BLOGS

All Posts (6399)

Sort by

ABYSSINIA MEDIA GROUP® at the 2018 East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention Philadelphia

Posted by Carles CJ Juzang on May 31, 2018 at 5:00pm

 

  ABYSSIANIA MEDIA GROUP® wishes everyone a Good Day! This is a visual presentation of my East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention 2018 Experience. The excursion to Philadelphia from Los Angeles was a very trying and tiring one. We arrived in Philadelphia on Friday rainy and cloudy morning that turned cooler by evening. Wanted to make the Glyph Comics Awards held at the convention site Tech-Freire Charter High School but health issues due to the cool weather made that a no show for the AMG crew. We were kind of expecting LATE Spring weather and it turned out to be EARLY spring weather.




But on that rainy May 19th Saturday morning it was on! We arrived there before 10 AM and we were assigned our tables, had a mix-up with Black Lighting creator Tony Isabella but got that worked out. I was just glad I got to say a few words to him even if it was out of a confused state (mine). We set up in the main room, saw the positive and most of all creative forces that were out there as friends colleagues and competition. Shout out to Mishindo Kuumba I and his crew, shout out to N. Steven Harris, shout out to Jerome Wolford, shout out to Fari-Raqub & King VII, shout out to Roye Okupe and the YouNeek Studios crew, shout out to my brother from another mother and ECBACC organizer,  Akinseye Brown, shout out to ECBACC President Yumi Odom, most of all shout out to Glyph Award Winner Greg Anderson-Elyseé for is “Nana the Were-Spider.”

The real highlight of the day was the Afri-Coz Play Contest featuring peeps in their favorite comic character costume. There were a lot of favorites and I tried to feature them in the gallery within the latest AMG blog. They may also be seen on ABYSSINIA MEDIA GROUP®'s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages. Not to mention at the actual East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention website – http://ECBACC.COM. We had a wonderful full day but missed the group picture at the end because we were on a tight schedule.

The next day fortunately we were blessed to arrive at Reading Terminal Market after attending worship service to see the last remnants of the Black age of comic convention organizer's breakfast. The ECBACC Breakfast event had ended but we arrived there just in time before the leadership stepped out the door. These pictures featured in the “AMG at the Philadelphia ECBACC 2018 Gallery” in the blog featured at HERE. Much love to all the organizers, much love to all my fellow retailers, most of all looking forward to attending the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention next year in May 2019.

Read more…

Apropos...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 28, 2018 at 1:42pm

Topics: Civil Rights, History, Human Rights, Memorial Day

Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Memorial Day 2018 occurs on Monday, May 28. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of the summer season. Link: History.com

I am a United States Air Force veteran, and a proud member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. as is Colin Kaepernick. A leaked audio revealed why my fraternity brother has effectively been black-balled by NFL owners, cowards all from a charlatan tweeter who's net worth any ONE of them eclipses, the living epitome of a studio gangster.

It is befitting to remember why Colin "took a knee." It has nothing to do with disrespect for a flag, itself a symbol of a nation that has disrespected our contributions as citizens from its inception, when we weren't considered full citizens at all:

I'm going to be offline, a week or two to get together a review paper. I will go back online either 5 or 12 June, both Tuesdays, depending on how well my paper progresses.

Read more…

Chapter 5

Posted by Human Bean on May 28, 2018 at 8:00am

Chapter 5 going live

Dis-OasisPt.5.pdf

This is the final installment and conclusion of Act 1 of Dis- Oasis. 

First I want to say thank you, having my profile featured on this site is exactly the type of exposure I need. I really appreciate the recognition.

So far feedback has been sparse but the number of views are speaking loud and clear. There is a definitive interest in this story so I will be continuing the remainder of this thrilling adventure on my website for free (just sign-up) with installments every 1st and 15th of the month unless otherwise advised.

