Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts

STEP...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 3, 2016 at 8:37am

The Solar Thermal Electrochemical Process (STEP) converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into carbon nanotubes that can be used in advanced batteries. Credit: Julie Turner, Vanderbilt University

Topics: Alternative Energy, Carbon Nanotubes, Climate Change, Global Warming, Green Energy, Green Tech, Greenhouse Gases, Nanotechnology

An interdisciplinary team of scientists has worked out a way to make electric vehicles that are not only carbon neutral, but carbon negative, capable of actually reducing the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide as they operate.

They have done so by demonstrating how the graphite electrodes used in the lithium-ion batteries that power electric automobiles can be replaced with carbon material recovered from the atmosphere.

The recipe for converting carbon dioxide gas into batteries is described in the paper titled "Carbon Nanotubes Produced from Ambient Carbon Dioxide for Environmentally Sustainable Lithium-Ion and Sodium-Ion Battery Anodes" published in the Mar. 2 issue of the journal ACS Central Science.

The unusual pairing of carbon dioxide conversion and advanced battery technology is the result of a collaboration between the laboratory of Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Cary Pint at Vanderbilt University and Professor of Chemistry Stuart Licht at George Washington University.

Phys.org: Converting atmospheric carbon dioxide into batteries

Back To Earth...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 2, 2016 at 4:48pm

Scott Kelly inside the Cupola, a special module which provides a 360-degree viewing of the Earth and the space station, July 12, 2015.
REUTERS/NASA

Topics: International Space Station, Mars, NASA, Planetary Science, Space, Space Exploration, Spaceflight

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko headed back toward Earth on Tuesday after nearly a year aboard the International Space Station, ending a record-long U.S. spaceflight intended to pave the way for human travel to Mars.

The men, accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, strapped themselves inside a Russian Soyuz capsule and departed the station at 8:02 p.m. EST (0102 GMT on Wednesday).

They are expected to make a parachute landing in Kazakhstan at 11:25 p.m. EST (0425 GMT on Wednesday).

Kelly and Kornienko have been aboard the space station for 340 days, about twice as long as previous crews. Their flight sets a record for the space station and for the longest U.S. space mission.

Reuters Science: Station crew heads home after record U.S. spaceflight, Irene Klotz

Tetraquark Discovery...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on March 1, 2016 at 6:27am

Four flavours: X(5568) has no charm quark/antiquark pair. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/paul_june)

Topics: Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Quarks, Theoretical Physics

A new particle that is a bound state of four different flavours of quarks has been discovered by physicists working on the DØ experiment at Fermilab *. Called X(5568), the particle has a mass of about 5568 MeV/c², and appears to contain "up" and "bottom" quarks as well as "down" and "strange" antiquarks.

Although other tetraquarks have previously been identified, X(5568) is the first in which all of the quarks have different flavours, which could affect our understanding of how quarks interact with each other. The discovery is also notable because X(5568) is produced at a much higher rate in proton–antiproton collisions than had been expected.

The particle was discovered by sifting through data acquired by DØ – an experiment that ran at Fermilab's Tevatron proton–antiproton collider from 2002 to 2011. The statistical significance of the discovery is 5.1σ, which puts it just above the 5σ required for a discovery in particle physics.

* * * * *

* And the X(5568) is not just any new tetraquark. While all other observed tetraquarks contain at least two of the same flavor, X(5568) has four different flavors: up, down, strange and bottom.

“The next question will be to understand how the four quarks are put together,” says DZero co-spokesperson Paul Grannis. “They could all be scrunched together in one tight ball, or they might be one pair of tightly bound quarks that revolves at some distance from the other pair.”

Four-quark states are rare, and although there’s nothing in nature that forbids the formation of a tetraquark, scientists don’t understand them nearly as well as they do two- and three-quark states.

This latest discovery comes on the heels of the first observation of a pentaquark—a five-quark particle—announced last year by the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.

