The letter in Nature is titled: "Attractive photons in a quantum nonlinear medium." The abstract reads:

The fundamental properties of light derive from its constituent particles—massless quanta (photons) that do not interact with one another1. However, it has long been known that the realization of coherent interactions between individual photons, akin to those associated with conventional massive particles, could enable a wide variety of novel scientific and engineering applications2, 3. Here we demonstrate a quantum nonlinear medium inside which individual photons travel as massive particles with strong mutual attraction, such that the propagation of photon pairs is dominated by a two-photon bound state4, 5, 6, 7. We achieve this through dispersive coupling of light to strongly interacting atoms in highly excited Rydberg states. We measure the dynamical evolution of the two-photon wavefunction using time-resolved quantum state tomography, and demonstrate a conditional phase shift8 exceeding one radian, resulting in polarization-entangled photon pairs. Particular applications of this technique include all-optical switching, deterministic photonic quantum logic and the generation of strongly correlated states of light9. (2)

The rest of the article goes on to say they weren't LOOKING to build a real-life light saber, only that the physics is there. What was once purely imagined (with a few morons almost qualifying for the Darwin Awards) may soon be possible...maybe.

Still don't want to study physics/quantum mechanics?

Elsa Salazar Cade (born 1952) is an award-winning Mexican American science teacher and entomologist.

Elsa received her undergraduate degree in elementary education at the University of Texas at Austin and her master's in public school administration at Niagara University. She is certified for New York State as a school district administrator.

A long time amateur entomologist, with her husband, William H. Cade, she discovered the first case of a parasite using the sexual signal of a host in order to locate and parasitize the host. She also was selected as one of the top ten science teachers in 1995 by the National Science Teachers Association.[1]

The Cades have done over 30 years of research on the Texas field cricket, Gryllus texensis.[2]

This research has covered the behavior of the field cricket at different densities and under parasitic pressure from the red eyed fly Ormia. She has helped develop a hands-on instructional program for middle school teachers through support from the National Science Foundation at the University at Buffalo. Wikipedia

NASA turns 55 today.

It was the response to Sputnik, the space race to the moon that so many that weren't alive then now deny it happened and its significance to the technological world it helped birth. That response was an investment in science education by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and it inspired a generation of scientists and engineers that well...produced people like me.

It was spin offs from government research, like...the DARPA project that brought us the Internet, the transistor specifically for the space program; the personal computer; calculators; remote control, cell phones; flat screens; Velcro! Those that hate government are the same that hate socialism, yet shout with shrill sincerity "don't touch my medicare/medicaid"! This so similar to the same inane illogical rants against tenets of science and Entropy; online tirades against science USING tools created by science to do it. If anyone reading this is using social media in these jeremiads, you are guilty of breathtaking hypocrisy.

 

Though Hispanic Heritage Month, I have delayed the post of the distinguished scientist and educator until tomorrow. I did not want to associate her with the unthinkable. The unthinkable happened last night for the 2nd time in 17 years. The unthinkable is now extortion tactic; government by bully; uncertainty no longer Heisenberg's principle; it is like the conclusion of a terrific series "breaking bad." Instead of Thomas Paine's"Common Sense," we edify the "Anarchist's Cookbook." The anarchists are about to affect real people, that you and I know. One is my college classmate: an electrical engineer for the US Navy in California.

There is a sickness in this nation; a disease of ignorance that is promoted and openly celebrated. Our "reality stars" need no training in acting or performance; our musicians no training in how to read or write music; our politicians no intellectual rigor in philosophy nor training in the importance of science and technology. The more ignorant you are of history, science, reality, the more you are in this American dispensation celebrated.

Happy birthday, NASA. You are now furloughed with Curiosity and 800,000 government workers.

Warp factor...none.