See you there!

https://hbwritingco.wixsite.com/hbwc/dis-oasis-chapters

Read more…

Follow da Mouse

Posted by Turtel Onli on May 26, 2018 at 7:53am

Now that The Mouse has made it legit to say or think, "Black / African derived super hero" folks can rise up and openly participate indie Black Age of Comics' creators and their continued lines of amazing products. After decades of being "Indie Black adverse" many can now deal in legal Black-Money by collecting and gifting indie-Black Age products.  Putting them in the hands of so many hungry deserving fans and students. The Mouse has come a long way since his early minstrlal shimy days to rise and rule. Its nice to see him open up the door. 

Now lets see who is willing to leave the plantations of the mainstream.

As we have been saying for over a decade.... "Indie today: Black Age Forever!

Read more…

Follow da Mouse

Posted by Turtel Onli on May 26, 2018 at 7:52am

Now that The Mouse has made it legit to say or think, "Black / African derived super hero" folks can rise up and openly participate indie Black Age of Comics' creators and their continued lines of amazing products. After decades of being "Indie Black adverse" many can now deal in legal Black-Money by collecting and gifting indie-Black Age products.  Putting them in the hands of so many hungry deserving fans and students. The Mouse has come a long way since his early minstrlal shimy days to rise and rule. Its nice to see him open up the door. 

Now lets see who is willing to leave the plantations of the mainstream.

As we have been saying for over a decade.... "Indie today: Black Age Forever!

Read more…

La Cosa Nostra...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 25, 2018 at 7:47am
CBS News Almanac: Al Capone

Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Politics

Cosa nostra is an Italian phrase for 'our thing'. It is exclusively used to describe Italian and Italian-American Mafia organization. It can sometimes be described as La Cosa Nostra. See: Answers.com

The Sopranos was a ground-breaking series about an Italian-American crime family. Played flawlessly by the late James Gandolfini and set in New Jersey, Tony Soprano tried to be a "good family man" while running "his [Mafia] thing." Unlike our draft-dodging, wimp wanna-be-gangster-in-chief, Tony had the presence of mind to seek psychiatric help to deal with..."job-related stress."

"Our thing"...it's the only thing that explains the wise-guy tactics, the implicit loyalty pledges (denied, or not), paying off Playboy centerfolds, adult film stars and 81% of morally righteous, tell-everyone-else-how-to-live white evangelicals (or, evil-gelicals) being OK with "grab 'em by the p." Every "presidential* address" - if you want to call it that - is an intellectual incubus/succubus assault, draining the life out of any modicum of rationality, or common sense you may possess. DNA telomeres and thus human lifespans dwindle by the time he's finished a complete sentence...which is rare!

The last night of the RNC was like “The Dark Knight Returns”: the world was essentially a shit show like Gotham, and Batman screamed for 75 minutes incoherent, semi form, hand-tossed Word Salad anointing himself Bruce-Wayne-Almighty-Cheetos-Jesus savior of the planet by the strength of his will alone (no cool gadgets – just a Galaxy Smart Phone and a twitter handle he misspells as he jacks off on almost daily). The Bat’s bravery was previously demonstrated during his selfless sacrificed Vietnam five deferments to let others more worthy die in his place. See: Party of Apocalypse

His business failures are myriad, but that doesn't stop a good conman, seemingly determined to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for Olympic-level lying. Truth is as flexible as his bowels are loose, the muse for most of his twitter postings, as that can be the only valid reason a septuagenarian is up at wee hours of the morning to electronically defecate his first thoughts from tiny hands and fingers into a cyberspace toilet. The epitome of double entendre.

The North Korean summit - after commemorative plaque, self-congratulation and chants of "Nobel" by his bewildered herd cult following - was canceled. The "Libyan model" was touted by those in his cabinet that have never seen a war they didn't like OTHER people's children fighting for profit. I guess those vast negotiation skills of being a rude prick in New York City doesn't play well on the world stage. Some of his Reddit cult considered him "god emperor" once-upon-a-time. I wonder if they've sobered up now?

