Physics posts
- August 22, 2016
- 11:11 PM
- 136 views
Measuring altitude — with clocks?
by Jens Wilkinson in It Ain't Magic
Measuring altitude using atomic clocks seems like a crazy idea, but it’s already being done at RIKEN in Japan.... Read more »
Takano, T., Takamoto, M., Ushijima, I., Ohmae, N., Akatsuka, T., Yamaguchi, A., Kuroishi, Y., Munekane, H., Miyahara, B., & Katori, H. (2016) Geopotential measurements with synchronously linked optical lattice clocks. Nature Photonics. DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2016.159
- August 17, 2016
- 11:02 AM
- 161 views
Goblin Shark Gives a Lesson in Dismantling Your Face to Eat
by Elizabeth Preston in Inkfish
The goblin shark is a weird deep-sea creature first discovered off the coast of Japan in 1898. It has a ghoulish appearance, thanks to jaws that can stretch well away from the rest of its head. Scientists have assumed the goblin shark uses this trick to eat—but until recently, no one had actually watched one catching prey in the wild.
In 2008 and 2011, divers working with the Japanese television broadcaster NHK managed to capture two goblin sharks (Mitsukurina owstoni). Before rerele........ Read more »
Nakaya, K., Tomita, T., Suda, K., Sato, K., Ogimoto, K., Chappell, A., Sato, T., Takano, K., & Yuki, Y. (2016) Slingshot feeding of the goblin shark Mitsukurina owstoni (Pisces: Lamniformes: Mitsukurinidae). Scientific Reports, 27786. DOI: 10.1038/srep27786
- July 28, 2016
- 12:48 PM
- 287 views
Space disturbs the heart-related system and increases the chances of death
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main Point:
Deep space missions could increase the chances of cardiovascular diseases, thereby increasing the chances of deaths in astronauts.
Published in:
Scientific Reports
Study Further:
NASA’s Apollo program sent 9 manned missions and 24 astronauts above the low Earth orbit (LEO) during decades of 1960s and 1970s. Those missions also included Apollo 11, which was used to take Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon. However, it appears that such beyond Earth missions........ Read more »
Delp, M., Charvat, J., Limoli, C., Globus, R., & Ghosh, P. (2016) Apollo Lunar Astronauts Show Higher Cardiovascular Disease Mortality: Possible Deep Space Radiation Effects on the Vascular Endothelium. Scientific Reports, 29901. DOI: 10.1038/srep29901
- July 22, 2016
- 12:25 PM
- 313 views
Video of Evaporating Booze Droplet Looks Like a Tiny Planet
by Elizabeth Preston in Inkfish
Most of us don't give much thought to drops of liquid that end up outside our drinking glasses. But physicists care a lot about liquid droplets, and study their whole lifespans—from the first splash or drip to the moment a drop disappears.
Liquids that contain three different substances, though, haven't been studied as much. Detlef Lohse, a physicist at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, and his colleagues took a deep dive into one such liquid: ouzo.
Ouzo is a mixture of wate... Read more »
Tan H, Diddens C, Lv P, Kuerten JG, Zhang X, & Lohse D. (2016) Evaporation-triggered microdroplet nucleation and the four life phases of an evaporating Ouzo drop. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 27418601
- July 13, 2016
- 07:28 AM
- 363 views
An equation for life
by gdw in FictionalFieldwork
Water churns. Earth moves. Molecules jostle and chemicals mix. Between heaven and hell, a young planet finds itself in full flux. Developing. Forming. Star stuff rains down and forged elements bubble up. Then it happens. It seems as if it’s just another chemical match-up, another reaction in the vast library of possibilities. But it would […]... Read more »
Scharf C, & Cronin L. (2016) Quantifying the origins of life on a planetary scale. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 27382156
- June 16, 2016
- 05:49 AM
- 362 views
Higgs or not Higgs, that is the question
by Marco Frasca in The Gauge Connection
LHCP2016 is running yet with further analysis on 2015 data by people at CERN. We all have seen the history unfolding since the epochal event on 4 July 2012 where the announcement of the great discovery happened. Since then, also Kibble passed away. What is still there is our need of a deep understanding of the […]... Read more »
Marco Frasca. (2015) A theorem on the Higgs sector of the Standard Model. Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2016) 131: 199. arXiv: 1504.02299v3
- June 12, 2016
- 10:35 PM
- 373 views
Seeing Through the Skin
by Aurametrix team in Olfactics and Diagnostics
Human skin emits light (albeit the glow is extremely weak) and a wide variety of small molecules that may be sometimes "sniffed" by dogs or even other humans. These chemicals tell a story about our health and wellness, things we eat and drink, touch and breathe. Mosquitoes use such emissions to assess our "attractiveness" from indicators such as Indoles (unpleasantly smelling but healthy "inner soil" biomarker) or carbon dioxide (amount of which correlates with the size of the person........ Read more »
Andreoni G, Standoli CE, & Perego P. (2016) Defining Requirements and Related Methods for Designing Sensorized Garments. Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 16(6). PMID: 27240361
Gao W, Emaminejad S, Nyein HY, Challa S, Chen K, Peck A, Fahad HM, Ota H, Shiraki H, Kiriya D.... (2016) Fully integrated wearable sensor arrays for multiplexed in situ perspiration analysis. Nature, 529(7587), 509-14. PMID: 26819044
