Month: August 2007
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Friday’s finds
Today’s highlights from the preprint server Coherent ultrafast core-hole correlation spectroscopy: x-ray analogues of multidimensional NMR Secure Transmission with Multiple Antennas: The MISOME Wiretap Channel Relationship between degree of efficiency and prediction in stock price changes Tracing the early development of harmful algal blooms with the aid of Lagrangian coherent structures
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Unparticles and supernovas
Unparticles are all the rage in physics at the moment. Yep, ya heard right: unparticles. A few months back, Howard “Jumpin” Georgi at Harvard University stumbled across an entirely new type of stuff while foolin’ around with the field theories behind particle physics. Ordinary particles pop out of these theories as solutions at certain scales.…
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The incredible galactic foxtrot
Ya’ll know the laws of physics are symmetrical–they have no preferred direction. The speed of light (and more or less everything else) is the same whichever way it is pointin’, right? So it’d be surprisin’ if the universe turned out to be asymmetric, shockin’ if it had a prefered axis and stunnin’ if it had…
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Thursday’s haul
Today’s highlights from the physics preprint server: Preventing Extinction and Outbreaks in Chaotic Populations Working and Assembly Modes of the Agile Eye The Beginning of String Theory: a Historical Sketch The Conjunction Fallacy and Interference Effects
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The physics of sandcastles
If ya’ll like a-splashin and a-paddlin at the seaside, ya know that wet sand is a different animal to dry sand. Nobody builds sandcastles outta dry sand, right? Axel “Ice Cream” Fingerle and his buddy Stephan at the Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self Organization in Germany say they know why. “The reason…is that…small liquid…
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Human breath analysis
Beware the early mornin’ kiss. Yep, Jun “Eggy” Ye at JILA in Colorado has certainly taken this advice to heart. He’s gone and built himself a giant optical frequency comb laser capable zapping the bejesus out of any molecules found in human breath. When that happens the molecules absorb light producing a characteristic spectrum that…
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Sequencing your DNA
We done one human genome. Now we gotta do everyone’s. So everybody and his cat is a-huntin and a-searchin for a way to sequence individual human genomes cheaply and easily. And there ain’t no shortage of ideas which makes it hard to keep up. Thankfully ya don’t need to cos Massimiliano “Di” Di Ventra at…
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Could the Pioneer anomaly have a gravitational origin?
Nope. Ref: arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0602089: Could the Pioneer Anomaly have a Gravitational Origin?
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Boron buckyballs
A bit of hellraisin’ on a Friday night don’t do nobody no harm so it’s no surprise to see them chemists going at it hammer ‘n tong. Makes ’em seem almost human. The barney is over the shape of a molecule (might have guessed, right?). Earlier this year, Nevill “Eye Test” Szwacki at Rice University…
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When gamma rays strike
On 6 January earlier this year, one of the strongest thunderstorms in livin’ memory a-crashed and a-roared its way across the Sea of Japan, rattlin the daylights outta the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant on the coast. This power plant is fitted with one of the most advanced radiation detectors on the planet and durin’ the…