Reginald L. Goodwin's Posts

Resilience...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 11, 2015 at 6:18am

Topics: 9-11, Commentary, Education, History, Politics, STEM

When I was a student at North Forsyth High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina I had the distinct pleasure of taking Air Force JROTC under Lieutenant Colonel Eugene Moody and Senior Master Sergeant Roland S. Wilkins. Surprisingly, I didn't come out of the class a warmonger - both gentlemen were veterans of the Vietnam conflict (and, had no stomach to repeat it), most of the lessons were a combination of Social Studies and Civics. What impressed me was that our democratic republic was special and unique; that in order for it to exist, "We The People" have to be a part of it. How we participate in it is not merely by voting alone, it's informing ourselves on the processes and procedures of divided government. That is commensurate with an informed citizenry, hence the importance of education to make the modern state function.

It is now fourteen years since the attack on these shores, this generations' "Pearl Harbor moment." I remember where I was: in a Motorola cafeteria in Austin, Texas, seeing the first then second plane hit the twin towers; terrified a third hit the Pentagon and Flight 93 was bound for either Capital Hill or the Executive Mansion. I now film a memorial, after a day with friends at NBC Universal/SNL studios, walking around this surreal site. I thought at the time of wanting to talk to my father, who had sadly been deceased for two years then. There were some that wanted our collective nightmare to steel the resolve of a public so diverse in perspectives and experiences that we would be unified; a truly "United States." That didn't last very long. We quickly sequestered ourselves into comfortable tribal groups - the non-religious and religious; the STEM and science phobic; the skeptic and conspiracy provocateurs; the lucid and irrational - all of the negative clusters led by narcissists addicted to sycophantic devotion. Some of them lead talk shows, reality shows or run for president.

"Democracy is not easy, and not everyone can do it right," Sergeant Wilkins said. Realize, the world wasn't so politically correct, as the statement could have some negative connotations today. [He explained] you have to be involved in your government; that you ARE the government. The assumption of public education, for example, is not just to prepare you to work in a job or profession: its primary mission is to prepare the body politic - "US" - to function as involved citizens; to hold power accountable. Public education is not merely reading blogs and reacting to soundbites formulated for manipulation and effect: it's in the reading of books - electronic, comic and papyrus - for pleasure as well as information, pondering deeply what they mean; what the authors of fiction and non-fiction were trying to say. Knowledge, books, access to them and literacy are the hallmarks of democracies and republics.

I will never be a proponent of charter schools or corporate education beyond merely investment in the Common Good. Education should not be just job preparation or an investment for dividends; it should be citizenship and critical thinking training. If the return on investment is a mindset that is so departed from logic and reason; if there is an insistence on pseudo-controversies that have been confirmed false or true by science over and over; when volume and trolling replaces debate - which in its purest sense, presupposes you have a point and feel confident you can make it in a civil manner; you don't have a state: you have a mob. To have more than this, to maintain this fragile construct called a democratic republic: we all need the resilience to accept the responsibility of being educated citizens, not entertained, bewildered sheep. We will quite naturally, demand more of our media; our current and future leaders when we start demanding more of ourselves.

“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

"But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”

Amazon.com:
"Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,"
"How to Watch TV News: Revised Edition"
Neil Postman

Reality Since Einstein...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 10, 2015 at 6:59am

Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein

Topics: Einstein, Special Relativity, General Relativity, Nobel Prize, Spacetime, Steven Weinberg, World Science Festival

A discussion at the World Science Festival with Brian Green, Gabriela González, Samir Mathur, Andrew Strominger, Cumrun Vafa, and fellow Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Einstein's general theory of relativity, leaders from multiple fields of physics discuss its essential insights, its lingering questions, the latest work it has sparked, and the allied fields of research that have resulted. If not for the modern age of electronics with the Internet, television, smart phones and quantum mechanics, you can at least be thankful to him for your GPS not getting you lost.

Light Sails Leakage...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 9, 2015 at 8:17am

Image Source: MIT Technology Review

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Space Flight, SETI, Solar Sail

Please note the emoji: \\//_. That Trekkie cred set: It's probably going to be a lot easier to detect civilizations closer, but slightly past our stage of admitted technological adolescence, currently beset and hindered by fear of all things science and willful ignorance. With the noted exception of Star Trek, most of the science fiction I'm reading recently stay in the Einstein-relativistic-speeds range, along with the effects of time dilation to their plot twists. If an intelligence has begun to at least explore their own outer planets, maybe...just maybe there's hope that we'll survive our own hubris.

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Light sails are a promising way of exploring star systems. If other civilizations use them, these sails should be visible from Earth, say astrophysicists.

