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Making Waves...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 14, 2016 at 7:45am

Topics: Einstein, General Relativity, Gravitational Waves


Rumors are rippling through the science world that physicists may have detected gravitational waves, a key element of Einstein's theory which if confirmed would be one of the biggest discoveries of our time.

There has been no announcement, no peer review or publication of the findings -- all typically important steps in the process of releasing reliable and verifiable scientific research.

Instead, a message on Twitter from an Arizona State University cosmologist, Lawrence Krauss, has sparked a firestorm of speculation and excitement.

LIGO: Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (MIT)
Space Daily: Gravitational wave rumors ripple through science world
Wired: Astrophysicists May Have Found Gravitational Waves. Or Not, Sarah Scoles

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Entanglement Ion Trap...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 13, 2016 at 9:33pm
The ion trap used by Dave Wineland and colleagues at NIST to entangle two different kinds of ions. The gold-on-alumina trap can be seen in the oval window at the centre of the photograph. The oval window is about 2 cm across. (Courtesy: Blakestad/NIST)


Topics: NIST, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics


Quantum entanglement has been created and measured between pairs of two different kinds of nuclei for the first time. Carried out by two independent research groups, the work is a key step towards the creation of ion-based quantum computers, in which different nuclei perform different functions. One of the groups is based at the University of Oxford in the UK and the other at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado.

Information in a quantum computer is stored and transmitted in quantum bits (qubits), which can be entities such as photons or ions. Qubits will quickly lose their quantum nature when in contact with the outside world, which is a challenge for those designing quantum computers. Individual qubits must interact with each other for a quantum calculation to proceed, and so cannot be completely isolated from the outside world.

Physics World: Physicists take entanglement beyond identical ions, Hamish Johnston

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C-3PO Was Almost from the Bronx

Posted by Gotham Parks in the City of NY on January 12, 2016 at 4:00pm

In the press for the latest installment of Star Wars, we came to find out that George Lucas originally intended for C-3PO to have a “Bronx accent.” So I imagined C-3PO as a hardscrabble droid coming up in the South Bronx from the late 1970s onward. These verses are the result.

Read the poem over at gothamparks.nyc. Watch the video presentation below or click here (youtube). Let me know what you think!

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Phase V Hydrogen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 12, 2016 at 9:50am
Planetary scientists think the interior of Jupiter is largely made of phase V hydrogen.
NASA Voyager


Topics: Astrophysics, Chemistry, Materials Science, Planetary Science


By crushing Earth's lightest element with mind-boggling pressures, scientists have revealed an entirely new state of matter: phase V hydrogen.

The squished hydrogen is a precursor to a state of matter first proposed in the 1930s, called atomic solid metallic hydrogen. When cooled to low enough temperatures, hydrogen (which on Earth is usually found as a gas) can become a solid; at high enough pressures, when the element solidifies, it turns into a metal. Planetary scientists think the interior of Jupiter is largely made of the stuff.

And so, in crushing hydrogen at such high pressures, the physicists also got a glimpse of the inner atmosphere of a gas giant, where pressures reach millions of (Earth) atmospheres. [Elementary, My Dear: 8 Elements You've Never Heard Of]

Scientific American: Strange New State of Hydrogen Created, Jesse Emspak, Live Science

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back at the airplane graveyard.

Posted by Arnold L. Johnson on January 12, 2016 at 12:42am

Revisited the airplane graveyard, they were exiled there. A group of guys who were accused of welding junkers into things not suited for urban living. The latest project was mega wind machines. No not wind mills, but.........wind harvesters.

