Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts

Pluto's Polygons...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 2, 2016 at 4:52am

Sputnik Planum on the surface of Pluto, as seen by the New Horizons spacecraft. Several polygons are visible in the image. (Courtesy: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

Topics: NASA, Planetary Science, Pluto, Space Exploration

The patchwork of polygons on the surface of a vast plain of ice on Pluto is created by heat upwelling from the interior of the dwarf planet. That is the conclusion of two independent teams of scientists that have combined data from NASA's New Horizons mission with computer simulations to gain a better understanding of Sputnik Planum – the flat region where the mysterious polygons exist. One important consequence of the convection process is that the surface of Sputnik Planum could be less than one million years old, making it one of the newest known surfaces in the solar system.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft reached Pluto in July 2015, making it the first mission to explore the dwarf planet. The spacecraft has since provided scientists with a wealth of information about Pluto and its moons as well as the first images of Pluto's icy surface, which captured the imagination of scientists and the public alike.

Sputnik Planum, which is an ice-filled basin that occupies an area of about 900,000 km², makes for a particularly interesting feature. The surface of the ice – which is believed to be mainly nitrogen – appears to be broken up into a collection of polygon-shaped tiles, each of which measure anywhere from 10–40 km across. The polygons are not flat – rather their centres rise up tens of metres above their edges to create a gently rolling icescape.

Physics World:
New Horizons lifts the lid on Pluto's peculiar polygons, Hamish Johnston

Reading, Writing, Magnetism...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on June 1, 2016 at 5:16am

A depiction of magnetic charge ice. Nanoscale magnets are arranged in a two-dimensional lattice. Each nanomagnet produces a pair of magnetic charges, one positive (red ball on the north pole) and one negative (blue ball on the south pole). The magnetic flux lines (white) point from positive charges to negative charges. (Image credit: Yong-Lei Wang/Zhili Xiao)

Topics: Computer Science, Condensed Matter Physics, Electromagnetism, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Solid State Physics

Note: Title is derived from the home page (third frame in CSS - cascading style sheet format) on ANL.gov.

A team of scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory has created a new material, called "rewritable magnetic charge ice," that permits an unprecedented degree of control over local magnetic fields and could pave the way for new computing technologies.

The scientists' research report on development of magnetic charge ice is published in the May 20 issue of the journal Science. "With potential applications involving data storage, memory and logic devices, magnetic charge ice could someday lead to smaller and more powerful computers or even play a role in quantum computing." said Zhili Xiao who holds a joint appointment between Argonne and Northern Illinois University.

Current magnetic storage and recording devices, such as computer hard disks, contain nanomagnets with two polarities, each of which is used to represent either 0 or 1 — the binary digits, or bits, used in computers. A magnetic charge ice system could have eight possible configurations instead of two, resulting in denser storage capabilities or added functionality unavailable in current technologies.

Argonne National Laboratories:
Scientists create 'magnetic charge ice', Jared Sagoff, Tom Parisi

Fifth Force...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 31, 2016 at 5:15am

Credit: Avariel Falcon/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Topics: Experimental Physics, Particle Physics, Radiation, Theoretical Physics

The Four (currently well-known) Forces: The Strong Force, the Electromagnetic Force, the Weak Force and Gravity. See: this link, which includes a brief primer on each and Feynman Diagrams on the strong and weak forces. Debate is going on now whether the new Force is evidence of Dark Energy, Dark Matter; a "Dark Photon" at 17 MeV, or what they refer to in the article as a "protophobic X (Greek letter Chi) boson." As with all reporting of scientific investigations, this is in its preliminary stages.

A laboratory experiment in Hungary has spotted an anomaly in radioactive decay that could be the signature of a previously unknown fifth fundamental force of nature, physicists say—if the finding holds up.

Attila Krasznahorkay at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’s Institute for Nuclear Research in Debrecen, Hungary, and his colleagues reported their surprising result in 2015 on the arXiv preprint server, and this January in the journal Physical Review Letters. But the report – which posited the existence of a new, light boson only 34 times heavier than the electron—was largely overlooked.

Then, on April 25, a group of US theoretical physicists brought the finding to wider attention by publishing its own analysis of the result on arXiv. The theorists showed that the data didn’t conflict with any previous experiments—and concluded that it could be evidence for a fifth fundamental force. “We brought it out from relative obscurity,” says Jonathan Feng, at the University of California, Irvine, the lead author of the arXiv report.

Four days later, two of Feng's colleagues discussed the finding at a workshop at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. Researchers there were sceptical but excited about the idea, says Bogdan Wojtsekhowski, a physicist at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia. “Many participants in the workshop are thinking about different ways to check it,” he says. Groups in Europe and the United States say that they should be able to confirm or rebut the Hungarian experimental results within about a year.