This is a buffoon. His narcissism doesn't allow him to admit his ineptitude or incompetence. In his twisted mind, he's a big boss on the level of Al Capone; a dark, political genius equivalent to Hitler or Pol Pot. He's more like a lapdog underling salivating at the Kingpin in Russia he'd one day like to be (and never will). Fredo Corleone has the nuclear codes, and apparently is unraveling from what little grip on sanity he ever had. He's more a poor man's idea of what a rich man looks like after a night chugging Mad Dog 20/20, followed by shots of Tequila. He's only genius on spreading lies, innuendo and birther racist nonsense. His signature "semi form, hand-tossed" signaling of balsa wood stick planes to runways between the Propecia strands on his toupee doesn't make him anymore "tough" looking than his five military deferments. His staffer's crass denigration of Senator John McCain's brush with cancer and wartime sacrifice goes un-apologized, or fired for.

On this auspicious occasion of our "reality TV" president*, with the controversy over NFL players now being fined for kneeling at games - violating their First Amendment Rights to free speech, may I suggest a new, more apropos National Anthem, since the old one does talk about slavery in the third stanza, along with the second, we don't sing? (Hey - it's "our thing"):

Read more…

Space, Time and Quanta...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 24, 2018 at 9:29pm
Credit: Chris Gash

Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, Einstein, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity

Physicists believe that at the tiniest scales, space emerges from quanta. What might these building blocks look like?

People have always taken space for granted. It is just emptiness, after all—a backdrop to everything else. Time, likewise, simply ticks on incessantly. But if physicists have learned anything from the long slog to unify their theories, it is that space and time form a system of such staggering complexity that it may defy our most ardent efforts to understand.

Albert Einstein saw what was coming as early as November 1916. A year earlier he had formulated his general theory of relativity, which postulates that gravity is not a force that propagates through space but a feature of spacetime itself. When you throw a ball high into the air, it arcs back to the ground because Earth distorts the spacetime around it, so that the paths of the ball and the ground intersect again. In a letter to a friend, Einstein contemplated the challenge of merging general relativity with his other brainchild, the nascent theory of quantum mechanics. That would not merely distort space but dismantle it. Mathematically, he hardly knew where to begin. “How much have I already plagued myself in this way!” he wrote.

Einstein never got very far. Even today there are almost as many contending ideas for a quantum theory of gravity as scientists working on the topic. The disputes obscure an important truth: the competing approaches all say space is derived from something deeper—an idea that breaks with 2,500 years of scientific and philosophical understanding.

A kitchen magnet neatly demonstrates the problem that physicists face. It can grip a paper clip against the gravity of the entire Earth. Gravity is weaker than magnetism or than electric or nuclear forces. Whatever quantum effects it has are weaker still. The only tangible evidence that these processes occur at all is the mottled pattern of matter in the very early universe—thought to be caused, in part, by quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field.

Black holes are the best test case for quantum gravity. “It's the closest thing we have to experiments,” says Ted Jacobson of the University of Maryland, College Park. He and other theorists study black holes as theoretical fulcrums. What happens when you take equations that work perfectly well under laboratory conditions and extrapolate them to the most extreme conceivable situation? Will some subtle flaw manifest itself?

What Is Spacetime? George Musser, Scientific American

Read more…

Tea Leaves and Quantum Dots...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 23, 2018 at 10:05am
Image Source: EurekAlert!

Topics: Biology, Biomedicine, Cancer, Nanotechnology, Quantum Dots

We now have a clean, cheap way of manufacturing quantum dots, an advanced, microscopic tool that scientists are learning how to use to enhance everything from solar panels to cancer treatments. All they needed was green tea leaf extract, along with a couple other chemicals.

But let’s back up, because that’s a lot to take in. Quantum dots are a kind of nanoparticle that span from two to five nanometers.