Abstract

The primary challenge of rocket propulsion is the burden of needing to accelerate the spacecraft's own fuel, resulting in only a logarithmic gain in maximum speed as propellant is added to the spacecraft. Light sails offer an attractive alternative in which fuel is not carried by the spacecraft, with acceleration being provided by an external source of light. By artificially illuminating the spacecraft with beamed radiation, speeds are only limited by the area of the sail, heat resistance of its material, and power use of the accelerating apparatus. In this paper, we show that leakage from a light sail propulsion apparatus in operation around a solar system analogue would be detectable. To demonstrate this, we model the launch and arrival of a microwave beam-driven light sail constructed for transit between planets in orbit around a single star, and find an optimal beam frequency on the order of tens of GHz. Leakage from these beams yields transients with flux densities of Jy and durations of tens of seconds at 100 pc. Because most travel within a planetary system would be conducted between the habitable worlds within that system, multiply-transiting exoplanetary systems offer the greatest chance of detection, especially when the planets are in projected conjunction as viewed from Earth. If interplanetary travel via beam-driven light sails is commonly employed in our galaxy, this activity could be revealed by radio follow-up of nearby transiting exoplanetary systems. The expected signal properties define a new strategy in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

Physics arXiv: SETI via Leakage from Light Sails in Exoplanetary Systems
James Guillochon (1), Abraham Loeb (1) ((1) Harvard ITC)

Sticky DNA...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 8, 2015 at 6:27am

The cells in this microscope image were arranged in three dimensions using a new DNA-based technique. The cells stained green were meant to mimic cells that lead outgrowth during natural organ formation.

Topics: 3D Objects, Additive Manufacturing, Biology, Biophysics, Biomedicine, Computer Science, Mathematical Models

Before scientists can build human organs in the lab, they need to figure out how to build tissues that work like those in the body. A new method, in which DNA acts like Velcro that makes cells stick to each other, could help pave the way toward building functional tissues that might one day comprise organs.

The new method employs DNA strands, attached to the outside of individual cells, to cause them to stick to surfaces—or other cells—that feature complementary strands, and assemble into prescribed arrangements. The researchers use it to programmatically build tissues, layer by layer.

Other groups are taking a range of approaches toward building functional tissues (see “A Manufacturing Tool Builds 3-D Heart Tissue”). But compared to existing 3-D culture methods, the new one provides a greater level of control over “the ultimate tissue architecture,” argue its creators in a recent paper describing the research.

MIT Technology Review: Sticky DNA Could be the Key to Making Organs in a Lab, Mike Orcutt

ATLAS, CMS and Higgs...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 7, 2015 at 9:32am

Image Source: Symmetry Magazine (link below)

Topics: CERN, Higgs Boson, High Energy Physics, Particle Physics, Theoretical Physics

It bugs me when someone says "that's how it works 'in theory'" or "it's just a theory, not 'fact'."

"A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation." Wikipedia is about as succinct as you can get. I underlined the keys, and a more adroit point is the Pythagorean Theorem: for right triangles - 45-45-90 and 30-60-90 - it works every time. That's how something works in theory: it is substantiated in experiment, repeated, verified results within a reasonable margin of error; legitimate journal publication after passing an editorial board and ruthless peer review. Conspiracy/Provocateur and other such "theories" are neither: they are merely loudmouthed opinions.

The ATLAS and CMS experiments on the Large Hadron Collider were designed to be partners in discovery.

In 2012, both experiments reported evidence of a Higgs-like boson, the fundamental particle that gives mass to the other fundamental particles.

ATLAS reported the mass of this new boson to be in the mass region of 126 billion electronvolts, and CMS found it to be in the region of 125. In May 2015, the two experiments combined their measurements, refining the Higgs mass closer to 125.09 GeV.

This particular analysis focused on the interaction of the Higgs boson with other particles, known as coupling strength. The combined measurements are more precise than each experiment could accomplish alone, and results establish that the Higgs mechanism grants mass to both the matter and force-carrying particles as predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.

Symmetry Magazine: Combined results find Higgs still standard, Katie Elyce Jones

CMOS and SET...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 4, 2015 at 1:11pm

(a) SEM image of the e-beam patterned nanoelectrodes (scale bar 20 μm); inset: nanoelectrode structure with 12 nm gap. (b) Room temperature I-V measurements with drain voltage sweeping from 0.1 V to 0.7 V at gate voltage of -12.2V.

Topics: Nanotechnology, Photonics, Semiconductor Technology, Quantum Mechanics

As complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices shrink to sub 5 nm, interference due to quantum size effects becomes unavoidable. Single-electron tunnelling (SET) devices provide a promising alternative for low-power integrated circuits due to their operation at the single electron level. Reporting in Nanotechnology, researchers aim to address this need by fabricating monodisperse ultra-small gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) deposited by a CMOS-compatible tilted-target sputtering technique.

Fabrication and integration of monodisperse ~1 nm metal nanoparticles as charge transport islands in a device configuration remains a major challenge in the progress of SET device technology. Here, the researchers deposit AuNPs into 12 nm nanogaps between electrodes, fabricated using high-resolution e-beam lithography. The ~1 nm AuNP functions as a charge transport island within a transistor configuration and the resultant device can explore the AuNP’s quantum coulomb blockade and quantized energy level spacings at room temperature (300 K).

