Science
drorzel | April 21, 2010What's the application? An optical frequency comb is a short-duration pulsed laser whose output can be viewed as a regularly spaced series of different frequencies. If the pulses are short enough, this can span the entire visible spectrum, giving a "comb" of colored lines on a traditional spectrometer. This can be used for a wide variety of applications, from precision time standards to molecular spectroscopy to astronomy.
What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "How do I compare this optical frequency standard to a microwave frequency standard?" 2) "How do I calibrate my spectrometer well…
grrlscientist | April 21, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
The next edition of Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) will publish this Monday and as usual, it is seeking submissions and hosts! Can you help by sending URLs for your own or others' well-written science, medicine, and nature blog essays to me or by volunteering to host this carnival on your blog?
This week's edition of Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People); "Scientia Pro Publica 26" was published by Dan at his group blog, Genomics Law Report…
oracknows | April 20, 2010The following is a rather curious promotional video that was shown at the plenary sessions of the AACR 2010 meeting. I first saw it yesterday, and thought my readers might be interested in it while I'm winding my way home:
It's basically a compendium of various facts about cancer and cancer research with a rather obnoxious techno soundtrack to make it "hip" in the way that middle-aged white guys think is "hip." (Believe it or not, the AACR actually played this loud enough to feel the bass.) Annoying music aside, though, the graphics in the video compellingly boil down a large amount of…
catdynamics | April 20, 2010Cal Sate Budgetpocalypse - Dr Free-Ride blogs on CSU San Jose State near term situation.
Shocking Fraud From Financial Scum - MarkCC rips into the Squid.
See, it is like this: Goldman Sachs organized a league, they then talked to a gambler and expedited a bribe to the ref to arrange for a game to be thrown, while also running the book on the bets.
drorzel | April 20, 2010What's the application? Using lasers to cut and/or cauterize tissue during surgical procedures, instead of the traditional very small very sharp knives.
What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "How can we do surgery without touching the tissues being operated on?" 2) "How can I get rid of these annoying glasses/contact lenses?"
How does it work? First, you strap a device to your head that lets you shoot laser beams from your forehead, like one of the X-Men. then you use a magnifying glass to focus it to where it needs to be. Like so:
(I'm not sure exactly what sort of procedure that is,…
grrlscientist | April 20, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
This week's edition of Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People); "Scientia Pro Publica 26" was published by Dan at his group blog, Genomics Law Report, in anticipation of the observance of DNA Day on 23 April 2010.
Of course, this means that the Scientia email account has once more been emptied of submissions, so if we are to publish this blog carnival on a weekly basis this spring, we need to either find others or publish our own essays that are suitable…
oracknows | April 20, 2010Day 3 of the 2010 AACR meeting dawns, and, sadly, I still have no posts. On the other hand, the reason I have no post yet today is because I've been attending the meeting and hanging out with old friends to the point where, when I got back to the hotel last night, I was just too damned tired to come up with anything coherent (which is really saying something).
What to do...what to do?
I know! Open thread time! It's the time-honored lazy blogger's fallback for times like these. True, I'm not PZ; so I doubt I could get the endless thread going that requires periodic resurrection as new posts,…
grrlscientist | April 20, 2010tags: Every Pollen Grain has a Story, pollen, microscopy, forensics, pollen signature, pollen fingerprint, science, Bosnian war crimes, pollinology, Jonathan Drori, TEDTalks, streaming video
Pollen goes unnoticed by most of us, except when hay fever strikes. But microscopes reveal it comes in stunning colors and shapes -- and travels remarkably well. Jonathan Drori gives an up-close glimpse of these fascinating flecks of plant courtship.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of…
drorzel | April 19, 2010What's the application? The goal of laser ignition fusion experiments is to heat and compress a target to the point where the nuclei of the atoms making up the sample fuse together to form a new, heavier nucleus, releasing energy in the process. Nuclear fusion is, of course, what powers stars, and creating fusion in the laboratory has been the holy grail (well, a holy grail, at any rate) of nuclear physics research for the last sixty-plus years.