In the past, synthesizing these quantum dots was cost and waste-intensive, but a team out of Wales’ Swansea University found a way to create quantum dots from Camellia sinensis leaf extract, which is the same plant from which green and black tea are brewed. Using tea leaf extract instead of conventional ingredients meant the manufacturing process was non-toxic and cost effective. The same team also found that their quantum dots could penetrate the tiny pores on the outer membrane of skin cancer cells and stopped the growth of 80 percent of the cancerous cells in a lab sample.

Quantum Dots Synthesized From Tea Leaves Could Be The Future Of Nanomedicine

Dan Robitzski, Futurism

Read more…

Extraction!

Posted by Ronald T. Jones on May 22, 2018 at 2:10pm

https://www.amazon.com/Extraction-Ronald-T-Jones-ebook/dp/B079Z1GMDQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526999566&sr=1-1&keywords=Extraction+by+ronald+t.+jones

Far future Earth. Humanity is no longer isolated, having established relations with other sentient species across the stars. But humans remain divided among a group of Regional Coalitions that have replaced the old nation-states.Tensions between the Coalitions threaten an already tenuous peace maintained by Unified Earth, a representative body that has tried to speak with one human voice to the galaxy. Unified Earth asks the African Union, a major Regional Coalition power, to rescue a group of humans that have been kidnapped by marauders and taken to a distant, uncharted planet. The crew of the African Union Exploratory ship, Great Zimbabwe, have been tasked with that perilous assignment. But as Great Zimbabwe's captain, Jas Rahman, will discover, this rescue operation is more than it appears to be. Regional Coalition politics, intrigue, and ultimately, the fate of the African Union, will play a heavy role in the mission. For now, Captain Rahman's sole concern is the mission's success.

Read more…

Graphene Mirabilis...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 22, 2018 at 12:40pm
Illustration: Nanotools Bioscience

Topics: Biology, Cancer, Graphene, Nanotechnology, Research

See: "Annus mirabilis" at Wikipedia for the cultural reference.

Shine light on human heart cells cultured on graphene and they beat faster. Shine light on zebrafish embryos with graphene flakes injected in their hearts, and the contraction of that organ speeds up.

That’s what scientists at the University of California San Diego reported today in the journal Science Advances, in a discovery they say has implications for everything from drug testing to pacemakers.

“Sometimes discoveries happen due to serendipity,” says Alex Savchenko, a biophysics researcher at the university, who led the discovery with Elena Molokanova at the San Diego-based startup Nanotools Bioscience. “In this case we were controlling what we wanted to achieve all the way through the experiment.”

Graphene, the wonder material composed of single atom-thick sheets of carbon, has been a focus of excitement and feverish development ever since some of its properties were first demonstrated, in 2004, by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, both now at the University of Manchester.

One of graphene’s many talents is that it can convert light into electricity. Savchenko and his colleagues hypothesized that the electricity generated by graphene could also stimulate human cells.

After honing the graphene formulation and trying out different types of light, Savchenko’s team managed to do what they set out to do: They built a gentle remote control for cell growth. Call it an opto-graphene stimulator.

Gif: Nanotools Bioscience This video shows heart cells being manipulated by an optical graphene stimulator.

Graphene Stimulator Paves Way for Optical Pacemakers, Smart Opioids, and Electronic Cancer Killers

Emily Waltz, Spectrum IEEE

Read more…

Product Review Updates

Posted by Stephen Alexander on May 21, 2018 at 9:31pm

Occasionally, I will update members of the club as to the status of products I've reviewed.

Here's what I learned this week.

  • Katharos: The Shattered World is returning from hiatus with a new site in June. Click the Patreon link for more details
  • Keloid has made its Indiegogo goal and has the funds it needs for season 2. They may have started production. Their Indiegogo page did not say. Click the link if you're curious.
  • The Force #2 is in progress. Check out UrbanGodInk Studios at their facebook page.
  • Urban Shogun has a sci-fi comic out now called Sankofa Guard. Check it out here.

That's all the update I could find. Support our fellow creatives and check them out!

Read more…

Product Review Updates

Posted by Stephen Alexander on May 21, 2018 at 9:27pm

Occasionally, I will update members of the club as to the status of products I've reviewed.

