Science & TechnologyS


Chalkboard

North Carolina State researchers 'clear away the dust,' get better look at youngest supernova remnant


Science Blog
Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:07 UTC
Researchers at North Carolina State University have used a mathematical model that allows them to get a clearer picture of the galaxy's youngest supernova remnant by correcting for the distortions caused by cosmic dust. Their new data provides evidence that this remnant is from a type Ia supernova - the explosion of a white dwarf star - and raises questions about the ways in which magnetic fields affect the generation of the remnant's cosmic ray particles.

NC State physicists Dr. Stephen Reynolds and Dr. Kazimierz Borkowski, with colleagues from Cambridge University and NASA, re-examined their original X-ray images of supernova remnant G1.9+0.3 in an attempt to glean more information about the remnant's origins, rate of expansion, and any cosmic particles that may have resulted from the explosion. Scientists know that supernovae create cosmic rays - fast-moving subatomic particles that play a role in the formation of stars - but they aren't sure how this occurs or what other functions the particles may serve.
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Blackbox

Quantum gods don't deserve your faith

Amanda Gefter
New Scientist
Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:35 UTC
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© CSU Archives / Everett Collection / RexMaharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of transcendental meditation, claimed his techniques gave practitioners access to the "quantum field of cosmic consciousness".
Quantum mechanics is remarkably weird: even though it is well understood mathematically and can produce accurate, ultra-precise predictions, nobody really knows what it means. This leaves lots of room for people in search of the spiritual - and who are not burdened by any knowledge of mathematics - to impose on it whatever quasi-religious beliefs or interpretations they like.

In this much-needed book, physicist Victor Stenger isolates and then debunks the claims of two kinds of "quantum belief". One he calls "quantum theology" because it offers quantum physics as a way for God to act in the world without violating natural laws. The second is "quantum spirituality", which is rooted in the even vaguer notion that quantum physics connects the human mind to the universe, allowing us to create our own reality.

This was the theme of the wildly popular film What the Bleep Do We Know!?, which grossed over $10 million and was responsible for creating widespread misunderstanding of quantum physics. With Stenger in charge, though, we are on sure ground. He adds even more value by weaving a thorough beginner's course in quantum physics into his debunking exercise.

Comment: SOTT recommends Physics and the Mysterious for an expert's view of the topic above. As the author, physicist/mathematician Arkadiusz Jadczyk writes:
Quantum Theory is supposed to be the greatest invention in science since the beginning of the study of deeper realities. The greatest success of Quantum Theory is considered to be Quantum Field Theory, such as the theory of a quantized electromagnetic field (photons) in interaction with quantized charged matter (electrons). The problem is, this theory is mathematically inconsistent. It involves wishful thinking rather than rigorous science! The only quantum field theories (in four dimensional space-time) that ARE free of contradictions, are so-called trivial ones; that is theories that describe particles that do not interact at all. These theories are mathematical exercises involving particles that are "dead," that will never form atoms. It seems to be that a universe that is governed by quantum field theories that are free of contradictions would be a dead universe, a universe of no interaction.

One can build a non-trivial quantum field theory, which may even describe something real or interesting, but then it would necessarily contradict Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity; it would be a non-relativistic one.

This is the dilemma. If you want to have both Quantum Field Theory AND Einstein's Theory of Relativity, then you've got a problem.


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Info

'Hidden photons' to send secret emails through Earth

Jon Cartwright
New Scientist
Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:19 UTC
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© DESY, HamburgThe German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) has been used to study the behaviour of photons, as in this image, but scientists there are now investigating the possibility of "hidden photons"
If you shine a laser on the floor, where does the light go? With the right preparation, some of it might pop out at the other side of the world - an effect that could be exploited to transmit secret messages through the ground.

That is the conclusion of Andreas Ringwald at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg, and colleagues, who have explored the possibility of hypothetical particles called "hidden photons". "If such particles exist, then we can use them to communicate," says Ringwald. "It's very simple."

Hidden photons are a class of particles predicted by so-called supersymmetric extensions to the standard model of particle physics. Unlike normal photons, hidden photons could have a tiny mass and would be invisible because they would not interact with the charged particles in conventional matter. This means hidden photons would flit through even the densest materials unaffected.
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Info

Cosmic numbers: Pauli and Jung's love of numerology

Dan Falk
New Scientist
Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:32 UTC
Image
© edududas, stock.xchng
On the surface, Arthur I. Miller's latest book is a joint biography of two great minds of the 20th century: quantum physics pioneer Wolfgang Pauli and psychoanalysis master Carl Jung. This two-in-one approach has served Miller well; his 2001 book Einstein, Picasso attracted wide acclaim. But whereas Einstein and Picasso never actually met, Pauli, we learn, met Jung on numerous occasions. They grew to be close friends, and Pauli became one of Jung's regular clients.

The two shared similar obsessions. Both were scientists, but each feared that physics would always be missing something if it neglected the inner workings of the mind.

