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The Oasis

For all those secretaries, nurses, medical assistants and other staff members who spend their days working in a doctor's office - this comment, made by one of my patients today, is for you. Please do not ever think that your efforts to help the sick are unappreciated. You are more valuable to the patient (and the doctor) than you think. "Mr. X, congratulations. You are now five years out from your diagnosis. I know you've been reluctant to have your portacath removed, but now after five years I think it is time to get it out. Then you won't have to come to the office every month to have…

Tom Daschle on vaccination: "I can't imagine that we could do any better than ensure that every -- every child is immunized"

During the confirmation hearings yesterday for Tom Daschle, who is to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services, there was this exchange: J. REED: As you grapple with health care reform, you're also grappling with the budget, so good luck on both matters. But if you could pay particular attention to Title VII, that would be very appreciative. In a similar vein, Section 317 of CDC's program on immunization is so important. It's been estimated that we need to provide these about $1.1 billion to cover all the recommended vaccines for eligible children and adults. And frankly, we provided…

Friday Fractal XXII

Fractals, like so many sights in nature, can seem both static and dynamic at the same time. A cloud can change its shape right before your eyes, and so can a slice of the Mandelbrot set, with a slight nudge of the bailout values. Try to find the same spot later on, without the same exact values, and you may never see it again. This fractal, in shades of tangerine, is a typical Mandelbrot set, colored with an "alternative" fBm algorithm using 4n linear arrays. (The algorithm was written by David Makin, whose spectacular fractals can be seen here.) The combined effects of the chaotic,…

An Introduction with a Tim Burton Bonus

(/lurk) As a fan of the dark and eerie, a student of the strange, and a writer of creepy tales, I'm delighted by the approach of Halloween. It sort of snuck up on me, as those dark little twists tend to do. Usually, when my various research projects lead me to those shadowy alleys of the imagination, I'll lurk. (I'll admit, a lurking blogger is a contradiction of terms, but explains the recent silence.) This time of year, however, everyone has a chance to partake. So, for 10 days, I'm going to set philosophy and science aside. (But not too far away.... remember, some subjects have a way of…

What is Heat

A seemingly simple question. It's what a hot or cold body--any body, for that matter--has. And, the perfectly valid answer. But, Nature, as we have learnt over the course of humanity's scientific discoveries, is like an onion without a core, it's layers all the way. So, after we peel the question what-is-heat another layer reveals itself. Now, things get a little interesting and a little misty. Macroscopic properties. That's the new layer. Shape is an macroscopic property. Sound is another. These are things we perceive which are caused by a collection of stuff. Shape is caused by a lot of…

DOJ's Proposed Ban of Non-canine Service Animals Is Bad News for Disabled Muslims

A quick post as part of my ongoing follow up to my recent New York Times Magazine story about the use of non-canine service animals and the DOJ's efforts to ban them:  There's an interesting discussion going on about how limiting service animal species also limits religious freedom ... In the interesting comments thread of this blog post, a woman named Mona Ramouni explains that she is currently in the process of having a miniature horse trained as her guide because her religious faith makes it so she can't use a guide dog.  Here's an excerpt of her comments: "I am a Muslim, and we believe…

To my face

Last week, I got invited into my program director's office for a little chat. My previous week's attending had emailed him about a complaint made by a family with regard to the way I'd handled an event on the general pediatrics wards. The exact events don't really matter: all you need to know is that I made the mistake of relying on second-hand information while something fairly concerning was evolving. Although nothing untoward came of this, the perception of a delayed reaction on the part of a patient's family was enough to provoke a complaint. And another thing, said the email. For part of…

Tell us

Next week's Grand Rounds will be hosted here at Signout on Tuesday, January 23. Every medical student takes courses in physiology, pathophysiology, histology, and pharmacology. A new science has recently been added to this basic battery: evidence-based medicine, the science of critically searching and reading the scientific literature. Finding proof for our daily practice as doctors has begun to play an enormous role in patient care, and it shows in medical education and in the dollars (euros, yen, et al.) committed to research, both in industry and in academic institutions. The formidable…

Women in geoscience/environmental science/field sciences: what do you get out of reading or writing blogs?