What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "Can we create fusion reactions in a laboratory setting on Earth?" 2) "How can we get more helium without…
awild | April 19, 2010
Strumigenys rogeri in the leaf litter
In 1982, a small journal called The Coleopterists Bulletin carried a two page note by beetle expert Terry Erwin that increased- by an order of magnitude- the estimated number of species on the planet. Erwin crunched some back-of-the-napkin numbers based on the tree specificity of arthropods he'd collected in Panamanian tree canopies and the richness of tropical tree species worldwide to surmise that the earth should hold 30 million species. An impressive bump from the 1 to 2 million that was the going estimate.
Later research on canopy arthropods (For…
grrlscientist | April 19, 2010tags: The Danger of Science Denial, vaccines, modern medicine, poverty, environmental destruction, science, cultural observation, film maker, animal behavior, Michael Specter, TEDTalks, streaming video
Vaccine-autism claims, "Frankenfood" bans, the herbal cure craze: All point to the public's growing fear (and, often, outright denial) of science and reason, says Michael Specter. He warns the trend spells disaster for human progress.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their…
catdynamics | April 18, 2010Pretty pictures galore this weekend
facebook video from Norðurflug - helivideo upwind from the volcano
NASA's Aqua MODIS
Between Heaven and Hell - fb - extraordinary images from Náttúra Íslands
Cool ITN footage from April 19th
Don't forget to head for Eruptions for all things volcanic - good stuff in the comments
grrlscientist | April 18, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
The next edition of Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) will publish TOMORROW and as usual, it is seeking submissions and hosts! Can you help by sending URLs for your own or others' well-written science, medicine, and nature blog essays to me or by volunteering to host this carnival on your blog?
Scientia Pro Publica is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, environment, nature and medical writing that has been published in the…
catdynamics | April 18, 2010Icelandic radio is reporting that the eruption at Eyjafjallajökull has shifted gear this morning, possibly down a notch, in a good way.
For now.
The explosive ash eruption from the volcano seems to have abated - there is still ash but right now not being flung up into the stratosphere where the jet stream carries it to Europe.
The reason seems to be that a cut has opened in the side of the caldera and ice melt is now draining steadily down the side of the mountain - this both reduced the danger of further flash floods, and the danger of phreatic eruptions.
Basically, the ash plume was being…
grrlscientist | April 18, 2010tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
~ Arnold Lobel [1933-1987] author of many popular children's books.
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited…
grrlscientist | April 17, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
The next edition of Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) will publish this Monday and as usual, it is seeking submissions and hosts! Can you help by sending URLs for your own or others' well-written science, medicine, and nature blog essays to me or by volunteering to host this carnival on your blog?
Scientia Pro Publica is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, environment, nature and medical writing that has been published in the…
catdynamics | April 16, 2010The Finnish Air Force got some F-18s into an ash cloud from Eyjafjallajökull.
Far, far from the source, somewhere over Europe.
They then checked the engines with a boroscope.
This is why you don't fly turbojets through volcanic ash plumes.
Glassy pumice flakes meet metal turbine at 900 km/h.
From an F-18 part of a flight of five on training mission April 15th, just before air space closure.
click to enlarge from ilmavoimat.fi
view of melted volcanic ash on the korkeapaineturbiinin ;-)
more images here and here
h/t flightglobal.com and RUV
grrlscientist | April 16, 2010
Image: wemidji (Jacques Marcoux).
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.
The next edition of Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the People) will publish this Monday and as usual, it is seeking submissions and hosts! Can you help by sending URLs for your own or others' well-written science, medicine, and nature blog essays to me or by volunteering to host this carnival on your blog?
Scientia Pro Publica is a traveling blog carnival that celebrates the best science, environment, nature and medical writing that has been published in the…
catdynamics | April 16, 2010You are not superstitious, are you?
Eyjafjallajökull - from the air is it clear that there are three craters in the caldera.
click to enlarge
The mind does some great interpolative associative processing ;-)
Image is radar, from an Icelandic coastguard plane.
The craters are 200-500m across. For now.
drorzel | April 16, 2010What's the application? Holograms are images of objects that appear three-dimensional-- if you move your head as you look at a hologram, you will see the usual parallax effects, unlike a normal photograph, which is fixed. So, if your hologram includes one object that is partly behind another object, you can see around the obstruction by moving a bit to the side, just as you would if the original objects were in front of you.
What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "How can we jazz up flat images and make them look more lifelike?" 2) "How can we make credit cards harder to copy?"
How does it…