Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts

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

EuPRAXIA...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 28, 2016 at 6:37am

Artist's impression of how electrons (blue sphere) are accelerated by a large electric-field gradient (cerise waves) created by an intense laser pulse. (Courtesy: Cockcroft Institute of Accelerator Science)

Topics: High Energy Physics, Laser, Particle Physics, Plasma Physics

In the era of xenophobic flight to suburbs, they termed the cities "doughnuts," meaning they were empty of value, like doughnut holes; the suburbs sweeter and of more worth.

It's not that good science is not being done here in the US: it's no longer what we're known for primarily. Now, it's creation museums, conspiracy provocateurs; reality TV stars running for president. We are becoming a doughnut hole nation.

Accelerator physicists in five European countries are developing plans for the world's first high-energy laser plasma accelerator facility for use by science and industry. If built, the facility will deliver high-quality beams of electrons with energies up to 5 GeV. The EuPRAXIA consortium includes researchers at 16 institutes in the European Union (EU), including the DESY lab in Germany, the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics, the French national research council and the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK. EuPRAXIA also has 18 associate partners worldwide, including the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in the US, RIKEN in Japan and CERN in Switzerland.

The idea of laser plasma acceleration has been around for more than 30 years, and in 2014 physicists using the LBNL's Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator managed to accelerate electrons to energies as high as 4.2 GeV. The process involves firing very intense laser pulses into a gas to create a plasma. As a pulse travels through the gas, it rips electrons away from the positive nuclei, therefore creating a huge electric-field gradient in its wake. This gradient can be thousands of times greater than that found in conventional particle accelerators – and therefore can accelerate electrons to high energies over much shorter distances than conventional facilities.

Physics World: Consortium sets out to build European laser plasma accelerator
Hamish Johnston

Hawking Radiation...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 27, 2016 at 4:29am

Image Source: Universe Today
Hawking radiation near an event horizon. Credit: NAU.

Topics: Black Holes, Cosmology, Einstein, General Relativity, Phonons

IN BRIEF

Scientists may have found signs that phonons, the very small packets of energy that make up sound waves, were leaking out of sonic black holes, just as Hawking’s equations predicted.

SURVIVING A BLACK HOLE

Some 42 years ago, renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking proposed that not everything that comes in contact with a black hole succumbs to its unfathomable nothingness. Tiny particles of light (photons) are sometimes ejected back out, robbing the black hole of an infinitesimal amount of energy, and this gradual loss of mass over time means every black hole eventually evaporates out of existence.

Known as Hawking radiation, these escaping particles help us make sense of one of the greatest enigmas in the known Universe, but after more than four decades, no one’s been able to actually prove they exist, and Hawking’s proposal remained firmly in hypothesis territory.

But all that could be about to change, with two independent groups of researchers reporting that they’ve found evidence to back up Hawking’s claims, and it could see one of the greatest living physicists finally win a Nobel Prize.

Futurism:
Physicists Made a ‘Black Hole’ in a Lab That May Finally Prove Hawking Radiation Exists

'Spooky Action' in Photosynthesis...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 26, 2016 at 5:15am

Dipole-dipole interactions between two chromophores were imaged on the atomic level using scanning tunneling microscopy.
Image credit: Guoyan Wang and Daping Sun

Topics: Biology, Materials Science, Quantum Mechanics, Solar Power

Photosynthesis and other vital biological reactions depend on the interplay between electrically polarized molecules. For the first time, scientists have imaged these interactions at the atomic level. The insights from these images could help lead to better solar power cells, researchers added.

Atoms in molecules often do not equally share their electrons. This can lead to electric dipoles, in which one side of a molecule is positively charged while the other side is negatively charged. Interactions between dipoles are critical to biology -- for instance, the way large protein molecules fold -- often depend on how the electric charges of dipoles attract or repel each other.

One process where dipole coupling is key is photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, dipole coupling helps chromophores – molecules that can absorb and release light – transfer the energy that they capture from sunlight to other molecules that convert it to chemical energy.

Intriguingly, a consequence of dipole coupling is that chromophores may experience a strange phenomenon known as quantum entanglement. Quantum physics suggests that the world is a fuzzy, surreal place at its very smallest levels. Objects experiencing quantum entanglement are better thought of as a single collective than as standalone objects, even when separated in space. Quantum entanglement means that chromophore properties can strongly depend on the number, orientations and positions of their neighbors.

