BLOGS

Filled with briny lakes, the Quisquiro salt flat in South America's Altiplano region represents the kind of landscape that scientists think may have existed in Gale Crater on Mars, which NASA's Curiosity Rover is exploring. Credit: Maksym Bocharov

Topics: Astrobiology, Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science, Mars, NASA, Planetary Science

The most surprising revelation from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover—that methane is seeping from the surface of Gale Crater—has scientists scratching their heads.

Living creatures produce most of the methane on Earth. But scientists haven't found convincing signs of current or ancient life on Mars, and thus didn't expect to find methane there. Yet, the portable chemistry lab aboard Curiosity, known as SAM, or Sample Analysis at Mars, has continually sniffed out traces of the gas near the surface of Gale Crater, the only place on the surface of Mars where methane has been detected thus far. Its likely source, scientists assume, are geological mechanisms that involve water and rocks deep underground.

If that were the whole story, things would be easy. However, SAM has found that methane behaves in unexpected ways in Gale Crater. It appears at night and disappears during the day. It fluctuates seasonally and sometimes spikes to levels 40 times higher than usual. Surprisingly, the methane also isn't accumulating in the atmosphere: ESA's (the European Space Agency) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, sent to Mars specifically to study the gas in the atmosphere, has detected no methane.

Why is methane seeping on Mars? NASA scientists have new ideas, Lonnie Shekhtman, NASA, Phys.org.

NIJI 6 CONTEST - MAY 21-23, 2024
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Two researchers have revised the Drake equation, a mathematical formula for the probability of finding life or advanced civilizations in the universe.

University of Rochester. Are We Alone in the Universe? Revisiting the Drake Equation, NASA

Topics: Astrobiology, Astrophysics, Artificial Intelligence, Civilization, SETI

See: Britannica.com/The-Fermi-Paradox/Where-Are-All-The-Aliens

Abstract
This study examines the hypothesis that the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), culminating in the emergence of Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), could act as a "Great Filter" that is responsible for the scarcity of advanced technological civilizations in the universe. It is proposed that such a filter emerges before these civilizations can develop a stable, multiplanetary existence, suggesting the typical longevity (L) of a technical civilization is less than 200 years. Such estimates for L, when applied to optimistic versions of the Drake equation, are consistent with the null results obtained by recent SETI surveys, and other efforts to detect various techno-signatures across the electromagnetic spectrum. Through the lens of SETI, we reflect on humanity's current technological trajectory – the modest projections for L suggested here, underscore the critical need to quickly establish regulatory frameworks for AI development on Earth and the advancement of a multiplanetary society to mitigate against such existential threats. The persistence of intelligent and conscious life in the universe could hinge on the timely and effective implementation of such international regulatory measures and technological endeavors.

Is artificial intelligence the great filter that makes advanced technical civilizations rare in the universe? Michael A. Garrett, Acta Astronautica, Volume 219, June 2024, Pages 731-735

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Civilization, Existentialism, Fascism, History

“On **May 17, 1954**, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was, therefore, unconstitutional. This historic decision marked the end of the "separate but equal" precedent set by the Supreme Court nearly 60 years earlier in Plessy v. Ferguson. It served as a catalyst for the expanding civil rights movement during the decade of the 1950s.”

Source: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/brown-v-board-of-education

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated on April 4, 1968, a Thursday. My graduating kindergarten class at Bethlehem Community Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was told by our teachers on Friday, who cried with us and reassured us that the men outside with Confederate flags, shooting in the air, reveling “that n----r’s dead” would not harm us, or prevent our celebration. We slept as well [as possible] through nap time and dressed for our day and [our] parents. Not one child in my photo of the event is smiling. Not one.

I attended segregated schools in Winston-Salem, NC, until my fourth grade year in 1971. “All deliberate speed” had some considerable foot-dragging.

I was bused across town for 4^th grade only to Rural Hall, and their kids were bused across town to Fairview Elementary for 5th and 6th grade. I was bused to Mineral Springs Middle School for 7th -8th grade. ALL the former Black High Schools, like Atkins, Carver, Hanes, and Paisley, had to be “9th and 10th grades only,” as North, East, Parkland, and West were reserved for the higher grades for high school graduation.

