Category: Science

Dawn of the Particle Age.

“It’s really a generation that we’ve been looking forward to this moment, and the moments that will come after it in particular. September 10 is a demarcation between finishing the construction and starting to turn it on, but the excitement will only continue to grow.” A Quantum Leap Forward, or the End of Days? (Answer: The former.) Over on the border of France and Switzerland, the Large Hadron Collider — the giant, multi-billion-dollar particle accelerator decades in the making — gets ready for its first big test on Wednesday (as does its accompanying “Grid”.) “The collider will recreate the conditions of less than a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, when there was a hot ‘soup’ of tiny particles called quarks and gluons, to look at how the universe evolved, said John Harris, U.S. coordinator for ALICE, a detector specialized to analyze that question.“

The Once and Future King?

“It is the most challenging film I’ve ever made.” The Hollywood Reporter checks in with James Cameron on the status of Avatar, and the future of 3D. “‘The real question is ‘where does all this go?’ Cameron said. ‘Are we looking at a situation maybe 10-15 years out where most laptops are sold with 3-D stereoscopic screens, most montors are stereo compatible, most DVD players can run stereo content?…I can see this becoming much more pervasive that we are thinking now.’“

A Hole in the Heart.

“‘This is the part of the brain involved in knowing that you want something,’ she said. ‘When people who are not adjusting well are having these sorts of thoughts about the person, they are experiencing this reward pathway being activated. They really are craving in a way that perhaps is not allowing them or helping them adapt to the new reality.‘” It’s darker than you know in those complicated shadows…A new study finds that unrelenting grief works on the brain differently than the usual kind of post-traumatic depression. “The same brain system is involved in other powerful cravings, such those that afflict drug addicts and alcoholics…It’s like they’re addicted to the happy memories.“

Thanks for the Memories.

“We appear to be bringing the worst affected parts of the brain functionally back to life.” Is Alzheimer’s disease about to go the way of polio? A new drug known as rember, according to scientists in England, seems to halt and even roll back the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. “We have demonstrated for the first time that it may be possible to arrest progression of the disease by targeting the tangles that are highly correlated with the disease. This is the most significant development in the treatment of the tangles since Alois Alzheimer discovered them in 1907.“

Virgin’s White Knight.

“‘It was very emotional for me,’ he said. ‘I thought, “Oh my God, we’re getting closer.”‘” I’ll say…Richard Branson and Burt Rutan unveil their space tourism mothership, the White Knight Two. “Virgin Galactic envisions a future where space voyages will become as common as airplane travel. It wants to fly 500 people into space in the first year for $200,000 a head…So far, more than 250 wannabe astronauts have paid the full amount.” Hmm…maybe it’s time to start putting ads on this site.

Obama and McCain’s Sinister Inclinations.

“In the race for the White House, lefties seem to have the upper hand. No matter who wins in November, six of the 12 chief executives since the end of World War II will have been left-handed: Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, the elder Bush, Clinton and either Obama or McCain. That’s a disproportionate number, considering that only one in 10 people in the general population is left-handed.” In the WP, authors Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt explain why all your Oval Offices are belong to us, the lefties. We also swelled the ranks of both my undergraduate and graduate cohorts, whatever that’s worth.

How Red Does Your Garden Grow?

“‘There’s nothing about it that would preclude life. In fact, it seems very friendly,’ said mission scientist Samuel P. Kounaves of Tufts University. ‘We were flabbergasted.‘” Hope y’all like asparagus: Early tests by the Mars Phoenix seem to indicate that the Martian soil is more nutrient-rich than anyone expected. “Carbon-based organic material, however, has not been found and may be impossible to detect with the equipment now on Mars.“

Pets versus Bots.

“Sympathetic owners sometimes just retire their new purchases. In other cases, the pets take matters into their own paws. Peter Haney, a university administrator in Lethbridge, Alberta, twice found his Roomba in pieces after letting it clean while his flat-coated retrievers, Macleod and Tima, had the run of the house. ‘No one is talking,’ he says.” They’re only trying to save us from our future cybernetic overlords…From the bookmarks and by way of a friend, the WSJ broaches the thorny issue of the canine-robot divide. As I noted earlier, the Battle for 122nd St., 5D went to Berkeley, whose fearsome arsenal of dog hair apparently convinced my Roomba to give up hope.