Image Source: Fermilab

Physics World: Fermilab bags a tetraquark, Hamish Johnston

Star Trek (repost and add)...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 29, 2016 at 7:07am

Topics: African Americans, Diaspora, Diversity, Diversity in Science, Politics, Star Trek, STEAM, STEM, Women in Science

The current vitriol broadcast globally during the political season is enough to cause concern and lose hope. The past is set, yet in many cases its impact on current events ignored to our detriment. The future is malleable and in flux, yet the tools we use to discern it and prepare for it - science - some in our society would have us fear to our peril. As a Trekkie, I lament that the future we used to dream of in 1968 has led to our current morass of flirting with a new form of self-government more like play dough anarchy: "Idiocracy" as I've seen oft-quoted in social media was meant to be a comedy, not a documentary. We have elements of our society "rooting for Armageddon" without a discernible or rational "plan B."

My hope in 2017 when Star Trek returns to CBS, we can recapture that awe, wonder and hope catapulting ourselves from superstition and authoritarianism beyond the ignorant darkness into the light only science in its proper context can give.

All links to Star Trek on this blog here.
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies:
The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us About the Apocalypse, Phil Torres

The vertical scroll (link here) first appeared February 26, 2014, reposted for this leap day.

STEAM...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 26, 2016 at 6:39am

Image Source: Science Mag [2]

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

STEAM: science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics recognizes that creative expression expands the intellect and learning. It allows us to be more than "left-brained" or "right-brained" and increases the faculties of individuals in science-related fields.

I of course applaud this and the emphasis on diversity, but forgive me if I'm a bit cynical. Our American Society sadly, is rooted in a structure of divide and conquer: even the SAT, which has no bearing on a student's aptitude or motivation in college, is more of a gatekeeper than an accurate predictor of educational success.

We've foisted this global economy on ourselves without thinking of the consequences. Our children are literally competing with the planet, where creationism and science denial has no place. We'd better get in the business of ensuring all levels of our society have a chance at trade school, community programs and four year colleges, along with the associated employment for them when they need it to start families, and the elimination of loan debt. The current formula will not make us "great again": it will likely lead to modern feudalism, a system inherently undemocratic and non republic.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) wants to make the U.S. scientific community more inclusive. And the more ideas, the better.

This week NSF announced its intention to hand out small grants later this year to dozens of institutions to test novel ways of broadening participation in science and engineering. Winners of the 2-year, $300,000 pilot grants will be eligible to compete next year for up to five, $12.5 million awards over 5 years. NSF is calling the program INCLUDES. (The acronym stands for a real jaw-breaker: inclusion across the nation of communities of learners of underrepresented discoverers in engineering and science.)

The underrepresentation of women and minorities in the scientific workforce is a problem that has persisted for decades despite many well-meaning federal initiatives. NSF Director France Cordova has spoken repeatedly about her intention of moving the needle on the issue since taking office in March 2014. And this initiative, totaling roughly $75 million, could well be the signature program of her 6-year term. [1]

Our culture has drawn an artificial line between art and science, one that did not exist for innovators like Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs. Leonardo’s curiosity and passion for painting, writing, engineering and biology helped him triumph in both art and science; his study of anatomy and dissections of corpses enabled his incredible drawings of the human figure. When introducing the iPad 2, Jobs, who dropped out of college but continued to audit calligraphy classes, declared: “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.” (Indeed, one of Apple’s scientists, Steve Perlman, was inspired to invent the QuickTime multimedia program by an episode of “Star Trek.”) [2]

1. We don’t need more STEM majors. We need more STEM majors with liberal arts training.
Dr. Loretta Jackson-Hayes
2. NSF launches long-awaited diversity initiative, Jeffery Mervis

Fast Radio Bursts and Missing Matter...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 25, 2016 at 6:42am

This image shows the field of view of the Parkes radio telescope on the left. On the right are successive zoom-ins in on the area where the signal came from (cyan circular region). The image at the bottom right shows the Subaru image of the FRB galaxy, with the superimposed elliptical regions showing the location of the fading 6-day afterglow seen with ATCA. Image Credit: D. Kaplan (UWM), E. F. Keane (SKAO).

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Radio Astronomy

An international team of scientists using a combination of radio and optical telescopes has for the first time managed to identify the location of a fast radio burst, allowing them to confirm the current cosmological model of the distribution of matter in the universe.