“We have fought hard and long for integration, as I believe we should have, and I believe that we will win, but I have come to believe that we are integrating into a burning house. I’m afraid that America has lost the moral vision she may have had,” as the nation is not deeply concerned “with the plight of the poor and disenfranchised.” This failure, King argued, would only further stoke “the anger and violence that tears the soul of this nation. I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house.” Dr. King confessed to his friend, the Civil Rights activist and entertainer Harry Belafonte.

I am sixty-one years old, a grandfather, and a late entrant to the ranks of a Ph.D. I am sad to say that despite the movement's optimism, NOTHING has changed.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

“What's past is prologue.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest.

This is the moment you’ve all been waiting for... the swashbuckling Spider is coming to

! Follow the pre-launch and get ready for vengeance.

Dark Spider pre-launch link

I grew up reading comic books since the mid-eighties before there were comic books shops. Back then, we got our comic books from spinner racks in convenience stores. Back then, they were worth .75 cents.

That was the beginning into the world of fiction. I have written poems, screenplays, novels and digital contents.

Overtime, I have read all forms of comics, graphic novels, anime and more. I am extremely fond of the Golden, Silver and Bronze Age of Comics along with Old Time Radio programs and movie serials.

As I began to appreciate the vintage age of comics and radio programs, I realized that there was an extreme lack of diversity in its stories.

Occasionally, I would come across gems like All-Negro Comics from 1947 by Journalist Orrin Evans. Weird Fantasy Comics #18 brought "Judgement Day". a story of a black man deciding if a robot civilization can enter a galactic federation but denies them entrance since they discriminate another robot race because of their color. Another great story is from Weird Science #22 called "Outcast of the Stars." This story is about a Italian man who attempts to take his poor family to Mars like other prosperous families.

The Golden Age of stories really made an impact when it challenges the social norms of the time. A great radio program called "Superman versus the KKK" speaks for itself.

Heroes Like Me Presents will recreate that time period with more diverse stories for a modern audience. These will be stories that should have been told but wasn't. The Golden Age Begins Again.

Because We Can. Come along for the ride

Expect the first issue to be out by July 2024 at Indyplanet.com/Heroes-Like-Me

-Chris Love
May 12 2024

ON SALE NOW

Heroes Like Me Presents #1 - IndyPlanet

(a) Schematics of the word INFORMATION is written on a material in binary code using magnetic recording. Red denotes magnetization pointing out of the plane and blue is magnetization pointing into the plane. (b)–(d) Time evolution of the digital magnetic recording information states simulated using micromagnetic Monte Carlo. (b) Initial random state. (c) INFORMATION is written (t = 0 s). (d) Iteration 930 (t = 1395 s) showing the degradation of information states. Reproduced with permission from M. M. Vopson and S. Lepadatu, AIP Adv. 12, 075310 (2022). Copyright 2022 AIP Publishing.

Topics: Chemistry, DNA, General Relativity, Genetics, Nucleotides, Thermodynamics

Reference: Electronic Orbitals, Chem Libre Text dot org

As Morpheus describes, “You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill; you stay in Wonderland. And I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” Neo takes the red pill and wakes up in the real world. Source: Britannica Online: Red Pill and Blue Pill Symbolism

The simulation hypothesis is a philosophical theory in which the entire universe and our objective reality are just simulated constructs. Despite the lack of evidence, this idea is gaining traction in scientific circles as well as in the entertainment industry. Recent scientific developments in the field of information physics, such as the publication of the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, appear to support this possibility. In particular, the 2022 discovery of the second law of information dynamics (infodynamics) facilitates new and interesting research tools at the intersection between physics and information. In this article, we re-examine the second law of infodynamics and its applicability to digital information, genetic information, atomic physics, mathematical symmetries, and cosmology, and we provide scientific evidence that appears to underpin the simulated universe hypothesis.