Scientific American:
Some theorists say a radioactive decay anomaly could imply a fundamental new force
Edwin Cartlidge

Two For The Price Of One...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 30, 2016 at 12:18pm

Researchers have created a two-mode "Schrödinger's cat state" for the first time. (Courtesy: Michael S Helfenbein/Yale University)

Topics: Experimental Physics, Modern Physics, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics, Schrödinger’s cat (s)

Schrödinger's cat now has a second box to play in, thanks to an international team of physicists that has created a two-mode "Schrödinger's cat state" for the first time. The experiment brings together two purely quantum properties, in that the "cat" (i.e. the photons) is simultaneously "alive and dead" (in a superposition of states) while also in two locations at once (the two boxes are entangled with one another).

The experiment is a step towards creating the larger and more sophisticated quantum states that are necessary to make quantum computing a reality. The team says that the work also demonstrates a two-logical-qubit system with in-built quantum error correction, making it a great resource for quantum metrology and quantum-communication networks.

Physics World: Schrödinger's cat lives and dies in two boxes at once
Tushna Commissariat

Black Holes and Dark Matter...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 27, 2016 at 5:55am

After masking out all known stars, galaxies and artifacts and enhancing what's left, an irregular background glow appears. This is the cosmic infrared background (CIB); lighter colors indicate brighter areas. The CIB glow is more irregular than can be explained by distant unresolved galaxies, and this excess structure is thought to be light emitted when the universe was less than a billion years old. Scientists say it likely originated from the first luminous objects to form in the universe, which includes both the first stars and black holes.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (Goddard)

Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Dark Matter, Physics Humor

I'll admit to being a fan of The Flash, but an informed one. For instance, speed in physics - along with mass (that's "us") is associated with momentum; acceleration and mass is associated with force. Every time I hear "speed force," I cringe. There was the memorable episode where Barry "talked" to the speed force (who looked like Joe, Iris, his mom and dad; a wraith that looked like him), which the writers obligatorily associated with Dark Energy, Dark Matter and the Big Bang. Barry had one memorable line that sounded kinda "science-y" when conversing with said speed deities: "this is like talking to gravity, or light," which as a part of nature, are not typically conversant. This of course is the fanciful departure of Hollywood cartoon physics, and as I allude at the link provided: don't take me to your Sci-Fi movie night!

The following is rather exciting, a hypothesis that will have to stand up to relentless peer review. Even though I'm a fan of superhero comic shows, I look forward to the coming published scientific conversations that will eventually (hopefully) hash this out.

Dark matter is a mysterious substance composing most of the material universe, now widely thought to be some form of massive exotic particle. An intriguing alternative view is that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe's existence, known as primordial black holes. Now a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, suggests that this interpretation aligns with our knowledge of cosmic infrared and X-ray background glows and may explain the unexpectedly high masses of merging black holes detected last year.

"This study is an effort to bring together a broad set of ideas and observations to test how well they fit, and the fit is surprisingly good," said Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA Goddard. "If this is correct, then all galaxies, including our own, are embedded within a vast sphere of black holes each about 30 times the sun's mass."

In 2005, Kashlinsky led a team of astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to explore the background glow of infrared light in one part of the sky. The researchers reported excessive patchiness in the glow and concluded it was likely caused by the aggregate light of the first sources to illuminate the universe more than 13 billion years ago. Follow-up studies confirmed that this cosmic infrared background (CIB) showed similar unexpected structure in other parts of the sky.

NASA Scientist Suggests Possible Link Between Primordial Black Holes and Dark Matter
Francis Reddy

Finitistic, Infinitistic...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 26, 2016 at 5:37am

Image Credit: Wylie Beckert for Quanta Magazine

Topics: Computer Science, Logic, Mathematical Models, Mathematical Physics

With a surprising new proof, two young mathematicians have found a bridge across the finite-infinite divide, helping at the same time to map this strange boundary.

The boundary does not pass between some huge finite number and the next, infinitely large one. Rather, it separates two kinds of mathematical statements: “finitistic” ones, which can be proved without invoking the concept of infinity, and “infinitistic” ones, which rest on the assumption — not evident in nature — that infinite objects exist.

Mapping and understanding this division is “at the heart of mathematical logic,” said Theodore Slaman, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. This endeavor leads directly to questions of mathematical objectivity, the meaning of infinity and the relationship between mathematics and physical reality.

Quanta Magazine: Mathematicians Bridge Finite-Infinite Divide, Natalie Wolchover

Directed Evolution...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 25, 2016 at 5:56am

Topics: Biology, Diversity, Diversity in Science, Engineering, Research, Women in Science

US engineer Frances Arnold has won the Millennium Technology Prize for pioneering "directed evolution".

By driving a sped-up version of natural selection in the lab, the method has created new enzymes for industrial catalysts, household detergents, and even to make rocket fuel from sugar.

The €1m (£0.8m) prize is awarded biennially and Prof Arnold is the first female winner in its 12-year history.