Overview

As the James A. Perkins endowed Professor and Research Scientist at Cornell, I have devoted my professional life to the chemical biology. ecology and medicinal chemistry and toxicology of natural small molecules and glycoproteins from plants and arthropods that are important in ecological and biological interactions and human and animal health and medicine. In collaboration with Dr. Richard Wrangham at Harvard we established the discipline of zoopharmacognosy (animal self medication with plants) and Chemo-ornithology (chemical ecology of bird-inect-plant interactions) with David Rosane from CUNY. I have developed a new undergraduate course and research program on the pharmacognosy, pharmacology and nutritional biochemistry of natural substance important for the control of diabetes type 2 and breast and pancreatic cancer in underrepresented communities in the US and Mexico. I have also devoted considerable time and effort to the training of hundreds of underrepresented undergraduate and graduate minority and majority students in the sciences at Cornell and the University of California, Irvine. A plethora of these fine young women and men at Cornell and UCI are now medical doctors, health specialists, research Professors, pharmaceutical scientists, biologists and environmental ecologists. (1)

*****

James Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies at Cornell University. He was born in Edinburg, Texas.

Collaborating with primatologist Richard Wrangham, Rodriguez introduced the concept of zoopharmacognosy.

Rodriguez graduated from the University of Texas, Austin with a B.S. in 1969 and a Ph.D. in Phytochemistry and Plant Biology in 1975. Later, at the University of British Columbia, he received medical postdoctoral training in Medicinal Botany.[2] He was an Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine from 1976 to 1994[4] before joining the faculty at Cornell.

Rodriguez is the founder of the California Alliance for Minority Participation (CAMP) program funded by the National Science Foundation. As a result the CAMP program spread from its home campus, University of California at Irvine, to the 9 other branches of the University of California.(2)

Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa (also known as "Dr. Q") is a physician, author, and researcher. He practices neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and runs a basic science research lab out of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Quiñones is Director of the Brain Tumor Surgery Program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Director of the Pituitary Surgery Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Director of the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Laboratory at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.[1] In addition to being a professor of neurosurgery, neuroscience, oncology, and cellular and molecular medicine, Quiñones is also the author of the newly released book, Becoming Dr Q.

Early years

Quiñones, the oldest of six children, was born in a small village outside of Mexicali.[2] In 1987, at the age of 19, Quiñones-Hinojosa jumped the border fence between Mexico and the United States.[3][4][5] Once arriving in United States, Quinones could not speak English and worked on farms outside of Fresno, California.[1][6] As a farm hand, he saved enough money to take English classes.[7]

Education

Quiñones-Hinojosa started his education at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, California, and completed his bachelor's degree in psychology with the highest honors at University of California, Berkeley.[4] He then went on to receive his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, where he graduated with honors. He also became a US citizen during this time.[7] He then completed his residency in neurosurgery at the University of California, San Francisco, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in developmental and stem cell biology.

My departure from physics I reserve for Sundays. Somewhat a double entendre most days; I am aware from the stats these are my least viewed postings; I call them my "sermons slightly left of the mount." As much as I'd like to focus on science and physics exclusively, public inanity from public officials drives my rants, and unfortunately, they decide the purse strings for scientific research. That thought alone is quite scary.

I grew up in the era of the doomsday clock and inane "duck and cover" drills of an ever-pending nuclear apocalypse. Recently, climate change has been counted in our path towards self-immolation.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released its most decisive report, and it's not good. However, what also is not good is our lack of trust of science, the convolution of pseudo controversies, of which there is a litany, but essentially: anything that threatens a bottom-line of power, profit and influence must be obfuscated.

I tend to agree with Bill Nye. I selfishly want to save the planet...for myself and my children, and their children. The planet will be here: it is arrogance to believe that we will always be.

The link to the report is below. I will most likely as I'm apt to do, print it out, highlight it and consume what the report says to be informed on its findings.

Challenge: will you?