Nanotechweb:

CMOS-Integrable room-temperature operational single-electron transistors

Haisheng Zheng is a PhD candidate supervised by Shubhra Gangopadhyay at the University of Missouri-Columbia in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Antiprotons and the Rad Lab...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 3, 2015 at 6:22am

Fig. 1. One of the first annihilations of an antiproton observed at the Bevatron with a photographic emulsion. The antiproton enters from the left. The fat tracks are from slow protons or nuclear fragments, the faint tracks from fast pions.

Image credit: O Chamberlain et al. 1956 Nuo. Cim. 3 447.

Topics: High Energy Physics, History, Particle Physics, Theoretical Physics

You may be familiar with the term "antimatter," especially if you've followed any fiction on star ships that latched on to the phrase. The discovery of the antiproton is coming up to its 60th birthday, and the authors from CERN, Claude Amsler and Christine Sutton - where the Higgs Boson was discovered - do a good job recounting the history and characters that discovered what is now common in our lexicon.

Sixty years after the discovery of the antiproton at Berkeley, a look at some of the ways that studies with antiprotons at CERN have cast light on basic physics and, in particular, on fundamental symmetries.

On 21 September 1955, Owen Chamberlain, Emilio Segrè, Clyde Wiegand and Tom Ypsilantis found their first evidence of the antiproton, gathered through measurements of its momentum and its velocity. Working at what was known as the "Rad Lab" at Berkeley, they had set up their experiment at a new accelerator, the Bevatron – a proton synchrotron designed to reach an energy of 6.5 GeV, sufficient to produce an antiproton in a fixed-target experiment (CERN Courier November 2005 p27). Soon after, a related experiment led by Gerson Goldhaber and Edoardo Amaldi found the expected annihilation "stars", recorded in stacks of nuclear emulsions (figure 1). Forty years later, by combing antiprotons and positrons, an experiment at the Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR) at CERN gathered evidence in September 1995 for the production of the first few atoms of antihydrogen.

Over the decades, antiprotons have become a standard tool for studies in particle physics; the word "antimatter" has entered into mainstream language; and antihydrogen is fast becoming a laboratory for investigations in fundamental physics. At CERN, the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) is now an important facility for studies in fundamental physics at low energies, which complement the investigations at the LHC’s high-energy frontier. This article looks back at some of the highlights in the studies of the antiworld at CERN, and takes a glimpse at what lies in store at the AD.

CERN Courier: In the steps of the antiproton
Claude Amsler, Albert Einstein Center for Fundamental Physics, University of Bern, and Christine Sutton, CERN.

Mimicking Nature...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 2, 2015 at 8:20pm

Image Source: Argonne National Laboratory

Topics: Alternative Energy, Green Energy, Green Tech, Photosynthesis, Solar Power

Refined by nature over a billion years, photosynthesis has given life to the planet, providing an environment suitable for the smallest, most primitive organism all the way to our own species.

While scientists have been studying and mimicking the natural phenomenon in the laboratory for years, understanding how to replicate the chemical process behind it has largely remained a mystery — until now.

Recent experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have afforded researchers a greater understanding of how to manipulate photosynthesis, putting humankind one step closer to harvesting “solar fuel,” a clean energy source that could one day help replace coal and natural gas.

Lisa M. Utschig, a bioinorganic chemist at Argonne for 20 years, said storing solar energy in chemical bonds such as those found in hydrogen can provide a robust and renewable energy source. Burning hydrogen as fuel creates no pollutants, making it much less harmful to the environment than common fossil fuel sources.

Argonne National Laboratory:
Making fuel from light: Argonne research sheds light on photosynthesis and creation of solar fuel, Jo Napolitano

Squeezing Deuterium...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on September 1, 2015 at 9:14am

Figure 1. To squeeze liquid deuterium into its metallic phase, researchers discharged the 2160 capacitors of Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine and sent a precisely shaped 1-μs current pulse that delivered 2 MJ of energy to a target at the machine’s center. The power transmission cables, as big around as small cars, are submerged in oil or deionized water, which serves as an insulator. Electrical arcs that play over the device during discharge, shown here, make for a dazzling display. (Photo by Randy Montoya/Sandia National Laboratories.)

Citation: Phys. Today 68, 9, 12 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.2899

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Solid State Physics

The world’s strongest pulsed-power source takes a shot at an 80-year-old condensed-matter-physics problem.

Hydrogen is the simplest and most abundant element in the universe. But that simplicity belies its often unpredictable nature. A case in point: Unlike the alkali metals that sit below it on the periodic table, hydrogen, even in its solid phase, remains a molecular insulator down to the lowest temperatures.

In 1935 Eugene Wigner and Hillard Huntington predicted that squeezing solid hydrogen to a sufficiently high pressure could cause it to shed its molecular bonds and transform into an atomic metal. The race to find the insulator-to-metal transition in hydrogen was on, but it’s turned out to be a marathon rather than a sprint.

High-pressure experiments are notoriously difficult, and ones on hydrogen even more so. Diamond-anvil cells, the go-to equipment for static-compression experiments, are hampered by hydrogen’s tendency to penetrate into the diamond and cause cracks. Dynamic experiments using shock compression reach higher pressures, but they heat the sample to high temperatures and only access specific values of pressure and temperature that depend on the system’s initial state. Still, experimentalists have subjected hydrogen to pressures of 320 GPa using static techniques and 500 GPa using dynamic methods but have not found the metallic phase.

Physics Today: Liquid deuterium pressured into becoming metallic, Sung Chang

Graphene Superconductor...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 31, 2015 at 8:09am

Graphene turns into a superconductor when decorated with lithium atoms. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Inozemtsev Konstantin)

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

THIS changes the game! The application to longer life batteries is the first thought that comes to mind. Within semiconductors, we could supplement the physical limitations we're butting up to at the Moore's Law limit with a neat change in the material chemistry used to build the circuitry. A step before and enhancement of carbon nanotubes when they eventually replace them. Exciting times!

The "wonder material" graphene has another significant quality to add to its impressive list of electrical and mechanical properties: superconductivity. Physicists in Canada and Germany have shown that graphene turns into a superconductor when doped with lithium atoms – a result that could lead to a new generation of superconducting nanoscale devices.

Graphene exhibits a range of remarkable properties, thanks to its special structure – a one-atom-thick hexagonal lattice of carbon atoms. It is far stronger than steel while also flexible, and is an excellent conductor of both electricity and heat. In its pristine form, however, it is not a superconductor.

Neither is pure graphite, but in 2005 physicists showed that graphite could be made to superconduct when chemically treated, so as to create bulk materials consisting of graphene alternated with one-atom-thick layers of another element. The best performing material thus created, calcium graphite (CaC₆), has a superconducting transition temperature of 11.5 K. Theorists identified the underlying mechanism for that superconductivity as electron–phonon coupling. Phonons are vibrations in a material's crystal lattice that bind electrons together into "Cooper pairs" that can travel through the lattice without resistance – one of the hallmarks of superconductivity. It was then realized that such electron–phonon coupling might occur not just in bulk graphite compounds but also by depositing atoms of a suitable element on to single layers of graphene.

Physics World: 'Decorated' graphene is a superconductor, Edwin Cartlidge

Near the Levee (repost)...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 29, 2015 at 6:24am

Architecture About.com: What is a Levee?

Topics: #BlackLivesMatter, African Americans, Architectural Engineering, Civil Engineering, Civil Rights, Climate Change, Global Warming, History, Politics

Inspired by the article from Dr. Cornel West: “Exiles from a city and from a nation,” 11 September 2005.

Note: I corrected the spelling of levee in the title and text (it was originally "levy" as a double entendre). On reflection of the carnival barking political times we're in and to avoid the appearance of xenophobia, a preposition and country name were both exchanged from their original versions. The piece still hits powerfully, and clarifies instead of stereotypes, origin of the demand for drugs in this country is this country in total, and no one group in particular.

Dedicated to my cousin from New Orleans, John (Gus) Holmes, Jr., his beautiful family, and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina (note: they're all fine, and relocated to another state).

**********

“When you live so close to death”

You create songs in the French Quarter on Slave Sundays that follow no pattern.

Rhythm set by clap and tambourine; washboard and kettle drum,

Old people hum in accompaniment to a Constantine Christian jubilee celebration of no cotton bailed; no backbreaking labor toiled.

The one suit you own is spoiled from overuse, and your children’s children carry on the tradition of “dress up” to anesthetize their pain.

“When you live so close to death”

The Mississippi delta builds a sediment foundation for your tragicomic pain:

“Laughing to keep from crying” births the blues!

“When you live so close to death”

People of your hue fought and escaped the French back in the day, and each day are turned away each year as they try to escape the death-hole now known as… Haiti.

“When you live so close to death, you live (life a little) more intensely,”

You create order out of chaos, from Massa raping your sisters and mothers to slaves tipping with another man’s lover: “hey baby, can we JAZZ around a little bit”?

Fighting fiercely in mock duels modeled after “southern gentlemen,” feeling disrespected, passing it down from Jazz procreation to your Hip Hop great-grandchildren’s generation as being “dissed”: with the same deadly consequences.

“When you live so close to death”

What are scraps from Massa’s table become culinary creations:

- Craw dads;

- Jambalaya;

- Gumbo;

- Shrimp Creole

- And Etoufée!

“When you live so close to death”

Lead and pollutants they allowed for your kind to warp your minds & drive the I.Q.s of your babies down scarred your psychology

BEFORE the levees broke;

BEFORE the drug flights to America!

“When you live so close to death”

You are not counted; clouded – an invisible majority under the all-mighty shadow of insignificance: exiles in your own country, resembling from years of neglect more “third world” than ninth ward or US citizenry

Hence, their news media in their quest for a ratings spree mislabeled you “refugees.”

Now, suddenly they are on our side, “shocked and awed” back to the reality of their sacred duty to inform the citizenry of a democracy… neglected for five years.

Shocked by the sight of dead bodies marred by dogs and crocodiles, piled in stairwells like logs… floating downstream! It seems perceptions change once you’re beyond a sheltered, suburban political haze, and find YOURSELF for many days

Breathing the stench,

Your own eyes seeing,

Your own ears hearing the gunshots and screams… in this country,

You cannot believe you could stay reasonably SANE…

Living so close to death!

NextSTEP...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 28, 2015 at 6:28am

This diagram details how the VASIMR plasma rocket works.
Credit: Ad Astra Rocket Company © all rights reserved

Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Hispanic Americans, Latino Americans, Mars, NASA, Space Exploration, Spaceflight

Note to a certain presidential candidate: Isn't it ironic our journey to Mars will have been engineered by a Hispanic/Latino immigrant (see #P4TC link below)?

A potential advancement in the United States' electric propulsion capability for the future of spaceflight is being underscored by a new NASA contract to support work on the VASIMR project – short for the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket.

VASIMR works with plasma, an electrically charged gas that can be heated to extreme temperatures by radio waves and controlled and guided by strong magnetic fields.

Ad Astra Rocket Company announced today that it has completed contract negotiations with NASA on the group's Next Space Technology Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) award and are now entering the execution phase of the project. [How to Launch Superfast Trips to Mars]

Space.com: Plasma Rocket Technology Receives NASA Funding Boost, Leonard David
#P4TC: Dr. Franklin Ramón Chang Díaz...

Fire Mountains of the Moon...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 27, 2015 at 6:19am

This NASA image shows the moon coalescing from debris created when a Mars-size object slammed into the early Earth. Carbon found in lunar samples suggests that the moon's surface composition was very similar to Earth's.
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight

Topics: Moon, Planetary Science, NASA

The ancient lunar surface once erupted with geysers of lava — and now, scientists think they know what caused those fiery fountains.

Current research suggests that the moon formed when a Mars-size object barreled into Earth in the early solar system, and for a long time, its surface was much different from the staid, unmoving landscape present today. Rather, the moon's surface was hot and active, and magma often bubbled up from below and broke the surface in fiery fountains — like a molten-hot version of Old Faithful. Until recently, researchers were unsure of the driving force behind those explosions, which could reveal more about conditions on the early moon.

But now, scientists may have found a possible culprit for the molten explosions: carbon monoxide. [Watch: How the Moon Was Made]

"The carbon is the one that is producing the large spectacle," said Alberto Saal, a geologist at Brown University in Providence and co-author of the new study. "With a little bit of water, with a little bit of sulfur — but the main driver is carbon."

This finding suggests the early moon's makeup was very close to early Earth's, Saal told Space.com. "All these volatile elements … are in concentrations that are very similar to the lava that formed the ocean floor of the Earth," he said.

Space.com: Fire Fountains of the Ancient Moon Explained, Sarah Levin

Alibaba and 30 Qubits...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 26, 2015 at 7:41pm

Image Source: Alibaba group's offices in Hangzhou, China. (Courtesy: Alibaba group)

Topics: Computer Science, Research, STEM, Quantum Computer

The global effort to develop practical quantum computers got a boost this month with the inauguration of a dedicated laboratory in Shanghai, China. The new lab – a joint venture between the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese online retail giant Alibaba – aims to develop a general-purpose prototype quantum computer by 2030.

The new CAS–Alibaba Quantum Computing Laboratory's interim goals include the coherent manipulation of 30 quantum bits (qubits) by 2020, and quantum simulation with calculation speeds equivalent to those achieved by today's fastest supercomputers by 2025. This ambitious series of five-year plans will be supported by an annual injection of $5m from Alibaba's cloud-computing subsidiary, Aliyun, over the next 15 years.

Physics World: Joint quantum-computing venture is a first for China
Xin Ling is a science writer based in Beijing

Accretion of Dark Matter...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 25, 2015 at 6:27am

Image Source (and sound): Dark Matter Sound System - Band Camp

Topics: Black Holes, Dark Matter, General Relativity, Heliophysics, Humor, Quantum Cosmology

First of all, from the astrophysics classes I've taken, accretion is attributed to stars diffusing material around it, usually to create things like planets. This is a novel way to look at the pursuit of dark matter and I found the paper intriguing.

What teachers will hate me for: since everyone knows what a black hole looks like, and it really didn't coincide with the paper (abstract below), I did find a techno metal group that has a whole unique take on combining the two subjects (link below above image). As always, I get no gratuities for sharing this, but hopefully like me, it makes you grin for many of you, the first day of school (at least in Texas). Think of it as your "hook," but don't dwell on it very long...the students will catch on you're enjoying it too much.

Abstract

Searches for dark matter imprints are one of the most active areas of current research. We focus here on light fields with mass mB, such as axions and axion-like candidates. Using perturbative techniques and full-blown nonlinear Numerical Relativity methods, we show that (i) dark matter can pile up in the center of stars, leading to configurations and geometries oscillating with frequency which is a multiple of f=2.51014 m_Bc²/eV Hz. These configurations are stable throughout most of the parameter space, and arise out of credible mechanisms for dark-matter capture. Stars with bosonic cores may also develop in other theories with effective mass couplings, such as (massless) scalar-tensor theories. We also show that (ii) collapse of the host star to a black hole is avoided by efficient gravitational cooling mechanisms.

Physics arXiv: Accretion of dark matter by stars
Richard Brito, Vitor Cardoso, Hirotada Okawa

MXenes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 24, 2015 at 6:10am

Add caption

Topics: Condensed Matter Physics, Green Energy, Green Tech, Materials Science, Metamaterials, Nanotechnology

Otherwise known as Two-Dimensional, Ordered, Double Transition Metals Carbides (MXenes), the title of the actual paper, and quoting the article (link below): "A technique for fusing different elements in layers to make a uniform and stable composite with predictable properties could open up routes to faster, smaller and more efficient energy storage devices, supercapacitors and wear-resistant and tough armored materials, according to a team at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Babak Anasori and his colleagues at Drexel and Linköping University, Sweden, have demonstrated how to sandwich together two-dimensional sheets of molybdenum, titanium and carbon that would otherwise not stick together."

Abstract

The higher the chemical diversity and structural complexity of two-dimensional (2D) materials, the higher the likelihood they possess unique and useful properties. Herein, density functional theory (DFT) is used to predict the existence of two new families of 2D ordered, carbides (MXenes), M′₂M″C₂ and M′₂M″₂C₃, where M′ and M″ are two different early transition metals. In these solids, M′ layers sandwich M″ carbide layers. By synthesizing Mo₂TiC₂T_x, Mo₂Ti₂C₃MT_x, and Cr₂TiC₂T_x (where T is a surface termination), we validated the DFT predictions. Since the Mo and Cr atoms are on the outside, they control the 2D flakes’ chemical and electrochemical properties. The latter was proven by showing quite different electrochemical behavior of Mo₂TiC₂T_x and Ti₃C₂T_x. This work further expands the family of 2D materials, offering additional choices of structures, chemistries, and ultimately useful properties.

Materials Today: Metal sandwich solution, David Bradley

The Drumbeat of New Genes...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 19, 2015 at 7:02am

Skip Sterling for Quanta Magazine

Topics: Biology, Diversity, Diversity in Science, DNA, Women in Science

Note: I'm in a process integration class for work, August 20 and 21st. I will also take some time offline to celebrate my youngest son's 23rd birthday. Taking a "human" break celebrating my own version of new genes; resuming Monday.

Emerging data suggests the seemingly impossible — that mysterious new genes arise from “junk” DNA.

Genes, like people, have families — lineages that stretch back through time, all the way to a founding member. That ancestor multiplied and spread, morphing a bit with each new iteration.

For most of the last 40 years, scientists thought that this was the primary way new genes were born — they simply arose from copies of existing genes. The old version went on doing its job, and the new copy became free to evolve novel functions.

Olena Shmahalo/Quanta Magazine; source: Tautz and Domazet-Lošo, _Nature Reviews Genetics_, 2011.
New genes appear to burst into existence at various points along the evolutionary history of the mouse lineage (red line). The surge around 800 million years ago corresponds to the time when earth emerged from its “snowball” phase, when the planet was almost completely frozen. The very recent peak represents newly born genes, many of which will subsequently be lost. If all genes arose via duplication, they all would have been generated soon after the origins of life, roughly 3.8 billion years ago (green line).

Certain genes, however, seem to defy that origin story. They have no known relatives, and they bear no resemblance to any other gene. They’re the molecular equivalent of a mysterious beast discovered in the depths of a remote rainforest, a biological enigma seemingly unrelated to anything else on earth.

Quanta Magazine: A Surprise Source of Life’s Code, Emily Singer

Finding Neutrinos...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 18, 2015 at 6:23am

Physicists installing the Borexino detector. Some of the detector's many photomultiplier tubes are visible in the cupola above the workers. These detect the flashes of light created when antineutrinos collide with the detector. (Courtesy: INFN)

Topics: High Energy Physics, Neutrinos, Particle Physics, STEM, Theoretical Physics

The first confirmed sightings of antineutrinos produced by radioactive decay in the Earth's mantle have been made by researchers at the Borexino detector in Italy. While such "geoneutrinos" have been detected before, it is the first time that physicists can say with confidence that about half of the antineutrinos they measured came from the Earth's mantle, with the rest coming from the crust. The Borexino team has also been able to make a new calculation of how much heat is produced in the Earth by radioactive decay, finding it to be greater than previously thought. The researchers say that in the future, the experiment should be able to measure the quantities of radioactive elements in the mantle as well.

According to the bulk silicate Earth (BSE) model, most of the radioactive uranium, thorium and potassium in our planet's interior lies in the crust and mantle. Accounting for about 84% of our planet's total volume, the mantle is the large rocky layer sandwiched between the crust and the Earth's core. Heat flows from the interior of the Earth into space at a rate of about 47 TW, but one of the big mysteries of geophysics is how much of this heat is left over from when the Earth formed, and how much comes from the radioactive decay chains of uranium-238, thorium-232 and potassium-40.

