Dark matter...dark energy...dark lightning...dark flow: I feel somewhat like a Sith Lord...
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| Credit: Nature |
National Geographic: New Proof Unknown "Structures" Tug at Our Universe
New Scientist: Blow for 'dark flow' in Planck's new view of the cosmos
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The zombies are coming—and 13-year old Kendra and her grandpa Joe are in the woods fighting for survival in the midst of an apocalypse. Husband-and-wife team writers and producers: Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes are creators of the horror film, Danger Word. The short is based on the original story The Living Dead 2 written by John Joseph Adams and has snagged veteran actor Frankie Faison and young thespian, Saoirse Scott.
The creative pair raises the question: when is a horror movie more than a horror movie? Is it when a community pulls together to escape, a teenage girl learns her strength, or when the heroes and heroines are black? The aim of the film is to highlight African-Americans in science fiction and fantasy, and to serve as a road map for children and adults who are ready to fulfill their artistic dreams.
A dense sheet of electrons accelerated to close to the speed of light can act as a tuneable mirror that can generate bursts of laser-like radiation in the short wavelength range via reflection. A team of physicists from the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München, the Queens University Belfast (QUB) and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) near Oxford created such a mirror in a recent experiment. The scientists used an intense laser pulse to accelerate a dense sheet of electrons from a nanometre-thin foil to close to the speed of light and reflected a counter-propagating laser pulse from this relativistic mirror. With this experiment, the physicists managed to carry out a Gedankenexperiment (thought experiment) formulated in 1905 by Albert Einstein stating that the reflection from a mirror moving close to the speed of light could in principle result in bright light pulses in the short wavelength range. The researchers report on their results in Nature Communications, 23. April, 2013.
In everyday life, reflections of light are usually observed from surfaces that are at rest such as the reflection from a piece of glass or a smooth surface of water. But, what happens if one creates a mirror moving incredibly fast, close to the speed of light? This question was answered more than a century ago by Albert Einstein in 1905 in his theory of special relativity. Now, an international team of researchers investigated that question in an experiment.
Max Planck Institute: Light bursts out of a flying mirror
Black Speculative Fiction Contest
RAGAZINE.CC
“Speculative Fiction by People of Color”
COMPETITION
$1000.00 First Prize.
Entry Fee just $15.00 per story.
Final judge Sheree Renée Thomas will provide a critique of the 2nd and 3rd place
entries. Honorable mentions will be made to the 4th and 5th place entries.
First prize $1,000.00 for the best piece
of speculative fiction completed
by a person of color in 2013.
Read More: http://ragazine.cc/2013/04/contest/
That I am thankful for, really.
Christopher Emdin, professor of science and education writes "5 Ways to Stop a Black Scientist - Kiera Wilmot's Arrest" and I have to say something not just for clarity, but for sanity. The five ways are thus:
Criminalize curiosity - needed for scientific research.
Sending student to "expulsion schools" - see my comments below.
Stifling innovation.
Putting outdated rules over education.
Prison-type policies.
We keep observing like the proverbial deer in headlights an oncoming global train wreck with the smug arrogance that "America" is somehow a magical chant; an incantation that inoculates us from slipping from preeminence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Our global competitors do NOT have tax-funded "creation museums"; our global competitors do NOT make political litmus tests involving a litany of science denial (The Big Bang, Climate Change, Evolution, Relativity - the MOON landing!); our global competitors do NOT have draconian standardized tests converting their students into the equivalent of Pavlov's canines: their teachers TEACH, and the profession is rightly revered. Finland, for example has not resorted to for-profit charter schools that will enrich a few and serve no one, and they are whipping our intellectual assets in an academic smackdown across Terra Firma!
We're not a "post-racial" society: if anything, 2008 and 2012 showed the rising political power of so-called minorities and much maligned millennials; their ability to make themselves known at the ballet box. We're still sectioning ourselves into "proper" career pursuits, and societal positions - note the diversity in AP classes at any high school campus; note the celebration of athletic or musical prowess and which groups are targeted in advertising it.