It recognises developments that "change people's lives for the better".

The Technology Academy Finland, which presents the prize, said the deliberations began in November 2015 but that "there was only one outstanding candidate".

Prof Arnold, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), spoke to the BBC before travelling to Helsinki for Tuesday's ceremony.

She said the "basic concept" of using evolution to create better enzymes emerged from her laboratory more than 20 years ago.

BBC News: Evolutionary engineer wins tech prize, Jonathan Webb

Perching Robots...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 24, 2016 at 5:24am

D.W.A.R.F.s: Drones Wirelessly Automated to Retrieve Forensics, Marvel Agents of Shield Wiki

Topics: Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics

Researchers have designed a small, flying robot that can perch on a wide range of surfaces before taking flight once more. The development is highlighted in the 20 May issue of Science. Aerial robots can serve many valuable purposes, such as surveying a site after a natural disaster or detecting hazardous chemicals — but the act of flight is energy-intensive. For animals that fly, such as birds and insects, a key way to conserve energy is to find a place to perch. "Unfortunately, today's flying microrobots run out of energy quickly," explained Moritz Alexander Graule of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "We want to keep them aloft longer without draining too much energy. For our robot, the perching method we developed requires about 1,000 times less energy than flying, thus prolonging the potential mission time."

AAAS: Bio-inspired Robot Perches, Resumes Flight, Michelle Hampson

Physics Identities...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 23, 2016 at 4:46am

Image Source: Physics Today home page

Topics: Commentary, Diversity, Diversity in Science, Mark G. Raizen, Women in Science

This was an article that gave me a slight chuckle (the obvious double entendre of superhero secret identities and by inference of the topic trigonometric identities we all used to have to memorize). I can personally attest there are four major epochs (my reference) one goes through in the field:

"I major in physics";

"I 'majored' in physics";

"I work in a 'physics-related' field" also "my physics background helps me in my current field";

"I am a physicist."

Mark G. Raizen, one of the smartest physicist I know doing cutting edge research in atomic physics and quantum optics, was once a theoretical physics grad student under Steven Weinberg before he changed focus to being an experimental physicist. (Trivia: he even has a Wiki page on WOW.com). Mark once wished me a happy birthday on Facebook, referring to me as a "fellow physicist." I was at the time pursuing my Graduate Certificate in Microelectronics and Photonics from Stevens University I've since completed. I start again with the graduate physics department in the fall, as I only have 18 hours to a full Masters degree. With this background and my current industry focus on Implant, I hope to go as far as my preparation takes me.

I admit, I was flattered and honored, thinking my diversions - the military, industry, selling home security systems (long story) and high school physics teacher wasn't a "pure" path, and thus I bounced quite liberally between #2 and #3. Though he said it quite casually, it did knock me for a loop and change my own self-perceptions. Mark and Alicia Raizen's friendship has been inspirational (I met Alicia on an appointment with the aforementioned security company; then Mark who took me on a tour of his laboratory with his graduate students at UT Austin). I admit some evolution had to take place for me to get to and accept the fourth epoch. From that point and ever since, I have been referring to myself publicly, and proudly... as a physicist.

A series of interviews with undergraduates yields some surprising insights into how the students come to think of themselves as physicists.

Are you a physicist? How did you become a physicist? The answers to those questions are not as straightforward as one might think. The routes into physics are as diverse as physicists themselves. The sources of our early affinities for physics range from childhood fascinations with the universe to that introductory physics class that made you ask more questions than you could answer.

Acquiring a professional identity is a fundamental part of any student’s development.¹ Students are significantly more likely to persist with a program in physics—or any other discipline—when they identify themselves as students of that discipline.² However, developing an identity as a professional physicist and member of the physics community is a complicated process that can take a long time and involve overcoming multiple barriers.

To examine how identities change over time, we studied the experiences of 20 undergraduate physics students (3 women and 17 men) at Kansas State University over six semesters beginning with their modern physics class. Seven of the students remained in the study until the end. We interviewed each student several times, focusing on their developing experiences with physics and their perceptions of what it means to be a physicist. Our methods are described in the box on page 48.

We tracked changes in their perceptions over time as they engaged in more physics practices, such as upper-division coursework and undergraduate research. Students’ experiences with different authentic physics practices changed their perceptions of what it means to be a physicist. We used those changing perceptions as a starting point to investigate the students’ evolving physics identities.

Physics Today: Developing Physics Identities, Paul W. Irving and Eleanor C. Sayre

More Terrifying Than Foreigners...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 13, 2016 at 5:41am

Image Source: CarloAlberto.org

Topics: Calculus, Differential Equations, Diversity, Politics

I think someone created a meme on Facebook from this incident. A little poking around the Internet revealed this WaPo article:

On Thursday evening, a 40-year-old man — with dark, curly hair, olive skin and an exotic foreign accent — boarded a plane. It was a regional jet making a short, uneventful hop from Philadelphia to nearby Syracuse.