I've got a question for women readers, especially those in the geosciences, environmental sciences, or field sciences: what do you get out of reading blogs? And if you have a blog yourself, what do you get out of writing it? I'm asking because there's a session at this year's Geological Society of America meeting on "Techniques and Tools for Effective Recruitment, Retention and Promotion of Women and Minorities in the Geosciences" (and that's in the applied geosciences as well as in academia), and I wondered whether blogs (whether geo-blogs or women-in-science blogs or both) help. Although…

Wish I Could Make It...

The next ESA/SER meeting is right up my alley: Drawing from a wide range of case studies that illustrate the potential effects of climate on disease dynamics, a series of presentations to be held at the joint meeting of the Ecological Society of America and the Society for Ecological Restoration will showcase what scientists are discovering about the links between climate and disease... John Bruno (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) will review the trends for such coral diseases as White Syndrome and Caribbean Yellow Band Syndrome. Temperature anomalies, which are predicted to…

NRDC Lists Most Polluted Beaches

I meant to post on this earlier this week, but things have been hectic lately. The National Resources Defense Council released their review of 3,500 beaches in the US, organizing data on pollution, the frequency of closings and the level of monitoring in these areas. Of the six worst beaches, dubbed "beach bums", defined as having "violated public health standards 51 percent or more of the time samples were taken", Maryland has two: Hacks Point and Bay Country Campground and Beach. The problems have been on the rise for years now, but seemed to spike in 2006. Runoff carrying pollution into…

Yellowstone's Ecology of Fear

Twelve years ago, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after a 70 year absence due to over hunting (and outright slaughter). Beyond the pure principle of reintroduction, an added bonus was cutting the elk population in the area, and subsequently reducing the pressure on riparian Aspen saplings. Researchers at Oregon State have been following this trend for a while now, and just published a paper on the revitalization of the Aspen population in Yellowstone: The findings... show that a process called "the ecology of fear" is at work, a balance has been restored to an important…

The Future of Photojournalism

The American press is on suicide watch as Frank Rich declared earlier this year. With the fold of major print media outlets, like Rocky Mountain News, and the Seattle P-I and the bankruptcy of the chain that owns the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, it seems that the predictions of the EPIC 2014 slideshow are right and that Frank Rich is, too. So why would a photojournalist say: "As long I as I am alive, newspapers will be, too"? Yet this was the battlecry of photographer Michel du Cille, who I had the pleasure to hear speak last Saturday at the Bellingham Visual Journalism…

TBHQ (Mixed feelings)

Via Fark: a blog last week remarked about McDonald's chicken products, quoting The Omnivore's Dilemma:: But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is…

More on the microbiome

When I first got into blogging, I thought I could carve out my niche talking about the microbiome - that enormous ecosystem of trillions living inside and on every one of us. However, it's become increasingly clear that writers far more skilled than I have also decided to tackle this weighty (2-5lbs on average) subject. Take this new paper published yesterday in Nature, describing 3 different "enterotypes" - different ways of balancing that ecosystem. I saw it last night in my Nature RSS feed, and was hoping to tackle it today. But Ed and Carl beat me to it with a couple of stereotypically…

Viruses throw wrenches in the gears of the immune system

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - pathogens are devious little bastards: Discovery of a Viral NLR Homolog that Inhibits the Inflammasome In order to respond to a virus, a cell first has to recognize that it's there. There are a lot of ways the cell tries to do this - some receptors (like the TLRs I study) look for features that are unique to pathogens that are outside the cell. Others look for molecules (like DNA and RNA) that are shared between us and pathogens, but are in the wrong place (DNA outside the nucleus is a pretty sure sign of infection). NOD-like receptors (that's the…

Everything's contaminated redux (repost)

This post was originally published at webeasties.wordpress.com Have you noticed the recent spate of people coming down with terrifying bacterial infections contracted at Apple stores? Yeah, me neither. Still: A leading Australian expert in infectious diseases says people who use display iPads and iPhones at Apple stores are risking serious infections and the company should do more to maintain hygiene[...] "You wouldn't have hundreds of people using the same glass or cup, but theoretically if hundreds of people share the same keyboard or touch pad, then effectively that's what you're doing,"…

