You Tube Channel: Space Lab
Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts (3123)
Sort by
 |
| Dr. Z - MySciNet |
From her website: Dr. Aziza is a physicist by training and currently works as a science media producer in affiliation with AZIZA Productions, a science media production company she established in the year 2000. She has always been interested in communicating science to the lay public through television.
While working on her Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics at the University of Maryland at College Park, Dr. Aziza received a Mass Media Science & Engineering fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and was assigned to CNN’s science and technology unit in Atlanta Georgia. During her fellowship, she gained hands-on experience producing science news video segments which aired on CNN’s newscasts. This experience launched her career as a TV science producer and on-air correspondent.
From MySciNet: Aziza Baccouche—Dr. Z, as she calls herself—has made a career connecting scientific research to the people it could affect, such as informing patients about medical developments and getting more minority students interested in science. Her medium is the screen, and she tells the stories of science through documentaries. But Baccouche, a Ph.D. physicist-turned-filmmaker, will likely never clearly see any of her finished products: She became legally blind at the age of 8, and ever since she's relied on her wits, passion for science, excellent memory, and what she calls her vision to achieve success.
"We know power is work over time, that strength is endurance over time. So I endured a lot of obstacles, but at the same time I created strength and vision and wisdom and endurance."
 |
| Simulated valence-charge density from x-ray and optical wave mixing shows the nuclei of carbon atoms as dark spots revealed by diffracted x-rays and the peaks of some of the bonds between them as white and blue spots induced by the polarized optical pulse. In diamond, the optical pulse primarily wiggles the charge that makes up chemical bonds. |
Light changes matter in ways that shape our world. Photons trigger changes in proteins in the eye to enable vision; sunlight splits water into hydrogen and oxygen and creates chemicals through photosynthesis; light causes electrons to flow in the semiconductors that make up solar cells; and new devices for consumers, industry, and medicine operate with photons instead of electrons. But directly measuring how light manipulates matter on the atomic scale has never been possible, until now.
An international team of scientists led by Thornton Glover of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) used the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to mix a pulse of superbright x-rays with a pulse of lower frequency, “optical” light from an ordinary laser. By aiming the combined pulses at a diamond sample, the team was able to measure the optical manipulation of chemical bonds in the crystal directly, on the scale of individual atoms.
The researchers report their work in the August 30, 2012 issue of the journal Nature.
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory: Synchronized Lasers Measure How Light Changes Matter
 |
| Popular Mechanics |
Researchers in the US have estimated that modification of stratospheric albedo – a widely discussed geoengineering technique to counteract some of the effects of climate change – could cost as little as $5bn a year. Although this is just a small fraction of the gross domestic product (GDP) of most western countries, the team stresses that there are many potential risks of geoengineering the planet in this way.
Geoengineering aims to mitigate man-made climate change by making large-scale modifications to the Earth's surface or atmosphere. One of the main proposals discussed by scientists is stratospheric albedo modification: changing the reflective power of the atmosphere 10–50 km above the Earth's surface so that more solar radiation is reflected back into space. Such a modification would be achieved by pumping tiny particles known as aerosols into the upper atmosphere.
Not to be a "Doubting Thomas," but I thought "aerosols in the upper atmosphere" (recall CFCs and the ozone layer) was a bad idea! I sincerely hope they've modeled this thoroughly.
Physics World: Geoengineering is 'comparatively inexpensive'
(c) 2 September 2012, the Griot Poet
"We want our country back!"
The question is: back to when; to what?
Gil Scott-Heron rests in peace
Yet, his piece "B-Movie" might as well be prophesy,
Predicting a looking forward two-faced like the Roman Deity Janus: facing forward while looking back at least to last week (or, our own anus),
To a majority utopia existent only in your Amygdala fear-driven reptilian minds...
Descendants of migrants from Europe to Plymouth Rock and Ellis Island
Dependent on newer ones from Africa or Central America as servants until the PIE: performance, image and exposure, has to eventually be upturned in 2042 when you are no longer a numerical majority.
The White House, so named in 1901because it was easier than “Executive Mansion”
Became a symbol of what you’d refer to as American Exceptionalism
And like fascism, cloaked it in a flag, and carrying a cross.
So, while you’re still culturally “the boss”
You're willing to put out obfuscations and outright lies,
Whacked-out conspiracy theories on falsified birth certificates, death panels, “he’s going to take away our guns,” “secret-Muslim-in-the-church-house-Resurrection-Sunday,” etcetera’s,
Voter ID cum Diebold voter purge cum 21st century poll taxes...