Or so dozens of unsuspecting passengers thought.

The curly-haired man tried to keep to himself, intently if inscrutably scribbling on a notepad he’d brought aboard. His seatmate, a blond-haired, 30-something woman sporting flip-flops and a red tote bag, looked him over. He was wearing navy Diesel jeans and a red Lacoste sweater – a look he would later describe as “simple elegance” – but something about him didn’t seem right to her.

She decided to try out some small talk.

Is Syracuse home? She asked.

No, he replied curtly.

He similarly deflected further questions. He appeared laser-focused — perhaps too laser-focused — on the task at hand, those strange scribblings.

Skipping further into the article:

And then the big reveal: The woman wasn’t really sick at all! Instead this quick-thinking traveler had Seen Something, and so she had Said Something.

That Something she’d seen had been her seatmate’s cryptic notes, scrawled in a script she didn’t recognize. Maybe it was code, or some foreign lettering, possibly the details of a plot to destroy the dozens of innocent lives aboard American Airlines Flight 3950. She may have felt it her duty to alert the authorities just to be safe. The curly-haired man was, the agent informed him politely, suspected of terrorism.

The curly-haired man laughed.

He laughed because those scribbles weren’t Arabic, or another foreign language, or even some special secret terrorist code. They were math.

Yes, math. A differential equation, to be exact.

Had the crew or security members perhaps quickly googled this good-natured, bespectacled passenger before waylaying everyone for several hours, they might have learned that he — Guido Menzio — is a young but decorated Ivy League economist. And that he’s best known for his relatively technical work on search theory, which helped earn him a tenured associate professorship at the University of Pennsylvania as well as stints at Princeton and Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

Guido Menzio is a recipient of the prestigious Carlo Alberto medal, given to the best Italian economist under 40.

Did I mention he's Italian (not Arab/Near Eastern)? There are myriad other ethnic groups with "swarthy" complexions on the planet. Besides, here in the US, the threat of terrorism statistically may be of the homegrown and non-swarthy variety.

Majoring in a STEM field yields more than its own stereotypes: dorky, nerdy, socially awkward (I'm talking to you, "Big Bang Theory"), unattractive, but TERRORIST? I admit, the course we all affectionately called "DIFFY Qs" was daunting, but it didn't rewire any of us for violence. Have we gotten this addled in the brain?

So, in the era of not wanting actual experts in government or well, ANYTHING; in the era of racism, xenophobia, bombast, blatant lying, homophobia and misogyny as crass, carnival-barking political tactics (applicable when you've subordinated the processes a republic uses selecting its leaders into "reality TV," from a public caricature having more in common with "A Pimp Named Slickback") appealing to our lesser angels, we are SHOCKED that mathematics has literally become "Thoughtcrime"? Instead of a "shining city on a hill," we've become a dung heap infested with maggots in a junkyard - a joke! "Idiocracy" as a comedy was placed 500 years hence. That Apocalypse is now. All the hand-wringing about this being a strange election cycle is now solved. After telling Gorbachev to "tear down that wall," we're apparently intent on building another more lasting monument in the thick mortar paste of breathtaking stupidity. Sadly, the minions of this effort are PROUD of who and what they DON'T know. For them, ignorance is not just bliss: it's a belief system. And, you cannot explain science, mathematics, history, the economy or climate change... to a cult.

Rising xenophobia stoked by the presidential campaign, he (Guido) suggested, may soon make things worse for people who happen to look a little other-ish.

Washington Post:
Ivy League economist ethnically profiled, interrogated for doing math on American Airlines flight
Catherine Rampell

Blog break for ten days. Back on 23 May.

ExoMars...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 12, 2016 at 5:09am

ExoMars 2016 liftoff - ESA

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, ESA, Mars, Planetary Science

This was obviously in March, but we're five months from the actual encounter with the red planet. I'll keep up with any updates and note progress and hopefully, a successful planetary landing.

The first of two joint European Space Agency (ESA)-Roscosmos missions to Mars has begun a seven-month journey to the Red Planet, where it will address unsolved mysteries of the planet’s atmosphere that could indicate present-day geological — or even biological — activity.

The Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli entry, descent, and landing demonstrator lifted off on a Proton-M rocket operated by Russia’s Roscosmos at 05:31 a.m. EDT (09:31 GMT) March 14 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

The payload fairing was released following separation of Proton’s first and second stages. The third stage separated nearly 10 minutes after liftoff.

The Breeze-M upper stage, with ExoMars attached, then completed a series of four burns before the spacecraft was released at 4:13 p.m. EDT (20:13 GMT).

Signals from the spacecraft, received at ESA’s control center in Darmstadt, Germany via the Malindi ground tracking station in Africa at 5:29 p.m. EDT (21:29 GMT), confirmed that the launch was fully successful and the spacecraft is in good health.

