Geology. Gas. Natural world. Reading Into Albert Einstein’s God Letter. Albert Einstein’s so-called God letter first surfaced in 2008, when it fetched four hundred and four thousand dollars in a sale at a British auction house. The letter came back into the news earlier this month, when its owner or owners auctioned it off again, this time at Christie’s in New York, and someone paid $2.9 million for it, a pretty good return on investment, and apparently a record in the Einstein-letters market.
The former top seller was a copy of a letter to Franklin Roosevelt from 1939, warning that Germany might be developing a nuclear bomb. That one was sold at Christie’s for $2.1 million, in 2002. If you have any extra Einstein letters lying around, this might be a good time to go to auction. Although it bears his signature, Einstein didn’t actually write the bomb letter. This all made the letter sound a lot more thoughtful than it is.
It was a misleading choice of words. In the God letter, the subject is not the cosmic religion of the scientist. Consent Form. The first bomb landed shortly after sunrise on April 4, 2017, in Khan Shaykhun. Unlike the three that would explode moments later in other parts of the rebel-controlled Syrian town, this one produced little noise and even less physical damage, leaving behind a jagged 5-foot-wide-by-20-inch-deep crater in an otherwise empty road. Minutes earlier, a group of volunteer rescue workers in town had received an ominous alert: Spotters had observed a Syrian Armed Forces bomber taking off from Shayrat airbase 68 miles away, and it was likely carrying a chemical payload. “Guys, tell people to wear masks,” the voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie implored.
Most of the town’s 16,000 residents were in bed or getting ready for work when a milky-white cloud began to spread near the bombed-out bakery and grain silos shortly after 6:30 a.m. The first people on the scene arrived to find bodies lying on the ground outside and in homes, with no signs of blunt trauma. Related Video: Nitrogen fixation.
Consent Form. Wildfires burning around the West. Rising seas lapping at the East. Animal feces, coal ash, and fertilizer fouling waterways from the Carolinas to the Midwest. Bridges, roads, and pipelines crumbling across the country. With the midterm elections less than a month away, communities across the United States face some of the most formidable scientific, environmental, and technological challenges in decades. On November 6, voters from Alaska to Florida will choose not just their next governor, state representative, or member of Congress, but to some degree how we live for decades to come. In the 36 gubernatorial and 470 congressional races around the country, some of these challenges, like opioids and fossil fuels, are campaign issues, while others, such as climate change’s role in severe wildfires, don’t appear on any candidates’ platform.
These are the top science, technology, or environment issues facing each state—plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. Alaska: Guarding calving grounds. Redefining the Kilogram. The kilogram is shrinking. The official object that defines the mass of a kilogram is a tiny, 139-year-old cylinder of platinum and iridium that resides in a triple-locked vault near Paris. Because it is so important, scientists almost never take it out; instead they use copies called working standards.
But the last time they did inspect the real kilogram, they found it is roughly five parts in 100 million heavier than all the working standards, which have been leaving behind a few atoms of metal every time they are put on scales. This is one of the reasons the kilogram may soon be redefined not by a physical object but through calculations based on fundamental constants.
“This [shrinking] is the kind of thing that happens when you have an object that needs to be conserved in order to have a standard,” says Peter Mohr, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who serves on the committee that oversees the International System of Units (SI). Choice page.
New Microscope Shows the Quantum World in Crazy Detail. Climate change. Evolution. Chimera. Smithsonian Articles. Biological. Nature. Dog. Science. ASEE PRISM - DECEMBER 2012 - FIRST LOOK. Breathtakingly vast, Greenland’s ancient ice sheet turns out to be as fragile as it is formidable. Huge chunks—one twice the size of Manhattan—splintered with thunderous cracks from its giant glaciers this summer. NASA scientists also were stunned to see the whole 660,235-square-mile surface briefly turn into slush.
Environmental photographer James Balog has spent the last five years documenting the impact of Earth’s big thaw on 16 glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, Nepal, Alaska, and the U.S. Rocky Mountains. His stunning new book, Ice: Portraits of Vanishing Glaciers, culls glittering images of frozen landscapes transformed by erosion and meltwater from among scores of photos snapped every half-hour by 34 time-lapse cameras. Each freezes a fleeting moment in our changing climate. – Mary Lord Photo courtesy of james balog / extremelceSurvey.org Are hybrid farms the future of American agriculture? Photo courtesy of istock New York City sees 3-D printing as a budding new industry.
Levitation: better with 3 lasers (ScienceAlert) Levitation: better with 3 lasers Australian National University Wednesday, 30 October 2013 Researchers have levitated a mirror using lasers. In the image: Dr Mahdi Hosseini and Mr Giovanni Guccione working on their opto-mechanical laser system. Image: ANU Physicists from The Australian National University have shown that three lasers are better than one when it comes to levitating small but visible objects on light, designing an extremely precise sensor by floating a mirror on a tripod of lasers.