**********
In a February appearance on The Daily Show, Bruce Bartlett (former Reagan Economic Policy Advisor), said "Frankly one of our political parties is insane, and we all know which one it is.'
"They have descended from the realm of reasonableness that was the mark of conservatism…"
"They dream of anarchy, of ending government.''
Bartlett argues a new radical right in the Republican Party will oppose anything - even good conservative policy - if Democrats agree to it.
**********
Tell me: since when did obliterating the 8th commandment constitute a "family value?"
Or, running from your own policies because your opposite tries to reach consensus constitute reason and governance? Sounds like tyranny…
You rail against gays and lesbians, yet have them prominently in your Grand Old Party, for one (no, two): George W’s reelection campaign manager and Dick (Darth Vader) Cheney’s daughter and her companion.
Hell, Rush Limp-bah had Elton John perform at his fourth “traditional marriage” from-the-previous-train-wrecks wedding ceremony with notably his beau from the UK in tow.
(And Rush: we THANK YOU for practicing good birth control/safe sex and not procreating!)
Let’s not forget: Newt-the-scoot’s blood sister,
You blithely dog whistle at the tin edges of racial insurrection, yet think yourself a big tent because you have Condi Rice and Allen West? Keep ‘EM!
And when disturbed minds take your wit as holy writ resulting in a congresswoman’s recovery from a murderous attempt, or your pundit’s caustic rhetoric causes an abortion doctor’s assassination in a house of worship, you’re quick to quip: NOT ME!
If you have an argument, voter ID cum Diebold voter purge cum 21st century poll taxes is completely unnecessary.
The electorate in a representative democracy votes rationally, not like text-in adherents to American Idol.
No wonder you ride the train of “limited government,” by which you mean:
- Education
- Police protection
- EMS and Fire Departments
Or, the very bedrock of representative government
Because your avarice Mammon billionaire gods can afford that,
(And wonders why the rest of us can’t)
Kissing butt on Scrooge McDuck is the height of idolatry (and hypocrisy)
And idiocy to the “trickle-down” fantasy
You listen to lobbyists outnumbering you five-to-one senator or congress member
And you can’t remember
Any promise you made beyond the grace of their campaign donations
To “protect and defend The Constitution from all enemies both foreign and domestic”
And have the “Audacity of Dopes”
To not see
That enemy
Is in your own
Reflection!
 |
| Technology Review |
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Oscillating circuits are the workhorses of many electronic devices. In particular, oscillating electrons emit electromagnetic waves, a mechanism that has lead to one or two applications that readers may have come across.
Now Seth Caliga and pals at the University of Colorado and National Institute for Standards and Technology in Boulder have built a version of this kind of circuit that works with atoms rather than electrons.
Their atomtronic circuit generates an oscillating atom current that emits matter waves in which atoms carry energy through space.
The heart of their device is an atomtronic transistor--an optomagnetic trap with three compartments that can hold a Bose Einstein Condensate of rubidium atoms cooled almost to absolute zero.
In an analogy with electronic transistors, Caliga and co call these compartments the source, gate and drain (with the gate sandwiched between the source and drain). The optical barrier between the compartments prevents atoms from moving freely between them.
Physics arXiv: A Matterwave Transistor Oscillator
 |
| Search the Technology blog |
...science. Yes, from glucose star to rant in 24 hours.
Of course, numerically it has seven letters. Think of how amazed I was when I went to ScienceDebate.org after the RNC convention to see this link:
What left me rather nonplussed was the sizable representation of "D's" as well as "R's." A sample:
Senator Barbara Boxer California (D)—chair, Committee on Environment and Public Works
Senator Jim DeMint South Carolina (R)—member, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchinson is retiring)
Mitch McConnell Kentucky (R)—Senate minority leader
Harry Reid Nevada (D)—Senate majority leader
John Boehner Ohio–8 (R)—speaker of the House
House Member Eddie Bernice Johnson Texas–30 (D)—ranking member, Committee on Science, Space and Technology
House Member Frank Lucas Oklahoma–3 (R)—chair, Committee on Agriculture; member of Committee on Science, Space and Technology
Nancy Pelosi California–8 (D)—House minority leader
The rest are at the link above, with the encouragement to email respective representatives.