The orbiter’s solar wings have also now unfolded and the craft is on its way to Mars.

Astronomy: ExoMars sets off to solve the Red Planet’s mysteries

Nano Thermometer...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 11, 2016 at 5:15am

Alexis Vallée-Bélisle and his research team have developed DNA-based thermometers that allow the measurement of temperature at the nanoscale. Design: Kotkoa.

Topics: Biology, DNA, Nanotechnology

Researchers have known for more than 60 years now that DNA molecules unfold when heated and refold when cooleddown again. More recently they also discovered that living organisms employ biomolecules such as proteins or RNA (a molecule similar to DNA) as nanothermometers thanks to this unfolding and folding. “Inspired by these natural nanothermometers, we have now created various DNA structures that can fold and unfold at specifically defined temperatures,” explains team leader Alexis Vallée-Bélisle.

The team used the simple Watson–Crick base pair code of DNA and the so-called Hoogsteen interactions to create their DNA structures. The good thing about DNA is that its chemistry is relatively simple and programmable, says team member David Garreau. “DNA is made from four different nucleotide molecules, A, C, G and T. Nucleotide A binds weakly to nucleotide T, whereas nucleotide C binds strongly to nucleotide G. Using these simple rules, we were able to create DNA structures that can be programmed to fold and unfold at specific temperatures.”

Nanotech Web: DNA makes tiny thermometer, Belle Dumé

Gedanken...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 10, 2016 at 5:37am

Image Source: Pics About Space

Topics: Einstein, FTL, General Relativity, Star Trek

For the record: \\//_. Now that my "Trek creds" have been established...

Gedanken is a German word for "thought." It is often colloquially defined along with the word experiment, which is where a lot of the notions of Special and General Relativity took place in Einstein's mind; his innate ability to conceptualize a tough idea.

It is also by definition, an experiment that is impractical to carry out. Part of it being impractical is the incredible energies that would be needed to propel a star ship to even 0.10 c, or in Trek parlance: "impulse." An aircraft carrier is ~64,000 metric tons (I'm using it as my "Enterprise," which is supposed to be pretty big). That's 64,000,000 kilograms. Simply multiply it by 0.10 x 3.0 x 10⁸ m/s² this will give you the energy output in Joules: 1.92 x 10¹⁵. The PLANET in 2013 generated 5.67 x 10²⁰ Joules.

Part of the constant research is that sometimes what you're looking for may not be found, but the techniques you use in any analysis may have an application in areas you may not have imagined. As such, it becomes a part of the research one can reference and build on, thereby increasing the overall knowledge of a subject area.

Abstract

Warp drives are very interesting configurations in general relativity: At least theoretically, they provide a way to travel at superluminal speeds, albeit at the cost of requiring exotic matter to exist as solutions of Einstein’s equations. However, even if one succeeded in providing the necessary exotic matter to build them, it would still be necessary to check whether they would survive to the switching on of quantum effects. Semiclassical corrections to warp-drive geometries have been analyzed only for eternal warp-drive bubbles traveling at fixed superluminal speeds. Here, we investigate the more realistic case in which a superluminal warp drive is created out of an initially flat spacetime. First of all we analyze the causal structure of eternal and dynamical warp-drive spacetimes. Then we pass to the analysis of the renormalized stress-energy tensor (RSET) of a quantum field in these geometries. While the behavior of the RSET in these geometries has close similarities to that in the geometries associated with gravitational collapse, it shows dramatic differences too. On one side, an observer located at the center of a superluminal warp-drive bubble would generically experience a thermal flux of Hawking particles. On the other side, such Hawking flux will be generically extremely high if the exotic matter supporting the warp drive has its origin in a quantum field satisfying some form of quantum inequalities. Most of all, we find that the RSET will exponentially grow in time close to, and on, the front wall of the superluminal bubble. Consequently, one is led to conclude that the warp-drive geometries are unstable against semiclassical backreaction.

Physics arXiv: Semiclassical instability of dynamical warp drives
Stefano Finazzi,^1,∗ Stefano Liberati,¹,^† and Carlos Barcelo²

Changeling...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 9, 2016 at 5:42am

Image courtesy of Ilsa van Meerbeek
The material is capable o both withstanding heavy loads or deforming under them as needed.

Topics: Materials Science, Metamaterials, Robotics

For all the discussion surrounding artificial intelligence and robots recently, the stiff, dull metal exterior of robots has only recently begun to evolve. While human-like robots, with silicon skin, can simulate emotions but robots with the shape-shifting ability of the Transformers have yet to hit the market. However, Prof. Robert Shepherd, mechanical and aerospace engineering, is developing a material that could soon bring that to reality.

