)

An argument for a regulated Internet? Homegrown tracking code for ad companies is wide open

Dec 06 2010 | comment(s)

U.C. San Diego researchers have discovered that some ad codes are tracking user history far beyond what was previously believed - and not just shady sites.

This 'history sniffing' was found on large sites like Morningstar.com and Newsmax.com, among others. The culprit in those cases - ad-targeting company Interclick - admitted to being the tracking code on those sites.

Interclick said its new homegrown code