Large Hardon Collider

[zoobernut]

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...andspaceships/

I thought this was pretty cool. Will be a good weekend to bust out with your cameras for some night sky photography.

[Tristam]

Back to biology for a moment!

A really, really cool paper came out this week that attempted to provide a quantitative estimate of the probability that there was a last universal common ancestor (LUCA) responsible for the ENTIRE diversity of life that we see today. Essentially, using modern methods of statistics and probability theory (edit: applied to protein sequence info) to estimate the validity of a fundamental hypothesis proposed by Darwin himself long ago.

Long story short, the most important conclusion from the paper is that the next most likely model (two trunks in the tree of evolution that diverged loooong ago) "1 in 10 to the 2,680th power" LESS likely than a LUCA. And the probability that humans were specially created? Laughably small.

nat geo summary:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ngle-ancestor/

the paper: (seems open acces?)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...re09014.html#/

And as a final addendum, the author is a longtime contributor to the Panda's Thumb, and sometime in the future he will address questions from lay audiences.

editx2: Republicans are attempting to kill america competes act, despite the fact that the act has been endorsed by just about everyone on the fucking planet. Worth bringing to everyone's attention here. Party before country I guess.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...e-for-porn.php

[Max™]

Wow, what fucking cunts.

[Eliseos]

I am against something because the people I hate are for it.

EDIT: New background, courtesy of the final Atlantis mission and Wikipedia (Flip & rotate to get a better background)

Spoiler: show

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nching_ITN.jpg

[Max™]

Neat article about the way light trapped in orbit around black holes could both be observable when scattered by infalling material, and possibly reveal information about the hole itself. Which would provide a test of the no-hair theorem.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog...25182/?ref=rss

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog...ir Theorem.png

Naturally, the no hair theorem places strict limits on the influence a black hole can have on its surroundings. Images of a black hole (actually the shadow it casts on surrounding gas and dust) could disprove the theorem if they show that the black hole, or the flow of matter into it, is distorted in some way.
That's an exciting possibility but will require images that can resolve details in the flow of matter into the hole that are far smaller than the black hole itself.
However, Tim Johannsen and Dimitrios Psaltis at the University of Arizona in Tucson say there is an easier way to test the theorem. Today, they calculate that black holes ought to be surrounded by a ring of light. This light comes from photons that have become trapped in a circular orbit about the black hole, just outside the event horizon, which are then scattered by gas and dust falling into the hole.
This ring has some interesting properties. It should be much brighter than the surrounding gas and dust. It should have a diameter that is some ten times the size of the black hole, meaning that it should be visible in images that will soon be available and will provide a direct measure of the black hole's mass.

[Cochise]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/sc...me&ref=general

Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are reporting that they have discovered a new clue that could help unravel one of the biggest mysteries of cosmology: why the universe is composed of matter and not its evil-twin opposite, antimatter. If confirmed, the finding portends fundamental discoveries at the new Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva, as well as a possible explanation for our own existence.
In a mathematically perfect universe, we would be less than dead; we would never have existed. According to the basic precepts of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created in the Big Bang and then immediately annihilated each other in a blaze of lethal energy, leaving a big fat goose egg with which to make stars, galaxies and us. And yet we exist, and physicists (among others) would dearly like to know why.

Sifting data from collisions of protons and antiprotons at Fermilab’s Tevatron, which until last winter was the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, the team, known as the DZero collaboration, found that the fireballs produced pairs of the particles known as muons, which are sort of fat electrons, slightly more often than they produced pairs of anti-muons. So the miniature universe inside the accelerator went from being neutral to being about 1 percent more matter than antimatter.

“This result may provide an important input for explaining the matter dominance in our universe,” Guennadi Borissov, a co-leader of the study from Lancaster University, in England, said in a talk Friday at Fermilab, in Batavia, Ill. Over the weekend, word spread quickly among physicists. Maria Spiropulu of CERN and the California Institute of Technology called the results “very impressive and inexplicable.”

The results have now been posted on the Internet and submitted to the Physical Review.