Shepherd and his team at Organic Robotics Lab is working on a metal-rubber composite by harnessing the strength of a metallic alloy and the flexibility of a soft silicone foam. The material can withstanding heavy loads or deform under them upon command. The only requirement for switching between these properties is a change in temperature.

Cornell Daily Sun:
Cornell Researchers Create New Material Capable of Shifting States, Arnav Ghosh

Nano, Gold and Cancer...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 6, 2016 at 6:38am

Illustration of receptor–mediated endocytosis.³ Image Credit: Illustration courtesy of Professor Emeritus Danton H. O’Day, Department of Biology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada

Topics: Biology, Cancer, Nanotechnology

Cancer is an inherently difficult illness to treat. Sometimes residual cancer cells remain even after removing tumors; sometimes parts of a tumor cannot be removed because of the way the cancer cells attach to a vital organ. A way to detect and kill cancer cells in vivo has been sought after for a long time, and some lines of research are finally showing great promise. The latest? Having cancer cells envelop dozens of nanoparticles that then are used to obliterate the cancer cell from the inside, leaving healthy cells untouched!¹

The Gist of It

Essentially, nanoparticle therapy works by getting about a hundred gold nanoparticles clustered into a cancer cell, then blasting the area with an infrared laser pulse. Energy imparted by the laser causes the fluid around the cluster to reach temperatures high enough to vaporize the fluid, which causes a rapid expansion and collapse. This results in the obliteration of the cancer cell, but healthy cells are not affected because they don’t incorporate enough gold particles to cause damage. As the high temperatures remain confined within the nanobubble formed around the cluster, nearby cells are unharmed by the process.

How Do You Get Something Inside a Cell?

Cells can incorporate foreign objects in a number of ways, but the method that this research utilizes is called receptor-mediated endocytosis. In this process, the foreign object attaches itself to a point on the outside of the cell called a receptor, which is embedded in the cell’s outer membrane. Receptors have active ends on either side of the cell membrane, each of which attaches to certain molecules; the exterior side is selective for certain particles that the cell needs, while the interior end attaches to the proteins and signaling molecules that regulate cellular processes based on what’s happening outside the cell. The cell uses this method, for example, when it ingests a cholesterol molecule; the molecule binds to a receptor at the cell membrane, leading proteins to attach to the interior end of the receptor, thickening the cell membrane. A pit forms that then envelops the bound molecules into the cell.

Physics Central: Using Gold Nanoparticles to Kill Cancer,H. M. Doss

5th of May...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 5, 2016 at 5:00am

Battle of Puebla - Wikipedia

Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Politics, Women in Science

The presumptive nominee of one of our major political parties used a xenophobic attack against Hispanics/Latinos - he called them drug dealers and rapists; he'll build a wall, and make Mexico pay for it; Muslims are barred at the border; African Americans have been injured and denigrated at his rallies; Women and LGBT have been insulted; Native Americans were burned by him in a bad casino deal. He's stirred the melting pot and bigots have bubbled out of the cauldron, the 2012 autopsy all but ignored. Someone commented to me that their father "didn't leave the Democratic Party in 1967; it left him." I bit my own tongue at the political dodge: the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act may have had something to do with his father's exodus, as it did many others. The hashtag movement to oppose the rise of the presumptive nominee has fallen to dust.

It is befitting today I repost this reminder of our diversity. I make no predictions and take nothing for granted. 538 and a lot of pundits predicted demises that didn't materialize. All the models were based on typical political science rules in elective politics. He is not following the rules: he's wrestling, WWE style.

I was 18 in 1980. I could at that time, drink as well as vote; the drinking age was raised to 21 when I turned 21 three years later, so it didn't impact me as much as generations afterwards. I voted along the party lines of my parents, affected by a party that championed the '64 and '65 acts my sister put her life on the line in demonstration lines for. The "Gipper" posed at his first rally in Philadelphia, Mississippi near the site of three murdered Civil Rights workers. It was an understood "wink and nod" at a group of disgruntled, disappointed and bigoted voters soon known as "Reagan Democrats." Using the dark machinations of the "Southern Strategy," so clearly elucidated by Lee Atwater, you will eventually get what you want: take from "them" because "they" didn't earn anything, despite a holocaust born of a mass continental kidnapping, rape, hangings, cross burning, domestic terrorism in the form of poll taxes and other voter suppression, castrations and reparations deferred forever. You did it with subtle, verbal Jujitsu; not openly as now: Moochers...Welfare Queens...Takers...Thugs...Rapists...all with a distinct hue in the gradient of Melanin. This has been one long backlash to the "established order" since January 20, 2009, when things got so terrible for many that bought into the myth of their inherit superiority. The president's main sin is the destruction of a narrative as long as the republic.