Inside Science: Scientists Capture 'Spooky Action' In Photosynthesis, Charles Q. Choi

Omid Kocabee...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 24, 2016 at 7:14pm

Image Source: Second Link below

Topics: Laser, Optical Physics, Photonics, Physics, Politics, Research

Omid Kokabee was a PhD student and researcher at the University of Texas, Austin in Laser Physics until his capture in 2011 during a family visit to Iran, and wrongful conviction by an authoritarian Iranian court. His health is fading; cancer claiming his right kidney. It was removed finally, but he's still in considerable pain and in real danger of dying. Instead of thinking of his scientific contributions to the US and the world at large, I fear our letting him languish this long is due to his being "other."

As much as I think the Iranian nuclear arms deal is a good thing - avoiding species extinction always is - an individual like Omid Kokabee is going through his own personal extinction albeit in a kind of psychopathic slow-motion.

Omid Kokabee was awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize from the American Physical Society for “his courage in refusing to use his physics knowledge to work on projects that he deemed harmful to humanity, in the face of extreme physical and psychological pressure.” He has also been suffering from a number of serious health problems that have not been treated.

The timing of the petition delivery is critical: following a concerted effort on his behalf by a number of organizations and thousands of activists around the world, Iran’s Supreme Court recently vacated the ten-year sentence and is now going to review the case against Omid Kokabee. October 28 also marks the official presentation to the United Nations of the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed. Iran’s human rights record will also be closely scrutinized when its Universal Periodic Review in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva is conducted starting October 31.

The delegation delivering the petitions to the Iran UN Mission is calling for Omid Kokabee to be immediately and unconditionally released so that he can receive urgent medical treatment for his numerous and severe health problems.

The letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader calling for the release of Omid Kokabee is endorsed by the following 31 Nobel laureates in physics: Leon Neil Cooper (1972), Brian David Josephson (1973), Anthony Hewish (1974), Burton Richter (1976), Samuel Chao Chung Ting (1976), Philip W. Anderson (1977), Arno Allan Penzias (1978), Sheldon Lee Glashow (1979), James Cronin (1980), Nicolaas Bloembergen (1981), Klaus von Klitzing (1985), Jack Steinberger (1988), David. M. Lee (1996), Douglas D. Osheroff (1996), Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (1997), William D. Phillips (1997), Daniel Tsui (1998), Eric A. Cornell (2001), Wolfgang Ketterle (2001), Masatoshi Koshiba (2002), Alexei Abrikosov (2003), Anthony Leggett (2003), David Politzer (2004), David J. Gross (2004), John Hall (2005), John Mather (2006), Toshihide Maskawa (2008), Konstantin Novoselov (2010), Andre Geim (2010), David J. Wineland (2012) and Peter W. Higgs (2013).

This is grand and noble, but it's also from an entry on Iranian Human Rights' site in 2014.

To remind what exactly authoritarianism is and why it's so destructive, I give this Eric Fromm ("Escape From Freedom") primer:

Authoritarianism: Fromm characterizes the authoritarian personality as containing a sadist element and a masochist element. The authoritarian wishes to gain control over other people in a bid to impose some kind of order on the world, they also wish to submit to the control of some superior force which may come in the guise of a person or an abstract idea.

Destructiveness: Although this bears a similarity to sadism, Fromm argues that the sadist wishes to gain control over something. A destructive personality wishes to destroy something it cannot bring under its control.

Conformity: This process is seen when people unconsciously incorporate the normative beliefs and thought processes of their society and experience them as their own. This allows them to avoid genuine free thinking, which is likely to provoke anxiety.

We're seeing this the world over: Iran, Europe and especially the United States. There is and always has been a war on science by authoritarian regimes be they religious or secular (fossil fuels has no cathedral I'm aware of, but they and other business interests control a considerable amount of news media and therefore modulate consent). Science tends to report what "is," not what business interests, the liturgical or the state wishes reality to be. It is this reason why we can't get any action on Climate Change in the United States and therefore adversely affecting the planet elsewhere with no "plan B." It is a formula for species extinction. Homo Sapiens literally translates from Latin to "wise man": this clearly is NOT.

