- Fundamental Physics: The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox is taught in every intro quantum mechanics class. It goes something like this: Suppose you have an event (like an electron and a positron annihilating) which emits two photons that travel in opposite directions (required for conservation of momentum). The principle theory of QM (Heisenberg interpretation) is that the spin of the photons is indeterminate. It is spin-up and spin-down with equal amplitude. Only when measured does the photon "choose" which it is. Ah, but here's something. Suppose you set this up, and the two photons travel a fair distance, and you measure one of them to be spin up. Instantaneously, the other MUST "choose" to be spin-down, for conservation of angular momentum. But that's weird! The "signal" that told the other photon to choose traveled at greater than the speed of light, which shouldn't be allowed. If you could somehow send a signal at superluminal speed, you could violate causality, you could receive a message from yourself before you sent it!
This paradox, abbreviated EPR, has been around as a thought experiment for ages. But a group in Switzerland tested it, and found that indeed, the photons were entangled and correlated across a distance of many kilometers. They report that "the speed of the influence would have to exceed that of light by at least four orders of magnitude." There is a subtle caveat about privileged reference frame, but this seems like a correct result. Full article Summary Another summary.
- Climatology: Researchers in Barcelona studied weather patterns based on day of the week. It is assumed that the far greater amounts of pollution created on weekdays influence the weather on those days. The group "examined 44 years of climate data from 13 weather stations across Spain. They discovered that winter weekends tend to be drier and sunnier than weekdays." The effect extended beyond the cities, where most of the pollution was created, into rural areas. Link
- Autism: A group reported in Science a study that involved "families in which there were many marriages between cousins . . . to search for genes connected with increased susceptibility to autism." They found some such families, and a genetic workup using Homozygosity mapping and found at least one new gene, NHE9, which is closely associated with the incidence of autism. Nearly "two dozen genes that are now associated with the disorder." Nowhere in the report does "vaccine" appear. I wonder why. Link
- Immunology: "Researchers have for the first time reversed symptoms of HIV infection in a living animal using the technique of RNA interference . . . The construct protected the mice from infection. It also restored the suppressed immune systems of mice that bore HIV-infected immune cells." Link
- Materials science: A substance was made that flaps faster than a hummingbird's wings when laser light is shot at it. "Timothy Bunning and his collaborators prepared a network of liquid crystal polymer containing azobenzene molecules, which act as linking groups. The bonds in these azo groups change reversibly from one geometrical form to another when exposed to ultraviolet laser light of a certain wavelength." Definitely a "check this shit out" paper. Link
- Immunology: "A drug that normally suppresses an immune response by trapping lymphocytes in lymphoid organs results in the elimination of a chronic viral infection when applied at low doses . . . It seems likely that FTY720 boosts the [immune] response, either by enhancing positive regulators of immunity or by blocking negative regulators." Link
Aug 13 2008
A cool week for science
Jun 13 2008
Indisputably the best songs ever
Recently I happened upon this list by Rolling Stone of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". It is, of course, mired in old-fart music, relying on "importance" of songs rather than on aesthetics. It's also clearly not the work of an individual. The top 2 songs are both really just lines of bullshit: Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone and the Stones' Satisfaction. Both are tunes of marginal merit with a maladroit singer logorrheaing over them. Here are the real top 100 songs of all time, in no particular order. If you disagree you are wrong.
Top 20:
Ain't Misbehavin, Honeysuckle Rose (Bobby Enriquez's version)
Band - The Weight
Ben Folds - Fred Jones (part 2)
Ben Folds Five - Alice Childress
Ben Folds Five - Missing The War
Ben Folds Five - Selfless, Cold and Composed
Cure - Pictures of You
Fountains of Wayne - Troubled Times
George Gershwin - Rhapsody In Blue
Henry Mancini - Pink Panther Theme
Henry Mancini - The Days Of Wine And Roses (McCoy Tyner's version)
Joe Jackson - It's Different For Girls
Massive Attack - Protection
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
Radiohead - Let Down
Radiohead - No Surprises
Radiohead - Paranoid Android
Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien
Tom Waits - Ol' '55
Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
Jun 02 2008
Drives me crazy
I have eczema. It itches like mad right now. I am fighting with every ounce of self control I possess not to be furiously scratching at the backs of my hands. This sucks. Last night I woke myself up scratching my hand. Did I mention that eczema is extremely attractive? No? That's because it's not. The skin on the back of my right hand is bumpy and gross, like an iguana (but not green). I could have sworn we had a picture of the iguana already uploaded, but apparently not, and I am nothing if not lazy.
It is not altogether astonishing that I should be so afflicted (and how's that for a fancy sentence?). My mom has eczema, psoriasis actually, and her mom had rheumatoid arthritis, which I'll probably have too, eventually. It just sucks and I feel the need to bitch about it as publicly as possible. But there are much much worse things that could happen to me; at least this isn't one of them. I just have to wait until the fabulous topical steroids do their magic and make the horrible itching stop. And stay out of the sun, which makes it itch worse.
May 09 2008
Not very much fun at all
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I work in the webby world, and a lot of what I do is move sites from one format to another. What I have before me at this moment is a very, very, very large site. Bonus: it's fairly well-structured, with named divs and such. Now, all I need from it is the stuff that's in a div of a particular class.
Easy, right? Just start at <div id="whatever"> and stop at </div>!
Well, no. Because it's possible, and is often the case, that there's something like:
<div id="whatever">
Stuff stuff stuff
<div id="something-else">
Stuff stuff stuff
</div>
More stuff
</div>
There can be, theoretically, infinite divs nested in the div of interest. So I would need to keep track of them, and make sure that I didn't stop pulling text until the exactly correct . I can imagine doing this, and I'm sure that with enough time I actually could accomplish this feat, but I know for a fact I would not come out of it without a headache. So back to Google I go, hoping that someone else has invented this particular wheel (and slapped it on a web page, described in a fashion that I can accurately search for).
May 07 2008
Sad
Today my African Violet gave up the ghost. I wasn't altogether surprised, as it had been ailing for awhile, but I didn't exactly expect it to sort of just fall apart when I was poking at it this morning, attempting to remove dead leaves. Instead of dead leaves I kinda pulled the whole top off, leaving a sad little stump in the flower pot. And a pink plastic flamingo.
I had never had very good luck with that violet; it was some kind of fancy hybrid, and less agreeable than the drugstore variety I had owned previously. It never did like to flower, and when it did the flowers tended to be disappointing. All the same I'm going to try to root one of its leaves; many or maybe most African Violets can be propagated that way, and hopefully this is one of them. If not, I guess I'll have to go to Rite Aid and get an ordinary violet that I can't kill.