Month: September 2008
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How politics manipulates science
In a fascinating and controversial paper, Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sets out to show how changes in the structure of scientific activity over the past half century have left the scientific endeavor vulnerable to political manipulation. In particular, he focuses on how political bodies try to control scientific institutions, how scientists…
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Forget black holes, could the LHC trigger a “Bose supernova”?
The fellas at CERN have gone to great lengths to reassure us all that they won’t destroy the planet (who says physicists are cold hearted?). The worry was that the collision of particles at the LHC’s high energies could create a black hole that would swallow the planet. We appear to be safe on that…
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Orbits ‘n’ ephemeris
The best of the rest from the physics arXiv this week: Correlated Connectivity and the Distribution of Firing Rates in the Neocortex Constructing Perfect Steganographic Systems Fainter and Closer: Finding Planets by Symmetry Breaking Diamond Nanoparticles as Photoluminescent Nanoprobes for Biology and Near-Field Optics Silicon Photonics: The Inside Story Limb Preference in the Gallop of…
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Periodic Pioneer anomaly points to modified general relativity
The Pioneer anomaly grows ever more fascinating. Here’s the background: Pioneer 10 and 11 were launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively and, after sweeping past a number of the outer gas giants, have been heading out of the solar system ever since. NASA has been accurately tracking their position and speed using Doppler tracking measurements…
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New fractal pattern found in milk and coffee
Next time you stare into your 9am double tall latte, look with new respect. Japanese scientists have discovered a new type of fractal in the patterns coffee makes as mixes with milk. Placing a heavier fluid onto a lighter fluid always results in an disturbance at their boundary known as a Rayleigh–Taylor instability. Michiko Shimokawa…
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Why spontaneous traffic jams are like detonation waves
We’re all familiar with phantom jams, traffic blockages that arise with no apparent cause and that melt away for no discernible reason. Today Ruben Rosales and pals at MIT and the University of Alberta in Canada coin a new term for the waves that cause these hold ups: they call them jamitons. And jamitons turn…
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Loophole found in quantum cryptography photon detectors
If you’re hoping to secure your data using quantum cryptography, you might want to find a shoulder to cry on. Quantum cryptography ought to be 100 percent secure. In theory , it provides perfect security against eavesdroppers. But in practice, a number of loopholes have emerged (see here and here). And today, Vadim Makarov and…
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The fine line between the visible and invisible
The man who built the world’s first invisibility cloak is back and this time he’s got an even better idea. His first design was a triumph for headline writers and Harry Potter fans alike, although most glossed over the fact that this first cloak worked only for microwave-sensitive eyes and even then only at a…
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Rubies ‘n’ diamonds
The best of the rest from the physics arXiv: Derivation of Evolutionary Payoffs from Observable Behavior Space-Time Sensors Using Multiple-Wave Atom Interferometry Dark Matter from a Gas of Wormholes Observable Topological Effects of Mobius Molecular Devices How Long Should an Astronomical Paper be to Increase its Impact?
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Nanodiamonds lead to sharper images
Zap a diamond nanoparticle with laser light and it will fluoresce, emitting single photons if it is small enough. That makes nanodiamonds extremely useful, say Aurélien Cuche at the Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble and pals. For a start, nanodiamonds are easily absorbed by cells, which allows them and the processes inside them to be…