I make no predictions, but I give a sharp warning: Reagan was joked about in "Back To The Future" (Doc Brown: Who's president in 1985? Marty: Ronald Reagan. Doc Brown: The actor?), because as a B-Movie star, his only notable film was "Bedtime for Bonzo." Biff Tannen, the antagonist to Marty McFly's father - is based off the same real estate mogul, the Birther-in-Chief and reality TV star that is his party's presumptive nominee.

B-Movie actor...reality TV star... "What's past is prologue." William Shakespeare.

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a celebration held on May 5. It is celebrated nationwide in the United States and regionally in Mexico, primarily in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is called El Dia de la Batalla de Puebla (English: The Day of the Battle of Puebla). The date is observed in the United States as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride, and to commemorate the cause of freedom and democracy during the first years of the American Civil War. In the state of Puebla, the date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. Contrary to widespread popular belief, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day—the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico—which is actually celebrated on September 16. (Wikipedia)

The National Society of Hispanic Physicists has a recognition page of Hispanic Americans in Physics - Past, Present and Future. Similar to what I posted during the month of February, my intention is to give the same attention to Hispanic Scientists and Engineers during the celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Teaching for Change: Book link here

Almost 10 years before "Brown vs. Board of Education," Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Mendez was denied enrollment to a "Whites only" school. Her parents took action by organizing the Hispanic community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court. Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education in California.

Praise for "Separate is Never Equal" by Duncan Tonatiuh
STARRED REVIEWS
"Tonatiuh masterfully combines text and folk-inspired art to add an important piece to the mosaic of U.S. civil rights history."
--"Kirkus Reviews," starred review
"Younger children will be outraged by the injustice of the Mendez family story but pleased by its successful resolution. Older children will understand the importance of the 1947 ruling that desegregated California schools, paving the way for Brown v. Board of Education seven years later."
--"School Library Journal," starred review
"Tonatiuh ("Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote") offers an illuminating account of a family's hard-fought legal battle to desegregate California schools in the years before "Brown" v. "Board of Education.""
--"Publishers Weekly"
"Pura Belpre Award-winning Tonatiuh makes excellent use of picture-book storytelling to bring attention to the 1947 California ruling against public-school segregation."
--"Booklist"

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Walter Kohn...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 4, 2016 at 4:40am

Image Source: NobelPrize.org

Topics: Chemistry, Computational Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, Density Function Theory*, Nobel Prize, Quantum Mechanics

“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus; and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about

To find ourselves dishonourable graves.”

― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

LOS ANGELES (JTA) –Nobel Prize winner Walter Kohn, who fled Nazi-ruled Austria one month before the start of World War II, has died.

Kohn died on April 19 at his home in Santa Barbara. He was 93.

Kohn received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he shared with British-born scientist John Pople. His research, which spanned the fields of physics and chemistry, applied quantum mechanics and advanced mathematics to explain complex chemical reactions.

His studies also formed the basis for the creation of innovative materials custom designed for medicines and for advances in electronics.

In the fall of 1939, Kohn left his native Vienna on one of the last transports of children to England, where he was interned as an “enemy alien.” The following year he was shipped to Canada, where he subsequently joined the Canadian army as an infantryman.

His parents, Salomon and Gittel Kohn, died in Auschwitz.

* Density functional theory (DFT) is a computational quantum mechanical modelling method used in physics, chemistry and materials science to investigate the electronic structure (principally the ground state) of many-body systems, in particular atoms, molecules, and the condensed phases. Using this theory, the properties of a many-electron system can be determined by using functionals, i.e. functions of another function, which in this case is the spatially dependent electron density. Hence the name density functional theory comes from the use of functionals of the electron density. DFT is among the most popular and versatile methods available in condensed-matter physics, computational physics, and computational chemistry. Wikipedia

Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Walter Kohn, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, dies at 93

"Walter Kohn - Facts". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 4 May 2016. < http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1998/kohn-facts.html >

"Walter Kohn - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 4 May 2016. < http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1998/kohn-bio.html >

AlN and Qbits...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 3, 2016 at 5:19am

This graphic illustrates an engineered nitrogen vacancy in aluminum nitride.

Topics: Computer Science, Entanglement, Materials Science, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics, Schrödinger’s cat, Solid State Physics

I included a short primer on Aluminum Nitride if you're interested (which, I'm guessing if you're reading something this nerdy, you kinda are). If you're viewing this on a laptop, pad or a mobile phone, I'm 99.99999999% sure your devices chips were manufactured with AlN. If you go to the link below, the article gives a succinct description of quantum entanglement (when atoms due to their proximity to each other cannot be described as a single unit), and superposition - famously illustrated by the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, which is the whole POINT of a quantum computer: it could be "1"; "0" or both at the same time, called a superposition of states. Thankfully, a lot of smart brains are tasked with what shape our tech lives post-Silicon will take, with which we will promptly share more cute cat videos in a kind of weird, digital Freudian slip.

Quantum computers have the potential to break common cryptography techniques, search huge datasets and simulate quantum systems in a fraction of the time it would take today’s computers. But before this can happen, engineers need to be able to harness the properties of quantum bits or qubits.