Here's what I learned this week.

  • Katharos: The Shattered World is returning from hiatus with a new site in June. Click the Patreon link for more details
  • Keloid has made its Indiegogo goal and has the funds it needs for season 2. They may have started production. Their Indiegogo page did not say. Click the link if you're curious.
  • The Force #2 is in progress. Check out UrbanGodInk Studios at their facebook page.
  • Urban Shogun has a sci-fi comic out now called Sankofa Guard. Check it out here.

That's all the update I could find. Support our fellow creatives and check them out!

Read more…

Kilauea Prognostication...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 21, 2018 at 8:05am
Debris came rocketing out of Kilauea during the steam eruption on 17 May.Credit: USGS-HVO

Topics: Geophysics, Earthquake, Research, Stochastic Modeling

After weeks of unleashing earthquakes and lava flows that have forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes, Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has finally blown its top. Because Kilauea is one of the best-monitored volcanoes in the world, scientists hope that data on the event will help them to better predict when similar volcanoes are about to erupt.

“We’ll be working on this set of data for our careers,” says Michael Poland, a geophysicist at the US Geological Survey (USGS) Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington.

The USGS says that the eruption began at 4:15 am local time on 17 May, when the volcano sent a plume of ash and steam more than 9,100 metres into the air.

The many instruments on and around Kilauea were watching. The volcano bristles with equipment that continuously measures signs of geological activity, such as ground movement, lava chemistry and seismic vibrations.

The first hint of an impending eruption came with a series of earthquakes on 3 May. Soon after, fissures opened up in the ground as far as 40 kilometres away from the volcano’s rim — oozing lava that forced about 2,000 people to evacuate. The openings also depressurized the network of underground channels beneath Kilauea, including its lava chamber. As a result, the lava level within the volcano's crater quickly dropped by more than 30 metres. It was, Poland says, “like someone pulled the plug in a bathtub”.

Hawaii volcano eruption holds clues to predicting similar events elsewhere

Sara Reardon, Nature

Read more…

A Dark Calculus...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 18, 2018 at 6:30am
Comic Book dot com: Infinity War, Slide 9/11 (ominously)

Topics: Civil Rights, Commentary, Existentialism, History, Human Rights, Science Fiction

If you haven't read the comic, or seen Avengers: Infinity War, disengage now...

Thanos

Thanos is a fictional villain in the Marvel Universe. He's a Titan, he apparently has an Infinity Gauntlet to harness the power of magic stones that thankfully don't exist, and from his making Hulk hide in his Bruce Banner persona (as in, not coming out after the EPIC beat down), he's one bad dude, especially with the whole snapping 50% of all life everywhere out of existence (you were warned).

Have no fear: some kismet gumbo-jumbo will bring most of the heroes back (especially the ones without expiring contracts and pending movies on the docks).

He's also apparently an intergalactic economist, as his beef is there are too many people in the universe (HOW he would come to know this is a mystery), and too few resources. It reminded me of a chap in our own terrestrial history.

Malthus

Thomas Robert Malthus was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus observed that an increase in a nation's food production improved the well-being of the populace, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which in turn restored the original per capita production level. In other words, mankind had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, a view that has become known as the "Malthusian trap" or the "Malthusian spectre". Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship and want and greater susceptibility to famine and disease, a view that is sometimes referred to as a Malthusian catastrophe. Malthus wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible. He saw population growth as being inevitable whenever conditions improved, thereby precluding real progress towards a Utopian society: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". As an Anglican cleric, Malthus saw this situation as divinely imposed to teach virtuous behaviour. From Wikipedia

Now note National Security Study Memorandum 200, often cited by anti-abortion rights activists as evidence of a global cabal to sacrifice children on Moloch's altar:

National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200) was completed on December 10, 1974 by the United States National Security Council under the direction of Henry Kissinger.

It was adopted as official US policy by US President Gerald Ford in November 1975. It was classified for a while but was obtained by researchers in the early 1990s.