I've created a White House Petition: http://wh.gov/ioO5v. There are others out there, I know, but 100,000 signatures in 30 days with social media makes me confident we can reach that simple milestone, and get our physicist home.

We are all Omid: those of us that support and participate in any level of science, K-12 and post secondary education or industry can suddenly find ourselves in a virtual or real gulag for being ourselves; for researching, advancing academically - thinking. Thoughtcrime is not so Orwellian anymore, refer to the Fromm primer above.

This is an election year, and in the off possibilty republicans take back the White House, I feel Dr. Kokabee's chances of returning to Austin and Physics research exponentially reduce from slim to nil.

I would attend the rally were I still living in Austin. I complete this post with tears for Omid, and a swelling of hope in my chest at this activism for a fellow scientist.

I've never been prouder being a physicist.

Related sites:

Free Omid

Imprisoned Iranian Physicist Loses Kidney to Cancer, Must Be Released Permanently

University Of Texas-Austin Students, Faculty To Rally For Imprisoned Physicist

Free Omid Kokabee; A Rally To Be Held At University of Texas-Austin

Starshot...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 22, 2016 at 5:30am

ESA/Hubble/NASA
The star system α Centauri is more than 4 light years from the Sun.

Topics: Physics Humor, Space, Space Exploration, Special Relativity, Star Trek

0.20 x 3.00 x 10⁸ m/s = 6 x 10⁷ m/s isn't warp drive, but it's still pretty fast. We'll also get to see some phenomena in the universe that would normally take us decades to visit, and within our lifetimes so long as our sturdy cell-sized craft and their respective sails aren't punctured with micro meteors or picked off by V'Ger. The benefit to us on Earth will be the spin off technology. As with the original space race, we won't be the only ones with small ships and tall sails out there.

Space has long fascinated humans, but few have dared to initiate an interstellar space programme. Now a coalition of entrepreneurs and scientists aims to design a fleet of laser-powered spacecraft that could reach α Centauri, the star system closest to the Solar System, in just two decades. The group envisions probes that could complete that journey — a distance of 4.37 light years (1.34 parsecs) — at 20% the speed of light.

“For the first time in human history we can actually do more than observe the stars,” said Yuri Milner, a Russian Internet billionaire who is funding the initiative, at a 12 April press conference in New York. “We can reach them.”

Called Breakthrough Starshot, the programme is based on an idea that has been around for decades: the solar sail. The theory is that a lightweight space sail could harness the momentum carried by photons in order to travel without fuel.

The Breakthrough Starshot team is betting that a burst of concentrated lasers, fired from the ground, could rapidly accelerate a mobile-phone-sized device equipped with microelectronics and a tiny sail — providing much more energy than could be harnessed from the Sun. Whereas NASA’s plutonium-powered New Horizons spacecraft took nine years to reach Pluto, the “nanocraft” envisioned by Breakthrough Starshot would pass by the dwarf planet and exit the Solar System in three days.

Nature: Billionaire backs plan to send pint-sized starships beyond the Solar System
Jeff Tollefson

750 GeV Diphotons...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 21, 2016 at 6:05am

The photons are indicated by the clusters of energy shown in green. (Courtesy: CERN)

Topics: Large Hadron Collider, LHC, Particle Physics, Theoretical Physics

Last year, the LHC's ATLAS and CMS experiments both reported a small "bump" in their data that denoted an excess of photon pairs with a combined mass of around 750 GeV. As this unexpected bump could be the first hint of a new massive particle that is not predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, the data generated hundreds of theory papers that attempt to explain the signal. Of these, four different theoretical explanations – a particle predicted by a lesser-known version of supersymmetry; a particle linked to a new kind of strong nuclear force; a Higgs-like boson; and a decay product from other very heavy particles – have been selected for publication in this week's issue of Physical Review Letters.