Currently, one of the leading methods for creating qubits in materials involves exploiting the structural atomic defects in diamond. But several researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory believe that if an analogue defect could be engineered into a less expensive material, the cost of manufacturing quantum technologies could be significantly reduced. Using supercomputers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), which is located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), these researchers have identified a possible candidate in aluminum nitride. Their findings were published in Nature Scientific Reports.

NERSC: Could Aluminum Nitride Produce Quantum Bits? Linda Vu
Seo, H. et al. Design of defect spins in piezoelectric aluminum nitride for solid-state hybrid quantum technologies. Sci. Rep. 6, 20803; doi: 10.1038/srep20803 (2016).

Wars and Water...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 2, 2016 at 6:26am

Global droughts, April 27, 2016. From the Global Drought Information System.

Topics: Climate Change, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases

This is an often-correlated topic, even the Pentagon has warned Congress about it. Clausewitz said: "war is the extension of politics by other means," but it's also essentially a contest for resources, and it always has been. I recall my senior year my AFROTC instructor saying the primary duty of the officer was "the management of violence." That sounds kind of dark, but it's essentially the gist of it, despite your service branch or specialty. This article in Science Blogs caught my eye, as it tracks droughts across the globe in places where poverty, desperation and terrorism go hand-in-hand. Part of the responsibility of our elected officials should be the management of violence to keep it at a minimum (kind of a practical "fighting them over there" to borrow the jingoism), not sophomoric stunts with snowballs on the senate chamber floor.

Again, we have no solar sails, star ships nor extra habitable planets close by to escape to.

Populations around the world face many severe water challenges, from scarcity to contamination, from political or violent conflict to economic disruption. As populations and economies grow, peak water pressures on existing renewable water resources also tend to grow up to the point that natural scarcity begins to constrain the options of water planners and managers. At this point, the effects of natural fluctuations in water availability in the form of extreme weather events become even more potentially disruptive than normal. In particular, droughts begin to bite deeply into human well-being.

This has been a bad few years for people exposed to droughts around the world. Even normally occurring droughts have begun to be made more severe by rising global temperatures and climate changes. A particularly severe El Niño has played an important role: droughts are typically more widespread and severe than normal during El Niño years. Indeed, precipitation variability on land is strongly controlled by the characteristics of El Niño events.

Science Blogs: Global Droughts: A Bad Year, Peter Gleick

Chief Injudiciousness...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 29, 2016 at 6:35am

Photos at top show students at Chicago State University (CSU), a minority serving institution on Chicago's South Side, engaged in active learning environments that have been shown to aid diverse groups of students develop a deep understanding of physics. In top photo Ebony Spells, Angela Moore, and Sharif Onihale work on a physics lab experiment.

Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Politics, STEM, Women in Science

I’m not sure if putting it in The Back Page section of the APS newsletter was a smooth move politically, but I’m grateful for the lucidity and clarity of Dr. Chandralekha Singh’s arguments affirming the need for diversity in our national STEM competitiveness, and the utterly vapid statement by one with the title “Chief Justice.”

Not that I've heard a lot from Chief Justices, but I don't recall Rehnquist saying something so demonstrably out-of-touch with the rest of the country; his mind is in the 1950's behind a white picket fence. The Chief Injustice is a microcosm of a privileged mindset that hasn't quite grasped we're in a global competitive environment, and more than his culture needs to row in the collective national boat.

Sadly, due to financial stresses, this valuable asset will likely close this year. When such actions - intentional or unintentional - take place, "lifting yourselves up by your own bootstraps" is about as asinine as starting a sprint chained to the starting block six seconds after the gun fires the race. For want of "nostalgic," anachronistic prejudices of the mid 20th Century, we're setting ourselves up to be a banana republic in the 21st.

On December 9, 2015, Chief Justice Roberts asked the question "What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?" during the discussion of a case on affirmative action at the university level. It appears that he chose a physics class because he felt that this discipline definitely does not need diverse perspectives. As a female physicist who has been teaching at the University of Pittsburgh for two decades, I feel that the Chief Justice’s question suggests a lack of familiarity with urgent issues in education that must be addressed to maintain U.S. competitiveness.

The question first implies that it is the perspective of the minority student that is the critical feature rather than the presence of the minority student in the physics class. We need to attract minority students to disciplines that need their talents. Currently, approximately 20 percent of undergraduate and Ph.D. students in physics programs across the U.S. are females, which is significantly lower than the percentage in many European and Asian countries. What is perhaps more alarming is that only about 9 percent of physics undergraduate degrees and 6 percent of Ph.D. degrees are awarded to students from underrepresented races and ethnicities.

APS Physics: In the Matter of Minority Physics Students v. Chief Justice Roberts
By Chandralekha Singh