Blocking their wishes, rigging the system, changing "times and laws," making it harder to vote only will encourage them to wait - 5, 10 15 hours or more - to make their desires heard, as they do not have unlimited amounts of monies to pour and and purchase a politician. They/We naively believe democracy was based on Jefferson's trinity of three greatest men, and is worth participating in and preserving. Lessening access to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and knowledge is the opposite of John Donne's wisdom: it lessens America from chant to sad historical footnote.
This is far beyond Kiera and race: it is what we want to eventually be as a nation going forward, or in the words of the Bard: "not to be!"
The charges have been dropped, thankfully. Kiera is currently at an "expulsion school," waiting to see if she can return to her campus in the fall, hopefully with her scientific curiosity safely intact.
Orlando Sentinel:
Kiera Wilmot, student who caused small explosion won't face charges
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| This artist's concept shows the huge, scorching-hot "Einstein's planet," formally known as Kepler-76b, orbiting its host star, which has been tidally distorted into a slight football shape (exaggerated here for effect). The planet was detected when astronomers spotted brightness changes in the star induced by the planet due to relativistic effects. CREDIT: David A. Aguilar (CfA) |
Einstein's special relativity has proven more useful than ever, as scientists have now used it to discover an alien planet around another star.
The newfound world — nicknamed "Einstein's planet" by the astronomers who discovered it — is the latest of more than 800 planets known to exist beyond our solar system, and the first to be found through this method.
The planet, officially known as Kepler-76b, is 25 percent larger than Jupiter and weighs about twice as much, putting it in a class known as "hot Jupiters." The world orbits a star located about 2,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
Note: I reproduced the text verbatim, but I think that General Theory - i.e., gravitational lensing - is probably how the planet was discovered, and it is not a new or unique method. RG
Space.com: 'Einstein's Planet': New Alien World Revealed by Relativity
by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor
George Clinton, musician, actor, sci-fi funk evangelist is known and loved the world over as the front man for Fuck Super Group Parliament - Funkadelic.
Originally a "doo-wap" group founded in the late 50's, Parliament would later be converted by George Clinton to atmospheric funk super-stardom
Around the same time that Parliment was being retrofitted for the glories of the 70's, Clinton also started the band "Funkadelic."
In reality, the two groups were always related. Funkadelic was mainly a vehicle for showcasing artists of Parliament. At the time, Clinton was involved in a contractual dispute that left him without the use of the name Parliament." Over time, both groups were marketed as displaying variations on the theme of Funk, even though the same musicians were rotating between the two.
Eventually, Clinton combined the groups into the Afro-futurist super group Parliament-Funkadelic, or as it is more commonly known, "P-Funk."
What follows is the solid gold awesome which are some Parliament / Funkadelic Album covers.
See more at The Moorsgate Media Blog
"Applying such a commodity approach to education, just as in applying it to art or science, or classics or history, or poetry or math or love or joy, defeats the whole point of living and learning and turns universities into trade schools whose sole purpose is to supply the skills that enable one to get a job to earn money to buy things. Our primary asset is not our money. It is the quality of our time on earth. It is the vast misunderstanding by a generation that has lost touch with--or perhaps never really knew--what education should do: open us up to wonder and the great meaning and aesthetic beauty of life."
Fool Me Twice: Fighting The Assault on Science in America, Shawn Lawrence Otto
"Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty."
"Example isn't another way to teach, it is the only way to teach."
"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it."
Albert Einstein
The follow-up to Lightweightz: The Anthology Part One is here! Inspired by 1 Corinthians 12:7 (“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good”), Lightweightz: The Anthology Part Two introduces the remaining four California teenagers, their abilities, and how they are struggling to make sense of them. Join Ayden the pusher, Qasim the revealer, Emi the adapter, and Gabriel the inscriber as they begin carving out paths that will forever change their lives. With four unique stories providing a closer look into the Lightweightz universe, plus tons of bonus art, Lightweightz: The Anthology Part Two has something for everyone!