Introduction

In 2022, a new fundamental law of physics has been proposed and demonstrated, called the second law of information dynamics or simply the second law of infodynamics.¹ Its name is an analogy to the second law of thermodynamics, which describes the time evolution of the physical entropy of an isolated system, which requires the entropy to remain constant or to increase over time. In contrast to the second law of thermodynamics, the second law of infodynamics states that the information entropy of systems containing information states must remain constant or decrease over time, reaching a certain minimum value at equilibrium. This surprising observation has massive implications for all branches of science and technology. With the ever-increasing importance of information systems such as digital information storage or biological information stored in DNA/RNA genetic sequences, this new powerful physics law offers an additional tool for examining these systems and their time evolution.² 

The second law of infodynamics and its implications for the simulated universe hypothesis, Melvin M. Vopson, AIP Advances

NIJI 6 CONTEST - MAY 02-04, 2024
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An illustration of NASA's Orion spacecraft in orbit around the moon. (Image credit: Lockheed Martin)

Topics: Astronautics, History, NASA, Space Exploration, Spaceflight

Between 1969 and 1972, the Apollo missions sent a total of a dozen astronauts to the surface of the moon — and that was before the explosion of modern technology. So why does it seem like our current efforts, as embodied by NASA's Artemis program, are so slow, halting and complex? 

There isn't one easy answer, but it comes down to money, politics, and priorities.

Let's start with the money. Yes, the Apollo missions were enormously successful — and enormously expensive. At its peak, NASA was consuming around 5% of the entire federal budget, and more than half of that was devoted to the Apollo program. Accounting for inflation, the entire Apollo program would cost over $260 billion in today's dollars. If you include project Gemini and the robotic lunar program, which were necessary precursors to Apollo, that figure reaches over $280 billion.

In comparison, today, NASA commands less than half a percent of the total federal budget, with a much broader range of priorities and directives. Over the past decade, NASA has spent roughly $90 billion on the Artemis program. Naturally, with less money going to a new moon landing, we're likely to make slower progress, even with advancements in technology.

Why is it so hard to send humans back to the moon? Paul Sutter, Space.com.

Scientists detected 2-Methoxyethanol in space for the first time using radio telescope observations of the star-forming region NGC 6334I. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Topics: Astronomy, Chemistry, Instrumentation, Interstellar, Research, Spectrographic Analysis

New research from the group of MIT Professor Brett McGuire has revealed the presence of a previously unknown molecule in space. The team's open-access paper, "Rotational Spectrum and First Interstellar Detection of 2-Methoxyethanol Using ALMA Observations of NGC 6334I," was published in the April 12 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Zachary T.P. Fried, a graduate student in the McGuire group and the lead author of the publication worked to assemble a puzzle comprised of pieces collected from across the globe, extending beyond MIT to France, Florida, Virginia, and Copenhagen, to achieve this exciting discovery.

"Our group tries to understand what molecules are present in regions of space where stars and solar systems will eventually take shape," explains Fried. "This allows us to piece together how chemistry evolves alongside the process of star and planet formation. We do this by looking at the rotational spectra of molecules, the unique patterns of light they give off as they tumble end-over-end in space.

"These patterns are fingerprints (barcodes) for molecules. To detect new molecules in space, we first must have an idea of what molecule we want to look for, then we can record its spectrum in the lab here on Earth, and then finally we look for that spectrum in space using telescopes."

Researchers detect a new molecule in space, Danielle Randall Doughty, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Phys.org.

Researchers have synthesized sheets of gold that are one atom thick. Credit: imaginima/Getty

Topics: Graphene, Materials Science, Nanoengineering, Nanomaterials, Solid-State Physics

It is the world’s thinnest gold leaf: a gossamer sheet of gold just one atom thick. Researchers have synthesized¹ the long-sought material, known as goldene, which is expected to capture light in ways that could be useful in applications such as sensing and catalysis.

Goldene is a gilded cousin of graphene, the iconic atom-thin material made of carbon that was discovered in 2004. Since then, scientists have identified hundreds more of these 2D materials. But it has been particularly difficult to produce 2D sheets of metals, because their atoms have always tended to cluster together to make nanoparticles instead.

Researchers have previously reported single-atom-thick layers of tin² and lead³ stuck to various substances, and they have produced gold sheets sandwiched between other materials. But “we submit that goldene is the first free-standing 2D metal, to the best of our knowledge”, says materials scientist Lars Hultman at Linköping University in Sweden, who is part of the team behind the new research. Crucially, the simple chemical method used to make goldene should be amenable to larger-scale production, the researchers reported in Nature Synthesis on 16 April¹.

“I’m very excited about it,” says Stephanie Reich, a solid-state physicist and materials scientist at the Free University of Berlin, who was not involved in the work. “People have been thinking for quite some time how to take traditional metals and make them into really well-ordered 2D monolayers.”