They found cargo plane fuselages, cut them into sections and welded them in a torus configuration. Then they mounted the huge steel doughnut on landing gear trucks. They could drive the thing in any direction. In the middle, the doughnut hole, they built an oversize turbine/generator. Then there were anchor pods which fired anchors into the earth. I said they were nuts during the demo. They mapped a tornadoes path, raced to a level site along the storms trek. The storm wasn't that big but still had the funnel. Adjustments were made in tracking, the darn thing latched onto the tornado. The turbine leaped into action sucking the storm to a wimper. We followed the funnel as long as the ground was level. Then fired the anchor pods, jerking to a stop. The batteries were full and the guys busting with that insane laughter that got them in trouble in the first place. I had to go when they said the words remote deployment.

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CSI...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 11, 2016 at 6:47am


NIST chemist Tom Bruno, who invented a method for recovering trace chemicals such as environmental pollutants and forensic evidence, uses a portable version of the instrument to sample vapor inside an old paint can. The underlying technique is called PLOT-cryoadsorption, or PLOT-cryo - short for porous layer open tubular cryogenic adsorption.

Photo credit: Courtesy NIST/ Photo by Dave Neligh

Topics: Chemistry, Environment, Forensics, NIST, Research


A chemist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a portable version of his method for recovering trace chemicals such as environmental pollutants and forensic evidence including secret graves and arson fire debris.

If successfully commercialized by industry, the briefcase-sized kit could enable detectives, field inspectors and others to carry with them a convenient version of NIST’s “headspace analysis” technique, which identifies solid or liquid compounds based on the makeup of vapors released into nearby air.

The underlying technique is PLOT-cryoadsorption, or PLOT-cryo—short for porous layer open tubular cryogenic adsorption. PLOT-cryo is sensitive, quantitative and more broadly useful than many competing techniques. It can identify compounds that don’t readily evaporate and is not limited to samples dissolved in water, for example. The method recovers vapors by suction or by sweeping a gas across the air above a sample of interest. The laboratory version of the technique has been used to find traces of explosives, spoiled food, residues in arson debris and gravesoil.

NIST: Portable NIST Kit Can Recover Traces of Chemical Evidence, Laura Ost

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ONLI STUDIOS

Posted by Turtel Onli on January 10, 2016 at 11:30am

2016:  Welcome to the Rhythmic-Zone!!!  Whatz in your collection?

ONLI STUDIOS, LLC is an indie publisher and production operation with a large and expanding foot-print! We do Rhythmistic Graphic Novels, Fine Art, video and more.

We are growing our international markets! Our info site averages over 300,000 views a month worldwide!

Our blogs reach over 10,000 viewers monthly.

Our long term clients included Johnson Publishing Company, PLAYBOY,  the DuSable Musueum of African American History, the Chicago Children's Museum, Harold Washington Library, which is the nation's largest public municipal library, The South Side Community Art Center,  Graham Crackers, Quimpy's,and the African American Cultural Center of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

We rock with consulting master animator Philo Barnhart, formerly of Disney, as in The Little Mermaid and Mulan, to direct our growth toward 2D Animation. We network regularly with Yumy Odom of ECBACC, Prof. John Jennings, Damian Duffy, Joe Currie, Jerry Craft, Andre Batts, Joseph Wheeler III, and the folks at Black Science Fiction Society..


GOAL: Domination matters!

OBJECTIVES:  Selling our products to you in serious appreciation for your time and participation!

Creativity, Culture and Commerce!

Expect more products, events and the next wave of professional  Rhythmistic creative bad assess.

PRODUCTS and SERVICES:

Current titles: NOG, Nubian of Greatness, The Protector of the Pyramides, Malcolm-10, Punkin's Imagination, Sustah-Girl Queen of the Black Age, Button-Heads, Future Funk, Team BLANGA, Going Green In Your City, East West Zodiac, Sasa, and The Legend of the Azaniac.

Rhythmistic graphic novels, educational curriculum workshops,

animation, wearable art, and broadcast music, & video productions.

Founded in 1981 by Prof. Turtel Onli. M.A.A.T.

Professor of Art at the Harold Washington College of Chicago.