Jung obsessed over mental archetypes - primitive, subconscious symbols hard-wired into our perception of the world - and was fascinated by the Kabbalah, a fiendishly complex branch of Jewish mysticism.

Pauli, for his part, was enamoured by Johannes Kepler, who tried (unsuccessfully) to explain the structure of the solar system in terms of geometry alone. He was also intrigued by a lesser known contemporary of Kepler - Robert Fludd, a member of the Rosicrucian secret society, who believed that simple geometrical forms held the key to unlocking the cosmos. As Pauli struggled with problems in quantum physics, Miller explains, he felt "the need for a fusion of physics with Jung's analytical psychology in order to understand first the unconscious and then the conscious".
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Telescope

Dark matter may have ripped up early universe

Marcus Chown
New Scientist
Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:53 UTC
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© ilco, stock.xchngA billion years after the big bang, hydrogen atoms were mysteriously torn apart. Could dark matter be the culprit?
By about a billion years after the big bang, our universe was reionised. Hydrogen atoms were torn apart into electrons and protons, but the perpetrator has been something of a mystery. Could dark matter be responsible?

Neutral atoms, mostly of hydrogen, formed about 380,000 years after the big bang, when the universe cooled enough for electrons and nuclei to combine. Most astronomers suspect that the hydrogen was reionised by the first generation of stars (see diagram below). No telescope has ever peered far enough back in time to see the first stars form, but they are thought to have been giants, and their ferocious ultraviolet light could have done the trick.
But Dan Hooper and Alexander Belikov of Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, think that dark matter - the unseen stuff that makes up about 85 per cent of all matter - could have reionised the universe. Dark matter is thought to be made of massive particles that are predicted to annihilate when they collide, spewing out radiation.

When dark matter clumped together under gravity in the early universe, some of the particles would have annihilated, resulting in high-energy gamma rays. Each gamma ray would have knocked out an electron from a hydrogen atom, which in turn would have dislodged an electron in another atom, and so on. "A single gamma ray might reionise 1000 hydrogen atoms," says Hooper. "The mechanism could easily have reionised the universe."
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Blackbox

Fluorescent puppy is world's first transgenic dog

Ewen Callaway
New Scientist
Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:46 UTC
Image
© Byeong Chun LeeRuppy the transgenic puppy at 10 days old. Even under natural light the red protein can be seen in the skin and fur..
A cloned beagle named Ruppy - short for Ruby Puppy - is the world's first transgenic dog. She and four other beagles all produce a fluorescent protein that glows red under ultraviolet light.

A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones.

Lee and stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang were part of a team that created the first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005. Much of Hwang's work on human cells turned out to be fraudulent, but Snuppy was not, an investigation later concluded.

This new proof-of-principle experiment should open the door for transgenic dog models of human disease, says team member CheMyong Ko of the University of Kentucky in Lexington. "The next step for us is to generate a true disease model," he says.

However, other researchers who study domestic dogs as stand-ins for human disease are less certain that transgenic dogs will become widespread in research.
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Laptop

Innovation? Mind-reading headsets will change your brain

Tom Simonite
New Scientist
Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:57 UTC
This week, engineer Adam Wilson made global headlines by updating Twitter using his brainwaves. "USING EEG TO SEND TWEET" he explained.

Wilson's achievement was actually pretty trivial. He used a system called BCI2000, found in hundreds of laboratories across the globe, that can do the job of a keyboard for any software program. But it was significant precisely because it was trivial: mind-reading tech is going to have a massive impact this year.

In the coming months, cheap headsets that let you control technology with the electrical signals generated by your firing neurons will go on sale to the general public. Our relationship with technology - and our brains - will never be the same again.
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Info

Gene technology threatens new racism: Vatican

Laura MacInnis
Reuters
Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:20 UTC
Geneva - Technology allowing parents to choose the genetic characteristics of their babies threatens to breed new forms of racism, the Vatican told a United Nations race conference on Wednesday.

Pope Benedict earlier this week said the heated U.N. forum, which several Western powers are boycotting to avoid giving legitimacy to criticism of Israel, was an important initiative to confront all forms of modern discrimination.
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Info

Scientists make super-strong metallic spider silk

Ben Hirschler
Reuters
Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:15 UTC
London - Spider silk is already tougher and lighter than steel, and now scientists have made it three times stronger by adding small amounts of metal.

The technique may be useful for manufacturing super-tough textiles and high-tech medical materials, including artificial bones and tendons.

"It could make very strong thread for surgical operations," researcher Seung-Mo Lee of the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle, Germany, said in a telephone interview.
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Cell Phone

Japanese to unveil solar-powered mobile phone

Danielle Demetriou
The Telegraph
Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:06 UTC
A solar-powered mobile phone that can be entirely operated by exposure to sunlight is to be launched this summer in Japan.

The new phone is a waterproof, sunlight-powered device which will be sold by the Japanese mobile phone company KDDI from June.

Ten minutes of explosure to sunlight is sufficient for a one minute call or to power the handset in standby mode for two hours.
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