In 2022, researchers at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) said that they had produced goldene, but the Linköping team contends that the prior material probably contained multiple atomic layers, on the basis of the electron microscopy images and other data that were published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces⁴. Reich agrees that the 2022 study failed to prove that the material was singler-layer goldene. The principal authors of the NYUAD study did not respond to Nature’s questions about their work.

Meet ‘goldene’: this gilded cousin of graphene is also one atom thick, Mark Peplow, Nature

Source: Same source for the Dark Matter definition below.

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Dark Matter, Einstein, General Relativity

Note: Your "secret decoder ring" for reading the Abstract.

Dark matter: It makes up about 85% of the universe, is invisible, and doesn't interact with matter except for gravitational effects. See: Center for Astrophysics, Harvard

"Tachyonic": Of, or referring to tachyons, (Greek for swift) theoretical particles that already travel faster-than-light and backward in time. Their rest mass, m₀ⁱ, is assumed to be imaginary. As it loses energy, it's assumed to become infinitely fast, so you can see why it's a favorite science fiction trope, along with dark matter, literally tableau rasas.

ΛCDM assumes that the universe is composed of photons, neutrinos, ordinary matter (baryons, electrons), and cold (non-relativistic) dark matter, which only interacts gravitationally, plus "dark energy," which is responsible for the observed acceleration in the Hubble expansion. Source: Goddard Spaceflight Center: Lambda

H₀ defines the Hubble constant, or, the rate at which the universe is expanding, determined by Hubble in the way back year of 1929 to be 500 km/s/Mpc. I'm going to defer to Wikipedia for this one.

km/s/Mpc = kilometers/second/megaparsec. Megaparsec is 1 million parsecs = 3,260,000 light years, or 3.26 x 10⁶ light years.

t₀ = the present age of the universe, t₀ = 2tH/3, where "tH" is the Hubble time. t₀ is roughly 13.7 × 10⁹ years, or 4.32 × 10¹⁷ seconds.

Gyr = giga years, or 1 billion years = 1 x 10⁹ years (a lot).

Abstract

An open or hyperbolic Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime dominated by tachyonic dark matter can exhibit an “inflected” expansion—initially decelerating, later accelerating—similar but not identical to that of now-standard ΛCDM models dominated by dark energy. The features of the tachyonic model can be extracted by fitting the redshift-distance relation of the model to data obtained by treating Type Ia supernovae as standard candles. Here such a model is fitted to samples of 186 and 1048 Type Ia supernovae from the literature. The fits yield values of H₀ = (66.6±1.5) km/s/Mpc and H₀ = (69.6±0.4) km/s/Mpc, respectively, for the current-time Hubble parameter, and t₀ = (8.35 ± 0.68) Gyr and t₀ = (8.15 ± 0.36) Gyr, respectively, for the comoving-time age of the Universe. Tests of the model against other observations will be undertaken in subsequent works.

Subject headings: cosmology, dark matter, tachyons, distance-redshift relation, supernovae

Testing Tachyon-Dominated Cosmology with Type Ia Supernovae, Samuel H. Kramer, Ian H. Redmount, Physics arXiv

Credit: Menno Schaefer/Adobe

Starlings flock in a so-called murmuration, a collective behavior of interest in biological physics — one of many subfields that did not always “belong” in physics.

Topics: Applied Physics, Cosmology, Einstein, History, Physics, Research, Science

"To be rather than to seem." Translated from the Latin Esse Quam Videri, which also happens to be the state motto of North Carolina. It is from the treatise on Friendship by the Roman statesman Cicero, a reminder of the beauty and power of being true to oneself. Source: National Library of Medicine: Neurosurgery

If you’ve been in physics long enough, you’ve probably left a colloquium or seminar and thought to yourself, “That talk was interesting, but it wasn’t physics.”

If so, you’re one of many physicists who muse about the boundaries of their field, perhaps with colleagues over lunch. Usually, it’s all in good fun.

But what if the issue comes up when a physics faculty makes decisions about hiring or promoting individuals to build, expand, or even dismantle a research effort? The boundaries of a discipline bear directly on the opportunities departments can offer students. They also influence those students’ evolving identities as physicists, and on how they think about their own professional futures and the future of physics.

So, these debates — over physics and “not physics” — are important. But they are also not new. For more than a century, physicists have been drawing and redrawing the borders around the field, embracing and rejecting subfields along the way.