This silliness has gone on long enough and produced addled, attention deficit leadership! More concerned with sloganeering than science or engineering. Instead of being treated like an informed, Jeffersonian democratic republic, we're treated like the text-in voters of American Idol.
According to the International Monetary Fund, China is poised to surpass our economy in 2016! Godless, communist China! That is irrespective of who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (previously known as the Executive Mansion before 1901). They've invested in STEM-focused education, and we've allowed lawmakers to create loopholes, offshore tax havens and export jobs that drive an education system to supply it with workers, not pass standardized tests with absolutely no meaning, or global equivalent. We are goldfish in a much larger ocean than our self-made, self-righteous boundaries.
If I sound incensed, I'm wondering why you are not, and why we're asking softball questions, or submitting our representative leaders to litmus tests from the left or right while the sun shining on our mythical "city-on-the-hill"is setting rapidly.
I'm wondering why knowledge is feared. Take your pick: evolution, the Big Bang, the age of the earth/universe; dinosaurs being the predecessors of modern birds. If it challenges a dogma or worldview, it must be "evil" (that is a four-letter word). Science is not. It can be used for evil, obfuscated, deliberately tampered with, but in the right hands and with the right motives, it can be a force for good, not ill. And I should expect representatives of my democratic republic to answer questions with tact not tactics; honest inquiry or admittance to lack of expertise. "I don't know" is the beginning of discovery and wisdom: tweeting during a joint session of congressis not.
I'll admit to witnessing that our collective moral compass has strayed, and modern television with all its channel options and "reality TV" is as empty as a ream of fresh printer paper, but righting it "true north" should not involve the blissful embrace of ignorance.
We were [once] the country of "one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." No more.
It makes Neil Armstrong's departure (and before him Dr. Sally Ride) all the more prescient...and sad.
 |
| USA Science and Engineering Festival - Facebook |
...if humankind were to ever travel 400 light years, at least we wouldn't have to pack a lunch!
(Yeah, that was POP-corny!)
It's Friday though... |
| Astronomy and ESO |
A team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has spotted sugar molecules in the gas surrounding a young Sun-like star. This is the first time sugar has been found in space around such a star, and the discovery shows that the building blocks of life are in the right place, at the right time, to be included in planets forming around the star.
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.
Astronomy Mobile: Sweet result from ALMA
 |
| USA Science and Engineering Festival - Facebook |
Reading a lot of blogs as well as web sites for this one, I came across "Physics and Physicists" entry by ZapperZ (yes, that's the PhD's post name) titled: "Science Is Not Cool."
The entry relates somewhat to the recent landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars, which I posted as I was watching the touchdown @ 1:30 AM EST. Times I wish I lived on the west coast!
Adam Ruben, PhD in Microbiology, is the original author of the title piece on the American Association for the Advancement in Science (AAAS for short) "Issues and Perspectives" piece.
At first, I thought about ignoring it. Then, I couldn't help commenting on Zapper's entry, which he graciously published. It follows:
I am in agreement. Along with our advancement through the atomic age post “Sputnik moment,” there has been an attention deficit noticeably spread among the population. Our secondary education is affected by inane standardized tests that point to nowhere measuring [not] anything of global competitive importance; all STEM careers must be “fun” to compete with Xbox, Play Station, You Tube, Facebook, Twitter and “the Google.” A picture of the Apollo landing and an astronaut next to the lunar module is captioned: “This was done with a slide rule. Your eight grader has more computing power in his cell phone, and still can’t pass math because he won’t do more than fifteen minutes of homework. Where do you think HE’LL be going?” Alas, it is the technology birthed of a lot of science behind their genesis that is our undoing. Two good reads: the first Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business." Even though he was referring to the news media in the advent of cable television (written in the early eighties), it is easy to extrapolate to the current technology and its effects on the populace. The second is “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Our Youth and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30),” by Mark Bauerlein.
Ironic, as my Google ID is "Cool Physics." I'm sure that was a qualifier for ZapperZ posting it.
I have a lot of fun, posting what I think or what I've read, and obviously, my fascination with science. That fascination is shared with a lot of people that view this blog.
Adam Ruben is also a stand-up comedian, and has written a humorous book "Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School." I put him in the company of Jorge Cham of PhD Comics (PhD in Robotics from Stanford) and Scott Adams (former engineer for Pac Bell), cartoonist for Dilbert. Each are saying science and engineering are human experiences, and humanity also involves humor.