Physics World: Theorizing about the LHC's 750 GeV bump, Edwin Cartlidge

Second Skin...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 20, 2016 at 5:23am

A new, extremely stretchable polymer film created by Stanford researchers can repair itself when punctured, a feature that is important in a material that has potential applications in artificial muscle. Credit: Bao Research Group

Topics: Biology, Chemistry, Materials Science

I remember going to play basketball with my friends Milton and Dwayne, we the "Three Musketeers," our heroes with names like Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar fresh on our young minds. Racing across a rocky parking lot with broken glass, I managed to trip over my fourteen-year-old Pro-Keds donned feet, tumbling head over heels and scraping my back of skin from my left hip to midway my right shoulder. Pain like that - white hot like a poker from a fire - is not easily forgotten. My friends took me back to my mother, who they knew was a nurse.

After cleaning me with mild soap and Hydrogen Peroxide, she applied something called "new skin." It stung worse than the injury, but it sealed my back while it slowly healed. I wore loose shirts and had for a moment "street creds" (quite literally, since pieces of the street skid-marked in my back caused my dilemma).

This is obviously a lot better than new skin, as the application extends beyond the epidural. Hopefully this application is not as painful to future clumsy teens, and that there's a mother with bandages and brownies for their troubles.

* * * * * * * *

If there's such a thing as an experiment that goes too well, a recent effort in the lab of Stanford chemical engineering Professor Zhenan Bao might fit the bill.

One of her team members, Cheng-Hui Li, wanted to test the stretchiness of a rubberlike type of plastic known as an elastomer that he had just synthesized. Such materials can normally be stretched two or three times their original length and spring back to original size. One common stress test involves stretching an elastomer beyond this point until it snaps.

But Li, a visiting scholar from China, hit a snag: The clamping machine typically used to measure elasticity could only stretch about 45 inches. To find the breaking point of their one-inch sample, Li and another lab member had to hold opposing ends in their hands, standing further and further apart, eventually stretching a 1-inch polymer film to more than 100 inches.

Bao was stunned.

"I said, 'How can that be possible? Are you sure?'" she recalled.

Today in Nature Chemistry, the researchers explain how they made this super-stretchy substance. They also showed that they could make this new elastomer twitch by exposing it to an electric field, causing it to expand and contract, making it potentially useful as an artificial muscle.

Phys.org:

Researchers create super stretchy, self-healing material that could lead to artificial muscle

Carrie Kirby And Tom Abate

Hierarchy of Bodies...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 19, 2016 at 6:18am

FIG. 1.

One dimensional arrangement of masses forming strings in tension.
Citation: J. Appl. Phys. 119, 094901 (2016); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4941986

Topics: Astrophysics, Classical Mechanics, Kinematics, Planetary Science

Abstract

Here we show that bodies of the same size suspended uniformly in space constitute a system (a “suspension”) in a state of uniform volumetric tension because of mass-to-mass forces of attraction. The system “snaps” hierarchically, and evolves faster to a state of reduced tension when the bodies coalesce spontaneously nonuniformly, i.e., hierarchically, into few large and many small bodies suspended in the same space. Hierarchy, not uniformity, is the design that emerges, and it is in accord with the constructal law. The implications of this principle of physics in natural organization and evolution are discussed.

Introduction

Recent progress on the physics basis of evolutionary organization in nature^1,2 continues to bring together phenomena that were previously considered unrelated. To the animate and inanimate examples (animal locomotion, river basins, turbulence) that were unified as a phenomenon of free-morphing flow design for greater access over time,^1–18 we are now adding examples that belonged traditionally to solid mechanics. For example, the natural occurrence of hexagonal basalt columns is attributed to a principle of maximum energy release.19 The occurrence of cracks in solids is based on the same principle.^20–22 Soil cracking under the drying wind was explained as a phenomenon of evolutionary design that enhances mass flow and accelerates drying.²³ The aggregation of dust particles into clusters and dendrites was shown to be the result of the same tendency, to relieve electrostatic forces of attraction faster, through the evolutionary design of configuration.²⁴

Here we add to this growing list of evolutionary phenomena the natural occurrence of multi-size hierarchy of bodies suspended in space. The hierarchy of sizes is researched intensely and described regularly in planetary science and astrophysics.^25–31 Hierarchy emerges in two ways, through accretion (coalescence) and fragmentation resulting from collisions. Viewed from thermodynamics,³² the system of bodies in space is in a state of internal tension because of gravitational attraction between neighboring bodies. This system “snaps” freely by flowing internally and changing its configuration. Bodies coalesce into larger bodies, and their collision (with fragmentation) dissipates the tension and resulting kinetic energy, en route to reduced body-body attraction throughout the system. This phenomenon has been studied in celestial mechanics under several scenarios,^25–27 and is recognized as the basis for the formation process of planets and the asteroid belt.