A key moment for “not physics” occurred in 1899 at the second-ever meeting of the American Physical Society. In his keynote address, the APS president Henry Rowland exhorted his colleagues to “cultivate the idea of the dignity” of physics.

“Much of the intellect of the country is still wasted in the pursuit of so-called practical science which ministers to our physical needs,” he scolded, “[and] not to investigations in the pure ethereal physics which our Society is formed to cultivate.”

Rowland’s elitism was not unique — a fact that first-rate physicists working at industrial laboratories discovered at APS meetings, when no one showed interest in the results of their research on optics, acoustics, and polymer science. It should come as no surprise that, between 1915 and 1930, physicists were among the leading organizers of the Optical Society of America (now Optica), the Acoustical Society of America, and the Society of Rheology.

That acousticians were given a cold shoulder at early APS meetings is particularly odd. At the time, acoustics research was not uncommon in American physics departments. Harvard University, for example, employed five professors who worked extensively in acoustics between 1919 and 1950. World War II motivated the U.S. Navy to sponsor a great deal of acoustics research, and many physics departments responded quickly. In 1948, the University of Texas hired three acousticians as assistant professors of physics. Brown University hired six physicists between 1942 and 1952, creating an acoustics powerhouse that ultimately trained 62 physics doctoral students.

The acoustics landscape at Harvard changed abruptly in 1946, when all teaching and research in the subject moved from the physics department to the newly created department of engineering sciences and applied physics. In the years after, almost all Ph.D. acoustics programs in the country migrated from physics departments to “not physics” departments.

The reason for this was explained by Cornell University professor Robert Fehr at a 1964 conference on acoustics education. Fehr pointed out that engineers like himself exploited the fundamental knowledge of acoustics learned from physicists to alter the environment for specific applications. Consequently, it made sense that research and teaching in acoustics passed from physics to engineering.

It took less than two decades for acoustics to go from being physics to “not physics.” But other fields have gone the opposite direction — a prime example being cosmology.

Albert Einstein applied his theory of general relativity to the cosmos in 1917. However, his work generated little interest because there was no empirical data to which it applied. Edwin Hubble’s work on extragalactic nebulae appeared in 1929, but for decades, there was little else to constrain mathematical speculations about the physical nature of the universe. The theoretical physicists Freeman Dyson and Steven Weinberg have both used the phrase “not respectable” to describe how cosmology was seen by physicists around 1960. The subject was simply “not physics.”

This began to change in 1965 with the discovery of thermal microwave radiation throughout the cosmos — empirical evidence of the nearly 20-year-old Big Bang model. Physicists began to engage with cosmology, and the percentage of U.S. physics departments with at least one professor who published in the field rose from 4% in 1964 to 15% in 1980. In the 1980s, physicists led the satellite mission to study the cosmic microwave radiation, and particle physicists — realizing that the hot early universe was an ideal laboratory to test their theories — became part-time cosmologists. Today, it’s hard to find a medium-to-large sized physics department that does not list cosmology as a research specialty.

Opinion: That's Not Physics, Andrew Zangwill, APS

Topics: Applied Physics, Civics, Materials Science, Solid-State Physics, Superconductors

I'm a person who will get Nature on my home email, my previous graduate school email (that's active because it's also on my phone), and my work email. Because it said "physics," I was primed to read it.

What I read made me clasp my hands over my mouth, and periodically stared at the ceiling tiles. My forehead bumped the desk softly, symbolically in disbelief.

Ranga Dias, the physicist at the center of the room-temperature superconductivity scandal, committed data fabrication, falsification and plagiarism, according to a investigation commissioned by his university. Nature’s news team discovered the bombshell investigation report in court documents.

The 10-month investigation, which concluded on 8 February, was carried out by an independent group of scientists recruited by the University of Rochester in New York. They examined 16 allegations against Dias and concluded that it was more likely than not that in each case, the physicist had committed scientific misconduct. The university is now attempting to fire Dias, who is a tenure-track faculty member at Rochester, before his contract expires at the end of the 2024–25 academic year.

Exclusive: official investigation reveals how superconductivity physicist faked blockbuster results

The confidential 124-page report from the University of Rochester, disclosed in a lawsuit, details the extent of Ranga Dias’s scientific misconduct. By Dan Garisto, Nature.