In the US at least, our media is consolidated into six corporate behemoths, everything we see in news and entertainment. During "duck and cover" days, that was greater than 150. Profit, ratings...and control are the primacy of goals in this arrangement. Now: The stock market is almost a 70's mood ring; talk radio flourished after repeal of the Fairness Doctrine; media can legally lie to us; thus "water cooler conversations" are always orchestrated in a kind of larger hive hierarchy, and we are not at the level of Horus' eye. "Ditto head" was not meant a compliment, nor evidence of deep contemplation. "Dumb and Dumber" and "Idiocracy" were box office hits; I didn't think they'd become the operative outline for our congress. A humorous urban myth tries to define congress as a "gathering of baboons" (it literally is not, but life imitates rumored art). It was a slow road to get here, but we are here. When "Green Eggs and Ham" become part of the record on in the Senate for a "silly buster," our decent; our devolution is apparent and quite public indeed. My childhood memories are henceforth ruined.

In my challenge, I'm trying to inform your water cooler conversations beyond the Borg collective. Your emancipation is in knowledge; and that is not what the six behemoths desire for you.

I simply don't want "once upon a time" to apply to Earth in nursery rhymes for children on distant worlds...as an intergalactic proverb.

At a private dinner in 1982, when asked how it was to be the father of a famous person, Baez told the following story with great delight:[5] "I was at a conference dinner, and as usual a young man was looking carefully at my name tag. Finally, he got up the courage to ask the inevitable question about my relationship to Joan Baez. But instead he asked, 'Are you Albert Baez, the inventor of the X-ray microscope?' Now, THAT was a compliment!"

Jaime Escalante was born December 31, 1930 in La Paz, Bolivia. He came to the United States in the 1960s to seek a better life. He began teaching math to troubled students in a violent Los Angeles school and became famous for leading many of them to pass the advanced placement calculus test. He was played by Edward James Olmos in the film Stand and Deliver. He died of cancer on March 30, 2010.

Professional Career

In 1974, Escalante took a job at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, California. He found himself in a challenging situation: teaching math to troubled students in a rundown school known for violence and drugs. While some had dismissed the students as "unteachable," Escalante strove to reach his students and to get them to live up to their potential. He started an advanced mathematics program with a handful of students.

In 1982, his largest class of students took and passed an advanced placement test in Calculus. Some of the students' test scores were invalidated by the testing company because it believed that the students had cheated. Escalante protested, saying that the students had been disqualified because they were Hispanic and from a poor school. A few months later many of the students retook the test and passed, proving that they knew the material and that the company was wrong.

Innovative outreach. (a) From 18 October to 30 October 2011, visitors approaching the Eiffel Tower from Trocadéro square might have encountered a model in which each of three tower sections levitates above a superconducting ceramic. By bringing such displays to the heart of Paris, French physicists hoped to engage segments of the public not usually attracted by science outreach activities. (b) Artists and designers helped produce hands-on projects that introduce young people to quantum physics. In one such activity, children create the field of a magnet levitating above a superconductor.

...and, why not?

The very venue of this monologue/blog is courtesy of the photoelectric effect (Einstein); he and Heisenberg et al brought us Quantum Mechanics - to Einstein's chagrin - which allows us to design cell phones, laptops, I-pads, flat screens, the Internet...pretty much the modern age. I'm often amused at the rants directed at science on social media platforms PROVIDED by that same science. The irony is delicious...

For condensed-matter physicists, the year 2011 was a very special one. It marked the 100th anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity, one of the most fascinating topics in quantum physics and still one of the most studied. When certain materials—for example, aluminum and lead—are cooled to nearly absolute zero, they suddenly conduct electricity perfectly, with no resistance. Superconductors also expel magnetic fields, a property that causes magnets to levitate on top of superconductors. Even more fascinating, under certain conditions, the magnet becomes “pinned” to the superconductor. In that case, it can either levitate above the superconductor or remain suspended below it.

