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Another Week On Shift For CDF

Another Week On Shift For CDF

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

Since today, and for a full week, I will be serving as Scientific Coordinator (SciCo) of the crew operating the CDF experiment at Fermilab. This honorable task (or in alternative, the serving as "Consumer Operator" or "ACE") is required to all collaborators once or twice per year, in order to provide 24/7 operation of the detector and supervision of the data-taking activities.

The crew is formed by a SciCo, a CO, and an ACE.
Can food crops provide renewable energy sources?

Can food crops provide renewable energy sources?

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

Using corn or soybean for getting ethanol or bio-diesel additive could be good option for some nations, developing cellulose resources could be another with genetic engineering, while Jatropha is in mission mode in developing world, there cannot be general consensus what should make renewable energy crop.

The opinions may vary and logics could be different. Different paths could lead to same destination replacement of fossil fuel with bio-fuel. This goes with the assumption or scientific fact (which ever way you want it ) that using bio-fuel will help in green house gas mitigation.
Science Webtoons 5

Science Webtoons 5

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

Behold true tales of procrastination!  Learn whether to get a PhD!  Or just kick back and enjoy fall.  Enjoy another science webcomics interlude!  The first two are 'long form', so follow their links to get the full story.  The last, a poetic commentary on the new Fall season, stands on its own.

First, an overlap of Science and Comic-Con-- the full comic has the entire tale.
Morrow plots: Lessons to remember from the past

Morrow plots: Lessons to remember from the past

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

What Morrow plots showed to the world in 1876 and still being maintained as the historical site the world has forgotten.

During my visit to UIUC to Professor Jack Widholm the pioneer scientist in crop science ,its heartening to see the Morrow plots. What makes me sad is to realize what American perceived in 1876 the world is forgetting now . It is written there that

"University of Illinois

The Morrow Plots

America's oldest experimental field established in 1876.

Results demonstrate that soil quality is a vital component of agricultural productivity. "


Bad Agronomy Podcast

Bad Agronomy Podcast

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

I love technology. Some people like it because it allows us to do incredibly complicated things that otherwise would not have been possible. I like it because it allows us to do incredibly normal things with almost no effort whatsoever.
Usage Issues With OAuth

Usage Issues With OAuth

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

OAuth — a proposed Open Authentication standard — fills a significant gap in cross-application authentication. It’s common in a world of myriad web-based services for one service you use to want to access another service you use, in order to make things better or easier for you.

For example, you might keep contacts in your mail service, and you might want your photo service to see if people you’re in contact with have photos that you might share. We’ve generally done that sort of thing in one of two ways:

Recent advances in biotechnolgy Role of RNA in regulation of gene expression.

Recent advances in biotechnolgy Role of RNA in regulation of gene expression.

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

Recent studies have shown that si RNA (short interfering RNA exogenous or endogenous 19 to 25 nt (Nucleotides) has a role in regulating the gene expression. How the 21 nucleotide sequences of RNA have a regulatory function. It has been reported to have ds RNA form which could split the mRNA and thus influence the gene expression.For detials consult the Ref: P.DUNOYER, O.VOINNET, Trends Plant Science. 14:643 (2009)
The size of the ashwagandha roots determines it efficacy

The size of the ashwagandha roots determines it efficacy

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

Ashwgandha (Withania somnifera) is commonly known as old mens lathi ( support for ageing people) as it helps to restore memory loss or at least delays the degenration of neurons during ageing process. However the price of ashwagandha roots depends on the place of its origin. Nagaroi aswagandha is cosidered to be best. It come from somewhere in Madhya Pradesh on the borders of Rajasthan or approximately Mandsor area . I could never locate its production area but it is sold by this name. Many people have tried it to grow and sell but the market forces determine the price of the crude drug. A particular thikness size of the little finger is ideal as the thick roots supposedly have poor medicinal value and likewise thin roots have also low market value.
Praerie plants - hope for the future

Praerie plants - hope for the future

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

Prairie plants which were original vegetation of certain regions of the world in prehistoric times are the hope for the future. Global warming has local solutions only. 

