The astronomers found molecules of glycolaldehyde — a simple form of sugar — in the gas surrounding a young binary star, with similar mass to the Sun, called IRAS 16293-2422. Glycolaldehyde has been seen in interstellar space before, but this is the first time it has been found so near to a Sun-like star, at distances comparable to the distance of Uranus from the Sun in the solar system. This discovery shows that some of the chemical compounds needed for life existed in this system at the time of planet formation.

Nucleus of a ⁶He ion is composed of two protons and four neutrons. In a singly ionized ion the nucleus is orbited by a single electron. Surplus of neutrons makes such nuclei unstable, they undergo the so-called beta-minus decays in which one of the neutrons is transformed into a proton. To preserve electric charge, an electron is emitted from the decaying nucleus. Each emitted electron is accompanied by an electron anti-neutrino. In effect, a stable ⁶Li nucleus (still orbited by a single electron) is produced.

IBM photovoltaic scientists Teodor Todorov and David Mitzi on Friday detailed the findings of a paper that showed the highest efficiency to date for solar cells made from a combination of copper, zinc, tin, and selenium (CZTS). Published in Advanced Energy Materials, the technical paper described a CZTS solar cell able to convert 11.1 percent of solar energy to electricity.

The United States has transformed itself so rapidly from an agricultural country to an industrial country, and as an industrial country has undergone such rapid industrial revolutions that the question of who is in what class becomes an ever-wider and more complicated question. Today's member of the middle class is the son or daughter of yesterday's worker.

Please date nerds: for the ones that are single, they obviously don't get out of the lab much!

You have until Friday to find/rescue one...

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite. Paul Dirac

Some things in life don't require facts: just appreciation.

Old record: four trillion degrees Celsius: 4,000,000,000,000 = 4 x 10^{12 o}C

New record: ~ in the range of five and a half trillion degrees Celsius, a bump up of some thirty eight percent.

The three teams working at CERN, ATLAS, CMS and ALICE are all working on the same basic problem, figuring out what existed just after the Big Bang so as to better understand how matter works at the subatomic level. ATLAS and CMS were recently in the news of course for finding evidence of particles that strongly resemble the notorious Higgs boson. Meanwhile the ALICE team has been hard at work smashing lead ions into one another creating quark-gluon plasma, material that is being described as a primordial soup, because it is believed to be similar to the stuff that came about right after the Big Bang, and because unlike protons and neutrons, they are believed to move around freely, rather than existing as a bound material.

Dylan Thomas

My palindrome post: 868.

A fathom (abbreviation: ftm) = 1.8288 meters, is a unit of length in the imperial and the U.S. customary systems, used especially for measuring the depth of water.

So in celebration of living half a century in reasonably good health, I depart from physics ever so slightly. Mark Twain apparently loved science and technology, balancing friendships with both Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison (the AC/DC war rivals).

Living half a century does give one the licence to look back on the achievements and mistakes of one's life, and consider the lessons learned.

Plus, as I age, I am using the licence to not care what others think about how I apply those lessons...

Vicomte de Valvert: Such arrogance, this scarecrow. Look at him! No ribbons, no lace, not even gloves!

Cyrano de Bergerac: True! I carry my adornments only on my soul, decked with deeds instead of ribbons. Manful in my good name, and crowned with the white plume of freedom.

"The soul that is within me, no man can degrade." Frederick Douglass

The growth of crops in 2012 has been badly affected by drought in the US and Russia and prices have risen 50% since June.

According to a report about the hike in food prices, from the international agency Oxfam, 40% of US corn stocks are currently being used to produce fuel.

The US Renewable Fuel Standard mandate requires that up to 15 billion gallons of domestic corn ethanol be blended into the US fuel supply by 2022.

The chairman of the world's largest food producer is highly critical of the rise in bio-diesel.

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe of Nestle says crops produced for biofuel use land and water which would otherwise be used to grow crops for human or animal consumption.

His comments have ignited discussion about the second generation of biofuels.