On April 18, 2015, a fast radio burst (FRB) was detected by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)'s 64-m Parkes radio telescope in Australia. An international alert was triggered to follow it up with other telescopes and within a few hours, a number of telescopes around the world were looking for the signal, including CSIRO's Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA).

FRBs are mysterious bright radio flashes generally lasting only a few milliseconds. Their origin is still unknown, with a long list of potential phenomena associated with them. FRBs are very difficult to detect; before this discovery only 16 had been detected.

"In the past FRBs have been found by sifting through data months or even years later. By that time it is too late to do follow up observations." says Dr Evan Keane, Project Scientist at the Square Kilometre Array Organisation and the lead scientist behind the study. To remedy this, the team developed their own observing system to detect FRBs within seconds, and to immediately alert other telescopes, when there is still time to search for more evidence in the aftermath of the initial flash.

Phys.org: New fast radio burst discovery finds 'missing matter' in the universe
Published in Nature
#P4TC: FRBs...

For The Better...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 24, 2016 at 4:14am

Illustration: Takashi Takahashi/Tohoku University

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Graphene, Materials Science, Nanotechnology, Semiconductor Technology, Superconductors, Solid State Physics, Quantum Mechanics

Graphene is an amazing conductor. The transport of electrons through graphene nanoribbons has even surpassed what scientists thought were the theoretical limits for the material—so much so that electrons moving through it seem to behave almost like photons.

Graphene’s amazing properties as a conductor has inspired some researchers to explore whether the single-atom-thick sheets of carbon could also be made into superconductors. Last year, an international research team from Canada and Germany was able to demonstrate that graphene can be made to behave that way when it’s doped with lithium atoms.

Now researchers in Japan (from Tohoku University and the University of Tokyo) have developed a new method for coaxing graphene to behave as a superconductor that has some important and distinctive differences from the previous research by the Canadian and German researchers.

IEEE: Graphene's Role as a Superconductor Just Got Better, Dexter Johnson

Chiral Molecules...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 23, 2016 at 6:27am

The circular dichroism spectra for short spirals (red) and long spirals (blue). For longer spirals there is a red shift in the mode in the visible regime but not for the mode in the UV. Courtesy Nanotechnology.

Topics: Biology, Chemistry, Materials Science, Nanotechnology

The chirality of molecular structures can significantly affect a substance’s effect on biological systems, but the low signal means distinguishing chiral signals can be challenging. Fledgling studies in chiral plasmonics hope to exploit the resulting enhancements in chiral detection, just as molecular sensing has benefited from techniques like surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Now researchers have extended the understanding of chiral plasmonics by identifying how structural parameters affect the chiral plasmon signals from silver nanospirals.

"This is like where we were in the 1990s with plasmons," says Zhifeng Huang, associate professor in the Physics Department at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), who led this latest research. "People have been wondering whether it is possible to use chiral plasmons to amplify the signal of chiral molecules, but first we need to understand chiral plasmons." The stakes are high for enhancing chiral signal detection and differentiation, since it has an impact on pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food quality monitoring and control, disease diagnosis and treatment, and environmental protection and sustainable development.

Chirality refers to a property of structures that exist in two versions - "enantiomers" - that are mirror images of each other but cannot be superimposed. Examples of chiral molecules include penicillamine, where the right-handed version is effective for rheumatoid arthritis therapy, whereas the left-handed version is toxic, or aspartame, where the left-handed version tastes sweet and has been patented in the food industry, whereas the right-handed version is tasteless.

Nanotechweb: Helical structures affect chiral plasmons, Anna Demming

Copernican Principle...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 22, 2016 at 5:20am

NASA/ESA/ESO

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Exoplanets, SETI, Theoretical Physics

A new tally proposes that roughly 700 quintillion (10¹⁸) terrestrial exoplanets are likely to exist across the observable universe—most vastly different from Earth

More than 400 years ago Renaissance scientist Nicolaus Copernicus reduced us to near nothingness by showing that our planet is not the center of the solar system. With every subsequent scientific revolution, most other privileged positions in the universe humans might have held dear have been further degraded, revealing the cold truth that our species is the smallest of specks on a speck of a planet, cosmologically speaking. A new calculation of exoplanets suggests that Earth is just one out of a likely 700 million trillion terrestrial planets in the entire observable universe. But the average age of these planets—well above Earth’s age—and their typical locations—in galaxies vastly unlike the Milky Way—just might turn the Copernican principle on its head.