Imani S, Bandodkar AJ, Mohan AM, Kumar R, Yu S, Wang J, & Mercier PP. (2016) A wearable chemical-electrophysiological hybrid biosensing system for real-time health and fitness monitoring. Nature communications, 11650. PMID: 27212140
Lee H, Choi TK, Lee YB, Cho HR, Ghaffari R, Wang L, Choi HJ, Chung TD, Lu N, Hyeon T.... (2016) A graphene-based electrochemical device with thermoresponsive microneedles for diabetes monitoring and therapy. Nature nanotechnology, 11(6), 566-72. PMID: 26999482
Panneer Selvam A, Muthukumar S, Kamakoti V, & Prasad S. (2016) A wearable biochemical sensor for monitoring alcohol consumption lifestyle through Ethyl glucuronide (EtG) detection in human sweat. Scientific reports, 23111. PMID: 26996103
Yokota T, Zalar P, Kaltenbrunner M, Jinno H, Matsuhisa N, Kitanosako H, Tachibana Y, Yukita W, Koizumi M, & Someya T. (2016) Ultraflexible organic photonic skin. Science advances, 2(4). PMID: 27152354
- May 24, 2016
- 10:02 AM
- 389 views
Should Biologists be Guided by Beauty?
by Jalees Rehman in The Next Regeneration
One key characteristic of a beautiful scientific theory is the simplicity of the underlying concepts. According to Weinberg, Einstein's theory of gravitation is described in fourteen equations whereas Newton's theory can be expressed in three. Despite the appearance of greater complexity in Einstein's theory, Weinberg finds it more beautiful than Newton's theory because the Einsteinian approach rests on one elegant central principle – the equivalence of gravitation and ........ Read more »
Dietrich, M., Ankeny, R., & Chen, P. (2014) Publication Trends in Model Organism Research. Genetics, 198(3), 787-794. DOI: 10.1534/genetics.114.169714
Weinberg, Steven. (1992) Dreams of a Final Theory . Vintage Books. info:/
- May 13, 2016
- 09:21 AM
- 401 views
Using Supercomputers to Probe the Early Universe
Artist's depiction of the WMAP satellite gathering data to understand the Big Bang. Source: NASA.For decades physicists have been trying to decipher the first moments after the Big Bang. Using very large telescopes, for example, scientists scan the skies and look at how fast galaxies move. Satellites study the relic radiation left from the Big Bang, called the cosmic microwave background radiation. And finally, particle colliders, like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, allow researchers to smas........ Read more »
Grohs, E., Fuller, G., Kishimoto, C., Paris, M., & Vlasenko, A. (2016) Neutrino energy transport in weak decoupling and big bang nucleosynthesis. Physical Review D, 93(8). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.93.083522
- April 27, 2016
- 02:23 PM
- 486 views
Rafting Ants Have Designated Stations
by Elizabeth Preston in Inkfish
Sometimes at the climax of a Star Trek episode, the captain would yell out "Battle stations!" and send the crew scurrying frantically through the corridors. It wasn't really clear what those battle stations were. Presumably, crew members headed to posts they'd been previously assigned, and this let the whole ship react to the crisis efficiently.
Certain ants respond to a crisis by binding their bodies together into floating rafts. And like the Star Trek crew, they seem to have designat........ Read more »
Avril, A., Purcell, J., & Chapuisat, M. (2016) Ant workers exhibit specialization and memory during raft formation. The Science of Nature, 103(5-6). DOI: 10.1007/s00114-016-1360-5
- March 18, 2016
- 11:34 AM
- 647 views
Even Harmless Snakes Strike at Deadly Speed
by Elizabeth Preston in Inkfish
Just because a snake can't kill you doesn't mean it's slow on the draw. New research shows that harmless snakes strike just as quickly as venomous vipers do. The snakes hurl themselves at their targets so quickly, in fact, that a lesser animal would black out from the acceleration.
Vipers have long been the presumed titleholders for strike speed, explains David Penning, a graduate student in biology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. These snakes strike to kill, plunging their v... Read more »
Penning, D., Sawvel, B., & Moon, B. (2016) Debunking the viper's strike: harmless snakes kill a common assumption. Biology Letters, 12(3), 20160011. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0011
- March 12, 2016
- 07:57 AM
- 531 views
Science teachers could be obstacle to climate change education
by Jonathan Trinastic in Goodnight Earth
Climate change will continue to affect future generations, but are our children receiving accurate information about it? A new survey suggests not - here's a look and why and some possible solutions... Read more »
Plutzer, E., McCaffrey, M., Hannah, A., Rosenau, J., Berbeco, M., & Reid, A. (2016) Climate confusion among U.S. teachers. Science, 351(6274), 664-665. DOI: 10.1126/science.aab3907
- March 8, 2016
- 06:47 AM
- 539 views
How Einstein Could Still Save the Earth
by Jeffrey Daniels in United Academics
Gravitational waves, detected by LIGO, might have implications for finding black holes.... Read more »
Abbott, B. (2016) Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger. Physical Review Letters, 116(6). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
Emanuele Berti. (2016) Viewpoint: The First Sounds of Merging Black Holes. APS Physics 9 (2016) 17. arXiv: 1602.04476v2
- February 29, 2016
- 09:39 AM
- 466 views
End of Universe – estimated earliest time
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main Point:
Universe would end earlier than the anticipated time for the Sun to burn completely.
