Category: Hellraisin’
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Celebrating 10 years of the Physics arXiv Blog
Back in 2007, I started an experiment. My idea was to use the relatively novel technique of blogging to explore exciting new ideas on the Physics arXiv, an online server for scientific papers. I called this thing the Physics arXiv Blog and 11 August 2017 is the 10th anniversary of its birth. Every day, I…
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The fundamental patterns of traffic flow
Take up the study of earthquakes, volcanoes or stock markets and the goal, whether voiced or not, is to find a way to predict future “events” in your field. In that sense, these guys have something in common with scientists who study traffic jams. The difference is that traffic experts might one day reach their…
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The LHC’s dodgy dossier?
There’s no reason to worry about the Large Hadron Collider that is due to to be switched on later this year for the second time. The chances of it creating a planet-swallowing black hole are tiny. Hardly worth mentioning really. But last month, Roberto Casadio at the Universita di Bologna in Italy and a few…
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Calculating the cost of dirty bombs
One of the more frightening scenarios that civil defence teams worry about is the possibility that a bomb contaminated with radioactive material would be detonated in a heavily populated area. Various research teams have considered this problem and come to similar conclusions–that the actual threat to human health from such a device is low. Some…
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Ptarithmetic: reinventing logic for the computer age
In the last few years, a small group of logicians have attempted the ambitious task of re-inventing the discipline of formal logic. In the past, logic has been thought of as the formal theory of “truth”. Truth plays an important role in our society and as suchm a formal theory is entirely laudable and worthy.…
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The frightening origins of glacial cycles
Climatologists have known for some time that the Earth’s motion around the Sun is not as regular as it might first appear. The orbit is subject to a number of periodic effects such as the precession of the Earth’s axis which varies over periods of 19, 22 and 24 thousand years, its axial tilt which…
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Econophysicists identify world’s top 10 most powerful companies
The study of complex networks has given us some remarkable insights into the nature of systems as diverse as forest fires, the internet and earthquakes. This kind of work is even beginning to give econophysicists a glimmer of much-needed insight in the nature of our economy. In a major study, econophysicists have today identified the…
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The power laws behind terrorist attacks
Plot the number of people killed in terrorists attacks around the world since 1968 against the frequency with which such attacks occur and you’ll get a power law distribution, that’s a fancy way of saying a straight line when both axis have logarithmic scales. The question, of course, is why? Why not a normal distribution,…
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Space Station simulator given emotions
Astronauts training to work on the International Space Station have to have mastered a mind-boggling amount of kit before they leave Earth. One of these devices is the Canadarm 2, a robotic arm used to manipulate experiments outside the station. On Earth, astronauts train on a Canadarm 2 simulator connected to a virtual assistant that…
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Rippling in muscles caused by molecular motors detaching
Muscle tissue is made of molecular engines called sarcomeres, which contract and expend when the muscle is flexed. In sarcomeres the business of contracting is carried out by molecular motors called myosins as they pull themselves along filaments of a protein called actin. When you flex your arm, it is these myosin molecular motors that…