Astronomer Erik Zackrisson from Uppsala University and his colleagues created a cosmic compendium of all the terrestrial exoplanets likely to exist throughout the observable universe, based on the rocky worlds astronomers have found so far. In a powerful computer simulation, they first created their own mini universe containing models of the earliest galaxies. Then they unleashed the laws of physics—as close as scientists understand them—that describe how galaxies grow, how stars evolve and how planets come to be. Finally, they fast-forwarded through 13.8 billion years of cosmic history. Their results, published to the preprint server arXiv (pdf) and submitted to The Astrophysical Journal, provide a tantalizing trove of probable exoplanet statistics that helps astronomers understand our place in the universe. “It's kind of mind-boggling that we're actually at a point where we can begin to do this,” says co-author Andrew Benson from the Carnegie Observatories in California. Until recently, he says, so few exoplanets were known that reasonable extrapolations to the rest of the universe were impossible. Still, his team’s findings are a preliminary guess at what the cosmos might hold. “It's certainly the case that there are a lot of uncertainties in a calculation like this. Our knowledge of all of these pieces is imperfect,” he adds.

Scientific American: Exoplanet Census Suggests Earth Is Special after All
Shannon Hall

Future Engineers...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 19, 2016 at 7:10am

Image Source: Tokyo Tech

Topics: 3D Printing, Humor, NASA, Science Fiction, Space Exploration, Star Trek, STEM

I kind of tackled this in the posts Tea, Earl Grey and Kardashev Scales, essentially we're likely not to achieve the clearly miracle technologies that would violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (I'm pretty certain about that!).

However, the closest approximation to replicators are the 3D printing systems that are becoming almost routine; some mentioned even in the same breath as the 2nd Amendment strangely enough.

It is good, with Star Trek due in 2017 to start now to engage the young in STEM activities that will lead ultimately to the next generation of scientists and engineers that will get us to Mars and beyond.

And, for that consequential and monumentally long journey (barring we survive our own hubris to make the actual trek): we shall have to EAT.

NASA, ASME, Star Trek Challenge Future Engineers to Turn Science Fiction into Science Fact
Future Engineers: Star Trek Replicator Challenge

GCM...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 18, 2016 at 7:15am

Image Source: NOAA

Topics: Climate Change, Computer Science, Global Warming, Research, STEM, Stochastic Modeling

Whenever news breaks about what Earth's climate is expected to be like decades into the future or how much rainfall various regions around the country or the world are likely to receive, those educated estimates are generated by a global climate model.

But what exactly is a climate model? And how does it work?

At its most basic, a global climate model (GCM) is a computer software program that solves complex equations that mathematically describe how Earth's various systems, processes and cycles work, interact and react under certain conditions. It's math in action.

A global model depends on submodels

Submodels can be broken into two classes: dynamics and physics. Dynamics refers to fluid dynamics. The atmosphere and the ocean are both treated mathematically as fluids. The physics class includes natural processes such as the carbon organic soil respiration cycle and sunlight as it passes though and heats the atmosphere.

Just as Earth's major systems and spheres — the atmosphere, the biosphere, the hydrosphere and the cryosphere — interact with and influence each other, so too must the subprograms in a climate model that represents them. This is accomplished through a technique called coupling, in which scientists develop additional equations and subprograms that knit together divergent submodels. That's what climate researcher Rob Jacob does at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory.

Argonne National Laboratory:
Scientists compose complex math equations to replicate behaviors of Earth systems
Angela Hardin

Light-Effect Transistor...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 17, 2016 at 11:56am

Image Source: MIT Technology Review

Topics: Consumer Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Economy, Nanotechnology, Optics, STEM

This caught my eye working in the industry, especially since the doping of silicon or germanium substrates requires the introduction of impurities at high energies and many of them poisonous to humans, hence the great control we use in manufacture. My guess (or, my hope) is this will in some extent prove cleaner as well as cheaper to produce.