Writer & Creator: Justin Martin
Artist & Letterer: Przemyslaw R. Dedelis
Colorist: Lya
Check out the super-cool trailer featuring spoken word artist Micah Bournes (www.micahbournes.com):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz7gYfoAa-s
http://vimeo.com/64289705
So grab your copy, and tell your friends!
Hey BlackScienceFictionSociety members...
Check out my author page on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Radford-Lee/e/B00BB6ICAC/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1368502379&sr=8-1
The zombies are coming—and 13-year old Kendra and her grandpa Joe are in the woods fighting for survival in the midst of an apocalypse. Husband-and-wife team writers and producers: Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes are creators of the horror film, Danger Word. The short is based on the original story The Living Dead 2 written by John Joseph Adams and has snagged veteran actor Frankie Faison and young thespian, Saoirse Scott.
The creative pair raises the question: when is a horror movie more than a horror movie? Is it when a community pulls together to escape, a teenage girl learns her strength, or when the heroes and heroines are black? The aim of the film is to highlight African-Americans in science fiction and fantasy, and to serve as a road map for children and adults who are ready to fulfill their artistic dreams.
For more infomation about the film: http://dangerwordfilm.wordpress.com/link
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| View of the main solenoid of the CMS detector at CERN: is new physics lurking in the vast amounts of data acquired by the experiment? (Courtesy: CERN/Samuel Morier-Genoud) |
After discovering the Higgs boson last year, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider are now trawling through the data as the collider undergoes an 18-month shutdown for repairs and upgrades. The goal is to discover hints of physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics – but tantalizing glimpses of new physics have been harder to spot than many physicists had expected.
But while the public has largely taken the discovery of the Higgs boson as mission accomplished for the €3.8bn collider, many particle physicists have been shaking their heads in disappointment. Since it started collecting data, the LHC has exposed few – if any – traces of physics beyond the Standard Model, a framework that is now some 40 years old. There has been no solid evidence for dark matter, supersymmetry, miniature black holes, extra dimensions or any of the other exotic phenomena that theorists excitedly talked about prior to the machine's switch-on. If there is new physics still waiting to be found, the question is: where? And will it turn up in the current shutdown period from an analysis of existing data or in the next, higher energy run?
Physics World: Higgs hunters look beyond the Standard Model
Image Credit: IndieRockCafe.com
An anniversary, of sorts...
History of Mother's Day
"The first official Mother's Day celebrations in the United States took place in West Virginia in 1908, at the urging of Anna Jarvis. Anna's mother (also named Anna), who was active in her community, frequently organized women's groups to promote friendship and health. It had been her dream to reunite families divided by the Civil War with a day dedicated to mothers. When she passed away on May 12, 1907, Anna held a memorial service at her late mother's church in her honor. Her mother's idea of Mother's Day quickly caught on, and within five years of her death, virtually every state was observing the day on the anniversary of her death. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday of May as the official Mother's Day.
"Although Jarvis had promoted wearing a white carnation as a tribute to one's mother, the custom developed of wearing a red or pink carnation to represent a living mother or a white carnation for a mother who was deceased. Over time, the day was expanded to include others, such as grandmothers and aunts, who played mothering roles. However, what had originally been primarily a day of honor became associated with the sending of cards and the giving of gifts and in protest against its commercialization, Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday that she had helped establish.
"Mother's Day is celebrated around the world, either on this date, or at other times of the year. In 17th century England, those who had moved away were allowed to visit their home parishes and their mothers on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent. This became "Mothering Sunday," now celebrated earlier in the year in England. Some countries have also continued to observe ancient festivals; for example, Durga-puja, honoring the goddess Durga, remains an important festival in India."