Former Major Market Free lance Illustrator, ( former clients included: PLAYBOY, WGN, Ebony Jr. Capital Records, Motown, The Paris Metro, Mode Avant Garde and Holt, Rhinehart & Winston) and retired as a Chicago Public School Educator.


Address: 1448 East 52nd Street #468

Chicago IL 60615 USA

www.onlistudios.com

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Aliens Among Us...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 8, 2016 at 10:38am
See "into glass" link.


Topics: Biology, Planetary Science, SETI, Space, Space Exploration


Tardigrades are fascinating creatures. Not only are new species being found in Antarctica and Maine, they're near indestructible. The latest is when it really gets rough, they can turn themselves into glass. I think we'll find them on Mars and other planets in our own solar system. I think anything this adaptable and tough can live places WE can't! Most species have about 1% "foreign DNA," usually from ingestion of food stuffs and evolution: tardigrades have 17%.

I applaud the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and life on other worlds. I think with a simple microscope, we might have missed the obvious ones in front of us.

Related links:

IFL Science: Tardigrades
Extreme Tech: Tardigrades, already impossible to kill, also have foreign DNA,
Jessica Hall

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Two For One...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 7, 2016 at 7:03am
Image source: Space.com


Topics: Astronomy, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration


On Friday (Jan. 8), the planet Venus will appear to pass close by Saturn, making this a rare opportunity to see two planets at the same time in a telescope's narrow field of view.

During the planetary encounter, Venus will appear to pass just 5 arc minutes north of Saturn. That means the distance between the two planets will appear to be a mere one-sixth of the diameter of the moon, small enough to fit in the eyepiece of a powerful telescope.

In a lifetime of observing the skies, I have seen such a close conjunction of two planets only two or three times. With the naked eye, even sharp-eyed observers will be hard pressed to separate the two points of light.

Space.com: Venus Shines Near Saturn in Dazzling Display This Weekend, Geoff Gaherty

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Martian Concrete...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 6, 2016 at 7:12am
Figure 13 (paper): LDPM simulation typical crack propagation in (a) unconfined compression test and (b) splitting
(Brazilian) test


Topics: Civil Engineering, Mars, Materials Science, NASA, Planetary Science, Space Exploration


TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: There is growing interest in the goal of sending humans to Mars. Various space agencies have begun to study the numerous problems such a mission would present, not least of which is protecting humans during the journey.

But once humans arrive on the red planet, they will require high quality buildings in which to live and work. They can take certain structures with them but this can only be a temporary solution. The first colonizers will quickly have to find a way to build structures using the planet’s own resources. But how?

Today we get an answer thanks to the work of Lin Wan and pals at Northwestern University. These guys have worked out how to make Martian concrete using materials that are widely available on Mars. And, crucially this concrete can be formed without using water, which will be a precious resource on the red planet.

The key material in a Martian construction boom will be sulphur, says the Northwestern team. The basic idea is to heat sulphur to about 240 °C so that it becomes liquid, mix it with Martian soil, which acts as an aggregate, and then let it cool. The sulphur solidifies, binding the aggregate and creating concrete. Voila—Martian concrete.

Physics arXiv:
A Novel Material for In Situ Construction on Mars: Experiments and Numerical Simulations
Lin Wan, Roman Wendner, Gianluca Cusatis

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The Seventh Row...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 5, 2016 at 6:38am
Image source: Scientific American


Topics: Chemistry, Materiels Science, Periodic Table, Research, Science


Chemists and physicists have begun 2016 heavy with resolution—superheavy, in fact. Two days before 2015 came to end the guardians of the periodic table of the elements—the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry—announced that it was okay to add four new ones, filling out the seventh row. Atoms of each new element are packed with protons in their nuclei, giving the four atomic numbers of 113, 115, 117 and 118.

The permanent names of the new heavy foursome are as yet unknown. Right now they go by placeholders called ununtrium (113), ununpentium (115), ununseptium (117) and ununoctium (118).