Published in:
arXiv
Study Further:
Scientific observation of the stars and galaxies in our universe are showing that the universe is continuously expanding, and the rate of this expansion is continuously increasing. After looking at this continuous expansion, one of the suggested possibilities for the future is that, the stars would die, everything in the universe will drift out, and t........ Read more »
Jose Beltran Jimenez, Ruth Lazkoz, Diego Saez-Gomez, & Vincenzo Salzano. (2016) Observational support for approaching cosmic doomsday. arXiv. arXiv: 1602.06211v1
- February 19, 2016
- 10:42 AM
- 563 views
So you want to make methanol? Start with ruthenium and add some air
by Jonathan Trinastic in Goodnight Earth
The methanol economy is an exciting prospect - create the molecule using CO2 from the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gases and providing liquid fuel at the same time! Researchers have now shown how to create methanol directly from air for the first time.... Read more »
Kothandaraman J, Goeppert A, Czaun M, Olah GA, & Prakash GK. (2016) Conversion of CO2 from Air into Methanol Using a Polyamine and a Homogeneous Ruthenium Catalyst. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 138(3), 778-81. PMID: 26713663
- February 17, 2016
- 01:39 AM
- 482 views
New model says that the Universe has no start and it existed forever
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main Points:
According to a new model, Big Bang never happened and Universe existed forever without any beginning.
Published in:
Physics Letters B
Study Further:
According to our present knowledge, Universe came into existence about 13.8 billion years ago. Before the existence of Universe, everything was in the form of a tiny point, which is also referred to as singularity. Therefore, it is assumed that everything in the Universe was present in that tiny point at that time. Then a........ Read more »
Farag Ali, A., & Das, S. (2015) Cosmology from quantum potential. Physics Letters B, 276-279. DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2014.12.057
- February 14, 2016
- 07:00 PM
- 326 views
Quixotic Science
by Paco Jariego in Mind the Post
Almost all science stems from a need to explain what we see. Not general relativity. What comes first, theory or technology? a reflection after LIGO has detected gravitational waves.... Read more »
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, & the Virgo Collaboration. (2016) Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger. Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 061102 (2016). arXiv: 1602.03837v1
- February 14, 2016
- 08:00 AM
- 663 views
Einstein et les ondes gravitationnelles
by Dr. Goulu in Pourquoi Comment Combien
En recherchant où et quand Einstein avait prévu l’existence des ondes gravitationnelles dont tout le monde parle, je suis tombé non seulement sur son article en allemand de 1918, mais aussi sur un court article qui en retrace l’historique. En fait, Einstein s’était planté deux ans plus tôt dans un autre article.... Read more »
Kennefick, D. (2005) Einstein versus the Physical Review. Physics Today, 58(9), 43-48. DOI: 10.1063/1.2117822
- February 13, 2016
- 05:02 AM
- 663 views
Now we can hear the Universe
by TakFurTheKaffe in Tak Fur The Kaffe
The detection of gravitational waves produced by the collision of two black holes over 1 billion light years away confirms Einstein's vision of our Universe.... Read more »
Abbott, B., Abbott, R., Abbott, T., Abernathy, M., Acernese, F., Ackley, K., Adams, C., Adams, T., Addesso, P., Adhikari, R.... (2016) Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger. Physical Review Letters, 116(6). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
- February 8, 2016
- 12:41 PM
- 600 views
Why Ask for Directions? (A Guest Post)
by Miss Behavior in The Scorpion and the Frog
by Anna Schneider For the iconic monarch butterfly, the shorter days in fall mean it’s time to pack up and head south to a warmer climate! Just like clockwork, the Eastern population of monarch butterflies makes a 2000 mile journey to their winter paradise roosts in central Mexico. The journey in itself is one of the greatest migrations among all animals. But here’s the catch: none of these butterflies has made this trip before. Several generations of monarchs have come and gon........ Read more »
Gegear, R., Foley, L., Casselman, A., & Reppert, S. (2010) Animal cryptochromes mediate magnetoreception by an unconventional photochemical mechanism. Nature, 463(7282), 804-807. DOI: 10.1038/nature08719
Guerra, P., Gegear, R., & Reppert, S. (2014) A magnetic compass aids monarch butterfly migration. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5164
Merlin, C., Gegear, R., & Reppert, S. (2009) Antennal Circadian Clocks Coordinate Sun Compass Orientation in Migratory Monarch Butterflies. Science, 325(5948), 1700-1704. DOI: 10.1126/science.1176221
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