"You can do anything you want to do, if you set your MIND to it. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you." Mildred D. Goodwin, sunrise 15 September 1925, sunset 7 May 2009, laid to rest 12 May 2009.
Despite my challenging background (#16 on the list), she said this often, and believed the quote I reproduced above, and more importantly: she believed in me.
Mildred: Her name means "gentle strength." She was that. Her name for me was "stink": diapers. You understand.
Please honor your mother (while she lives), who assists you in fulfilling your dreams: http://www.e-cards.com/area/mothers-day/ (also source of "history of Mother's Day" above)
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| Lorenz Attractor - the never-repeating trajectory of a single chaotic orbit, figure 2 (see link) |
With undergraduate and master’s degrees in mathematics, Lorenz had served as a meteorologist in World War II before completing his doctoral studies in meteorology at MIT and joining the MIT faculty in 1955.
At the time, most meteorologists predicted weather using linear procedures, which were based on the premise that tomorrow’s weather is a well-defined linear combination of features of today’s weather. By contrast, an emerging school of dynamic meteorologists believed that weather could be more accurately predicted by simulating the fluid dynamical equations underlying atmospheric flows. Lorenz, who had just purchased his first computer, a Royal McBee LGP-30 with an internal memory of 4096 32-bit words, decided to compare the two approaches by pitting the linear procedures against a simplified 12-variable dynamical model. (Lorenz’s computer, though a thousand times faster than his desk calculator, was still a million times slower than a current laptop.)
In classical physics, one is taught that given the initial state of a system, all of its future states can be calculated. In the celebrated words of Pierre Simon Laplace, “An intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings who compose it—an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis . . . for it, nothing would be uncertain and the future, as the past, would be present to its eyes.”1 Or, put another way, the clockwork universe holds true.
Herein lies the rub: Exact knowledge of a real-world initial state is never possible—the adviser can always demand a few more digits of experimental precision from the student, but the result will never be exact. Still, until the 19th century, the tacit assumption had always been that approximate knowledge of the initial state implies approximate knowledge of the final state. Given their success describing the motion of the planets, comets, and stars and the dynamics of countless other systems, physicists had little reason to assume otherwise.
Starting in the 19th century, however, and culminating with a 1963 paper by MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz, a series of developments revealed that the notion of deterministic predictability, although appealingly intuitive, is in practice false for most systems. Small uncertainties in an initial state can indeed become large errors in a final one. Even simple systems for which all forces are known can behave unpredictably. Determinism, surprisingly enough, does not preclude chaos.
Physics Today: Chaos at Fifty
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| A. Haimovici et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. (2013) Figure 1: (Left column) Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments have revealed that the brain at rest is organized into several areas in which fluctuations of brain activities are correlated, so-called resting state networks (RSN). From top to bottom: Medial visual (VisM), lateral visual (VisL), auditory (Aud), and sensory-motor (SM) RSNs. (Right columns) Results from the work of Haimovici et al. [1] show that a simple model can reproduce the statistical properties of RSNs only if the model is tuned to criticality (at TC) |
Neuroscience is at the brink of an unprecedented advance in obtaining instant, detailed maps of neuronal activity during higher brain functions such as object recognition and decision making. These maps will become possible thanks to a rapid cross fertilization among fields (molecular biology, optics, imaging, microfabrication processes, and nanotechnologies) and are considered crucial to make sense of the complex activities that emerge from the billions of neurons making trillions of connections that constitute the human brain. Relevant large-scale research projects are being carried out or are being planned internationally: the Human Connectome Project and BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) in the US, the Human Brain Project in Europe, and the Brainnetome project in China. The overarching goal of these large undertakings will be to explain how the brain functions, by acquiring and integrating detailed information on brain structure and its dynamical behavior. But will these endeavors succeed? Knowledge about fine structural details of the brain and observations of neuronal activities may not be sufficient if the emergence of forms of collective behavior is not properly captured. Writing in Physical Review Letters, Ariel Haimovichi, at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, and co-workers [1] beautifully exemplify how cooperative phenomena play a key role in determining brain dynamics, by showing that the brain in its resting state (i.e., when not performing an explicit task) is a system at criticality.