“Levitation itself is not new,” says Professor Ping Koy Lam from the ANU Department of Quantum Science. Professor Lam and his team have shown it is possible to stably suspend a mirror using three laser beams and collect the reflected light. “Imagine you’ve got something above you and you are throwing ping pong balls at it to keep it in the air,” says Dr Ben Buchler. Levitating a convex mirror, as opposed to a micro particle allows the physicists to measure any movement in the mirror. A Theoretical Phyisicist Explains Why Science Is Not About Certainty. We teach our students: We say that we have some theories about science. Science is about hypothetico-deductive methods; we have observations, we have data, data require organizing into theories. So then we have theories. These theories are suggested or produced from the data somehow, then checked in terms of the data. Then time passes, we have more data, theories evolve, we throw away a theory, and we find another theory that’s better, a better understanding of the data, and so on and so forth.
This is the standard idea of how science works, which implies that science is about empirical content; the true, interesting, relevant content of science is its empirical content. Since theories change, the empirical content is the solid part of what science is. Now, there’s something disturbing, for me, as a theoretical scientist, in all this. There hasn’t been a major success in theoretical physics in the last few decades. How did he get this? Why do I think this is interesting? Who cares? Why? Science/Nature | Geological time gets a new period. Geologists have added a new period to their official calendar of Earth's history - the first in 120 years. The Ediacaran Period covers some 50 million years of ancient time on our planet from 600 million years ago to about 542 million years ago.
It officially becomes part of the Neoproterozoic, when multi-celled life forms started to take hold on Earth. However, Russian geologists are unhappy their own title - the Vendian - which was coined in 1952, was not chosen. The decision was taken after a fifteen-year long period of consideration by expert geologists. "There's always been a recognition that the last part of the Precambrian is a special time before the first shelled animals, when there are these weird, mesh-like creatures of uncertain affinity," Professor Jim Ogg, secretary-general of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), told BBC News Online. "Now it's an official part of the timescale. " 'Snowball' Earth. Designed Metasurface Is A Thin, Near Perfect Acoustic Absorber | Neomatica. Neurons in human skin perform advanced calculations - Faculty of Medicine - Umeå University, Sweden.
[2014-09-01] Neurons in human skin perform advanced calculations, previously believed that only the brain could perform. This is according to a study from Umeå University in Sweden published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. A fundamental characteristic of neurons that extend into the skin and record touch, so-called first-order neurons in the tactile system, is that they branch in the skin so that each neuron reports touch from many highly-sensitive zones on the skin. According to researchers at the Department of Integrative Medical Biology, IMB, Umeå University, this branching allows first-order tactile neurons not only to send signals to the brain that something has touched the skin, but also process geometric data about the object touching the skin. The study also shows that the sensitivity of individual neurons to the shape of an object depends on the layout of the neuron’s highly-sensitive zones in the skin. Read the study in Nature Neuroscience Editor: Mattias Grundström Mitz.
Chimps Outplay Humans in Brain Games. We humans assume we are the smartest of all creations. In a world with over 8.7 million species, only we have the ability to understand the inner workings of our body while also unraveling the mysteries of the universe. We are the geniuses, the philosophers, the artists, the poets and savants.
We amuse at a dog playing ball, a dolphin jumping rings, or a monkey imitating man because we think of these as remarkable acts for animals that, we presume, aren’t smart as us. But what is smart? Is it just about having ideas, or being good at language and math? Scientists have shown, time and again, that many animals have an extraordinary intellect. In a recent study by psychologists Colin Camerer and Tetsuro Matsuzawa, chimps and humans played a strategy game – and unexpectedly, the chimps outplayed the humans. Chimps are a scientist’s favorite model to understand human brain and behavior.
In the present study, chimp pairs or human pairs contested in a two-player video game. These 5 Crops Are Still Hand-Harvested, And It's Hard Work. At left, a woman holds the saffron crocus during the saffron harvest in Herat, Afghanistan. At right, saffron flowers are collected in Saint Hippolyte, eastern France. Since the stigmas need to be picked from the flowers by hand, saffron is the world's most expensive spice. Majid Saeedi/Getty Images; Maxppp /Landov hide caption itoggle caption Majid Saeedi/Getty Images; Maxppp /Landov At left, a woman holds the saffron crocus during the saffron harvest in Herat, Afghanistan. At right, saffron flowers are collected in Saint Hippolyte, eastern France.
Since the stigmas need to be picked from the flowers by hand, saffron is the world's most expensive spice. Majid Saeedi/Getty Images; Maxppp /Landov Mechanization has made the farming of many crops — lettuce and tomatoes among them — a lot less labor intensive. How do you measure the labor intensity of crops? For Labor Day, we thought we'd round up some of those crops that still require specialized human labor. Saffron Vanilla Chocolate (Cacao) Asia-Pacific | S Korea cloning research was fake. Research by South Korea's top human cloning scientist - hailed as a breakthrough earlier this year - was fabricated, colleagues have concluded. A Seoul National University panel said the research by world-renowned Hwang Woo-suk was "intentionally fabricated", and he would be disciplined. Dr Hwang said he would resign, but he did not admit his research was faked.