Sizes increase over all scales through accretion.³¹ Yet, the natural phenomenon is not only the growth of the body sizes but also the spontaneous hierarchy. The fundamental question that we address here is why “hierarchy” happens spontaneously, and why a uniform distribution of bodies of the same (growing) size does not happen. We show that the gravitational effect alone does not explain the hierarchy of sizes of bodies in space. The additional physics principle is the natural evolution (selection) of flow configuration during accretion such that the flow and evolution to equilibrium are facilitated.^1,2

Journal of Applied Physics: The physics origin of the hierarchy of bodies in space
A. Bejan^1,a) and R. W. Wagstaff¹
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708-0300, USA

Dwarf Dark Galaxy...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 18, 2016 at 6:22am

Composite image of the gravitational lens SDP.81 showing the distorted ALMA image of the more distant galaxy (red arcs) and the Hubble optical image of the nearby lensing galaxy (blue center object). By analyzing the distortions in the ring, astronomers have determined that a dark dwarf galaxy (data indicated by white dot near left lower arc segment) is lurking nearly 4 billion light-years away. Credit: Y. Hezaveh, Stanford Univ.; ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ); NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Dark Matter, Einstein, General Relativity, Gravitational Lensing, Radio Astronomy

Subtle distortions hidden in ALMA’s stunning image of the gravitational lens SDP.81 are telltale signs that a dwarf dark galaxy is lurking in the halo of a much larger galaxy nearly 4 billion light-years away. This discovery paves the way for ALMA to find many more such objects and could help astronomers address important questions on the nature of dark matter.

In 2014, as part of ALMA’s Long Baseline Campaign, astronomers studied a variety of astronomical objects to test the telescope's new, high-resolution capabilities. One of these experimental images was that of an Einstein ring, which was produced by the gravity of a massive foreground galaxy bending the light emitted by another galaxy nearly 12 billion light-years away.

This phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, was predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity and it offers a powerful tool for studying galaxies that are otherwise too distant to observe. It also sheds light on the properties of the nearby lensing galaxy because of the way its gravity distorts and focuses light from more distant objects.

National Radio Astronomy Observatory:
Dwarf Dark Galaxy Hidden in ALMA Gravitational Lens Image

Mune...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 15, 2016 at 6:02am

(Credit: CruZeWizard/Shutterstock)

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Geophysics, Moon, Planetary Science

When I saw this, it sparked a recent memory that is surprisingly related. It sounds like screenwriters with active imaginations paid close attention in science classes, another benefit of a STEM education.

Ou peut-être parce que les scénaristes et les scientifiques sont de la France ?

Mune: Guardian of the Moon (also known as Mune The Guardian of the Moon) (French: Mune, le gardien de la lune) is a 2014 French 3D computer-animated adventure fantasy film directed by Benoît Philippon (which he co-wrote with Jérôme Fansten) and Alexandre Heboyan.

In an imaginary world, a small Sun and Moon were made by the first Guardians to warm up a small planet inhabited by different marvelous people. The first Guardian of the Sun harpooned a star to keep it close to the planet, and hung it by chains to a mobile temple that is like a huge quadruped animal made of rock. The first Guardian of the Moon descended into the world of dreams and carved the Moon in a quarry of oneiric stones, and threw it into the sky. Since then, the Guardians follow generation after generation and preserve the harmony of the world. The people of the day and those of the night live in relative harmony, even though they are very different from each other. But in the depth of the planet, Necross awaits the opportunity to set darkness over the world. Wikipedia

* * * * *

To solve a mystery about Earth’s core, scientists looked to the moon.

Viewed from space, Earth is a serene blue sphere. But beneath its surface, there is a roiling mass of liquid, nickel-iron alloy and solid iron almost 6,000 miles in diameter. The inner and outer core comprise almost a third of Earth’s mass, and together they generate a magnetic field that shields life on this planet from harmful charged particles emanating from the sun.