APS Viewpoint: The Critical Brain
"Somewhere within the fractional confines of the Multiverse, Agents for the Office of Theoretical Cognition are optimizing your hypothetical self. The problem has been, as it always will be, 'what happens to you, when you are better then you'?
You, you're gonna be in for a world of hurt; that's what. The theoretical you...man...the optimal potential you made corporeal... Sucker, he is better than you on your best day. Theoretical You is about to kick Actual You's ass."
-The Ballad of Brolic Jones
www.moorsgatemedia.blogspot.com
twitter: Moorsgate
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New NIST Reference Materials for MEMS devices are micromachined and further processed to contain miniature cantilevers, beams, stair-like step heights, microscale rulers and test structures for measuring surface-layer thickness. On the left is RM 8096, which was manufactured with an integrated circuit process; on the left is RM 8097, made with a MEMS process. Credit: NIST |
As markets for miniature, hybrid machines known as MEMS grow and diversify, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has introduced a long-awaited measurement tool that will help growing numbers of device designers, manufacturers and customers to see eye to eye on eight dimensional and material property measurements that are key to device performance.
The NIST-developed test chips (Reference Materials 8096 and 8097) are quality assurance tools that enable accurate, reliable comparisons of measurements on MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) devices made with different equipment and by different labs or companies. These capabilities will make it easier to characterize and troubleshoot processes, calibrate instruments and communicate among partners.
MEMS were once considered a stepchild of the semiconductor industry and largely confined to automotive uses—primarily as accelerometers in airbag systems. But the devices have branched out into an array of applications, especially in consumer electronics markets. A high-end smart phone, for example, contains about 10 such devices, including microphones, accelerometers and gyroscopes. MEMS devices also are important components of tablet computers, game consoles, lab-on-a-chip diagnostic systems, displays and implantable medical devices.
NIST: New NIST Measurement Tool Is On Target for the Fast-Growing MEMS Industry
Well, Readers, I'm from South Carolina. What is South Carolina, you ask? It's a state in the U.S.A. in the region commonly known as "The South". It was the state that sparked our nation's civil war. It's a state that clings to this rebellious heritage. One of its senators, Strom Thurmond, was the guy who spoke loudest against civil rights for Black Americans. With all this being said, South Carolina is well-known for racism. Everyone can agree on this. What disturbs me today is that it is now about to be known for political stupidity. Not idealistic stupidity, where I ramble on about values and the principles of the Founding Fathers. South Carolina will now be known as the capital of just plain stupid in America.
Why? Because they just elected Mark Sanford to Congress. Mark Sanford is the former governor of South Carolina, but he's more well-known for his illicit extra-marital affair with an Argentinian national. Am I saying that cheaters shouldn't be elected to office? No. Politicians cheat. I'm a cynic. I am a firm believer in cheating politicians. They'll cheat on their taxes, their constituents, and their wives. None of that is any surprise to me. Former president Bill Clinton was a cheater, so was former California governor Arnold Scharzenegger. Eliot Spitzer liked high-class hookers. Their infidelities are well-known and I, personally, do not judge their politics by their family affairs. Sex is sex. Politics is politics.
What makes electing Mark Sanford such a stupid move is the WAY that he cheated on his wife. For those of you who don't know, Mark Sanford went missing for six days back in 2009. Now you might be in another country reading this, so I want to explain that a state governor turning up missing for six days is not a good thing. No one knew where he was, including the state law division which is supposed to provide security for him. Of course, his wife didn't know where he was either. Before his disappearance, he told his staff that he would be hiking in the mountains for a few days. That's okay. South Carolina has mountains that you can hike. Lots of them. Unfortunately, no one knew which mountain he was supposed to be hiking on. For six days, the entire state of South Carolina, a place roughly the size of Portugal, did not know where its leader was. For six days, 4.7 million people were leaderless.