For myself, it was the finding of humor in things that got me a degree in physics in the first place, and keeps me pressing forward with the wonder of a child opening wrapped presents (metaphorically, an 'onion'). It is my hope to share that wonder; making STEM a more human experience...for everyone.
 |
| International Molybdenum Association |
MIT researchers produce complex electronic circuits from molybdenum disulfide, a material that could have many more applications.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The discovery of graphene, a material just one atom thick and possessing exceptional strength and other novel properties, started an avalanche of research around its use for everything from electronics to optics to structural materials. But new research suggests that was just the beginning: A whole family of two-dimensional materials may open up even broader possibilities for applications that could change many aspects of modern life.
The latest “new” material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) — which has actually been used for decades, but not in its 2-D form — was first described just a year ago by researchers in Switzerland. But in that year, researchers at MIT — who struggled for several years to build electronic circuits out of graphene with very limited results (except for radio-frequency applications) — have already succeeded in making a variety of electronic components from MoS2. They say the material could help usher in radically new products, from whole walls that glow to clothing with embedded electronics to glasses with built-in display screens.
MIT Media Relations: One-molecule-thick material has big advantages
 |
| Purdue physicist Erica Carlson stands in front of an illustration of the fractal clusters present in copper-oxygen based superconducting material. (Purdue University photo/Mark Simons) |
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Many researchers studying superconductivity strive to create a clean, pure, perfect sample, but a team of physicists found that some flaws might hold the key to a material's unique abilities.
Erica Carlson, a Purdue University associate professor of physics, led a team that mapped seemingly random, four-atom-wide dark lines of electrons seen on the surface of copper-oxygen based superconducting crystals. The team uncovered a pattern in these flawed lines, which are separate from the expected structure of the material, and discovered that they exist throughout the crystal. The findings suggest the lines could play a role in the material's superconductivity at much higher temperatures than others.
"This material is ceramic, like your dinner plates, and it has no business conducting electricity, but under the right conditions it conducts electricity perfectly with zero energy loss," Carlson said. "A better understanding of how and why this superconductor works could help us design better ones. If we can create a superconductor that works at high enough temperatures, it could transform how we use and generate energy."
Purdue University News: Superconductor 'flaws' could be key to its abilities
Related link: Mandelbrot Set Tripping
Wolfram Mathworld: Fractals
Life imitates art.
Wikipedia: Anti-mimesis is a philosophical position that holds the direct opposite of mimesis. Its most notable proponent is Oscar Wilde, who held in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying that "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life". In the essay, written as a Platonic dialogue, Wilde holds that such anti-mimesis "results not merely from Life's imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy."
The artist:
You can also credit him for the concept of the geostationary orbit, also known as the Clarke Orbit.
Sites:
Space.com:
Innovation News Daily:
Decays of atomic nuclei are potential sources of information on fundamental phenomena occurring in the quantum world. Unfortunately it is a rather difficult task to model such processes. Yet National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) physicists have successfully simulated the process of neutron→proton conversion in singly ionized 6He atom nucleus and correctly predicted its impact on the atomic orbital sole electron. Theoretical calculations were recently confirmed by an experiment performed in the GAEN accelerator centre in Caen (France). That way the sudden approximation calculation method (one of the oldest methods employed to solve quantum mechanics problems) was directly validated.
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.
R & D Magazine: Shaking the electron has strengthened quantum mechanics
July 20, 1969 was a Sunday. NASA interrupted my cartoons on Saturday. I didn't mind. My parents were transfixed as well. The world east of US52 in Winston-Salem, NC seemed to slow; each moment savored, each conversation focused on this one event. Unlike the social stratification we "enjoyed," we weren't alone.
Like no other event before it or since, the world's attention was riveted, not on war, but scientific achievement; not on Vietnam or Civil Rights protests - both important - but on a future we could all collectively hope for. We'd pay attention to a cancelled Sci-Fi series - Star Trek - a little closer.
And I realized what I wanted to be.
I still have my slide rule. Godspeed Neil Armstrong...
BUZZ Blog: GRE scores can make or break a graduate school application, so how should students prepare? Although there are a plethora of study books and materials available, decisions made freshman year may determine your score more than your cramming habits weeks before the test.