Video Rockets - Part 2

Looking Outward With a big enough airframe, the camera can be inside looking out, or bouncing off a 45° mirror, or both. For my Level 3 Certification, I buily a 7.5" diameter GLR Sledgehammer and fiberglassed it for strength: I simulate the flights before launch, and compare the actual performance recorded by two on-board flight computers: For her second flight, I switched to a red propellant (Aerotech M1550 motor) and added a video bay (making the rocket taller). I could fit a Sony PC-1 DV tape recorder which has the benefit of recording tape up through a destructive event, were there…

The Case of the Malagasy Mystery Ants

A few days ago I noticed the search term "Malagasy Mystery Ant" showing up in the stats for my other blog. This puzzled me, as it wasn't a phrase I was familiar with. So I googled it. All mentions of the term trace back to a caption in the New York Times slide show from last week. Goodness. I- your humble blogger- had coined it myself, in a haze of deadline fever while submitting images for the slide show. And then, apparently, I forgot all about it. Mystrium oberthueri Am I going senile already? I hope not. The problem with insects is their sheer number. There are millions of…

Field Vehicle Amenities

Following on Short Geologist's list of things you do and don't need at a field hotel, and fresh from the field (where by "field" I mean "three days of driving around the mountains looking for stuff", and by "fresh" I mean I'm still at the airport), I thought I'd do a list of amenities that I want in a field vehicle. I was on a fairly simple reconnaissance mission, which involved driving around with a map and a clipboard and taking notes. Obviously, jobs requiring more equipment (and less driving/working while your foot's on the brake) have slightly different requirements, mostly involving…

Fish Need A Wider Spectrum of Voices

As Mark Powell (of the Ocean Conservancy) pointed out in the comments of the last post, Roger Rufe of the Ocean Conservancy said that we need to "use ocean wilderness to lead a new way of thinking about and seeing our oceans through a positive conservation lens, rather than an extractive one." And also that "we must shift our focus from the oceans as fish warehouses and dumpsites and focus on them as natural ocean communities to be cherished and protected." Agreed. But this campaign disappeared and, according to Mark Powell, it was because people weren't ready for it. He rightly believes we…

Lott's wife on Mary Rosh

Lott's wife has posted (I have confirmed via email that it was really her) to the comment section of this Electrolite post: When the screen name is used, it always, automatically registers as MaRyRoSh, NOT as MaryRosh or Mary_Rosh, which I am sure must have suggested to some that this was some amalgam and not a Mary who happened to have the highly unusual name of Rosh. The screen name was originally used by the boys for messages within the scout troup, for ordering old coins on the internet, and for posting some book and game reviews. At some point later…

Wellcome Trust director responds to criticism of genetic research

I ranted yesterday about two misleading pieces in the Telegraph (an opinion piece from Steve Jones, and a follow-up article) that sequentially converted a debate between scientists over the value of genome-wide association studies and the future of genetic research into a broader indictment of the last few years of common disease genetics. Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust (a major funder of genomic research), has responded today in a letter to the Telegraph (a third of the way down the page). Here's the text of the letter: Genetic research vital SIR - Professor Steve Jones is…

Oxford Nanopore and Illumina enter partnership

A press release today describes a potentially exciting partnership between two companies in the DNA sequencing space: Oxford Nanopore Technologies and Illumina. Illumina is an established player in the field, providing one of the most widely-used second-generation sequencing platforms (the Genome Analyzer, previously known as Solexa). Oxford, in contrast, is a young but promising contestant in the increasingly heated race towards so-called "third-generation" sequencing technologies, which promise even more staggering increases in the ability of researchers to generate vast amounts of…

Help Andy Revkin Annotate Obama's NAS Speech

Earlier today, President Barack Obama delivered a major speech on science policy to the National Academy of Sciences. Read more about it in my previous post. Now, though, Andy Revkin of Dot Earth is trying to annotate the speech with relevant background information. Go help him out by providing relevant information in the comments section of his blog post. I already submitted a comment about Obama's reference to his March 9th memo on political interference in science: President Obama refers to a March 9th memo, which can be found at http://tr.im/jOUz. The memo emphasized his…