The basic thesis of the memorandum was that population growth in the least developed countries (LDCs) is a concern to US national security, because it would tend to risk civil unrest and political instability in countries that had a high potential for economic development. The policy gives "paramount importance" to population control measures and the promotion of contraception among 13 populous countries to control rapid population growth which the US deems inimical to the socio-political and economic growth of these countries and to the national interests of the United States since the "U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad" and the countries can produce destabilizing opposition forces against the US.

It recommends for US leadership to "influence national leaders" and that "improved world-wide support for population-related efforts should be sought through increased emphasis on mass media and other population education and motivation programs by the UN, USIA, and USAID."

Thirteen countries are named in the report as particularly problematic with respect to US security interests: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. The countries are projected to create 47 percent of all world population growth. Wikipedia

We have winnowed down from: too many people in the universe, to too many of lower classes - a "Malthusian catastrophe" - to finally, too many of a "certain type" of people (blessed with an abundance of Melanin). And when you've created a canopy economical system, you have to somehow differentiate yourselves from the riffraff on the forest floors of the world, especially when your group has all the diamonds, rubies, gold and land. Physical characteristics are a no-brainer: that gets the bewildered herds acting tribal, and not thinking about how the "system is [actually] rigged"...against them. Infighting, bickering; shouting slogans are all to the benefit of the uber-class that purchase politicians like we do laundry detergent pods, and comfortably get insanely richer than any caricature we've ever had of Scrooge McDuck.

"Occam’s razor, also spelled Ockham’s razor, also called law of economy or law of parsimony, principle stated by the Scholastic philosopher William of Ockham (1285–1347/49) that pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, “plurality should not be posited without necessity.” The principle gives precedence to simplicity: of two competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred. The principle is also expressed as “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.”" Britannica online/Occam's razor

It may be why sensible gun control in the US is so elusive, and gun violence in Chicago is thrown in our faces, while gun violence at Parkland et al though tragic, only solicits "thoughts and prayers." It may be why the US invests in for-profit prisons; or now sees opioid dependence as crisis, and crack cocaine as criminal. It may be as simple as faux societal demarcations generated by a psychotic Politburo to manipulate a powerless Proletariat. It may be as simple as a crass, Malthusian distribution of resources upwards, not caring about the rest of the species, and no clear plan "B" when the ecosystem the selfish ones are also a part of, comes apart and reduces their wealth from the Law of Entropy, to meaningless rubble...

** ..."Snap"... **
Read more…

The Fruits of Their Labors...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 17, 2018 at 7:51am

Topics: Civics, Commentary, Existentialism, Research

It has finally happened. The inevitable was likely to come. As we've celebrated stupidity as a virtue (hell, we somehow let a foreign power put an imbecile with the attention span of a gnat, and has taken pathological lying to Olympic levels in charge of the nuclear codes), it was most assuredly going to be reflected in the data:

The US’s dominance in scooping Nobel prizes for work in the natural sciences could be nearing an end, according to a new analysis of previous winners. Carried out by physicist Claudius Gros from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, it also finds that the UK has won the most Nobel prizes per capita, with Germany coming second and the US a close third (R. Soc. Open Sci. 5 180167).

Since they were first awarded in 1901, scientists who are nationals of the US, the UK, Germany and France have won the most Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine. Around 120 laureates have been American, 40 British, 40 German and 20 French. To determine Nobel-prize productivity, however, Gros factored out population size, particularly given that the US population has more than quadrupled from 76 million in 1901 to 327 million today.

Of course, the laborers will deny it, pious and humble in their efforts to denigrate science, scandalize research, question reality, facts, data: try to morally equivocate between evolution and (not) "intelligent design." We have been on this anti-intellectual Primrose Path since the Scopes Monkey trials. A select segment of the species here in America made denial of facts a staple of membership to the cult, and find they have a political voice in a bipolar tweeting, carnival-barking avatar. As Dr. Gros continues:

Gros found that the US’s productivity peaked in 1972 at 0.83 Nobel prizes per year and per 100 million inhabitants. He says that the most striking element of the US data is the continued downward trend. Since 1972 its success rate has fallen by 60% to 0.34 Nobel prizes per year and per 100 million inhabitants, and it is still dropping. “On a per capita basis, the US’s era is definitively coming to an end,” Gros told Physics World. “Within 12 years the US science Nobel prizes productivity should fall by another 50%.”

