Physicists Discover Geometry Underlying Particle Physics. Physicists have discovered a jewel-like geometric object that dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality. “This is completely new and very much simpler than anything that has been done before,” said Andrew Hodges, a mathematical physicist at Oxford University who has been following the work. The revelation that particle interactions, the most basic events in nature, may be consequences of geometry significantly advances a decades-long effort to reformulate quantum field theory, the body of laws describing elementary particles and their interactions. Interactions that were previously calculated with mathematical formulas thousands of terms long can now be described by computing the volume of the corresponding jewel-like “amplituhedron,” which yields an equivalent one-term expression.
Locality is the notion that particles can interact only from adjoining positions in space and time. Tabletop experiment could detect gravitational waves. A coin-sized detector might observe gravitational waves before the giant LIGO interferometers, according to two Australian physicists who have built the device. The detector is designed to register very high frequency gravitational waves via the exceptionally weak vibrations they would induce. Other scientists caution that the astrophysical objects thought to emit such radiation may do so very weakly or might not actually exist. Predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity but yet to be directly observed, gravitational waves are ripples in space–time generated by accelerating massive objects.
The tiny detector has been made by Maxim Goryachev and Michael Tobar of the University of Western Australia in Perth and is based on the decades-old technology of resonant-mass detection. Tiny vibrations Goryachev and Tobar overcame this problem by targeting gravitational radiation in the 1–1000 MHz range. Trapping phonons Cosmic strings and axions. Should Private Companies Be Allowed to Patent Genes? On April 12, 1955, Jonas Salk, who had recently invented the polio vaccine, appeared on the television news show “See It Now” to discuss its impact on American society.
Before the vaccine became available, dread of polio was almost as widespread as the disease itself. Hundreds of thousands fell ill, most of them children, many of whom died or were permanently disabled. The vaccine changed all that, and Edward R. Murrow, the show’s host, asked Salk what seemed to be a reasonable question about such a valuable commodity: “Who owns the patent on this vaccine?”
The very idea, to Salk, seemed absurd. The intellectual and commercial bounty from that research has already been enormous, and it increases nearly every day, as we learn ways in which specific genes are associated with diseases—or with mechanisms that can prevent them. And yet, nearly twenty per cent of the genome—more than four thousand genes—are already covered by at least one U.S. patent.
Illustration by Richard McGuire. Top 10 science study buzzkills. Science is supposed to make people's lives better, right? From glow-in-the-dark diapers to computers that fit in one's pocket, the present day sometimes feels like a future dreamed by science-fiction writers. But scientific research also dramatizes the law of unintended consequences, such as the increased chance that the late-night user of an iPhone will become obese.
Here are 10 buzzkills in science studies that are sure to ruin your fun. 1. Sharing a bed with your dog or cat is a bad idea. (And no kissing!) Sleeping with pets is a good way to get the plague, or MRSA, meningitis, hookworm, roundworm or another bacterial infection, according to a study published in February 2011 in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. One man whose dog slept under the covers with him and licked his hip-replacement wound came down with meningitis, and a 9-year-old boy whose flea-infested cat slept with him picked up the plague. 2. 3. 4. 5. Keeping a healthy glow can mean heading to a tanning salon. The Top Ten Strangest Self-Experiments Ever. The following is a guest post from author Alex Boese. It is adapted from his newest book Electrified Sheep: glass-eating scientists, nuking the moon, and more bizarre experiments, which is being released in the U.S. today!
Electrified Sheep tells the tales of some of the most weird and wonderful experiments ever conducted in the name of science. Packed full of eccentric characters, irrational obsessions and extreme experiments, it's the follow-up to the bestselling Elephants on Acid. Watch as scientists attempt to nuke the moon. Wince at the doctor who performs a self-appendectomy. And catch the faint whiff of singed wool from an electrified sheep. There's a long tradition among scientists of using themselves as subjects in their experiments if they can't find anyone else to volunteer — or if they feel it would be unethical to ask another to take the risk. 10: The Decelerating Doctor Many doctors believed that 18 Gs was the most a human body could endure, but no one knew for sure. Dr. Scientists create artificial genetic material XNA. By Ian Sample, The GuardianFriday, April 20, 2012 14:21 EDT Scientists have created artificial genetic material that can store information and evolve over generations in a similar way to DNA – a feat expected to drive research in medicine and biotechnology, and shed light on how molecules first replicated and assembled into life billions of years ago.
Ultimately, the creation of alternatives to DNA could enable scientists to make novel forms of life in the laboratory. Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in Cambridge, developed chemical procedures to turn DNA and RNA, the molecular bases for all known life, into six alternative genetic polymers called XNAs. The process swaps the deoxyribose and ribose (the “d” and “r” in DNA and RNA) for other molecules. In the journal Science the researchers describe how they caused one of the XNAs to stick to a protein, an ability that might mean the polymers could deployed as drugs working like antibodies. Copyright 2012 The Raw Story. Supercomputer probes famous but messy particle split - physics-math - 13 April 2012. BREAK-UPS are often messy, and the splitting of subatomic particles into lighter, daughter particles is no exception. Now the ability to simulate a particularly famous particle decay could help answer one of the most burning questions in physics: why the universe appears to contain so much more matter than antimatter.
According to our current picture, the big bang produced both particles and antiparticles in equal amounts, most of which mutually annihilated to release energy. At some point, some unknown factor must have led there to be slightly more particles than antiparticles. A clue to what this might be came in 1964, when James Cronin and Val Fitch, then at the University of Chicago, observed subatomic particles called kaons decaying into two pions, another type of particle. We think of antimatter as being an exact copy of matter, but with certain properties reversed - for example, the antiparticle of a charged particle has the opposite charge.
New Scientist Not just a website! The Top 20 Most Bizarre Experiments of All Time. Imagine that you've volunteered for an experiment, but when you show up at the lab you discover the researcher wants you to murder an innocent person. You protest, but the researcher firmly states, "The experiment requires that you do it.
" Would you acquiesce and kill the person? When asked what they would do in such a situation, almost everyone replies that of course they would refuse to commit murder. But Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiment, conducted at Yale University in the early 1960s, revealed that this optimistic belief is wrong. If the request is presented in the right way, almost all of us quite obediently become killers. Milgram told subjects they were participating in an experiment to determine the effect of punishment on learning. The experiment began. Milgram had no interest in the effect of punishment on learning.
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