Technology
drorzel | February 15, 2012Proton Collisions Vs. Quark/Gluon/Antiquark Mini-Collisions | Of Particular Significance
Keep in mind that the total number of 7 TeV = 7000 GeV proton-proton collisions that took place in ATLAS while they were accumulating the data for the plot above was about 100,000,000,000,000. [The total 2011 data set was 5 times larger, but the corresponding plot won't appear for a few months.] Of all these collisions, just two had mini-collisions that passed above 3500 GeV -- half the collision energy of the protons. In principle the energy of the mini-collisions can go up all the way to 7000 GeV,…
sastyk | February 6, 2012Kurt Cobb has a great article at Resource Insights about why I think the best case against fraccing in my area isn't the water, it is the boom and bust cycle - with a predominance of bust. The last thing rural PA or upstate NY need is another short term boom and bust cycle that leaves them with a lot of played out gas heads and environmental consequences. Or worse, just a plain old bust.
But, in its early release of the Annual Energy Outlook for 2012, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) cut its estimate of technically recoverable resources of U.S. shale gas from 827 tcf to 482…
esiegel | February 1, 2012"The Earth's atmosphere is an imperfect window on the universe... atmospheric turbulence blurs the images of celestial objects, even when they are viewed through the most powerful ground-based telescopes." -John Bahcall
There's no doubt that the Hubble Space Telescope has given us some of the most spectacular, high resolution views of the Universe. From the most distant galaxies ever seen to stars here in our own galactic backyard, the Hubble Space Telescope has simply dwarfed anything we've been able to do from Earth's surface.
Image credit: Bill Drelling.
This is the globular cluster NGC…
sa smith | January 26, 2012Just, turn off your brain before you read this post, folks.
If you try to to think about this, Im pretty sure your entire brain will hemorrhage, and I dont want to be responsible for that.
You think I am joking.
I am not.
I actually heard rumors about what Im going to type here today a week ago, but I didnt write it because I thought it was just an internet rumor. It was too stupid to be real life.
And yet, after verifying the info, here I am. It is true.
*blink*
*deepbreath*
Okay.
Companies like Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Trident-- they take their food flavor/food additive/food everything very…
carlyo | January 25, 2012The USA Science & Engineering Festival hosted by Lockheed Martin offers a special appeal for budding entrepreneurs, inventors, engineers and programmers who will find the ideas, tools and resources to help them make their dreams a reality.
"The Festival is a fantastic place for technical experts of all kinds to learn about the amazing advances that have been made in technology to help them make product prototypes from 3D printers, find designs online for parts and components, and meet an array of experts to help them bring their product ideas to life," said Larry Bock, serial…
carlyo | January 20, 2012
By Larry Bock
Founder and organizer, USA Science & Engineering Festival
Ahh celebrities. From music and acting to the world of supermodeling and sports -- they are respected, admired, even worshiped, for their talent and magnetism. But herein lies the danger when these stars publicly espouse or endorse viewpoints and products in health and medicine without first thoroughly exploring the scientific validity of such claims.
Why danger? For segments of the population -- especially kids who are easily influenced by star role models -- celebrity statements and viewpoints (however misguided…
jdupuis | January 17, 2012Sometimes good things happen to good people and this is certainly the case.
Michael Nielsen has been named a SPARC Innovator for 2012.
I don't usually do awards announcements here but I've made exceptions in the past for friends and I'm doing that again today.
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition has a program called the SPARC Innovators that twice a year recognizes innovations in the field.
The SPARC Innovator program is a new initiative that recognizes an individual, institution, or group that exemplifies SPARC principles by working to challenge the status quo in…
carlyo | January 13, 2012 AT&T Sponsored Nifty Fifty Program Speaker and Surgical Roboticist Carol Reiley made the recent cover of MAKE Magazine! She is the first female engineer to make the cover of the magazine. Volume 29 of MAKE features an interview and two articles co-authored by Carol.
Carol, a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University's Computational Interaction and Robotics Laboratory, is at the forefront of research which is ushering in a new age of technology called teleoperated robotics in which scientists, physicians and other professionals located miles away can operate robots with great precision…
jdupuis | January 13, 2012With the final countdown underway and the conference less than a week away, this post follows my post on library people in attendance at Science Online 2012 from a few weeks ago.
And I'd like to start off with another best-tweet-ever, this time Marieclaire Shanahan retweeting Colin Schutze:
+ they'll be fascinating! RT @_ColinS_: #Scio12 Newbie Tips: You will meet more librarians in one day than you thought existed in the world.
And that's long been one of my goals, to promote the integration of librarians into faculty and researcher conferences and social networks. And Science Online has…
drorzel | January 10, 2012My course this term is on time and timekeeping, but is also intended as a general "research methods" class. This was conceived by people in the humanities, where the idea of generic research methods makes a lot more sense than in the sciences (where there's a lot more specialization by subfield), but I'm going to try to give as general an overview of how to approach scientific research as possible in a course with no prerequisites. The following is sort of a rough sketch of a lecture for next week, on how to approach the scientific literature, so comments and suggestions are welcome. This is…
sporte | January 6, 2012This morning, I learned that congress wants to reverse the advances made by NIH and go back to restricting access to scientific publications. Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (New York) and Congressman Darrell Issa (California) are co-sponsoring a bill to restore the limits on public access to NIH-funded research.
