Science
catdynamics | October 11, 2011"Defining the Common Foundations"
is a "catalysis workshop" now underway at NESC , the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center.
I will not be liveblogging the workshop, schedule looks too intense, but I'll hopefully take random notes of assorted highlights.
The intent of the workshop is to bring together people from assorted related fields, some more distantly related than others, and brainstorm possible synergies and future directions.
Should be interesting.
So far, so good; just the breakfast conversation this morning has "made the trip worthwhile"...
So, Who Am I,
and What Am I Doing Here…
catdynamics | October 5, 2011"About twenty years ago Jobs and Wozniak, the founders of Apple, came up with the very strange idea of selling information processing machines for use in the home. The business took off, and its founders made a lot of money and received the credit they deserved for being daring visionaries...."
Thus begins one of the most important essays of modern times:
"In the beginning was the command line" by Neal Stephenson
Neal has now written another timely essay:
"Innovation Starvation" by Neal Stephenson at World Policy Institute
"...Today's belief in ineluctable certainty is the true innovation-…
drorzel | October 5, 2011If you want to know how stressed and busy I've been lately, you don't have to look any farther than the fact that I've totally fallen down on the shameless self-promotion front: I was on a radio show, and forgot to post about it here. I know, bad blogger, no pageviews...
Anyway, I talked about the fast neutrino experiment on the phone to Clay Naff, who runs the Science Odyssey show on KZUM in Nebraska, and he used it as part of this past weekend's show. My interview is in Part 1, and Part 2 is Alan Kostelecky, who is an actual expert on this sort of thing.
For some odd reason, it…
pharyngula | October 5, 2011Ever want to look at the recurrent laryngeal nerve in a giraffe? Now you can.
Richard Dawkins Demonstrates Laryngeal Nerve of... by blindwatcher
(Also on FtB)
catdynamics | October 4, 2011Series of substantial earthquakes in the Katla caldera,
could be nothing could be sign of an impending eruption
there are multiple, relatively shallow earthquakes taking place now,
several with magnitude of 3+
earthquake map at 4:10 am (from vedur.is)
it is dark, no other evidence yet, eg no spike in water flow or conductivity in the glacial rivers
webcam at http://ruv.is/katla is down overnight
if the earthquakes continue and get larger, it is a robust sign of impending onset of eruption
Jón Frímann is on it
PS: still going strong, though the rate of earthquakes has tapered off
GeoLurking…
drorzel | October 4, 2011The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae." Ethan will presumably have a post with about a gigabyte worth of images in it shortly, or if you prefer your information in book form, you can read Richard Panek's The Four Percent Universe, which has lots of detail about what they did, including the rivalry between the different groups. As a bonus, the UK edition has a blurb from yours truly...
But that's not what you really want to know--…
pharyngula | October 3, 2011…and the prize goes to Bruce A. Beutler, Jules A. Hoffmann, and Ralph M. Steinman for their work on the innate immune system, the components of resistance that are evolutionarily older than the adaptive immune system (antibodies, T cells, all that stuff). The innate immune system includes all the cytokine and chemokine activators of other components of the immune system, NK (natural killer) cells, various lipid inflammation mediators, the histamine response, and the complement cascade — a welter of complex interacting elements that combine to make our bodies hostile places for any pathogen.…
drorzel | October 1, 2011I have been sufficiently out of it that I didn't realize the Nobel Prizes were due to be announced this coming week. Which means there's only a small amount of time to get my traditional betting pool set up...
So, here are the rules:
1) To enter, leave a comment to this post specifying the Prize category and the winner(s). For example, you might write "Physics, to Lee Smolin and Lubos Motl," or "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, to Larry Summers and John Lott."
2) One entry per person per prize. That is, you can pick one and only one winner for the…
catdynamics | September 30, 2011For all the Old Techers
Snotty Scotty and the Hankies, live at the Loch Ness
You had to be there...
Yes! Found their legendary rendition of Mony Mony!
oracknows | September 30, 2011I've gotten into quite a few arguments over whether there is more anti-science nonsense on the right or the left lately. Actually, none of these arguments have been on the blog, mainly because I tend not to relish getting into discussions that are far more weighted towards politics than actual science or medicine. Still, sometimes I see something that leads me to think about venturing into the minefield of science and politics. This has been particularly true ever since the campaign for the Republican nomination has shifted into high gear and Michelle Bachmann's recent descent even further…
catdynamics | September 29, 2011New high resolution near infra-red spectrograph, designed to find earth like planets in the habitable zone around low mass cool stars, is funded by the National Science Foundation
Penn State Awarded $3.3 Million to Build Instrument for Finding Planets in Habitable Zones Around Nearby Stars
University Park, PA -- A new state-of-the-art instrument -- a precision spectrograph for finding planets in habitable zones around cool, nearby stars -- is being developed at Penn State with support from a new $3.3-million grant from the National Science Foundation. "This new Habitable Zone Planet Finder…
pharyngula | September 27, 2011The Nobel Prizes start getting awarded next week, so now is the time to make your predictions in a contest to win an iPad2. I'm afraid, though, I've already got a lock on it: I'm predicting that Walt Brown and Bob Enyart, the most brilliant scientific minds ever, are going to win it this year.