It was Andrei Sakharov, the Russian dissident and physicist, who first provided a recipe for how matter could prevail over antimatter in the early universe. Among his conditions was that there be a slight difference in the properties of particles and antiparticles known technically as CP violation. In effect, when the charges and spins of particles are reversed, they should behave slightly differently. Over the years, physicists have discovered a few examples of CP violation in rare reactions between subatomic particles that tilt slightly in favor of matter over antimatter, but “not enough to explain our existence,” in the words of Gustaaf Brooijmans of Columbia, who is a member of the DZero team.

The new effect hinges on the behavior of particularly strange particles called neutral B-mesons, which are famous for not being able to make up their minds. They oscillate back and forth trillions of times a second between their regular state and their antimatter state. As it happens, the mesons, created in the proton-antiproton collisions, seem to go from their antimatter state to their matter state more rapidly than they go the other way around, leading to an eventual preponderance of matter over antimatter of about 1 percent, when they decay to muons.

Whether this is enough to explain our existence is a question that cannot be answered until the cause of the still-mysterious behavior of the B-mesons is directly observed, said Dr. Brooijmans, who called the situation “fairly encouraging.”

The observed preponderance is about 50 times what is predicted by the Standard Model, the suite of theories that has ruled particle physics for a generation, meaning that whatever is causing the B-meson to act this way is “new physics” that physicists have been yearning for almost as long.

Dr. Brooijmans said that the most likely explanations were some new particle not predicted by the Standard Model or some new kind of interaction between particles. Luckily, he said, “this is something we should be able to poke at with the Large Hadron Collider.”

Neal Weiner of New York University said, “If this holds up, the L.H.C. is going to be producing some fantastic results.”

Nevertheless, physicists will be holding their breath until the results are confirmed by other experiments.

Joe Lykken, a theorist at Fermilab, said, “So I would not say that this announcement is the equivalent of seeing the face of God, but it might turn out to be the toe of God.”

[Psion]

I'm kinda confused about this matter-antimatter thing. I thought when the two collide, they release a bunch of gamma rays and stuff, so wouldn't matter and antimatter colliding simply release a ton of energy? And if energy and mass are essentially the same thing, wouldn't that energy condense into matter afterward if enough was gathered in one spot? o.o?

But I'm no physicist so I'll shut up and hear the explanation.

[Max™]

When the background temperature of the universe is cool enough, the energy ends up as a mush of gamma radiation, rather than condensing into particles as it did in the early ultra-hot ultra-dense period shortly after t_0.

The matter-antimatter annihilation went on repeatedly, and was a fairly continuous process. The universe was just so hot and energetic that new pairs could form almost immediately, re-annihilate, etc. Once it crossed the critical temperature where hadrons and anti-hadrons couldn't be formed, the existing particles annihilated, followed by the lepton/anti-lepton annihilation period, ending with the "baffling" remainder of matter left over.

[Mizango]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_a...t/10132762.stm

Spoiler: show

'Artificial life' breakthrough announced by scientists


Scientists in the US have succeeded in developing the first synthetic living cell.

The researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell.

The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.

The advance, published in Science, has been hailed as a scientific landmark, but critics say there are dangers posed by synthetic organisms.

The researchers hope eventually to design bacterial cells that will produce medicines and fuels and even absorb greenhouse gases. The team was led by Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute in Maryland and California.

He and his colleagues had previously made a synthetic bacterial genome, and transplanted the genome of one bacterium into another.

Now, the scientists have put both methods together, to create what they call a "synthetic cell", although only its genome is truly synthetic.

Dr Venter likened the advance to making new software for the cell.

The researchers copied an existing bacterial genome. They sequenced its genetic code and then used "synthesis machines" to chemically construct a copy.

Dr Venter told BBC News: "We've now been able to take our synthetic chromosome and transplant it into a recipient cell - a different organism.

"As soon as this new software goes into the cell, the cell reads [it] and converts into the species specified in that genetic code."

The new bacteria replicated over a billion times, producing copies that contained and were controlled by the constructed, synthetic DNA.

"This is the first time any synthetic DNA has been in complete control of a cell," said Dr Venter.

'New industrial revolution'

Dr Venter and his colleagues hope eventually to design and build new bacteria that will perform useful functions.

"I think they're going to potentially create a new industrial revolution," he said.