Scientific American: 4 New Superheavy Elements Verified, Josh Fischman

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Ig Nobel...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 4, 2016 at 7:01am


Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Nobel Laureate, Nobel Prize, Women In Science


The Ig Nobel is an actual "thing." From their own description:

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.

Every September, in a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theatre, 1100 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the new winners step forward to accept their Prizes. These are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel Laureates.

CEREMONY: The 26th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will happen on Thursday, September 22, 2016, at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Tickets will go on sale in July.

It's mostly tongue-in-cheek obviously, but this article from Forbes caught my eye and reminded me of one I did in 2011 titled "Dark Matters" along the same vein.

The people I root for in the actual Nobel seem to never make it. Yet, in my and other's opinions, they're doing really great research and science that should be applauded, appreciated and lauded. Carl Sagan was so vilified when he was attempting to PROMOTE science via the original Cosmos - by other scientists - The Sagan Effect gives most caution and pause as to how much they'll enter the public sphere, if at all.

I've grown cynical, and not so sure that the Nobel Prize in its current format is the way to do so (I've given similar critique to the motion picture academy). It seems to me, the current format is contributing mostly to the old-boy system and "the big head."

The Nobel Prizes are not the final say in good science, and Nobel laureates are not necessarily the best scientists — much less the wisest human beings.

And like it or not, people listen to Nobel laureates when they speak, even when they are out of their areas of expertise. Sometimes the prize seems to go to the winners’ heads so much that they seem to lose it entirely. William Shockley, a co-discoverer of the transistor, and James Watson, who won the Nobel for discovering the structure of DNA, both used their reputations to promote very racist ideas. Most recently, Tim Hunt said some sexist and insulting things in front of a group of female Korean scientists — who had invited him to speak, no less.

One pointed excerpt by the author:

- Then there’s the bias toward European and American researchers, which is thankfully becoming less pronounced. However, historically it’s been a huge problem, and that’s not even including the antisemitism in the prize committee’s early years. No Nobel was given in 1921 to avoid awarding Albert Einstein. (He was grudgingly given the 1921 award the following year along with Niels Bohr’s 1922 prize, and even then antisemites fought his inclusion.) Racism in science is a very uncomfortable topic, but we need to face up to it, and the Nobel Prize hangs a lampshade on the extent we have yet to grapple with it.

Last year, we lauded Einstein for his contribution to the General Theory of Relativity; his coinciding birthday also as the nerdy "Pi day": 3/14/15, 9:25:53 am (3.141592553). This could all have been hidden and buried under a mound of antisemitism ignorance, not unlike the efforts in Texas to classify slaves as volunteer "workers," clearly in contradiction of their own publicly stated Articles of Secession, where variants of "slave" is mentioned over 20 times, as well as demonstrably faux denouncements of Africans.

I'm also inspired by Einstein's early stance on Civil Rights and friendship and activism with Paul Robeson. I think we unconsciously hold our Laureates to this standard, and are disappointed when they fall from Olympus; their Achilles heels quite evident.

We will fall as a nation and species under the weight of our own hubris.

Forbes: The Nobel Prize Is Bad And We Should Feel Bad, Matthew Francis

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You Can Submit Your Novel To Gollancz This January

Posted by Jason on January 3, 2016 at 8:49pm

Via http://io9.gizmodo.com/you-can-submit-your-novel-to-gollancz-this-january-1750689710

Got an unpublished science fiction, fantasy or horror novel? UK genre publisher Gollancz will be accepting un-agented submissions throughout January!

Starting January 4th (Monday!) through January 22nd, the publisher will be accepting novel submissions. Here’s the trick: you have to mail it in.

Here’s their criteria:

  • Submissions will be open 4th to 22th January 2016. Only submissions with valid postdates will be considered.
  • We will only be accepting PHYSICAL submissions.
  • We will only consider SF, Fantasy, Horror or YA Crossover novels. They must be complete and more than 80,000 words.
  • We will consider previously self-published works.
  • We will not consider works we have previously rejected.
  • We will not consider works sent in by agents, or by authors who already have representation – they can be submitted in the normal way.
  • We are not currently looking for short story collections or anthologies.