But Earth’s core, perhaps, can’t take all of the credit for saving humanity.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, scientists from the National Center for Scientific Research in France say the the moon plays a key role keeping life on Earth safe. Although the moon sits some 230,000 miles away, researchers believe its gravitational tug churns iron alloy in the core, which, in turn, helps maintain the magnetic field that protects our planet.

Discovery Magazine: The Moon: Our Silent Guardian, Nathaniel Scharping

Waves of Magnetism...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 14, 2016 at 5:14am

Magnetic order in (Sr,Na)Fe₂As₂: The crystal structure contains planes of iron atoms (shown as red spheres). Half the iron sites have a magnetization (shown as red arrows), which points either up or down, but the other half have zero magnetization. This shows that the magnetism results from the constructive and destructive interference of two magnetization waves, a clear sign that the magnetic electrons are itinerant, which means they are not confined to a single site. The same electrons are responsible for the superconductivity at lower temperature.

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Materials Science, Superconductors

A research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory has discovered that only half the atoms in some iron-based superconductors are magnetic, providing a conclusive demonstration of the wave-like properties of metallic magnetism in these materials.

The discovery allows for a clearer understanding of the magnetism in some compounds of iron, the iron arsenides, and how it helps induce superconductivity, the resistance-free flow of electrical current through a solid-state material, which occurs at temperatures up to 138 degrees Kelvin, or minus -135 degrees Celsius.

"In order to be able to design novel superconducting materials, one must understand what causes superconductivity," said Argonne senior physicist Raymond Osborn, one of the project's lead researchers. "Understanding the origin of magnetism is a first vital step toward obtaining an understanding of what makes these materials superconducting. Given the similarity to other materials, such as the copper-based superconductors, our goal was to improve our understanding of high-temperature superconductivity."

Argonne National Laboratory:
New magnetism research brings high-temp superconductivity applications closer
Angela Hardin

Point and Click...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 13, 2016 at 8:46am

Image Source: Good Housekeeping

Topics: Commentary, Diversity, Education, Internet, Politics

Before the Internet, any letters to a publication had to go to its editor, with a 140-word limit (unlike 140 characters now). If you made publication, you got to see your name in print and if you were a writer, increase your notice and curriculum vitae/"clips" to showcase with potential book publishers for fiction, non-fiction, poetry you were trying to market. That process used to take weeks and a lot of patience. Editors were and are impressive, credentialed and revered. To impress one is a big deal.

There's always a downside with every technological leap. We're selecting vis-a-vis an election cycle cum reality show this country's next chief executive. Everyone promises to "bring jobs back," even if their own companies were part of the many that took advantage of trade agreements and cheaper labor overseas. What neither of them will tell you is some jobs due to robotics and software innovations WON'T ever come back because there's no need for them to. James Boggs called it "automation and cybernation" in a very prescient read. The educational system is a testing havoc, enriching test publishing companies simultaneously NOT preparing our citizens for future jobs that pay cheaper salaries offshore, nor that our democratic republic was formed before the advent of "point and click" and American Idol. Meanwhile, we're in a cycle of ignorance about science and birth control at a present count of 7 billion people that all share the same resources - some with more success (those with lawyers; offshore tax shelters) than others.

The Internet allows writers to show their skills to potential agents and publishers through blogs and web sites. The Query Letter has evolved from hard copy to email; rejection letters however still take some time for the agent or publisher to click "send."

The comments section of this blog has some lively activity depending on the article, many of it spam that after repetition I delete without publishing; many trolls whose sensitivities I've somehow offended. It usually boils down to politics, religion or some combination of the two. Some exchanges I've had to terminate with a posted link from the FBI's cyber crime unit and a promise to meet the offender in court if they persist. I've also used the fine art of blocking that's available and empowering in social media.

This space of time we're in also warps our understanding of Civics that used to be taught in schools. Even the Governor of Oklahoma failed this test:

Gov. Fallin said she believes the final decision on the monument’s fate should rest with the people.

“You know, there are three branches of our government. You have the Supreme Court, the legislative branch and the people, the people and their ability to vote. So I’m hoping that we can address this issue in the legislative session and let the people of Oklahoma decide,” she said.

The article goes on correctly to say the legislative (Congress: Senate and House of Representatives), executive (President and Vice President) and judicial branches (HERE'S where the Supreme Court comes in), correcting the Governor's Faux Pas.