"If we can really get cells to do the production that we want, they could help wean us off oil and reverse some of the damage to the environment by capturing carbon dioxide."

Dr Venter and his colleagues are already collaborating with pharmaceutical and fuel companies to design and develop chromosomes for bacteria that would produce useful fuels and new vaccines.

But critics say that the potential benefits of synthetic organisms have been overstated.

Dr Helen Wallace from Genewatch UK, an organisation that monitors developments in genetic technologies, told BBC News that synthetic bacteria could be dangerous.

"If you release new organisms into the environment, you can do more harm than good," she said.

"By releasing them into areas of pollution, [with the aim of cleaning it up], you're actually releasing a new kind of pollution.

"We don't know how these organisms will behave in the environment."

Dr Wallace accused Dr Venter of playing down the potential drawbacks.

"He isn't God," she said, "he's actually being very human; trying to get money invested in his technology and avoid regulation that would restrict its use."

But Dr Venter said that he was "driving the discussions" about the regulations governing this relatively new scientific field and about the ethical implications of the work.

He said: "In 2003, when we made the first synthetic virus, it underwent an extensive ethical review that went all the way up to the level of the White House.

"And there have been extensive reviews including from the National Academy of Sciences, which has done a comprehensive report on this new field.

"We think these are important issues and we urge continued discussion that we want to take part in."

Genetic breakthrough

Dr Gos Micklem, a geneticist from the University of Cambridge, said that the advance was "undoubtedly a landmark" study.

But, he said, "there is already a wealth of simple, cheap, powerful and mature techniques for genetically engineering a range of organisms. Therefore, for the time being, this approach is unlikely to supplant existing methods for genetic engineering".

The ethical discussions surrounding the creation of synthetic or artificial life are set to continue.

Professor Julian Savulescu, from the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, said the potential of this science was "in the far future, but real and significant".

"But the risks are also unparalleled," he continued. "We need new standards of safety evaluation for this kind of radical research and protections from military or terrorist misuse and abuse.

"These could be used in the future to make the most powerful bioweapons imaginable. The challenge is to eat the fruit without the worm."

Awesome or Awesomemer?

[Eliseos]

New industrial revolution

Oh man please please please I want flying cars.

[Lhyet]

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/ma...0px-Legion.png
(I'm disappointed I can't find the 'raised eyebrow' picture)

[Effluo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_a...t/10132762.stm


Awesome or Awesomemer?

I for one will welcome our new artificial overlords

[Mizango]

Thats the spirit guys!

[Effluo]

Now that I think about it, this could be considered Intelligent Design. Gogo Alien creators!

[Tyche]

FInally got out last night ~2am. Drove for about 2 hours to get to the intended site only to find that I couldn't get in past 10pm. I'm in the middle of bum fucked Illinois. GPS doesn't work, no cell service, and I have no clue where I'm at. I drive around for about 45 minutes looking for anywhere to setup and shoot. Here's the pictures. All strait out of the camera, I haven't ran them through photoshop or through post-processing yet.

[Mizango]

Awesome! I see the band finally, that rocks so hard.

[Waraji]

Keep them shots coming. I only get a gist of that where I live (near the keys in Florida) If I would go out of my way about 10 or so miles from where I live, I could probably get shots like that, near the ocean, had I a good camera.

[Pirian]

I wish the stars were as clear where I live I'll have to drive way out into the countryside one of these nights. Haven't seen the stars like that since I lived out in Colorado

[Tyche]

Here's another. I tried to reduce some of the noise and bring out the band. You could literally see the entire band stretch from south to north where I was. I wish I had a better location to shoot, because the pictures could have been much better. I just took what I could get since I was sent back to the 80's as far as not having internet/cell/GPS. I had a nice long lake stretching from north to south I was going to shoot from. It was right on a campsite and it was closed for some reason. It was in a national park, and I really didn't want to go to jail, so I had to go elsewhere.

Also, Antares sticks out like a sore thumb in all the pictures. I guess it should be expected due to the sheer size.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/...f1f8aabb_o.jpg

[Waraji]

I gave it a try to bring out the picture myself.

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/6...152fa82251.jpg