Muon Tomography: Who Is Leading The Research ?

Jul 10 2010 | comment(s)

Sometimes my sympathy for science magazines (in print and online), which try to keep intelligent readers informed on the progress in basic science, gets dampened by observing how they end up providing a narrow-sighted look at things. What is at stake is usually not science popularization: an article you read does not need to inform you of all what is going on in a field of research; rather, it is the correct acknowledgement of the different efforts. It sometimes happens that a group works hard on something, they believe they have made great progress and furthered everybody's knowledge in the field, and then an article appears that discusses somebody else's contribution, which came later, was less successful, and less valuable.

What gives different colours to flowers

Jul 10 2010 | comment(s)

Recently I had a chance to visit the grave of my departed Professor Dr Karl-Hermann Neumann with his son Mr Rolf Neumann in Giessen Germany. Professor Dr Neumann worked with Professor F. C. Steward

FRS of Cornell Univessity who trained botanists of his times like Professor H. Y Mohan Ram and Professor B M Johari from India and other parts of the world in fifties and sixties.

NGC 7793 Black Hole Emits Particle Jets 1,000 Light Years In Diameter

Jul 10 2010 | comment(s)

The black hole at the edge of galaxy NGC 7793, twelve million light years from Earth, has been found to be doing something rare - emitting powerful jets of particles of a total length of 1,000 light years. The energy produced by matter falling into a black hole this size is usually transformed into X-rays, not into jets, but this one is the exception - a miniature version of certain supermassive black holes present in the active nuclei of galaxies.

Entangled Photon Pairs Get A Little Brighter

Jul 10 2010 | comment(s)

Future technology such as quantum cryptography and computation, or perhaps even larger scale teleportation, requires a deeper understanding of the phenomenon known as "entanglement", the quantum non-local connection, an aspect of quantum theory at the heart of the EPR paradox developed by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen in 1935 which was experimentally verified in 1980 by Alain Aspect.

Two photons are entangled if the properties of one depend on those of the other, whatever the distance separating them. A new source of entangled photons twenty times brighter than all existing systems has been developed by a team from the Laboratoire de Photonique et de Nano-structures (LPN) of CNRS and they say the device is capable of considerably boosting the rate of quantum communications.

The Elusive Pluripotency Program

Jul 09 2010 | comment(s)

Can somatic cells be reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells? Well, the answer is yes or no, depending on your perspective, and perhaps your definition of what pluripotent stem cells should be.

Belief, Knowledge, And Truth

Jul 09 2010 | comment(s)

It is interesting how often and freely we use these three elements of thought processing and presume that what we are expressing is being legitimately represented. Beliefs are readily interpreted as knowledge, and knowledge is often characterized as being true to lend it weight.

However, for the purposes of this discussion let's consider some definitions for these terms so that we can distinguish how these elements are actually used.

Galactus vs NASA

Jul 09 2010 | comment(s)

Just a quickie here. So I'm reading a comic book, Marvel's "Ultimate Galactus". In it, a godlike being named (in Kree... not Cree, but Kree) Gah Lak Tus is attacking the Earth, sending superpowered agents to destroy our only rocket by which humans might escape.

It's supposed to be present day, not the far future. Yet here's what they ask us to believe. There's an army of invisible custom-designed aliens including 'killforms', mutated clones, an alien Kree with a power suit that fits into a single armband, faster than light travel. The aliens destroy the NASA rocket. NASA says they can roll out the new one in minutes, if the heroes-- who can fly under their own power-- can just hold off the invisible superpowered aliens and their clone army long enough.

Spa Resort/Medical Aesthetics Expo Revitalized And Enhanced For 2010

Jul 09 2010 | comment(s)

Scienceblogs 'PepsiGate' goes from hyperbole to legitimate scandal

Jul 09 2010 | comment(s)

I thought the 'PepsiGate' issue, as former Scienceblogs folks termed it, was overblown. As I discussed in Symbol Stacks And Science Communication, it wasn't the first time they did it and Scienceblogs had become known this year for hosting public relations blogs rather than actual science blogging so singling out Pepsi seemed unfair.

Savvis Announces Intention To Enter Into US$625 Million In Senior Secured Credit Facilities

Jul 09 2010 | comment(s)

Esker Strengthens Its Presence In The Pharmaceutical And Medical Equipment Industry

Jul 09 2010 | comment(s)

60 Years Of End Of The World Sci-Fi: 1956

Jul 09 2010 | comment(s)

Survivalism, British Style

John Christopher’s 1956 No Blade of Grass is an extremely compelling page turner that portrays our moral traditions and social glue as being so fragile that they can be swept away in a day. Compassion, mercy, and even friendliness are not as hard-wired as we would hope, and they quickly dissolve when the urgency of survival forces us to view all other people as competitors.