H. erectus…doodler

Also, master of molluscan anatomy, and clever tool user. This paper, Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving, by Joordens et al. tells an interesting story from some mundane artifacts made half a million years ago. What the investigators have is a jumble of clam shells, found in the strata where Homo erectus bones have been found elsewhere. These shells have been modified -- the inference is that H. erectus was living along the shore, gathering clams, and popping them open to eat. First, evidence of tool use. Many of them have small holes, precisely gouged…

Christopher Hitchens: Karl Rove is an Atheist

In a recent interview published in New York Magazine, writer Christopher Hitchens is asked "Has anyone in the Bush administration confided in you about being an atheist?". His answer: Well, I don't talk that much to them--maybe people think I do. I know something which is known to few but is not a secret. Karl Rove is not a believer, and he doesn't shout it from the rooftops, but when asked, he answers quite honestly. I think the way he puts it is, "I'm not fortunate enough to be a person of faith." To be completely honest, I don't find the idea that Karl Rove is an atheist all that…

Predicting Hurricane Irene's Floods

As I sit here in New Jersey, of which thousands of acres are under sea level, let us hope that Hurricane Irene does not unleash her wrath upon us hapless citizens... If Hurricane Irene does hit us full force, would it look like this? A recent article in Science, "Computational Physics in Film" reminded me how far we have advanced in computer simulation - all based upon basic physics of fluid dynamics. Exoticmatter NAIAD City flood from Igor Zanic on Vimeo. A spectacular example blending fluid dynamics and art: "Naiad City Flood": Some of the most spectacular examples of physics in film…

Ushahidi - Join The Crowd

OpenStreetMap - Project Haiti from ItoWorld on Vimeo. In Swahili, "ushahidi" means "testimony." I would like to share with you an emerging technology, Ushahidi, an open source platform that can be used by anyone anywhere to share information that can improve disaster response and perhaps someday influence public policy. I think Martin Luther King, Jr. would have appreciated this. The 31 second video provides a dramatic example. Before the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, reliable road maps were scarce, particularly if you wanted to know which roads were open. Thanks to Ushahidi, this all changed…

So Long Mom, I'm off to Drop the Bomb

Some people seem to be outraged at the idea of people stopping the killing in the Middle East. Those people are, curiously enough, some very prominent Christians. A small minority of evangelical Christians have entered the Middle East political arena with some of the most un-Christian statements I have ever heard. The latest gems come from people like Pat Robertson, the founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and Rev. John Hagee of Christians United for Israel. Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, ratcheted up his…

Breaking News: Can a Stem Cell Transplant Cure HIV?

Adult human breast stem cells (red) are found in ductal regions. Lineage-restricted progenitor cell types (green) reside outside Scientists based at a medical center in Berlin have accomplished something extraordinary: they have used stem cells to prevent viruses to grow in a patient infected with HIV. This patient had been taking antiviral drugs but discontinued them for the study. Since this patient had been on chemotherapy, the stem cell "transplant" was given to boost his immune system. Here's the basic idea: A key part of our immune system is comprised of T cells. Some of these…

Where's the other half?

I just read this article from the LA Times. Emphasis added: For months, the rafts that ferry Disneyland guests across the waterway to Tom Sawyer Island have been idle. No children have explored the island's caves, scaled its climbing rocks or run across its bridges. But the island won't be lonely much longer. Park employees will refill the Rivers of America, drained in January for maintenance, this week. The draining took almost a week, at the end of which this question was answered: What do you find at the bottom of an amusement park basin after seven years? The answer: a computer tower,…

Enlarge your world: stand on your tip toes

I was at the beach recently, staring out at the cargo ships waiting offshore, and beyond them to the distant horizon, and I thought, how far away is the horizon after all?  Luckily, Phil Plait has the answer to that on his website, it's a simple question of trigonometry:     Taking the Earth to be 6365km in radius, a man of average height (5' 9" or 175.26cm) standing with his toes in the ocean can stare 4.72km out to sea*. The higher up you are, the further your horizon retreats. But while Phil was thinking big - about how far you might see from an airplane or the space station, I'm curious…

Social Media Week in LA

This week is Social Media Week in Los Angeles, as well as in Mexico City, Milan, Bogota, and Buenos Aires. What does that mean, exactly? Social Media Week is a multi-city global conference connecting people, content and conversations around emerging trends in social and mobile media. Dozens of free events hosted at locations all over the city will bring together CEO's, entrepreneurs, journalists, bloggers, brand managers, CMO's, social media strategists, artists, activists and the technology/media digerati. Across a wide range of topics, industries and causes and with nearly 70 events…

Teaching the Controversies

Creationists devote most of their energy towards undermining science education. Whatever their flavor, they are not scientists and they don't do science. Creationists evolved into intelligent designers after Edwards v. Aguillard. Kitzmiller v. Dover was a huge blow to the intelligent design movement, showing that the "teach the controversy" mantra was a load of shit. There is no controversy. Evolutionary theory is solid, with both empirical observations and excellent models to back it up. The data supporting evolution come from disparate fields such as geology, genetics, developmental biology…

Spending Other People's Money

Another week, another question from the Seeders. This week they ask us: Since they're funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH, NSF, and so on), should scientists have to justify their research agendas to the public, rather than just grant-making bodies? My answer is below the fold. It all depends on how one defines "the public". If you're asking me whether a school teacher, a construction worker, and a street vendor should be evaluating grant proposals and making funding decisions, I say no. It's not that the general public shouldn't have an influence on what research gets funded. They…

Charlesworth on Lynch

Brian Charlesworth has reviewed Michael Lynch's The Origins of Genome Architecture for Current Biology. Charlesworth's review is generally positive, and he agrees that population size may be an important factor in genome evolution. However, he thinks that Lynch overplays the role relaxed selective constraint in small populations plays in the evolution of genomic complexity. Charlesworth argues that sexual reproduction may be partly to blame for some of the features found in the bloated genomes of many eukaryotes. For example, the abundance of transposable elements may be the result of sexual…

SCIENCE SPRING SHOWDOWN: Chair Region -- Sweet 16 Preview (Corporate vs. Darwin)

PRESS CENTER | UPDATED BRACKET Early next week, the amorphous, indefinable entity that is Corporate will take on a man named Charles Robert Darwin in the third round of the Science Spring Showdown. That's right, we're down to sixteen teams, including the eleven seed Corporate and the seven seed Darwin. This match up of Chair Region powerhouses will be presented on evolgen. A preview of this potentially epic battle can be found below. Some may say that Charles Darwin was a tentative man. They base this claim on the fact that Chuck waited twenty years from his first ideas on evolution by…

How to bend a spoon with your mind

I've always wondered how to bend spoons with my mind (ok I lie...it's never even occurred to me...but whatever). Here are step by step directions on how to accomplish this great feat of mind: 1. Go in your drawer and pick out 10 or so spoons. And lay them out on the table. Use your feeling and let them tell you which spoon will bend. (I know it sounds funny but this is what I did the first time). 2. When you feel you have the right spoon and mind you pick one that is fairly thin to start out with. 3. Hold the spoon vertical and look at it and ask it to bend. Or say you will bend for…

PETA are a bunch of assholes.

As I'm sure many of you know, Colorado has been completely wrecked with snow - stranding thousands and thousands of cattle out in the fields leaving them to starve or wander off. One radio station, in an effort to help, called the most famous group for 'helping' animals in danger - PETA. Instead of PETA offering their assistance they came off as just a bunch of pricks instead. See below for some more details - or read the original article here. As many as 340,000 cows and steers have been left stranded by southeastern Colorado's most recent snowstorm, and National Guard units are helping…

A transitional turtle, Pappochelys

Turtles are nifty animals, with a remarkable adaptation: they've taken their ribs and shifted them outside their appendicular skeleton, flattened and expanded them, and turned them into a shell. It's a clever twist, and it doesn't require any magic -- just a shift in timing during development, with a little extra signaling. The molecular biology and development explain mechanistically how it happened, and we also have fossils of some of the in-between states. Odontochelys, a 220 million year old fossil, for instance, is a good example of a turtle ancestor that's got some of the bits but not…

Hagfish: Aphrodisiac of the deep

The Hagfish, or Slime Eel, is said to be an aphrodisiac. Hard evidence that hagfish can enhance sexual prowess is lacking, but this fish can get evolutionary biologists very hot. A recently published paper, reviewed here, on Pharyngula, addresses the interesting evolutionary question. In general terms, it is this: Hagfish possess traits that appear to be ancestral to vertebrates, but that in fact might be derived. Therefore, they are either a sister group to the living vertebrates, or are correctly placed within the vertebrates (i.e., with the lampreys). If the latter, it is correct (…