I've written many times before (here, here, here, and here) about the challenges that community college faculty and students have in getting access to scientific papers.
In an era where the economic benefits of educating students in science are well-known (1), the idea of crippling…
kcollins | January 6, 2012As its new corporate slogan - "Rethink Possible" - suggests, AT&T is known for its long history of continually exploring new ways to reinvent itself through technological innovation, educational outreach and community involvement. The global telecommunications leader is bringing this same spirit to the 2nd USA Science & Engineering Festival in its return as a major Sponsor!
Get ready for a bevy of excitement when AT&T assumes key roles in next year's event, including serving as the official host of the Festival's high-profile Nifty Fifty speaker engagements where four of its…
lborkowski | January 4, 2012by Kim Krisberg
Many of us probably look into cyberspace and are overwhelmed with its unwieldy amounts of never-ending information. John Brownstein, on the other hand, sees points on a map.
Brownstein is the co-founder of HealthMap, a team of researchers, epidemiologists and software developers at Children's Hospital Boston who use online sources to track disease outbreaks and deliver real-time surveillance on emerging public health threats. But instead of depending wholly on traditional methods of public health data collection and official reports to create maps, HealthMap enlists helps…
kcollins | January 3, 2012By Larry Bock USA Science and Engineering Festival Executive Director
They say New Year's resolutions are meant to be broken. But as another year begins, here is a national challenge we cannot afford to ignore, and should resolve to address without delay: the declining number of young Americans entering the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
This is not, nor should it be, a problem for our schools to tackle alone. It will take all of us -- from involved parents and teachers to employers, government entities, STEM professionals and civic and community…
lborkowski | January 2, 2012While we're on vacation, we're re-posting content from earlier in the year. This post was originally published on January 27, 2011.
By Liz Borkowski
Atul Gawande's latest New Yorker article, "The Hot Spotters," is a must-read for anyone concerned about the out-of-control growth of US healthcare costs (and that description should apply to everyone in this country). It's about possible solutions to the problem of the highest-cost patients, who account for a disproportionate share of healthcare spending but often aren't getting the kind of care that could really improve their lives. Gawande…
oracknows | December 27, 2011Another Christmas is over, and we're settling in to that strange week between Christmas and New Years when, or so it would seem, most of the world isn't working except for retail. I'm half taking the week off from work in that I don't plan on going into the office if I can possibly avoid it, but will be starting up a couple of grants for the February/March NIH cycle and dealing with a couple of nagging issues left over from before the holidays. Regular readers might have noticed that ScienceBlogs had a bit of a glitch beginning sometime in the early morning hours of Christmas morning and not…
esiegel | December 24, 2011(This post first appeared on December 23, 2009, but has been reproduced, edited, and improved for 2011.)
089:32:50 Mattingly: Apollo 8, Houston. [No answer.]
089:33:38 Mattingly: Apollo 8, Houston.
089:34:16 Lovell: Houston, Apollo 8, over.
089:34:19 Mattingly: Hello, Apollo 8. Loud and clear.
089:34:25 Lovell: Roger. Please be informed there is a Santa Claus.
089:34:31 Mattingly: That's affirmative. You're the best ones to know. -NASA
The world is an awfully big place now. Santa's job has to be tougher than its ever been before, with more and more people relying on his deliveries each year.…
kbonham | December 16, 2011I'm sure that science isn't the only profession that gets misrepresented in popular media. I'm sure lawyers and police cringe when watching crime dramas, and soldiers are uncomfortable when watching war movies. Leaving aside shows like CSI, I think that scientist's main media foil is almost by definition science fiction. On the one hand, I've learned to mostly ignore exaggeration, over-simplification, and implausible technology - I've come to understand (though it was hard) that these things are sometimes necessary to drive a plot, and that it's unrealistic to expect that the writers are all…
jtoney | December 9, 2011
Tahrir Square, February 9, 2011. Photo source.
This article was co-authored with Jessica Wyndham, a human rights lawyer.
As we mark Human Rights Day 2011 on December 10, it is impossible to ignore a clear theme that has emerged during the year -- the use, misuse and abuse of technology in support and in violation of human rights. While innovative means exist to apply technology to promote human rights, there are serious questions about the legitimate role of government in restricting access to some technological advances as well as the obligation to prevent the development and/or misuse…
stoat | December 6, 2011
More politics, sorry. Still, if you want science, RC and J+J are blogging AGU. But CIP is delighted with Obama's speech on the economy. I'm less so; the comment there from Wolfgang (He always gave great speeches... this was one reason he won in 2008. The problem is that great speeches are not sufficient once the elcetion is over...) looks all too correct. But there is far more to talk about than that, so...
[Note: these quotes are heavily cut to compress them; please check the originals. But I don't think I've altered the sense.]
For many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered…