Science: April 2005 Archive Page

First, pigeons cannot fly through Windows. Second, since they don't fly in darkness either, this method's bandwidth drops to zero 50% of the time. Finally, there's the problem of droppings download. We are pleased to report that all these shortcomings were resolved in our new data transfer protocol, as we now turn to describe.

System architecture: the system is constructed of a back end - a carriage, Ben-Hur movie style, which is made of a yoke made of light Balsa, and outfitted with two huge wheels - 2 DVD wheels, 4.7 Giga each. --Snails are faster than ADSL (Ami Ben-Bassat's Blog)

Nogroski presented his results before the entire fifth-grade science community Monday, in partial fulfillment of his seventh-period research project. According to the review panel, which convened in the lunchroom Tuesday, "Otters" was fundamentally flawed by Nogroski's failure to identify a significant research gap.

"When Mike said, 'Otters,' I almost puked," said 11-year-old peer examiner Lacey Swain, taking the lettuce out of her sandwich. "Why would you want to spend a whole page talking about otters?" --Fifth-Grade Science Paper Doesn't Stand Up To Peer Review (The Onion (satire; will expire))

Thanks for the suggestion, Will.

Sorry, we were unable to locate document(s) pertaining to your request.

Did you mean: zirconium instead of kirschenbaum? --This Morning's Lesson in Machine Learning (Or, So Said the Search Engine Unto Me) (MGK)

This is tremendous news... search technology has advanced to the point where a search engine has become aware of Matt Kirschenbaum's strong, metallic character, his tendency to spark and ignite when exposed to the open air, his usefulness as an anti-corrosive in alloys, his whitish-grey lustre, the fact that his atomic number is 40, and the fact that he was discovered by Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1789.

Are libraries and librarians willing to support initiative to provide weblog support for their community? The University of Minnesota Libraries think so: “It is our goal to develop a blog server through which everyone in the university community (faculty, staff, and student) can have access to their own individual blog” (University of Minnesota Libraries, accessed December 7, 2004). Other campuses are also providing students and staff with the means to creatE their own blogs. Though not library-initiated, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School hosts “Weblogs at Harvard Law,” which allows anyone with a harvard.edu e-mail address to create their own weblog. (John Harvard’s Journal 2004) Seton Hall University students can create their own weblogs with a service provided by the Humanities Division and the New Media Journalism program ([Jerz], accessed December 7, 2004). -- Reichardt, Randy and Geoffrey Harder, Science & Technology Libraries, 25(3), p105-116. --Weblogs: Their Use and Application in Science and Technology Libraries (PDF) (Science & Technology Libraries)

That's Seton Hill University.

It's a good article, nevertheless.

Super-volcano, robotic rebellion or terrorism? Kate Ravilious asks 10 scientists to name the biggest danger to Earth and assesses the chances of it happening. --What a way to go  (Guardian)

Just in case you've gotten lax and started feeling optimistic or something, and you were planning to get a good 8 hours sleep tonight, this list will give you something worthwhile to fear.

He escaped Hitler's Germany and devoted the rest of his life to humanitarian and pacifist causes with an authority unmatched by any scientist today, or even most politicians and religious leaders.

He used his celebrity to speak out against fascism, racial prejudice and the McCarthy hearings. His FBI file ran 1,400 pages.

His letters reveal a tumultuous personal life - married twice and indifferent toward his children while obsessed with physics. Yet he charmed lovers and admirers with poetry and sailboat outings. Friends and neighbors fiercely protected his privacy.

And, yes, he was eccentric. With hair like that, how could he not be? --Joseph B. Verrengia --Einstein's Legacy Keeps on Expanding (AP|MyWay)

The picture of gravitational collapse provided by classical general relativity cannot be physically correct because it conflicts with ordinary quantum mechanics. For example, an event horizon makes it impossible to everywhere synchronize atomic clocks. As an alternative it has been proposed that the vacuum state has off-diagonal order, and that space-time undergoes a continuous phase transition near to where general relativity predicts there should be an event horizon. For example, it is expected that gravitational collapse of objects with masses greater than a few solar masses should lead to the formation of a compact object whose surface corresponds to a quantum critical surface for space-time, and whose interior differs from ordinary space-time only in having a much larger vacuum energy [1]. I call such an object a “dark energy star“. --Dark Energy Stars (arXiv.org e-Print archive)

According to Nature, this means "black holes 'do not exist'".

Of course I don't understand any of the physics involved, but this is a printout of a paper delivered at a conference. It hasn't undergone peer-review.

US scientists have designed a bionic eye to allow blind people to see again.

It comprises a computer chip that sits in the back of the individual's eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that they wear.

Images captured by the camera are beamed to the chip, which translates them into impulses that the brain can interpret. --Bionic eye will let the blind see (BBC)

Hooray for the proper use of "comprises."