The superconductivity that kicks in at very low temperature was explained in the 1960s by John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and J. Robert Schrieffer with what is now called the BCS model. However, more recently discovered families of superconductors conduct perfectly at temperatures up to 10 times that of the usual metals. The BCS model does not seem to apply to those high-temperature superconductors, hence the continuing research. Ultimately, physicists hope to discover a material that superconducts at room temperature.

As part of the centenary celebration, the French research agency CNRS asked researchers in the field to introduce superconductivity to the greater public. We were immediately enthusiastic, but two worries soon came to mind: Isn’t quantum physics too complex to be explained to the general public? And in any case, are people really interested? Some public relations experts warned us that fundamental physics is not as appealing as it used to be. Now, they said, is the time to be talking about neurology or climatology. Interest in physics relates only to applications and new technologies.

Despite those warnings, we spent a year trying to show and explain superconductivity and quantum physics in a great variety of places and to all kinds of people—teenagers, younger children, students, parents, artists, journalists, and more. And we used all sorts of means, including websites, exhibits, movies, YouTube, live demonstrations, conferences, and science fairs. What we discovered was a surprise to most of us.

Bad news first

One lesson we learned was that if you stick to conventional outreach tools and actions, you will end up with a conventional outreach public, namely, people already interested in and familiar with science. We developed pedagogical exhibits and movies to explain superconductivity, a flyer, demonstrations, and even a website. Such content was useful for teachers and students in an academic setting, but it did not work that well for the general public. Our 10-panel exhibit with photos and images was a great decoration in science museums, science fairs, and school halls, but people did not actually spend time reading the content beyond the introductory panel. Our information-packed website attracts about 300 new visitors daily, but the average visiting time is less than 2 minutes. The 11-minute movie we made is just too long for people now used to YouTube videos. We realized too late that the internet has profoundly changed peoples’ capacity to focus and read for more than a minute. Or perhaps people have long had a minuscule attention span.

A second bit of bad news is that outreach conferences do not reach a wide public. We organized many conferences all over France with well-trained, animated speakers who presented great slides and even live experiments. The rooms were often full of enthusiastic participants. But we discovered that the audience was mostly composed of the speakers’ colleagues and their families, engineers, physics students, and retired scientists—essentially scientifically literate people already convinced of the importance of fundamental physics.

Ellen Ochoa was born on May 10, 1958 in Los Angeles, CA. She received her bachelor of science degree in physics from San Diego State University, and a master of science degree and doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Ellen Ochoa’s pre-doctoral work at Stanford University in electrical engineering led to the development of an optical system designed to detect imperfections in repeating patterns. This invention patented in 1987, can be used for quality control in the manufacturing of various intricate parts. Dr. Ellen Ochoa later patented an optical system which can be used to robotically manufacture goods or in robotic guiding systems. In all, Ellen Ochoa has received three patents most recently one in 1990.

In addition to being an inventor, Dr. Ellen Ochoa is also a research scientist and astronaut for NASA. Selected by NASA in January 1990, Dr. Ellen Ochoa is a veteran of three space flights. She has logged over 719 hours in space, her most recent mission was a 10 day mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery in May of 1999.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906

Camillo Golgi, Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Born: 1 May 1852, Petilla de Aragó, Spain

Died: 17 October 1934, Madrid, Spain

Affiliation at the time of the award: Madrid University, Madrid, Spain

Prize motivation: "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system"

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was born on May 1, 1852, at Petilla de Aragón, Spain. As a boy he was apprenticed first to a barber and then to a cobbler. He himself wished to be an artist - his gift for draughtsmanship is evident in his published works. His father, however, who was Professor of Applied Anatomy in the University of Saragossa, persuaded him to study medicine, which he did, chiefly under the direction of his father. (Later, he made drawings for an atlas of anatomy which his father was preparing, but which was never published.)

In 1873 he took his Licentiate in Medicine at Saragossa and served, after a competitive examination, as an army doctor. He took part in an expedition to Cuba in 1874-75, where he contracted malaria and tuberculosis. On his return he became an assistant in the School of Anatomy in the Faculty of Medicine at Saragossa (1875) and then, at his own request, Director of the Saragossa Museum (1879). In 1877 he obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine at Madrid and in 1883 he was appointed Professor of Descriptive and General Anatomy at Valencia. In 1887 he was appointed Professor of Histology and Pathological Anatomy at Barcelona and in 1892 he was appointed to the same Chair at Madrid. In 1900-1901 he was appointed Director of the «Instituto Nacional de Higiene» and of the «Investigaciones Biológicas».

In 1880 he began to publish scientific works, of which the following are the most important: Manual de Histología normal y Técnica micrográfica (Manual of normal histology and micrographic technique), 1889 (2nd ed., 1893). A summary of this manual recast with additions, appeared under the title Elementos de Histología, etc. (Elements of histology, etc.), 1897; Manual de Anatomía patológica general (Manual of general pathological anatomy), 1890 (3rd ed., 1900). In addition may be cited: Les nouvelles idées sur la fine anatomie des centres nerveux (New ideas on the fine anatomy of the nerve centres), 1894; Textura del sistema nervioso del hombre y de los vertebrados (Textbook on the nervous system of man and the vertebrates), 1897-1899; Die Retina der Wirbelthiere (The retina of vertebrates), 1894.

Apart from these works Cajal has published more than 100 articles in French and Spanish scientific periodicals, especially on the fine structure of the nervous system and especially of the brain and spinal cord, but including also that of muscles and other tissues, and various subjects in the field of general pathology. These articles are dispersed in numerous Spanish journals and various specialized journals of other countries (especially French ones).

Lots of talking, and admittedly you won't see a human face until minute 2:11 (given so you can go to that frame and continue). All in all, a good lecture and the title I repeat for this blog post. It was itself imaginative, and fully appropriate.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959

Severo Ochoa, Arthur Kornberg

Born: 24 September 1905, Luarca, Spain

Died: 1 November 1993, Madrid, Spain

Affiliation at the time of the award: New York University, College of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

Prize motivation: "for their discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid"

Severo Ochoa was born at Luarca, Spain, on September 24th, 1905. He is the son of Severo Ochoa, a lawyer and business man, and Carmen de Albornoz.

Ochoa was educated at Málaga College, where he took his B.A. degree in 1921.* His interest in biology was greatly stimulated by the publications of the great Spanish neurologist, Ramón y Cajal, and he went to the Medical School of the University of Madrid, where he obtained his M.D. degree (with honours) in 1929. While he was at the University he was Assistant to Professor Juan Negrin and he paid, during the summer of 1927, a visit to the University of Glasgow to work under Professor D. Noel Paton.

After graduating in 1929 Ochoa went, with the aid of the Spanish Council of Scientific Research, to work under Otto Meyerhof at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Medizinische Forschung at Heidelberg. During this period he worked on the biochemistry and physiology of muscle, and his outlook and training were decisively influenced by Meyerhof.

In 1931, Ochoa was appointed Lecturer in Physiology at the University of Madrid, a post he held until 1935. In 1932 he went to the National Institute for Medical Research, London, where he worked with Dr. H. W. Dudley on his first problem in enzymology.

Returning to Madrid in 1934, he was appointed Lecturer in Physiology and Biochemistry there and later became Head of the Physiology Division of the Institute for Medical Research, Madrid. In 1936 he was appointed Guest Research Assistant in Meyerhof's Laboratory at Heidelberg, where he worked on some of the enzymatic steps of glycolysis and fermentation. In 1937 he held a Ray Lankester Investigatorship at the Plymouth Marine Biological Laboratory and from 1938 until 1941 he worked on the biological function of vitamin B1 with Professor R. A. Peters at Oxford University, where he was appointed Demonstrator and Nuffield Research Assistant.