In a nutshell, this is the Scientific Method and how it relates to this investigation:

1. Ask a Question. It can be as simple as "Why is that the way it is?" The question suggests observation, as in, the researcher has read, or seen something in the lab that piqued their curiosity. It is also known as the problem the researcher hopes to solve. The problem must be clear, concise, and testable, i.e., a designed experiment is possible, a survey to gather data can be crafted.

2. Research (n): "the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions" (Oxford languages). Here, you are "looking for the gaps" in knowledge. People are human, and due to the times and the technology available, something else about a subject may reveal itself through careful examination. The topic area is researched through credible sources, bibliographies, similar published research, textbooks from subject matter experts. Google Scholar counts; grainy YouTube videos don't.

3. The Hypothesis. This encapsulates your research in the form of an idea that can be tested by observation, or experiment. The null hypothesis is a statement or claim that the researcher makes they are trying to disprove, and the alternate hypothesis is a statement or claim the researcher makes they are trying to prove, and with sufficient evidence, disproves the null hypothesis.

4. Design an Experiment. Design of experiments (DOE) follows a set pattern, usually from statistics, or now, using software packages to evaluate input variables, and judging their relationship to output variables. If it sounds like y = f(x), it is.

5. Data Analysis. "The process of systematically applying statistical and/or logical techniques to describe and illustrate, condense and recap, and evaluate data." Source: Responsible Conduct of Research, Northern Illinois University. This succinct definition is the source of my faceplanting regarding this Nature article.

6. Conclusion. R-squared relates to the data gathered, also called the coefficient of determination. Back to the y = f(x) analogy, r-squared is the fit of the data between the independent variables (x) and the output variables (y). An r-squared of 0.90, or 90% and higher, is considered a "good fit" of the data, and the experimenter can make predictions from their results. Did the experimenter disprove the null hypothesis or prove the alternate hypothesis? Were both disproved? (That's called "starting over.")

7. Communication. You craft your results in a journal publication, hopefully one with a high impact factor. If your research helps others in their research ("looking for gaps"), you start seeing yourself appearing in "related research" and "citation" emails from Google Scholar. Your mailbox will fill up, as I hope your self-esteem.

Back to the faceplant:

The 124-page investigation report is a stunning account of Dias’s deceit across the two Nature papers, as well as two other now-retracted papers — one in Chemical Communications³ and one in Physical Review Letters (PRL)⁴. In the two Nature papers, Dias claimed to have discovered room-temperature superconductivity — zero electrical resistance at ambient temperatures — first in a compound made of carbon, sulfur and hydrogen (CSH)¹ and then in a compound eventually found to be made of lutetium and hydrogen (LuH)².

Capping years of allegations and analyses, the report methodically documents how Dias deliberately misled his co-authors, journal editors and the scientific community. A university spokesperson described the investigation as “a fair and thorough process,” which reached the correct conclusion.

When asked to surrender raw data, Dias gave "massaged" data.

"In several instances, the investigation found, Dias intentionally misled his team members and collaborators about the origins of data. Through interviews, the investigators worked out that Dias had told his partners at UNLV that measurements were taken at Rochester, but had told researchers at Rochester that they were taken at UNLV."

Dias also lied to journals. In the case of the retracted PRL paper⁴ — which was about the electrical properties of manganese disulfide (MnS₂) — the journal conducted its own investigation and concluded that there was apparent fabrication and “a deliberate attempt to obstruct the investigation” by providing reviewers with manipulated data rather than raw data. The investigators commissioned by Rochester confirmed the journal’s findings that Dias had taken electrical resistance data on germanium tetraselenide from his own PhD thesis and passed these data off as coming from MnS₂ — a completely different material with different properties (see ‘Odd similarity’). When questioned about this by the investigators, Dias sent them the same manipulated data that was sent to PRL.

Winners and losers

Winners - Scientific Integrity.

The investigators of Nature were trying to preserve the reputation of physics and the rigor of peer review. Any results from any experiment has to be replicable in similar conditions in other laboratories. Usually, when retractions are ordered, it is because that didn't happen. If I drop tablets of Alka Seltzer in water in Brazil, and do it in Canada, I should still get "plop-plop-fizz-fizz." But the "odd similarity" graphs isn't that. The only differences between the two are 0.5 Gigapascals (10⁹ Pascals, 1 Pascal = 1 Newton/meter squared = 1 N/m²), the materials under test, and the color of the graphs. Face. Plant.