That will put us down to 0.17 per 100 million inhabitants by 2030, when the population should be: 327,000,000*e^(0.02*18) = 468,698,719 (from the Growth Formula: N = N_0*e^rt, r = growth/death rate of 0.02, t = time).

That's going to be a lot of mouths to feed and employ with fewer and fewer minds to generate new ideas, industries and thus, employment of the masses. Our slide from "exceptionalism" will inevitably follow.

Is the end in sight for US Nobel prize dominance? Culture, History and Society

Michael Allen, Physics World, Bristol, UK

Read more…

58 Years to the Blue Ray...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 16, 2018 at 9:54am
Bright prospect: the first International Day of Light will be celebrated on 16 May. (Courtesy: iStock/RichLegg)

Topics: Applied Physics, Laser, Optical Physics, Photonics

This month sees the first International Day of Light. Wednesday 16 May was chosen because it is the anniversary of the first successful operation of the laser, as demonstrated by the American engineer and physicist Ted Maiman in 1960.

It’s a good choice, because the laser is a perfect example of how a scientific discovery can yield revolutionary benefits to society in all sorts of areas, including communications, healthcare and manufacturing. However, when I read the words “first successful operation of the laser” on the International Day of Light website (lightday.org), I had to look further, as it sounded like there might be more to the story.

I have spent most of my career working in photonics, optical communications and lighting, so I was already somewhat familiar with the laser’s history. However, the details still interested me. It turns out that although Maiman did indeed demonstrate the first working laser on 16 May 1960, he is not the only person with a reasonable claim to have “invented” the laser. The other is Gordon Gould, another US physicist who described “Some rough calculations on the feasibility of a LASER: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation” in his lab notebook in November 1957.

A day of light, James McKenzie, Physics World

Read more…

A Clash of Theories...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on May 15, 2018 at 8:04am
Each universe in a multiverse contains different levels of dark energy, according to the dominant theory. STOLK/GETTY IMAGES

Topics: Astrophysics, Cosmology, Dark Energy, Multiverses, Theoretical Physics

A hypothetical multiverse seems less likely after modeling by researchers in Australia and the UK threw one of its key assumptions into doubt.

The multiverse concept suggests that our universe is but one of many. It finds support among some of the world’s most accomplished physicists, including Brian Greene, Max Tegmark, Neil deGrasse Tyson and the late Stephen Hawking.

One of the prime attractions of the idea is that it potentially accounts for an anomaly in calculations for dark energy.

The mysterious force is thought to be responsible for the accelerating expansion of our own universe. Current theories, however, predict there should be rather more of it around than there appears to be. This throws up another set of problems: if the amount of dark energy around was as much as equations require – and that is many trillions of times the level that seems to exist – the universe would expand so rapidly that stars and planets would not form – and life, thus, would not be possible.

The multiverse idea to an extent accounts for and accommodates this oddly small – but life-permitting – dark energy quotient. Essentially it permits a curiously self-serving explanation: there are a vast number of universes all with differing amounts of dark energy. We exist in one that has an amount low enough to permit stars and so on to form, and thus life to exist. (And we find ourselves here, runs the logic, because we couldn’t find ourselves anywhere else.)

So far, so anthropic. But now a group of astronomers, including Luke Barnes from the University of Sydney in Australia and Jaime Salcido from Durham University in the UK, has published two papers in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society that show the dark energy and star formation balance isn’t quite as fine as previous estimates have suggested.

Multiverse theory cops a blow after dark energy findings

Andrew Masterson, Cosmos Magazine

Read more…