Where was governor Mark Sanford? In a word: Argentina. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of South Carolina, I will let you know that Argentina is not in the mountains of South Carolina. In fact, it's not in South Carolina at all. The governor left the state without telling anyone. Oh, but it gets worse. Argentina is not only not in South Carolina, it's not in the U.S. It's a country in South America. For six days, the governor wasn't even on the same CONTINENT as South Carolina, and he told NO ONE, not even the people who are supposed to protect him.
Yes, he was cheating on his wife. Whoop-dee-doo! That's not an excuse to abandon your post and leave the country. Had he been a member of our military he would have been imprisoned without question. If he'd been a member of another country's military, he would've been branded a deserter and killed. In case of an emergency, like a natural disaster, an American governor has to be be there to declare a state-of-emergency so that evacuations can be planned, federal money can be freed up to help the needy; and to mobilize the state militia. Being a state governor is actually a pretty important job to have in this country. However, you need to be IN THE STATE or at the very least, IN THE COUNTRY, to do it.
Yes, Bill Clinton cheated on his wife too...with a White House intern. How is that better? Simple.
"Aliens are attacking! Where's the President?"
"In his office."
That's where the President's supposed to be. In his office. Arnold Scharzenegger cheated on his wife with the maid while he was governor of California. How is that better?
"Zombies are attacking Los Angeles. Where's the governor?
"At home."
That's okay. His house is guarded and they have his home phone on record. Eliot Spitzer was an attorney general (very important lawyer) for the state of New York. He was cheating on his wife with a hooker. Where was he? A hotel down the street from his office with his staff's FULL knowledge. Let's try this with Mark Sanford:
"A category 5 hurricane is heading for South Carolina. Where's the governor?"
"Uh, the mountains..."
"Which mountain?"
"He didn't say."
"Did you call him?"
"He's not answering his phone."
He wouldn't be able to answer his cell phone since Argentina is WELL outside the calling plans of most cell phone companies in the U.S. This is bad. Very bad. I understand that South Carolinians respect his political views and hope that he will express them in Congress. However, a congressman's power comes from voting on issues, and, yes, that requires that he actually be in the room, in the country, and on the continent to do it. Of course, when he turns up missing next time, he won't be in Argentina because he's imported his booty-call to the U.S. She's here now. The next time he comes up missing (because cheating is an addiction), he'll more than likely be in Siberia with some Russian heifer. He'll still have his conservative views though, but what good are conservative ideals when you're not IN THE COUNTRY to express them? Thus, congratulations, South Carolina! You are now the center of stupid.
My new book "Squirrels & Puppies" is out now!
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| Structure of superionic ice in (left) the bcc phase and (right) the newly discovered and more stable fcc phase. Credit: Hugh F. Wilson, et al. ©2013 American Physical Society bcc = body-centered cubic; fcc = face-centered cubic |
(Phys.org) —While everyone is familiar with water in the liquid, ice, and gas phases, water can also exist in many other phases over a vast range of temperature and pressure conditions. One lesser known phase of water is the superionic phase, which is considered an "ice" but exists somewhere between a solid and a liquid: while the oxygen atoms occupy fixed lattice positions as in a solid, the hydrogen atoms migrate through the lattice as in a fluid. Until now, scientists have thought that there was only one phase of superionic ice, but scientists in a new study have discovered a second phase that is more stable than the original. The new phase of superionic ice could make up a large component of the interiors of giant icy planets such as Uranus and Neptune.
The scientists, Hugh F. Wilson (now at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation [CSIRO] in Australia), Michael L. Wong, and Burkhard Militzer at the University of California, Berkeley, have published a paper on the new phase of superionic ice in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.
Phys.org:
New phase of water could dominate the interiors of Uranus and Neptune