Losers - The Public Trust.

"The establishment of our new government seemed to be the last **great experiment** for promoting human happiness." George Washington, January 9, 1790

As you can probably tell, I admire Carl Sagan and how he tried to popularize science communication. But Dr. Sagan, Bill Nye the Science Guy, the canceled reality series Myth Busters (that I actually LIKED) has not bridged the gap between society's obsession with spectacle, and though the previously mentioned gentlemen and television show were promoting "science as cool," it is still a discipline, it takes work and rigor to master subjects that are not part of casual conversations, nor can you "Google." There are late nights solving problems, early mornings running experiments while everyone else outside of your library or lab window seems to be enjoying college life and what it can offer.

Dr. Dias is as susceptible to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (physical, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization) as anyone of us. Some humans express this need posting "selfies" or social media posts "going viral," no matter how outrageous, or the collateral damage to the non-cyber real world. Or, they like to see their names in print in journals, filling their inboxes with "related research" or "citation" emails with their names attached. There is even currency now in your research being MENTIONED in social media.

*****

Mr. Halsey was the librarian at Fairview Elementary School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Everyone in my fifth grade class had to do a book report, but before we could do that, we had to pass Mr. Halsey's exam - with an 85% or better - on the Dewey Decimal System, and SHOW him in a practicum, that we could find a book that he would give you using Dewey. If you didn't pass, you didn't do the book report, and you failed English. I thankfully made an 92%, and satisfied Mr. Halsey that I wouldn't get lost in the periodicals.

We now have search engines that we can utilize via supercomputers in our hip pockets. A lot of effort to know math, physics, chemistry applied to the manufacture of semiconductors for those supercomputers instead of facilitating access to knowledge might have inadvertently manufactured a generation suffering from Dunning-Kruger. Networking those supercomputers over a worldwide web, coupled with artificial intelligence gives malevolent actors inordinate power over a captive audience of 8 billion souls.

Couple this with the falsification of data having a lease in the realm of science; it only contributes to the mistrust of institutions like the academy, like our democracy, which has been referred to since Washington as "the great experiment." If the null, and the alternate hypotheses are discarded, what pray tell, is on the other side of what we've always known?

Colleagues remember Peter Higgs as an inspirational scientist who remained humble despite his fame. Credit: Graham Clark/Alamy

Topics: CERN, Higgs Boson, High Energy Physics, Nobel Prize, Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Theoretical Physics

Few scientists have enjoyed as much fame in recent years as British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, the namesake of the boson that was discovered in 2012, who died on 8 April, aged 94.

It was 60 years ago when Higgs first suggested how an elementary particle of unusual properties could pervade the universe in the form of an invisible field, giving other elementary particles their masses. Several other physicists independently thought of this mechanism around the same time, including François Englert, now at the Free University of Brussels. The particle was a crucial element of the theoretical edifice that physicists were building in those years, which later became known as the standard model of particles and fields.

Two separate experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland — ATLAS and the CMS — confirmed Higgs’ predictions when they announced the discovery of the Higgs boson half a century later. It was the last missing component of the standard model, and Higgs and Englert shared a Nobel Prize in 2013 for predicting its existence. Physicists at the LHC continue to learn about the properties of the Higgs boson, but some researchers say that only a dedicated collider that can produce the particle in copious amounts — dubbed a ‘Higgs factory’ — will enable them to gain a profound understanding of its role.

“Besides his outstanding contributions to particle physics, Peter was a very special person, an immensely inspiring figure for physicists around the world, a man of rare modesty, a great teacher and someone who explained physics in a very simple yet profound way,” said Fabiola Gianotti, director-general of CERN in an obituary posted on the organization’s website; Gianotti who announced the Higgs boson’s discovery to the world at CERN. “I am very saddened, and I will miss him sorely.”

Many physicists took to X, formerly Twitter, to pay tribute to Higgs and share their favorite memories of him. “RIP to Peter Higgs. The search for the Higgs boson was my primary focus for the first part of my career. He was a very humble man that contributed something immensely deep to our understanding of the universe,” posted Kyle Cranmer, physicist at the University of Wisconsin Madison and previously a senior member of the Higgs search team at the CMS.

