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New Research Claims It Will Throw Cosmology Into Crisis And Debunk Newton (Again)

New Research Claims It Will Throw Cosmology Into Crisis And Debunk Newton (Again)

May 05 2009 | comment(s)

It's certainly the case that 'dark matter', like 'Smurf' or 'government regulation', has in recent times become a de facto explanation for the unexplained.   We aren't big believers in magic so mysterious, undetected forces that explain everything probably actually explain nothing - and tossing out Newton in the process  brings on a higher order of scrutiny, since he has been declared irrelevant often before only to survive quite nicely.

Dark matter is currently unable to reconcile all the current discrepancies between measurements and predictions based on theoretical models and competing theories of gravitation have therefore been developed - their problem is that they conflict with Newton's theory of gravitation.
Characteristic Curvature - Let's Clean Up Some Misunderstandings About Soap

Characteristic Curvature - Let's Clean Up Some Misunderstandings About Soap

May 05 2009 | comment(s)

If you want to learn a little something about 'characteristic curvature', you're in the right place.   Hydrophilic surfactants love water, but lipophilic surfactants love oils and dislike water.

Okay, if you were expecting an article about Jessica Alba, you can stop reading.

But if chemistry is your thing, a new research protocol developed by Dr. Acosta and colleagues from the University of Toronto's Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry builds on more than 30 years of phase behavior studies of microemulsions, the clear, stable liquid mixtures of oil, water and surfactant, and the concept of hydrophilic-lipophilic difference.
The Book of Multiverse

The Book of Multiverse

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

This has been a slow news day.  On such days, my mind tends to drift somewhat.  Combining the science of linguistics with the philosophical notion of multiple parallel universes leads to some very strange notions.  You may not think it is science, but I hope you think it's fun.

If there are infinite universes parallel to ours, there must be at least one in which Hamlet was written by an orangutan.

"What a piece of work is an orangutan,
how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties,
in form and moving how express and admirable,
in action how like an angel,
in apprehension how like a god!"

Wikimedia commons.
Genomic Junk And Transcriptional Noise

Genomic Junk And Transcriptional Noise

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

With hot, new technologies, biologists are taking higher-resolution snapshots of what's going on inside the cell, but the results are stirring up controversy. One of the most interesting recent discoveries is that transcription is everywhere: DNA is transcribed into RNA all over the genome, even DNA that has long been thought to have a non-functional role. What is all of this transcription for? Does the 'dark matter' of the genome have some cryptic, undiscovered function?
Link Between Religious Coping And Aggressive Treatment In Terminally Ill Cancer Patients

Link Between Religious Coping And Aggressive Treatment In Terminally Ill Cancer Patients

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

BOSTON ––– In a new study of terminally ill cancer patients, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found that those who draw on religion to cope with their illness are more likely to receive intensive, life-prolonging medical care as death approaches –– treatment that often entails a lower quality of life in patients' final days.

Previous research has shown that more religious patients often prefer aggressive end-of-life (EOL) treatment. The new study –– to be published in the March 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association –– examined whether these patients actually receive such care. The study's findings suggest that physicians tend to comply with religious patients' wishes for more aggressive care.

Drug Being Used To Improve Cognition Affects Dopamine, Suggesting Potential For Abuse

Drug Being Used To Improve Cognition Affects Dopamine, Suggesting Potential For Abuse

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

Preliminary research in healthy men suggests that the narcolepsy drug modafinil, increasingly being used to enhance cognitive abilities, affects the activity of dopamine in the brain in a way that may create the potential for abuse and dependence, according to a study in the March 18 issue of JAMA.

Animal Families With The Most Diversity Also Have Widest Range Of Size

Animal Families With The Most Diversity Also Have Widest Range Of Size

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

DURHAM, N.C. -- Somewhere out there in the ocean, SpongeBob SquarePants has a teeny-tiny cousin and a humongous uncle.

That's just what one would expect from a new analysis of body sizes across all orders of animal life that was conducted by researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), in Durham, N.C. and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Researchers Craig McClain and Alison Boyer created a giant database on body sizes across all orders of animal life and found that phyla -- families of animals grouped together by a similar body plan -- with the greatest diversity of species were also those with the largest range of body sizes.

How Green Is Your Rocket?

How Green Is Your Rocket?

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

When the Chinese invented gunpowder round about the 800s, they founded one half of the science of chemistry, namely bangs, the other half of course being stinks. 

They quickly applied it to warfare, both as an explosive in bombs, and as a propellant in rockets.  It remained the explosive for about a millennium, but in the 19th century demands both from the military and from industry created a demand for new explosive.unpowder was a low explosive which burns swiftly rather than detonates.  

Where Did I Leave My Keys? Neuroscientists Decode Brain Activity For Navigation And Spatial Memory

Where Did I Leave My Keys? Neuroscientists Decode Brain Activity For Navigation And Spatial Memory

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

How many times have you wondered where did I leave my keys?  Activity in your hippocampus and medial temporal lobes encodes the answer.
Preconceptions, Evolutionary Strategies And Mosses

Preconceptions, Evolutionary Strategies And Mosses

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

It's hard not to see the world through the lens of our own preconceptions and biases.  We tend to be more interested in other large mammals.  We're drawn to human-like qualities in pets.  But even the most benign insect is disturbingly alien when seen up close.  We also tend to use the familiar as a metaphor for understanding the unfamiliar.  Sometimes this gives us additional insight.  Other times, it leads us down the wrong path.
Teleportation Using Einsten-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement

Teleportation Using Einsten-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

Okay, my last blog was a list of Spam haikus. I offer this post as self-flagellation before the scientific community at large.