Please send:

  • The first 50 pages of your manuscript
  • A cover letter outlining the scope and concept of your work
  • A full synopsis (no more than 1 page, can be single spaced)

Format:

  • Double-spaced
  • Single or double-sided.
  • Please use standard fonts (comic-sans is liable to make our eyes bleed!)

Please address to:

The Gollancz Team
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London
EC4Y 0DZ

http://www.gollancz.co.uk/2015/10/gollancz-direct-submissions-january-2016/

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BioPunks - Sci-Fi Film Kickstarter Campaign

Posted by Royce Adkins on January 1, 2016 at 11:30pm

Hello Everyone,

Today I launched my Kickstarter campaign to fund a film I've been working on called "BioPunks"

Logline:
Three patients who unexpectedly gain enhanced abilities from undergoing an exclusive clinical trial designed to cure their neurological disabilities, must come together to destroy an unrelenting force bent on harnessing the source of their power for his own twisted agenda.

If you are interested in learning more about BioPunks, please visit my Kickstarter page here: http://kck.st/1UksRJB

If you would like to help bring my film to life, please support by donating and sharing with as many people as possible.

Thank you and I hope everyone is having a Happy New Year!

Royce

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Backfire Effect...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on January 1, 2016 at 10:11am
From #P4TC post: ET and Prayer Cloths


Topics: Commentary, Philosophy, Politics, Research, Science, SETI, Space Exploration


As I've read, originally the "backfire effect" was applied to how professional women were treated in the workplace, negative to be sure. Lately, it's been applied to our political discourse - up is down; out is in; logic is illogical, and reason be damned.

Humans don't like being wrong, and facts only grind their heels into the cement foundation of their own biased certainty. No matter what, we retreat from reality to the comfortable; we reject data for the surety of our own preconceptions.

Becoming aliens

Neel V. Patel posited an interesting question in his post: "Will Humans Ever Build Starships?"

Think for a moment - if you're in the camp of aliens visiting our somehow special planet out of literally billions of others over several parsecs of options - what it would take?

1. First and foremost, as implied by the Drake Equation, such a civilization needs to survive its own hubris to travel, let alone communicate.

2. Crowd funding wouldn't do, this would be a global, expensive effort on any planet.

3. It would have to be a compelling reason: avoiding extinction, profit, water; to merely "seek out new life and new civilizations" alone wouldn't cut it.

4. Leaving whatever environment and life you've grown accustomed to as "home" for something likely utterly and completely different...alien. This would be a special breed of interstellar explorers indeed.

5. The unlikelihood of warp drive in the foreseeable future, such a 0.1-c trip would be one way in distance and time, else coming back to the home world, the astronauts would find via time dilation most of their former friends and family buried.

Lastly, the astronauts would have to have a means of evaluating new information, jettisoning old information once new data was known, in short steeped in the Scientific Method, something in our current climate of science denial/rejection we're not capable of just yet. A backfire effect even in low Earth orbit could prove suicidal to a crew, let alone a joint mission with a more senior intelligence.

If there are intelligent aliens out there, they are proving it...by ignoring us.

Related links:

Brain Pickings: The Backfire Effect
Columbia Journalism Review: The Backfire Effect
Rational Wiki: The Backfire Effect
Slate: Can we build a Starship Enterprise in the Next 10 Years?
Space.com: Could We Build 'Star Trek's' Starship Enterprise?
You Are Not So Smart: The Backfire Effect

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Bubble Pen Lithography...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 31, 2015 at 10:38am
Schematic illustration of the pattern-writing process using an optically controlled microbubble on a plasmonic substrate and the logo of “UT-AUSTIN” written with 60 nm polystyrene beads. Courtesy: M Yogeesh


Topics: Biology, Carbon Nanotubes, Medical Physics, Nanotechnology, Photonics, Semiconductor Technology


A new “bubble-pen” lithography technique can be used to pattern colloidal and biological particles on solid-state substrates according to researchers at the University of Texas at Austin. The technique, which works by using laser-controlled microbubbles to create the patterns, will find a wide range of applications in microelectronics, nanophotonics and nanomedicine.