A screening of plants for their biomass potential , productivity, nutrient uptake and utilization and production of hydrocarbons or organic fractions could be determining factor about such plants having utility as potential candidate for biomass and biofuel.

Only local solutions are required for global problems. 

It has been habit of looking towards advanced countries for the solutions to problems. Local advice by local scientists or local people or guni people does not carry much weight unless it is endorsed by foreign scientists. 
The Golden Rules Of Error Analysis

The Golden Rules Of Error Analysis

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

Presenting measurement values together with some educated guess on accuracy or precision is scientific standard. It is very important to any good scientist, so much so that it is basically my religion. Delta (Δ) is my god! Those statisticians who serve sigma (σ) and teach the primacy of it do not understand that delta is the larger one after all (sorry - the pun here is strictly for the geeks among you).
Ye cannae change the laws of physics - Or can you? Economist

Ye cannae change the laws of physics - Or can you? Economist

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

RICHARD FEYNMAN, Nobel laureate and physicist extraordinaire, called it a “magic number” and its value “one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics”. The number he was referring to, which goes by the symbol alpha and the rather more long-winded name of the fine-structure constant, is magic indeed.

Move over Britney, Lady Gaga’s in physics now - Symmetry Magazine

Move over Britney, Lady Gaga’s in physics now - Symmetry Magazine

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

For years, the Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics has been floating around the Web intriguing, amusing, educating, troubling, or infuriating different people. Doing one better, pop star Lady Gaga is now immortalized in the name of a published physics paper.

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

Analogy Watch: Hydrogen Bonding

Analogy Watch: Hydrogen Bonding

Sep 03 2010 | comment(s)

A video posted on A Blog Around the Clock a few days ago discusses the mechanisms behind hydrogen bonding. The first half of the video is visually basic -- simple diagrams to illustrate the points in the narrator's lesson -- and includes things like different colors for different atoms, and star shapes that appear where a bond forms.
Implantable Bio-Artificial Kidney Could Replace Dialysis

Implantable Bio-Artificial Kidney Could Replace Dialysis

Sep 02 2010 | comment(s)

End-stage renal disease, or chronic kidney failure, affects more than 500,000 people per year in the United States alone and is only fully treated with a kidney transplant. 

Yet there were only 17,000 donated kidneys for transplants last year and the number of patients on the transplant waiting list currently exceeds 85,000, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network. 
Live Longer Thanks To Science 2.0: Social Networks Influence Health Behaviors

Live Longer Thanks To Science 2.0: Social Networks Influence Health Behaviors

Sep 02 2010 | comment(s)

Do social networks which features many distant connections, or "long ties," produce large-scale changes most quickly, as social media lore claims?    No, says a new study by Damon Centola,  assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  Instead, individuals are more likely to acquire new health practices while living in networks with dense clusters of connections — that is, when in close contact with people they already know well. 
Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe

Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe

Sep 02 2010 | comment(s)

The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded.
BBC had

BBC had "massive bias to left" - director general

Sep 02 2010 | comment(s)

Unless you happened to be a BBC fan (and therefore on the left, so you saw them as 'balanced) you knew the BBC contained liberal bias.  There were too many examples to count and so by 2007 there was an internal report which concluded that greater efforts were required to avoid liberal bias.

"In the BBC I joined 30 years ago, there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left," Thompson said.
A combination of wind energy and power generation can make it work

A combination of wind energy and power generation can make it work

Sep 02 2010 | comment(s)

Wind energy is order of the day in Germany and India is not lagging behind. However the constrains are girds which could store the energy when its in excess or when it is not produced due to lack of proper winds. An alternative to this is establishing small generators run on natural gas if its available ( USA) or on biomass in developing world. Another possibility could be using wind energy to generate hydrogen gas which could be fuel for cars for future. Its hypothetical to assume that electrical cars dont produce pollution. Generation of electricity itself is pollution producing process. Recently I had a chance to visit a seniormost Professor in US and he suggested that his father told him 60 years ago. I found this statement to be true even today.