Traditionally, the crux of teleportation has been its seeming contradiction of the Uncertainty Principle, which states that you can never measure and thus know all the information contained within an atom (the more you measure, the more you disturb, until the thing no longer looks like what you started with). Without knowing the make-up of the original object, how could you replicate it across space?
Tenure at Last!

Tenure at Last!

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

This morning I signed a contract with INFN, the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, which grants me tenure in the role of research scientist. Start date: 05/04/2009. End of penalty: never.

Am I happy about it ? Maybe I should, but I have to confess I feel absolutely nothing - a void. Signing the contract felt like signing the receipt of a mediocre meal. Lest I get flamed, let me explain why I am not rejoicing, nor  am ordering a box of Dom Perignon.
Fermi Sifts Through 'Cosmic Wreckage' For Dark Matter

Fermi Sifts Through 'Cosmic Wreckage' For Dark Matter

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, launched June 2008, has certainly started its career with a (big) bang, discovering a new class of pulsars and watching flaring jets in galaxies billions of light-years away.

Now it's going after another cosmic mystery; high-energy particles in cosmic rays.
Detected - Shortest Single Bond Ever Observed Between Atoms Of Chlorine And Carbon

Detected - Shortest Single Bond Ever Observed Between Atoms Of Chlorine And Carbon

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

The description of compounds and interactions between atoms is one of the basic objectives of chemistry. Admittedly, chemical bonding models, which describe these properties very well, already exist. However, any deviation from the normal factors may lead to improving the models further. Chemists with Professor Thomas M. Klapötke at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München have now analyzed a molecule, which has an extremely short bond length.
Bad Economy Will Lead To More Dating Violence - By Both Sexes

Bad Economy Will Lead To More Dating Violence - By Both Sexes

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

Increased social stress in childhood and young adulthood has a direct link to later increased dating violence, and that young social stress is impacted by things like unemployment and economic worries, according to Murray Straus, professor of sociology and co-director of the University of New Hampshire Family Research Laboratory.  The research, based on a 32-nation study,  was presented at the conference on “War, Terrorism, and Social Stress: Impacts on Crime and the Criminal Justice System” at the Institute of Criminology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Monday, May 4, 2009.

He studied 14,252 university students from 68 universities in 32 nations in an International Dating Violence Study.

Drought Or Dengue Fever - Tough Choices In Australia

Drought Or Dengue Fever - Tough Choices In Australia

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

'Drought-proofing' Australia's urban regions by installing large domestic water tanks may enable the dengue mosquito Aedes aegypti to regain its foothold across the country and expand its range of possible infections, according to a new study published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. 

Dr Nigel Beebe and colleagues from the University of Queensland, CSIRO Entomology, the Australian Army Malaria Institute, and the Communicable Diseases Branch of Queensland Health, Brisbane, challenge the common assumption that climate change will drive the spread of this mosquito. 
Super Efficient Bacteria Chlorophyll Molecules Revealed (Now Bring On Real Solar Energy)

Super Efficient Bacteria Chlorophyll Molecules Revealed (Now Bring On Real Solar Energy)

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

An international team of scientists has determined the structure of the chlorophyll molecules in green bacteria that are responsible for harvesting light energy. The team's results one day could be used to build artificial photosynthetic systems, such as those that convert solar energy to electrical energy.
Super Hydrophobic Micro Robots Go!

Super Hydrophobic Micro Robots Go!

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

Self-cleaning walls, counter tops, fabrics, even micro-robots that can walk on water -- all those things and more could be closer to reality because of research recently completed by scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and at Japan's RIKEN institute. 

Humans have marveled for millennia at how water beads up and rolls off flowers, caterpillars and some insects, and how insects like water striders are able to walk effortlessly on water. It's a property called super hydrophobia and it's been examined seriously by scientists since at least the 1930s. 
Vaccine Order Affects Infant Pain Response - Study

Vaccine Order Affects Infant Pain Response - Study

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

Infants who receive the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) following the combination vaccine for diphtheria, polio, tetanus, pertussis and Haemophilus influenzae type b (DPTaP-Hib vaccine) appear to experience less pain than those who are immunized in the opposite order, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics&Adolescent Medicine, a theme issue on vaccines. 

Injections are the most painful common medical procedure conducted in childhood, according to background information in the article.
Correlation Causation Arrows Go Bonkers In Study Of Bullying And Psychotic Preteens

Correlation Causation Arrows Go Bonkers In Study Of Bullying And Psychotic Preteens

May 04 2009 | comment(s)

Children who were consistently victimized by peers were more likely to develop psychotic symptoms in early adolescence, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

Some psychosis-like symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions are commonly experienced in childhood and even adulthood, according to background information in the article, though children with these symptoms are at increased risk of developing psychosis in adulthood.

So did bullying cause the psychosis or were the kids bullied because they had psychotic symptoms?