Ever year, the Educational Testing Service — the organization behind the GRE — releases scores for the general test and categorizes them by the test takers' intended graduate major. Although the GRE made significant revisions to the test this academic year, one fact remains: Physics and philosophy students still rocked the test. Physics majors tied for first in the math section, and philosophy students topped the verbal and writing sections.
Physicists even beat most majors in the verbal and writing sections — a measure of physics majors' stereotypically weak communication skills. Maybe physicists are more well-rounded than pop culture suggests.
For all the nerds tormented by Neanderthal, caveman jocks out there - give 'em this:
 |
| Wikipedia |
...and STRUT!
Physics Central: Best Majors for GRE Scores - Still Physics and Philosophy
...it's Friday! Sing a rousing warrior song (w/sub-title translation). Qapla' (Success)!
Klingon Language Institute: Language - the Best Weapon
 |
| Technology Review |
IBM says it has made technical progress on a solar technology that researchers hope will yield efficient thin-film solar cells made from abundant materials.
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.
Technology Review: IBM Breaks Efficiency Mark with Novel Solar Material
Monarch butterflies travel thousands of miles before seeding forward, and...dying.
Perhaps the first starships will be one-way, a beneficial self-insurance of survival.
Sadly, the conundrum would be "who," birthing an interstellar caste system...I can see the lottery/survival/reality show. Joy...
Of course, any sentient inhabitants may not meet our new "Mayflower" with a welcome party, nor assist us through the harshness of a new world. Or, landing during the planet's Jurassic period could be kind of...dicey!
Related site: 100 Year Starship
 |
| Robot ready: Robots made by Kiva Systems move product shelves on a warehouse floor. Amazon bought the company earlier this year in a step toward automating its distribution system and reducing labor costs. |
Technology Review: In Automate This, a book due out next month, author and entrepreneur Christopher Steiner tells the story of stockbroker Thomas Peterffy, the creator of the first automated Wall Street trading system. Using a computer to execute trades, without humans entering them manually on a keyboard, was controversial in 1987—so controversial that Nasdaq pressured him to unplug from its network. Then, with a wink, Peterffy built an automated machine that could tap out the trades on a traditional keyboard—technically obeying Nasdaq rules. Peterffy made $25 million in 1987 and is now a billionaire.
* * * * *
Chapter 1: The Rise and Fall of the Union
In the last twenty years an industrial revolution has been taking place in the United States at a pace faster than that of any country in the world, transforming social layers of this country on a scale never before dreamed of. So fast has this industrial revolution been developing that 60 percent of the jobs held by the working population today did not even exist during the First World War, while 70 percent of the jobs that existed in this country in 1900 don't exist today. Not only have work classifications been fundamentally altered, but the work force has multiplied from 20 million in 1900 to 40 million in 1944 to 68 million today. The change is not only in numbers. Over 20 million of those working today are women, and by 1970 it is expected that women workers will have increased to 30,000,000—a work force of women which will be one-and-a-half times the entire work force of 1900.
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.
History is a Weapon:
The American Revolution - Pages From a Negro Worker's Notebook
Technology Review: Automate or Perish
#P4TC: Rosie Took Your Job
MarkIII(k) Planetary Gear
 |
| Source: Molecular Machines Gallery |
Scientists using a novel printing method have managed to make a color image whose resolution approaches the maximum theoretical limit. The Singapore team published their work in Nature Nanotechnology earlier this week.
Wired breaks down the science pretty well: the team created pixels using “nanoscale posts, with silver and gold nanodiscs on top.” How far apart these posts are, as well as their diameter, determines what color light they reflect. The pillars are all of a nanometer tall. The image’s resolution, in the end, is 100,000 DPI (dots per inch).
The last curious element of this story is the image the scientists chose to reproduce: an image of Lena Soderberg, a Swedish model who posed in 1972 for Playboy. This image (from the neck up, mind you) is actually canonical in computer imaging circles. It all started in 1973, when an imaging scientist at USC was looking for good image to scan for a conference paper. Reported Jamie Hutchinson in 2001: “They had tired of their stock of usual test images, dull stuff dating back to television standards work in the early 1960s. They wanted something glossy to ensure good output dynamic range, and they wanted a human face. Just then, somebody happened to walk in with a recent issue of Playboy.”
From that point on, use of the Lena picture in imaging circles grew, until it simply became standard.
[Charitable] Public Service Announcement
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...
Technology Review: A Playboy Model and Nanoscale Printing