It is this lack of understanding that is frightening; this callous disregard from even elected officials knowing the simple basics of governance, not caring about important details on every level of the electorate.

I'm old enough to recall the concerns regarding the "Information Superhighway," back when a home computer cost in the range of $2,500 (my wife's then "employee discount" with Dell Computers) using a Pentium 486. That left understandingly a lot of minority households priced out of the luxury.

We now have faster, more powerful computers somewhere in the vicinity of our hip pockets. Our demand for the speedy novelty of sharing cat videos has driven economics to sweat shops where our electronic pacifiers are assembled by the equivalent of slave labor. The resources used to manufacture stolen in manufactured wars from tribes in third world countries starving, unable to benefit from the wealth beneath their feet.

This instantaneous nature gratifies us on a primal level; what used to take time to acquire we now expect in nanoseconds, be it legislation, product ordered online or pornography. Our notions of distance in the jet age similarly have succumbed to the same forces as our notions of process, rejection and time.

And sadly in doing so, we have empowered sociopaths.

The Guardian: The dark side of Guardian comments

As part of a series on the rising global phenomenon of online harassment, the Guardian commissioned research into the 70m comments left on its site since 2006 and discovered that of the 10 most abused writers eight are women, and the two men are black. Hear from three of those writers, explore the data and help us host better conversations online

by Becky Gardiner, Mahana Mansfield, Ian Anderson, Josh Holder, Daan Louter and Monica Ulmanu

The Gift...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 12, 2016 at 4:32am

Image Source: National Geographic

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, General Relativity, Neutron Stars

In this talk Dr Victoria Kaspi of McGill University, an American-Canadian astrophysicist, who primarily investigates pulsars and neutron stars, discuses the frontiers of neutron star research. Neutron stars — compact exotic objects that appear due to gravitational collapse of a massive star after a supernova — are not only of interest to astronomers. Being made nearly entirely out of neutrons, they offer a chance to investigate particle theory at high energies making them objects of special interest for particle physicists as well. Physics Database

Neutron stars are ancient remnants of stars that have reached the end of their evolutionary journey through space and time.

These interesting objects are born from once-large stars that grew to four to eight times the size of our own sun before exploding in catastrophic supernovae. After such an explosion blows a star's outer layers into space, the core remains—but it no longer produces nuclear fusion. With no outward pressure from fusion to counterbalance gravity's inward pull, the star condenses and collapses in upon itself.

Despite their small diameters—about 12.5 miles (20 kilometers)—neutron stars boast nearly 1.5 times the mass of our sun, and are thus incredibly dense. Just a sugar cube of neutron star matter would weigh about one hundred million tons on Earth.

National Geographic: Neutron Stars

Tipping...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on April 11, 2016 at 6:16am

Image Source: Scientific American

Topics: Climate Change, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases

Perhaps the lawsuit in Eugene, Oregon will start a trend. It's apparent our elected officials aren't concerned even with their own personal posterity; just the next election cycle: just getting reelected. Two liturgical quotes come to mind:

"The meek shall inherit the earth" (Matt 5:5) and "a child shall lead them" (Isa 11:6). For the sake of the human species, we can all only hope so.

The north pole is on the run. Although it can drift as much as 10 meters across a century, sometimes returning to near its origin, it has recently taken a sharp turn to the east. Climate change is the likely culprit, yet scientists are debating how much melting ice or changing rain patterns affect the pole’s wanderlust.

The geographical poles—the north and south tips of the axis that the Earth spins around—wobble over time due to small variations in the sun’s and moon’s pulls, and potentially to motion in Earth’s core and mantle. But changes on the planet’s surface can alter the poles, too. They wobble with every season as the distribution of snow and rain change, and over long stretches as well. Roughly 10,000 years ago, for example, Earth woke up from a deep freeze and the massive ice sheets sitting atop what is now Canada melted. As ice mass fled, and the depressed crust rebounded, the distribution of the planet’s mass changed and the north pole started to drift west. This pattern can be clearly seen in data from 1899 onward. But a recent zigzag in the north pole’s path (and the opposite movement in the south pole) suggests a new change is afoot.

Scientific American: Earth Is Tipping Because of Climate Change, Shannon Hall