While he was at Oxford he became interested in the enzymatic mechanisms of oxidative metabolism and in 1941 he went to America and worked, until 1942, at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, where he was appointed Instructor and Research Associate in Pharmacology and worked with Carl and Gerty Cori on problems of enzymology. In 1942 he was appointed Research Associate in Medicine at the New York University School of Medicine and there subsequently became Assistant Professor of Biochemistry (1945), Professor of Pharmacology (1946), Professor of Biochemistry (1954), and Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry. In 1956 he became an American citizen.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1995

Paul J. Crutzen, Mario J. Molina, F. Sherwood Rowland

Born: 19 March 1943, Mexico City, Mexico

Affiliation at the time of the award: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA

Prize motivation: "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone"

Field: Atmospheric and environmental chemistry

I attended elementary school and high school in Mexico City. I was already fascinated by science before entering high school; I still remember my excitement when I first glanced at paramecia and amoebae through a rather primitive toy microscope. I then converted a bathroom, seldom used by the family, into a laboratory and spent hours playing with chemistry sets. With the help of an aunt, Esther Molina, who was a chemist, I continued with more challenging experiments along the lines of those carried out by freshman chemistry students in college. Keeping with our family tradition of sending their children abroad for a couple of years, and aware of my interest in chemistry, I was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland when I was 11 years old, on the assumption that German was an important language for a prospective chemist to learn. I remember I was thrilled to go to Europe, but then I was disappointed in that my European schoolmates had no more interest in science than my Mexican friends. I had already decided at that time to become a research chemist; earlier, I had seriously contemplated the possibility of pursuing a career in music - I used to play the violin in those days. In 1960, I enrolled in the chemical engineering program at UNAM, as this was then the closest way to become a physical chemist, taking math-oriented courses not available to chemistry majors.

After finishing my undergraduate studies in Mexico, I decided to obtain a Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry. This was not an easy task; although my training in chemical engineering was good, it was weak in mathematics, physics, as well as in various areas of basic physical chemistry - subjects such as quantum mechanics were totally alien to me in those days. At first I went to Germany and enrolled at the University of Freiburg. After spending nearly two years doing research in kinetics of polymerizations, I realized that I wanted to have time to study various basic subjects in order to broaden my background and to explore other research areas. Thus, I decided to seek admission to a graduate program in the United States. While pondering my future plans, I spent several months in Paris, where I was able to study mathematics on my own and I also had a wonderful time discussing all sorts of topics, ranging from politics, philosophy, to the arts, etc., with many good friends. Subsequently, I returned to Mexico as an Assistant Professor at the UNAM and I set up the first graduate program in chemical engineering. Finally, in 1968 I left for the University of California at Berkeley to pursue my graduate studies in physical chemistry.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1984

Niels K. Jerne, Georges J.F. Köhler, César Milstein

Born: 8 October 1927, Bahia Blanca, Argentina

Died: 24 March 2002, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Affiliation at the time of the award: MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Prize motivation: "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies"

My father was a Jewish immigrant who settled in Argentina, and was left to his own devices at the age of 15. My mother was a teacher, herself the daughter of a poor immigrant family. For both my mother and my father, no sacrifice was too hard to make sure that their three sons (I was the middle one) would go to university. I wasn't a particularly brilliant student, but on the other hand I was very active in Student Union affairs and in student politics. It was in this way that I met my wife, Celia. After graduation, we married, and took a full year off in a most unusual and romantic honeymoon, hitch-hiking our way through most countries in Europe, including a couple of months working in Israel kibbutzim. As we returned to Argentina, I started seriously to work towards a doctoral degree under the direction of Professor Stoppani, the Professor of Biochemistry at the Medical School. My PhD thesis work was done with no economic support. Both Celia and I worked part-time doing clinical biochemistry, between us earning just enough to keep us going. My thesis was on kinetics studies with the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase. When that was finished, I was granted a British Council Fellowship to work under the supervision of Malcolm Dixon.