Physics World:
Physicists isolate neutrinos from Earth's mantle for first time, Hamish Johnston

Supersonic Buckyballs...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 17, 2015 at 7:10am

Fig 2: a) C60 impinging on Cu (111). b) Excited electronic states visited during a TD-DFT simulation of C20 final configuration after cage breaking on Cu (111) surface at 14 eV (Corresponding to C60 at 42 eV). c) C20 final configuration after cage breaking on Cu (111) surface. d) Total electronic energy of the system during a metadynamics simulation starting from the configuration of a broken C60 cage on Cu (111) surface. e) Final configuration on the metadynamics-DFT simulation.

Topics: Buckminsterfullerene, C60, Condensed Matter Physics, Graphene, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Nanotechnology

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Graphene is one of the wonder materials of our age. It is some 200 times stronger than steel, it is an extraordinary conductor of heat and electricity, and it is almost transparent. And yet making graphene is still tricky, particularly when it needs to sit on a substrate for applications such as electronics.

Today, Simone Taioli at the Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications in Italy and a few pals say they’ve worked out how to do it starting with the famous football-shaped molecule buckminsterfullerene.

Their idea is remarkably simple: bombard the substrate with buckyballs travelling at supersonic speeds. That’s fast enough to crack them open when they hit, and the resulting unzipped cages then bond together to form a graphene film.

Researchers have long thought of using buckyballs as a precursor for graphene. But the only way to get them to unzip and bind together is to heat them to temperatures in excess of around 600 °C.

Physics arXiv:
Towards room-temperature single-layer graphene synthesis by C60 Supersonic Molecular Beam Epitaxy
Roberta Tatti, Lucrezia Aversa, Roberto Verucchi, Emanuele Cavaliere, Giovanni Garberoglio, Nicola M. Pugno, Giorgio Speranza, Simone Taioli

Slow-Walking Wakanda...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on August 16, 2015 at 7:11am

Source: Kotaku.com

Topics: #BlackLivesMatter, Commentary, Diversity, Diversity in Science, Science Fiction

The Black Panther – apart from the armed activist group of the 1960’s, and its most recent modern incarnation – was literally the first non-white superhero brought out in 1966 via The Fantastic Four (issue #52) and other clones were pursued thereafter by Marvel and DC: Black Lightning; Luke Cage: Hero for Hire; Cyborg; Static Shock; John Stewart/Green Lantern (not the recently retired comedian). I started a Facebook group almost as an electronic vigil to the movie, its release well past the retirement of the first African American president with paternal ties to the mother continent. Pity...

I've been reading through a lot of essays online about the meaning of the character and what could (or could not) happen with him in a movie with Chadwick Boseman (Jackie Robinson in “42” and James Brown in “Get on Up”). I say “slow-walking” because the project has been on-the-books since Wesley Snipes in the “Blade” heyday (note: Chris Evans was the Human Torch before he became Captain America, so an actor playing two fantasy superheroes apparently isn’t much of an issue). This was of course, before Wes’ incursion with the law for NOT paying $12 million in taxes. He’s back out and on television now in a series: “The Player” about high-stakes gambling. I have nothing against Boseman as an actor, and I think he’ll likely do a fine job at it. I wouldn't even mind Wesley playing the role of T’Chaka (T’Challa’s father) as that plays an important role in the story’s arc. What concerns me is essentially, Hollywood getting the meaning of the character in proper context, and if they themselves are comfortable with that meaning.

“Wakanda is a small country in Africa notable for never having been conquered in its entire history. When you consider the history of the region, the fact that the French, the English, the Belgians or any number of Christian or Islamic invaders were never able to defeat them in battle…well it’s unprecedented.”

That quote was from the movie “Marvel Knights: The Black Panther.” You can see the story board I transcribed those words from here; the movie if you want to purchase it at this link here. Note: I will get no royalties or gratuities. It's purely on you.

Those words: “…never having been conquered in its entire history.” Whether you hear them on the DVD, or read them, they are jarring; damning in its great and deliberate descriptions of colonial conquerors and the subtle delineation of the means a people are conquered: removal of history (a knowledge of self); language (forced to speak that of your conquerors); culture and religion (forced to absorb, or appropriate the dominate culture’s). The director – Mark Brooks – was deliberate in his wordings, to set the scene. I literally saw it late at night on cable and knew I HAD to have a copy.

Will that be the case with the upcoming movie?

“Never having been conquered” is unprecedented; it means their people were left alone with their language, culture, history and religion intact. Right there: it’s a nod to African animism, which predated any influences of the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity or Islam. The Black Panther, as many online sources explain, is the ceremonial title of the ruler of Wakanda. Right there: it’s NOT a democratic republic; it’s autocratic, like Pharaohs in Egypt. They developed advanced technology free of western influence (like the pyramids of Egypt, NOT “ancient aliens” or Apocalypse mutants!). Right there: Vibranium allowed them a freedom no other than a small few of African nations on the continent possesses, making them the envy of covetous, greedy operators. The fact they’ve “never been conquered” means they weren’t made an extension of Belgium, England, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain or “Americanized” and frankly didn’t care to be. That T’Challa can trace his ancestry back 10,000 years to the first Black Panther makes me jealous: I trace mine to my great-grandmother and great-grandfather, freed slaves in 1865. 400 generations versus 6 generations makes me feel “puny” by comparison. Many African and Asian cultures have the same strong reference; the same intact sense of self and culture.