Photolithography is one of the main techniques available today to make micro- and nano-scale components for semiconductor devices. However, the problem is that these methods have inherent disadvantages. “Far-field" optical lithography, for example, is limited by the so-called diffraction limit of light, which means that it is extremely difficult to create features smaller than several hundred nanometres across. Techniques based on "near-field" scanning optical microscopy can overcome the diffraction limit by bringing the light source very near to the surface, but they are low-throughput and can only scan small areas at a time. Electron-beam lithography, although able to produce much smaller features, is also limited by the choice of working materials and substrates that can survive exposure to an electron beam.

The new bubble-pen lithography technique invented by Yuebing Zheng's team in collaboration with Deji Akinwande's and Andrew Dunn's groups in Texas uses a single low-power laser beam to generate a microbubble at the interface of a colloidal suspension of nanoparticles and a plasmonic substrate containing a network of metallic nanoparticles that interact strongly with light via localized surface plasmons (collective oscillations of electrons on a metal's surface). These metal particles act as efficient optical nanoantennas and can focus light to wavelengths dramatically below the diffraction limit. The microbubble produced captures and immobilizes the colloidal particles on the substrate and by directing the laser beam to move the bubble, the researchers can create different patterns from the colloidal particles with varying sizes and architectures.

Nanotechweb: Bubble-pen lithography patterns nanodevices, Belle Dumé

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Sufficient Verification...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on December 30, 2015 at 7:30am


Satellite imagery facilities at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards department. The IAEA will use imagery purchased from commercial satellite operators as part of its regime for verifying Iran’s compliance with the recent agreement to limit its nuclear activities.

DEAN CALMA/IAEA

Citation: Phys. Today 68, 12, 26 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3014

Topics: Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power, Politics


The International Atomic Energy Agency will use the latest surveillance technologies to ensure compliance.

As early as the end of this month, Iran says it will complete actions to dramatically scale back its nuclear program. Once those steps are completed and verified, the world’s declared nuclear weapons states and Germany, collectively known as the P5+1, are to begin lifting the crippling economic sanctions that were imposed on Iran beginning in 2006.

Experts are confident the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is sound. In a statement released in August, 77 nonproliferation specialists wrote, “The JCPOA is effectively verifiable. The agreement will put in place a multi-layered monitoring regime across Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, including centrifuge manufacturing sites for 20 years, uranium mining and milling for 25 years, and continuous monitoring of a larger number of nuclear and nuclear-related sites.”

...3...2...1... counting down to the blowhards. Smiley Faces

Fear is a lucrative business, and the Internet allows some to sound fairly legit with a URL and a few techno tricks in Dreamweaver. Playing footsies with Armageddon is an insane venture, with only one unpleasant end.

There is a general disdain for expertise and facts in an era where the louder one continues bloviating, the more likely you are to be taken at face value. Our media is more concerned with ratings than journalism; the ideals of "holding power accountable" sacrificed on the Baal altar of Nielsen.
I unfortunately, have used Isaac Asimov a lot lately.

Also sadly, our political establishment in collusion with the business of war, where "peace on Earth and good will to all men" must be counter to the business model. After all, profits go up in this country after every mass shooting, navel-gazing, hand-wringing nothing; the arsenal at ISIS/ISIL's disposal didn't just "drop out of the sky."

I wish the effort well as anyone sane should. "Duck and cover" should be a quaint part of our history of the previous century...not rediscovered.

Physics Today: Experts say Iran nuclear agreement is sufficiently verifiable
David Kramer

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