Shock doc’s new electrifying party trick
The project, which Dr Peter Terren calls the Modern Thinker, involves passing about 200,000 volts of electricity over his body, a routine that transforms him into a human sparkler for all of 15 seconds.
Monthly Archives: April 2009
Chirality is not Dead
Scientists give a hand(edness) to the search for alien life
“If the surface had just a collection of random chiral molecules, half would go left, half right,” Germer says. “But life’s self-assembly means they all would go one way. It’s hard to imagine a planet’s surface exhibiting handedness without the presence of self assembly, which is an essential component of life.”
Because chiral molecules reflect light in a way that indicates their handedness, the research team built a device to shine light on plant leaves and bacteria, and then detect the polarized reflections from the organisms’ chlorophyll from a short distance away. The device detected chirality from both sources.
Dog Paddling
Definitely a new trick, so this isn’t an old dog,
Fetching a ball from the swimming pool without going for a swim.
I Don't Know the Answer, but Neither Do You
Unqualified Offerings: A lot of ignorance needn’t stop you from offering contradictory theories
I have no particular opinion on why there is a gender gap in certain fields of science. I have a lot of skepticism for various theories offered, but I have no theory of my own. And it isn’t just because it’s a hot potato issue where it would be easy to put a foot in my mouth. I really, honestly, find many explanations wanting.
The thing that gets me about this whole discussion is the unscientific nature of a lot of the analysis, or lack thereof (there’s an “if you disagree you must be a misogynist!” crowd that sometimes shows up in places and shouts down any hope of actual discussion), because bad arguments make me cringe, and these are bad arguments. Most of the explanations that are proffered have stark counterexamples, either within STEM areas or in the business world, that show the explanation to be either wrong or incomplete. One thing not mentioned in the link is the disregard for the basic math conundrum of the Garrison Keillor effect— if you have overrepresentation in some areas, it’s simply impossible to simultaneously have equity in all the rest.
Jumping the Gun
‘Hidden photons’ to send secret emails through Earth
You shouldn’t use a title which implies that the phenomenon has been confirmed, when it’s still hypothetical.
Hidden photons are a class of particles predicted by so-called supersymmetric extensions to the standard model of particle physics. Unlike normal photons, hidden photons could have a tiny mass and would be invisible because they would not interact with the charged particles in conventional matter. This means hidden photons would flit through even the densest materials unaffected.
The only place to spot them is in a vacuum, where they should sometimes “oscillate” into normal photons. There are already experiments searching for this effect: the idea is to shine a laser at a wall in a vacuum and see if any of the photons make it through to the other side by transforming into their hidden counterparts and back again. According to Ringwald’s group, if these experiments succeed it should be possible to scale up the apparatus so that the hidden photons become signal carriers and the “wall” becomes any stretch of ground or water.
Perpetual Energy. Film at 11.
Physics Buzz: Free Energy and the Press
Harlow mentions in passing that “Many scientists say the technology violates the basic laws of quantum physics.”
Really, such a sentence is tantamount to saying “It doesn’t work.” Unfortunately, that was lost on Harlow, who continued reporting as if the laws of physics could be changed with a simple majority vote in the local town council. Simply put the Universe doesn’t work that way. The problem here was this report aired at the same time that CNN announced it was closing down its entire science bureau.
Small Step for a Man, and an Urban Myth for Mr. Gorsky
The 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission is still a few months away, but here’s the Apollo 11 image Library which has a lot of neat photos from the mission as well as documentation of the training, planning maps and PR pictures, too.
New, with Even More Big
A twofer. The Big Picture: Cassini’s continued mission and Earth Day 2009
Making Tracks
record-breaking jet sleds and rooftops
Various test tracks around the world, starting with the aircraft carrier arresting-gear test facility. Check out the vanishing-point optical illusion, too, in the link.
There Are 2 Kinds of People in the World …
Those who divide the people in the world into two types, and those who don’t.
Or, you can divide experiments up by classifying them as edible or inedible: Edible/Inedible Experiments Archive