“Never having been conquered,” the fictional element Vibranium is brought up first in “Captain America: The First Avenger” (it’s the metal in Cap’s shield), “The Avengers” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (part of the action takes place in Wakanda). Unlike other parts of Africa with oil, diamonds and other mineral wealth that due to colonialism and greed, the people living ABOVE it can never benefit from the wealth on the open market. Hell, Wakanda kicked the Skrulls OFF THE PLANET, and sent them packing back to outer space! Oh, and T’Challa has a PhD in Physics from Oxford; a scientific genius on par with Reed Richards and physical skills equal or superior to Cap's: what does THAT mean in the continued age of emulating professional athletes and rappers ad nauseum?

So again, I point to the nature of fiction: comic book fiction, heroic fiction, fantasy fiction, science fiction and the tendency to only think the verisimilitude of even fantastic stories “believable” if they are led by an all-white cast. The same Hollywood where Oscar voters are 94% white; 76% male and the average age is 63 years are trusted to tell a story that could have ramifications beyond the screen life of Black Panther. For example, the reboot of the Fantastic Four included Michael B. Jordan (“Fruitvale Station”) as Johnny Storm, and some were livid from online commentary about “authenticity” of the character. Granted, I liked the first "Four" because it was as close to the original story as I’ve seen, Chris Evans as The Torch and Mike Chiklis as The Thing were hilarious; Kerry Washington as Alicia Masters was a change almost ignored. I know Iris West, her TV father Joe and Wally West on the Flash Season 2 are reworked as African Americans a story line borrowed from The New 52. I’m betting since Grant Gustin isn’t reprising the role in the movies, they’ll somehow rediscover the original hue of all the characters.

For another earlier example, fan boys lost their collective minds when Heimdall in “Thor” was played by Idris Elba and Hogun the Grim was played by Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano. Okay, Heimdall in traditional Norse mythology is supposed to be the brother of Lady Sif, and with Idris’ tan, that looked highly unlikely. In traditional Norse mythology, Thor had red hair, a beard, two wives, a goat drawn chariot and required a power belt and gloves to lift Mjolnir! There are at least 13 variants across the globe of the thunder god: Set (Egypt again) and Shango (Yoruba: Nigeria) noted examples from Africa. In most mythologies, the gods tend to look like its authors. Thor looked Scandinavian for the Vikings; Nigerian for the Yoruba. That’s the point - the stories start from mythology: someone made them up, recently or a long time ago.

Getting back to Idris, him as James Bond would be awkward and negative stereotyping for a black male: The Bond character represents hedonism, misogyny and the extension of “politics by other means” vis-à-vis the British Empire, which started the global slave trade. Hollywood decided to go with the diversity angle not because they joined hands singing Kumbaya and “We Shall Overcome,” but they wanted more ticket sales/revenue. Part of this again is not Hollywood trying to right some social wrong: it is profit, box office, pure and simple. Instead of Norse gods, they were long living aliens taken as gods by our primitive ancestors and an Einstein-Rosen Bridge – Wormhole – Bifrost (“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Sir Arthur C. Clarke, of “2001: A Space Odyssey”). I’ll grant you this: a “white” Black Panther would be oxymoronic and just as hard a story to tell as a black James Bond! However, I don’t expect a Harlem high school doing Macbeth to ship in kids from Westchester, or vice-versa for The Lion King (both cities in New York)! As science-friendly nerd culture is supposed to be, there are still a few areas of social change some of us need to evolve on.

“Never having been conquered” means a culture and civilization that doesn't have to define or redefine itself. They are not arguing for reparations as they have no need for them (nothing was stolen from them): they have resources and wealth they can protect and trade as equals; they have nothing to prove to anyone. (Black lives probably matter a lot more in Wakanda than Ferguson.) If the story is told right, it should be jarring to the senses and spark conversations, all be any fleeting. Any dialogue will likely be brief as we tend to be tribal despite our advanced technology and cling to our own and its illusions. What I remember in middle school during the seventies when “Roots” first aired as a miniseries. It was the first time anyone had heard of Alex Haley, or associated him with “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” Some of my white classmates at the time came up to me and apologized for slavery. It was a noble gesture, but I often wonder in the online forums I see many comments on things like the Battle Flag of Robert E. Lee’s North Virginia Regiment (mistaken by many through historical misappropriation as the Flag of the Confederacy), if my former classmates' gracious mea culpa has reversed, and ossified?

Again, any dialogue will be fleeting at best. But flit chatter is better than shouted insult; choked-to-death adults; bullets in worshipers at churches and teenagers due to rap music, cigarillos, ice tea and skittles any day. We might actually get somewhere with opening a dialogue long overdue. For this being the 21st Century, we owe it to ourselves and our progeny to get it right this time.

Reference links:

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/black_panther/news/?a=123396
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/are-these-set-photos-of-what-wakanda-will-look-like-in-marvels-black-panther-movie-20150512
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Hu6yXLjEc