There is a Nobel for inanity, isn't there?
(Also on FtB)
catdynamics | September 24, 2011If 3σ results are wrong half the time, does that mean 6σ results are wrong all the time?
The social networks are a-buzz over the claim of a significant detection by the OPERA experiment of a neutrino pulse propagating superluminally over a 750 km baseline from CERN to the Gran Sasso lab.
arXiv paper here (submitted)
You heard the claim - neutrino pulse generated 400 GeV protons fro the old Super Proton Synchrotron.
Every 6 secs a kicker magnet bumps two 10.5μs wide proton pulses, separated by 10ms.
These crash into a 2m graphite target (that is 7 ns travel time through target);
the mesons (…
drorzel | September 24, 2011There have been a lot of pixels spilled over this faster-than-light neutrino business, so it might not seem like something I should take time away from pressing work to write up. It is the story of the moment, though, and too much of the commentary I've seen has been of the form "I am a {theorist, journalist} so hearing about experimental details gives me the vapors" (a snarky paraphrase, obviously). This suggests that there's still room for a canine-level write-up going into a bit more depth about what they did and where it might be wrong.
So, what did those jokers at CERN pull this time?…
drorzel | September 23, 2011The final sentence of the neutrino paper that everybody is buzzing about:
We deliberately do not attempt any theoretical or phenomenological interpretation of
the results.
From a somewhat older work in physics:
Rationem vero harum gravitatis proprietatum ex phænomenis nondum potui deducere, et hypotheses non fingo. Quicquid enim ex phænomenis non deducitur, hypothesis vocanda est; et hypotheses seu metaphysicae, seu physicae, seu qualitatum occultarum, seu mechanicae, in philosophia experimentali locum non habent. In hac philosophia Propositiones deducuntur ex phaenomenis, et redduntur…
drorzel | September 20, 2011I'm looking at an email from my editor when Emmy wanders by the computer, sniffing around just in case a crumb of food has fallen on the floor in the last five minutes. "Hey," I say, "Come here and look at this."
"Look at what?"
"This:"
"It's the cover for my new book."
"A-hem."
"OK, fine, it's the cover for our new book. Anyway, what do you think?"
"Hey, that's not bad. I'm way better than that dog, though."
"Yeah, well, they didn't want to make the owners of inferior dogs jealous."
"Oooh. Good point. See, this is why I could never make it in marketing."
"It's Madison Avenue's loss, I'm…
drorzel | September 19, 2011I got a new comment on an old post asking an interesting question about thermodynamics:
I have a question that bears somewhat on this issue of keeping cars parked in the sun, cooler. You all know those accordion folded/aluminized shades you can put up inside the windshield and back window.
Seems to me putting them INSIDE is the wrong approach. They should be on the OUTside of the window acting as real shades and reflecting away the sun before it gets into the inside of the car.
This involves some of the same physics involved in the ever-popular issue of climate change, so it's worth talking…
drorzel | September 18, 2011As mentioned a while back, I'm experimenting with "active learning" techniques in my intro courses this term. Specifically, I'm doing a variant of the "Peer Instruction" method developed by Eric Mazur and others. There are a few complications imposed by our calendar/ class schedule, but I'm giving it a shot, and I thought I'd report on what I'm doing and how it's going, for the benefit of readers who are interested, and on the off chance that some of my readers who are in education can give some feedback/ tips/ whatever.
What I'm doing: The Peer Instruction method is based on shifting the…
bioephemera | September 14, 2011
A few months ago I got an email from Zachtronics, creators of the Codex of Alchemical Engineering, about the new indie game called SpaceChem. It was billed as "an obscenely addictive, design-based puzzle game about building machines and fighting monsters in the name of science." What's not to love?
Here's a preview. . .
Science!
Game reviewer Quintin Smith loved it:
SpaceChem is a game where you build fabulous contraptions. It's about getting stuck into a massive puzzle, laughing at the optimism of what's expected of you, and then finally applying what might be the finishing touch to your…
sciencepunk | September 14, 2011Over the years, we've been blessed with innumerable breathtaking images from the pursuit of science - from the unimaginably huge Pillars of Creation to the endlessly tiny Mandelbrot Fractals. But some of these images have taken on an iconic status, instantly recognisable to schoolchildren and Republican presidential candidates alike. The problem is, a lot of these iconic science images are more icon than science. Here's a few you might have seen before.
The Rutherford Model
What you think it means: This is an atom.
What's wrong with it: This model is a century out of date.
Back in 1911,…