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: The field effect transistor is the workhorse of the consumer electronics industry. Carved into microchips in the billions, these devices beaver away, more or less unnoticed, in practically every home, office, and laboratory in the developed world.

And yet there is a perennial problem with field effect transistors that keeps chip designers awake at night—how to make them ever smaller and thereby keep up the relentless pace of Moore’s Law.

These silicon layers have to be doped with other atoms—just a handful will do the trick in such small components. And therein lies the problem. Even small random variation in the number of dopant atoms in semiconductor components can have a huge effect on the behavior of the transistor. How to control these variations during manufacture is by no means clear. Then there is the physical problem of making a device with three terminals even smaller.

Today, Jason Marmon at University of North Carolina in Charlotte and a few pals unveil just such a device in the form of a light effect transistor. This is essentially a wire that conducts when it is bathed in light and insulates when it is dark. In other words, it is a switch modulated by light. The team says its new device is simpler than a field effect transistor and does not rely on dopant atoms, so it can be made smaller and thereby continue Moore’s law.

Abstract

Modern electronics are developing electronic-optical integrated circuits, while their electronic backbone, e.g. field-effect transistors (FETs), remains the same. However, further FET down scaling is facing physical and technical challenges. A light-effect transistor (LET) offers electronic-optical hybridization at the component level, which can continue Moore's law to the quantum region without requiring a FET's fabrication complexity, e.g. a physical gate and doping, by employing optical gating and photoconductivity. Multiple independent gates are therefore readily realized to achieve unique functionalities without increasing chip space. Here we report LET device characteristics and novel digital and analog applications, such as optical logic gates and optical amplification. Prototype CdSe-nanowire-based LETs show output and transfer characteristics resembling advanced FETs, e.g. on/off ratios up to ~1.0x10^6 with a source-drain voltage of ~1.43 V, gate-power of ~260 nW, and subthreshold swing of ~0.3 nW/decade (excluding losses). Our work offers new electronic-optical integration strategies and electronic and optical computing approaches.

Physics arXiv:
Light-effect transistor (LET) with multiple independent gating controls for optical logic gates and optical amplification
Jason K. Marmon, Satish C. Rai, Kai Wang, Weilie Zhou, Yong Zhang

Ultrasound Resolution...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 16, 2016 at 6:52am

Figure 1. Superresolution ultrasound image of the blood vessels in the cortex of a rat’s brain. The colors represent velocity: Dark and light blue indicate blood flow in the direction of the skull (toward the top of the image), and red and yellow indicate flow away from the skull. (Courtesy of Mickael Tanter.)

Citation: Phys. Today 69, 2, 14 (2016); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3069

Topics: Acoustic Physics, Applied Physics, Biology, Cancer, Nobel Prize, Research

With an acoustic analogue of a Nobel Prize–winning optical technique, researchers can acquire detailed images quickly.

In many ways, ultrasound waves are ideally suited to noninvasive biomedical imaging. They’re easy and inexpensive to produce and detect, and they can penetrate deep into tissue without losing their coherence or causing damage. But because of diffraction, conventional ultrasound imaging—like conventional optical microscopy—is limited in resolution to about half a wavelength. In clinical ultrasound applications, which use wavelengths between 200 µm and 1 mm, that limit precludes the imaging of many important structures, including small blood vessels. Shorter wavelengths yield better resolution, but they also penetrate less deeply into tissue.

For optical applications, innovative fluorescence techniques have been devised to overcome the diffraction limit, as recognized by the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (see Physics Today, December 2014, page 18). Inspired by that work, Mickael Tanter and his colleagues at the Langevin Institute (affiliated with ESPCI, Inserm, and CNRS) in Paris have now developed a superresolution ultrasound technique,1 which they’ve used to image the blood vessels in a rat’s brain with 10-µm resolution, as shown in figure 1. Applying the technique in humans could help to detect cancer and other diseases that alter blood-flow patterns.

Physics Today: Ultrasound resolution beats the diffraction limit, Johanna L. Miller

Branches...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 15, 2016 at 7:30am

Climate Action Reserve: Environmental Cartoons by Joel Pett

Topics: Climate Change, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases, Politics

This post appears on President's Day. I started it last Wednesday. I say this to respect the family of Justice Antonin Scalia in their time of loss.