Genes key to high liver cancer rates in men

"A fundamental difference in the way men and women respond to chronic liver disease at the genetic level helps explain why men are more prone to liver cancer, according to MIT researchers." "This is the first genome-wide study that helps explain why there is such a gender effect in a cancer of a nonreproductive organ, where you wouldn't expect to see one," said Arlin Rogers, an MIT experimental pathologist and lead author of a paper that appeared last month in the journal Cancer Research. Men develop liver cancer at twice the rate of women in the United States. In other countries, especially…

Pat Robertson Talked To God Again

Every year around this time, Pat Robertson has a meeting with god, at which god tells Pat stuff about what is going to happen in the future. After several years of this, we now know for certain that god has no idea of, or no control over, what the future brings. This is because Pat, who is certainly not lying to us about speaking with god because he himself is a christian and thus of presumed high moral standing, usually conveys information that turns out to be untrue. The nuclear terror attack of 2007 did not materialize. The major hit on major US cities by terrorists did not occur (…

There are still mysteries

Try this: Starting at home, drive, run, ski, or walk about fifty thousand feet. That would be about ten miles, or 15 kilometers. It won't take you long (especially if you drive) and chances are, when you get there, it will be a place at least vaguely familiar to you. At the very least, it will be a place that is qualitatively familiar to you. Even if you end up in a strip mall, or a government office building, or a recreational park, that you've never been to before, you'll be able to find your way around. Now do the same thing, but instead of going across the landscape, go straight up…

Bell Museum Events (Twin Cities)

CAFE SCIENTIFIQUE: Tough Ceramics at the Seashore Tuesday, December 11, 2007; 6 p.m. Kitty Cat Klub, Dinkytown What secrets to seashells hold? For University of Minnesota Civil Engineering Professor Roberto Ballarini, the natural strength of materials found in seashells may be the key to improving the design of bridges and other human structures. Join Ballarini for a discussion of science, seashells and the potential of bio-inspired design. Re-Greening Cities Tuesday, December 18, 2007; 7 p.m. Bryant-Lake Bowl, Uptown City parks characteristically define urban nature - an oasis of…

Talking about Racism

I came across this interesting post by PortlyDyke: Trying to Get White People to Talk About Racism is Like . . . . . . . . . well, like trying to get white people to talk about Racism. ... I mention this because I read a wide variety of blogs, and I notice that while a number of my favorite bloggers do write posts on race and racism, there is this interesting thing that happens in comment threads to these posts -- if the blog is not frequented mostly by people of color, the comment threads very often stray from anything remotely touching on race or racism, and quickly become about "oppression…

Off to Skepticon...

As this goes live I’ll be heading to the airport, my purpose being to wing my way to Skepticon 7, where I’ll be speaking tomorrow on a little ditty I like to call The Central Dogma of Alternative Medicine. It’ll be fun, and I’m looking forward to it. However, in true Orac fashion, I haven’t finished the slides and outline for my talk yet, something I hope to do on the planes (there are no direct flights to Springfield, MO from here) and the 3+ hour layover I have to look forward to in Chicago. What this means is that I was busily tweaking my talk and making some slides last night instead of…

"Creationism 'alive and well' in Minnesota biology classes"

I just posted the following comment on this article in MinnPost: Thanks for covering this. As Randy says, this has been known for decades, but for some reason every time it hits the news (because of a new study that shows the same thing again) everyone seems to have just heard it for the first time. I promise you: Creationist students (there are many) and/ore creationist parents of students (and no, parents and students are not always on the same page as each other) DO make themselves known the the teachers who are teaching evolution, sometimes quite aggressively. I have yet to hear of a…

Good News and Bad News from the Large Hadron Collider

The good news: Despite their best efforts, the folks at CERN failed to produce a black hole that sucked the entire earth into it! That would have been cool. The bad news is for string theory. What might be one of the few empirical tests for that tangle of math and stuff seems to have come out negative. From CERN: The CMS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has completed a search for microscopic black holes produced in high-energy proton-proton collisions. No evidence for their production was found and their production has been excluded up to a black hole mass of 3.5-4.5…