"I sincerely apologise to the people for creating shock and disappointment," he said after the panel's announcement. "As a symbol of apology, I step down as professor of Seoul National University. " However he maintained that the science behind his work was sound, and that his country's scientists were still leading the field. "I emphasise that patient-specific stem cells belong to South Korea and you are going to see this," he said. Proponents of human stem cell cloning say it could one day help cure diseases including diabetes and Parkinson's. Wider doubts Pictures 'doctored' When Wildlife Documentaries Jump The Shark. Mike Rowe scubas in protective underwater gear as he hosts an episode of Discovery Channel's "Shark Week. " Critics say sensationalized wildlife documentaries, like some of those broadcast during Shark Week, do more harm than good.
Claudia Pellarini/AP hide caption itoggle caption Claudia Pellarini/AP Mike Rowe scubas in protective underwater gear as he hosts an episode of Discovery Channel's "Shark Week. " Critics say sensationalized wildlife documentaries, like some of those broadcast during Shark Week, do more harm than good. Claudia Pellarini/AP This summer's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel was the highest-rated in the special's 27-year history.
The network has been criticized for pushing entertainment at the cost of science, with "documentaries" that advance dubious theories — or are entirely fake. Animal Planet — which is owned by Discovery Communications — has even run fake documentaries on mermaids. A Caveat Buried In The Credits Conscious Filmmaking Mermaids And Megalodons. Quantum mechanics lets you image an object with photons that never hit it. One item on the long list of strange facts about quantum mechanics is that the mere possibility of something happening is often just as good as it actually happening. For example, the fact that a photon could potentially travel down a given path can be enough to create an interference pattern that requires the photon to take that path. Something similar is true regarding a phenomenon called quantum interference.
A team of researchers from the University of Vienna has now taken advantage of this idea to create a bizarre imaging technique where the photons that actually strike the object being imaged are discarded. The image itself is then built other with photons that were entangled with the discarded ones. Interference is the ability of two waves, such as photons, to interact either additively or destructively. The device the team set up would create a pair of entangled photons and send one to the target to be imaged.
If the photon struck the non-transparent area, it was absorbed. Catalytic Gold Nanoclusters Promise Rich Chemical Yields | ornl.gov. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon scientists make stable, active catalysts The reaction mechanism of carbon monoxide oxidation is shown over intact and partially ligand-removed gold nanoclusters supported on cerium oxide rods. Image credit: Wu, Z.; Jiang, D.; Mann, A.; Mullins, D.; Qiao, Z. -A.; Allard, L.; Zeng, C.; Jin, R.; Overbury, S. Thiolate Ligands as a Double-Edged Sword for CO Oxidation on CeO2-Supported Au25(SCH2CH2Ph)18 Nanoclusters. J. Am.
Old thinking was that gold, while good for jewelry, was not of much use for chemists because it is relatively nonreactive. But before gold nanoparticles can be useful to consumers, researchers have to make them both stable and active. “The ligands are double-edged swords,” said study leader Zili Wu of ORNL, whose investigation was conducted in ORNL’s catalysis group, which is led by Steve Overbury. Activating gold When the gold clusters are heated, the ligands start to come off and gold’s catalytic activity increases. California Seafloor Mapped By USGS - Science News - redOrbit.url. Physics. 10 Amazing Man-made Substances.
Nature Publishing Group science journals, jobs, and information.url. Home Nature News.url. Say Hi to hydrogen!.url. People | Chris Muelder. The Public Eye: As drought persists, frustration mounts over secrecy of California’s well drilling logs - Water & Drought. Look at what two years on Mars did to the Curiosity Rover. Biochemistry. Zoology. Cell (biology) Why this crab's blood could save your life. Neuroscience. Anatomy. Bill Nye Fights Back. Neil deGrasse Tyson Hit by Creationist Backlash for Explaining Universe Is Billions of Years Old. Nocera's Artificial Leaf.
How safe is eating meat? Louis Del Monte Interview On The Singularity.
Secrets of the Creative Brain. The Map Of Native American Tribes You've Never Seen Before : Code Switch. The Most Astonishing Wave-Tracking Experiment Ever : Krulwich Wonders... Blackest is the new black: Scientists have developed a material so dark that you can't see it... - Science - News. Why do we have blood types? NOAA Satellite Reveals New Views of Earth at Night. 40 Cool Science Experiments on the Web. Bridging the Urban Landscape: Nikola Tesla. Over 4,000 science books now free online - Mankato Homeschooling.