We have three co-equal branches of government: the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. It is the "check-and-balance," purposely designed to be slow and plodding; arduous to not make changes quickly as would a despot subjecting a population to h/er will.

It is the judiciary - the Supreme Court - that blocked the Clean Power Plan.

"The Clean Power Plan is based on a strong legal and technical foundation, gives states the time and flexibility they need to develop tailored, cost-effective plans to reduce their emissions, and will deliver better air quality, improved public health, clean energy investment and jobs across the country, and major progress in our efforts to confront the risks posed by climate change," Earnest said. "We remain confident that we will prevail on the merits." *

As I said in Umbilical Cord, old money is inexorably addicted to making its wealth the way it wants to. Mayan pyramids aren't even safe. That means broadcasting counter propaganda that casts doubt (as they did for the cigarette industry); purchasing politicians both locally and nationally; influencing presidential elections because presidents appoint supreme court justices.

Clarence Thomas was appointed in 1991 by George Herbert Walker Bush, post the infamous Willie Horton adds in 1988. During his contentious confirmation hearings, accusations of sexual harassment came in sworn testimony by his former employee Anita Hill. His artful dodge and use of the term "high-tech lynching," made his enemies back off and cleared his confirmation to the Supreme Court. He's apparently been quiet as a church mouse ever since. His first major decision was finalized December 12, 2000, deciding the Florida "hanging chads" fiasco by a 5-4 vote:

- The same 5-4 vote that decided the Hobby Lobby decision;

- The same 5-4 vote that gutted the Voting Rights Act.

He has so far served six times the president that appointed him: 1991 - 2016 is 25 years, a generation. He may be silent, but he's darkly effective in forwarding a regressive, authoritarian agenda that will outlive him.

Do not fall in love with the person on the top of presidential tickets. I cannot get emotional about people I'll likely never meet. Don't get excited for the top ticket major elections and neglect the midterms. It is a failure to teach Civics that we have citizens so caught up in the hype of inflated campaigns that we forget we're not electing "kings": we're electing representatives of our will ["We The People"], not the moneyed few; the function and genius of a democratic republic.

However, what lives beyond any administration is who is appointed to the court and if fairly young, how LONG they serve.

A generation is an incredibly long time...to do lasting damage. The damage in this case can be the environment for generations the families of the justices are also subject to:

“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”

Cree Indian Prophecy, GoodReads

* CNN: Supreme Court blocks Obama climate change rules
Ariane de Vogue, Dan Berman and Kevin Liptak

Gravitational Waves...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 12, 2016 at 7:06am

Image Source: Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO)

Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, Einstein, General Relativity, Theoretical Physics

Before now, the strongest evidence of gravitational waves came indirectly from observations of superdense, spinning neutron stars called pulsars. In 1974 Joseph Taylor, Jr., and Russell Hulse discovered a pulsar circling a neutron star, and later observations showed that the pulsar’s orbit was shrinking. Scientists concluded that the pulsar must be losing energy in the form of gravitational waves—a discovery that won Taylor and Hulse the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics. Ever since this clue, astronomers have been hoping to detect the waves themselves. “I've certainly been looking forward to this event for a long time,” Taylor says. “There is a long history, and I think projects that take this long to bear fruit require an awful lot of patience. It's about time.”

The discovery is not just proof of gravitational waves, but the strongest confirmation yet for the existence of black holes. “We think black holes exist out there. We have very strong evidence they do but we don’t have direct evidence,” Lehner says. “Everything is indirect. Given that black holes themselves cannot give any signal other than gravitational waves, this is the most direct way to prove that a black hole exists.”

Scientific American: Gravitational Waves Discovered from Colliding Black Holes
Clara Moskowitz

Ripple Effect...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 11, 2016 at 7:11am

Image Source: See Popular Science link
Simulation of Gravitational Waves
NASA researchers simulated the gravitational waves that would be produced when two black holes merged.

Topics: Gravitational Waves, Einstein, General Relativity, Theoretical Physics

A century ago, Albert Einstein hypothesized the existence of gravitational waves, small ripples in space and time that dash across the universe at the speed of light.

But scientists have been able to find only indirect evidence of their existence. On Thursday, at a news conference called by the U.S. National Science Foundation, researchers may announce at long last direct observations of the elusive waves.

Such a discovery would represent a scientific landmark, opening the door to an entirely new way to observe the cosmos and unlock secrets about the early universe and mysterious objects like black holes and neutron stars.

Scientists from the California Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the LIGO Scientific Collaboration are set to make what they bill as a "status report" on Thursday on the quest to detect gravitational waves. It is widely expected they will announce they have achieved their goal.

Reuters Science: Ripple effect: scientists await word on gravitational waves
Will Dunham

The Return...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 10, 2016 at 6:26am

"Star Trek" is coming back to TV in 2017 via CBS Television Studios. Here, the original Starship Enterprise model hangs in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
Credit: National Air and Space Museum

Topics: NASA, Science Fiction, Space Exploration, Star Trek, STEM

I'm not saying we'll ever develop warp drive (though, we appear to be working on it). I'm reminded of Jules Verne: From Earth to the Moon. He posited a space gun, and did some rough calculations. He was way off, but think of when he wrote it, and fired the imaginations of scientists and engineers for four generations: 1865. We made it 103 years later on a rocket, though some still sadly doubt.

We've become too focused on our minor worlds of apps on phones, news feeds and million player online games; we've become consumers, not producers or dreamers. We nostalgically reach backwards to halcyon days that never existed except for personal myths, comforting though they may be.

Star Trek inspired a generation of scientists and engineers where some of the things we take for granted - automatic doors, cell phones, nanotechnology, remote control, robotics, WI-FI - were all inspired by a fictional story of going to strange new worlds and not being afraid of the different-than-us: but to boldly seek out challenges. We looked forward to the future; we weren't afraid of it, and we all...looked up.

Move over, James T. Kirk, "Star Trek" has another captain now. CBS Studios has tapped "Hannibal" creator Bryan Fuller — a veteran Trek writer — as a co-creator for its new Trek TV series launching in 2017.

Fuller has written for "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "Star Trek: Voyager," and brings a deep appreciation of the "Star Trek" world to the new show, according to CBS Studios representatives. The new show will air on CBS All Access, a digital streaming platform. (The first episode will air on live TV.) [1]

* * * * *

“For the past 50 years, Star Trek has been a groundbreaking franchise that not only changed the landscape of television, but made a significant impact on pop culture,” said David Stapf, President, CBS Television Studios. “When we began discussions about the series returning to television, we immediately knew that Bryan Fuller would be the ideal person to work alongside Alex Kurtzman to create a fresh and authentic take on this classic and timeless series. Bryan is not only an extremely gifted writer, but a genuine fan of Star Trek. Having someone at the helm with his gravitas who also understands and appreciates the significance of the franchise and the worldwide fan base was essential to us.”

Fuller most recently served as executive producer and writer on NBC’s Hannibal, based on the characters from the book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. He got his start writing Deep Space Nine, followed by Voyager, where he worked his way from freelance writer to staff writer to co-producer. Fuller went on to create the critically acclaimed series Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls. Also, he served as writer and co-executive producer on the first season of Heroes, before leaving to create the Emmy Award-winning Pushing Daisies. Fuller is currently executive producing along with partner Michael Green an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods for the STARZ network. [2]

1. Space.com: New Star Trek TV Series Beams Up Bryan Fuller as Co-Creator
Sarah Lewin
2. StarTrek.com: Brian Fuller Named Co-Creator of New Star Trek TV Series

Quantum Heat Transfer...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 9, 2016 at 6:27am

Image Source: Low Temperature Lab, Aalto University School of Science

Topics: Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics, Superconductors, Thermodynamics

Physicists in Finland have shown that it is possible to conduct heat over macroscopic distances at close to the maximum efficiency permitted by quantum mechanics. By directing photons along a superconducting waveguide, the researchers transferred heat between two resistors spaced up to a metre apart – some 10,000 times further than previously possible at the quantum limit. They say their technique could someday be used to cool chips inside quantum computers.