Nanos gigantum humeris insidentes is a Latin phrase that translates to "dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants." It's a Western metaphor that expresses the idea of "discovering truth by building on previous discoveries." The phrase is derived from Greek mythology, where the blind giant Orion carried his servant Cedalion on his shoulders.

English scientist Sir Isaac Newton also coined the phrase "to stand on (someone's) shoulders" in his letter, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." This means that we are who we are because of the hard work of the people who came before us. Newton was talking about collective learning, or our species' ability to share, preserve, and build upon knowledge over time. Source: AI overview

Peter Higgs: science mourns giant of particle physics, Davide Castelvecchi, Nature

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Carl Sagan, Civilization, Existentialism, Star Wars, Star Trek, STEM

Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent about two and a quarter hours together exploring the site they had named Tranquility Base upon landing. Armstrong and Aldrin collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia in lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes before lifting off to rejoin Columbia.

Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16 at 13:32 UTC, and it was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit. Source: Wikipedia/Apollo_11

The first communal experience I recall is one now doubted by people swearing they "have the proof" in grainy YouTube videos and that I should "do my research!" Yeah.

June 3, 1969, the third and final season of Star Trek: The Original Series aired "Turnabout Intruder," its 24th and last episode. There was no "final curtain" or neatly wrapped-up script tying plot points. Many of us fans were left adrift. Syndication made the franchise a legend.

In July of 1969, I was six, one month from turning seven years old. In my maturity, then, there were a few priorities: eating, sleeping, playing, and cartoons.

My cartoons were interrupted on July 19, 1969, a Saturday ritual that any kids born after 2014 are bereft of the experience. It was my "chill time" to not think of the pending school year starting a few days after my birthday in August, which is probably why I've never made a big deal about my birthday. My cartoons were interrupted. I was missing "Tom and Jerry," "Woody Woodpecker," "Bugs Bunny," "The Herculoids," and I was pissed!

I calmed down, seeing that my parents were transfixed to the black and white TV.

A year and a few months before, we were transfixed after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the cities burning with the rage I would later see in Los Angeles with Rodney King. We were transfixed in our communal mourning.

This transfixion has been repeated over and over again, as if society has us as sadistic voyeurs in a play, we are constantly made to see in a culturally communal act of PTSD.

I started recognizing that Apollo 11 didn't have Nacelles that combined matter-antimatter for faster-than-light space travel. Before Star Wars, George Lucas, and Industrial Light and Magic, warp speed was indicated by a theatrical "swooshing" sound as the Enterprise's saucer section sped by intro and exit credits. The silvery capsule and landing module were attached to each other, and it detached with mechanical efficiency and elegance. No sound travels in space, and none was needed to communicate to me that before Zephram Cochrane, or someone like him, is to be born, this is the first small step.

I tried to communicate this feeling to my youngest son. He sent a video of how dark it momentarily got in Dallas, Texas. He and his girlfriend spoke briefly about how dark it became. My oldest was geeked and profoundly moved as our daughter-in-law made sure they had similar safety shades in Texas that we used to view it. In Greensboro, we got about 84% of the eclipse: it was dim but not dark, but my Texas box turtle, Speedy, went to sleep instinctively. My wife is now determined to follow the next eclipse on the planet so long as we can afford it. Our granddaughter is days from turning five, and the daycare opted to keep the children inside for safety concerns. She is sure to ask "Mimi and Paw-Paw" about it.

I lament that this is the last season of Star Trek: Discovery, just as I will lament the last season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. As a "Trekkie," I watched the franchise's iterations on free network TV. It made Trek accessible, at least to people who were channel-surfing that they might stop and peek into the future, exposure to STEM through fictional drama. I think this exposure to the possible created the communal experience that a boy in East Winston could share with his parents and people in Rural Hall, North Carolina, during a time before forced busing when I would meet others who didn't look like me.

I begrudgingly bought subscriptions to view it and the other iterations on Paramount Plus.

But streaming services, newsfeeds on social media, AM Talk Radio, and Podcasts do not create "communal experiences": they create silos, isolation, and tribalism.

Posting on Facebook, I said: "A communal experience. The universe experienced and witnessed itself." I said it without context regarding the eclipse. Here is the context:

"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of 'star-stuff.'"

"The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."

Carl Sagan, "Cosmos"

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturing's, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space