Quantum mechanics tells us that heat flow, like electric current, can be quantized. If a wire is so thin that an electron's cross-sectional wavefunction can only assume one possible configuration as it travels along the wire, there is an upper limit to the rate at which electrical energy can be transmitted for any given voltage. Likewise, there is a maximum rate at which heat energy can be transferred along a single channel connecting a hot bath to a cold one when the baths are at given temperatures. This is the quantum of thermal conductance, which is reached when the hot bath emits energy perfectly, the cold bath absorbs perfectly, and there is no heat loss along the way.

Physics World: Quantum-limited heat conduction smashes long-distance record
Edwin Cartlidge

Occam's Razor...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 8, 2016 at 7:18am

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Topics: Astrophysics, Dyson Sphere, Exoplanets, Kardashev Scale, Kepler Telescope, SETI

It's looking less likely that a swarm of comets or an "alien megastructure" can explain a faraway star's strange dimming.

The star (nicknamed "Tabby's Star," after its discoverer, Tabetha Boyajian) made major headlines last October when Jason Wright, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University, suggested that it could be surrounded by some type of alien megastructure. A more likely idea — one that's far less exciting — is that the star is orbited by a swarm of comets. But scientists can't be sure either way.

The first signs of the star's oddity came from NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, which continually monitored the star (as well as 100,000 others) between 2009 and 2013. Astronomers, citizen scientists and computers could then search for regular dips in a star's light — a sign that an exoplanet has passed in front of that star. The largest planets might block 1 percent of a star's light, but Tabby's star dropped by as much as 20 percent in brightness. That, in and of itself, would be weird. But the periodic dimmings didn't occur at regular time intervals, either — they were sporadic. The signature couldn't be caused by a planet, scientists said.

Scientific American:
Comets May Not Explain "Alien Megastructure" Star's Strange Flickering after All
Shannon Hall, Space.com
#P4TC: Needle In A Haystack...

James Webb...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 5, 2016 at 7:26am

Inside a massive clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland the James Webb Space Telescope team used a robotic am to install the last of the telescope's 18 mirrors onto the telescope structure.
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Hubble, James Webb, NASA, Space Exploration

Biography:

NASA Administrator, February 14, 1961-October 7, 1968

James Edwin Webb was the second administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, formally established on October 1, 1958, under the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958.

Born on October 7, 1906, in Tally Ho, North Carolina, he was the son of John Frederick and Sarah Gorham Webb. His father was superintendent of schools in Granville County for 26 years. In 1938 he married Patsy Aiken Douglas and they had two children: Sarah Gorham, born on February 27, 1945, and James Edwin Jr., born on March 5, 1947.

Mr. Webb was educated at the University of North Carolina, where he received an A.B. in education in 1928. He became a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps and served as a pilot on active duty from 1930-1932. He also studied law at George Washington University from 1934-1936 and was admitted to the Bar of the District of Columbia in 1936. More at: NASA/biographies.

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The 18th and final primary mirror segment is installed on what will be the biggest and most powerful space telescope ever launched. The final mirror installation Wednesday at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland marks an important milestone in the assembly of the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope.

“Scientists and engineers have been working tirelessly to install these incredible, nearly perfect mirrors that will focus light from previously hidden realms of planetary atmospheres, star forming regions and the very beginnings of the Universe,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “With the mirrors finally complete, we are one step closer to the audacious observations that will unravel the mysteries of the Universe.” [1]

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has accurately measured parts designed for the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, the long-awaited successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The NIST-measured composite titanium and stainless steel parts, which support the skeleton for the telescope’s massive mirror, will be used in the final round of NASA’s vibration tests on the mirror assembly before the telescope’s scheduled launch in October 2018.

The Webb telescope will travel to an orbit beyond the Moon, contain a mirror much larger than the Hubble’s, and be able to observe the formation of some of the first stars and galaxies more than 13.5 billion years ago. The telescope is the largest piece of precision metrology (measurement) equipment that NASA has been involved in creating. With its size, and the sophistication of its parts, extreme care must be taken to ensure the mirror and instruments remain properly assembled and aligned as they travel into space and face significant temperature changes throughout their journey. [2]

1. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Primary Mirror Fully Assembled
Felicia Chou & Rob Gutro
2. NIST Performs Critical Measurements for James Webb Space Telescope, Ben Stein