Large Hardon Collider

[Chun Liroy]

Oh god oh god oh god, I can't wait until thursday oh god. Synthetic life? Sign me the fuck up. I cannot express how awesome and excited I am.

[BerenTebogo]

Oh god oh god oh god, I can't wait until thursday oh god. Synthetic life? Sign me the fuck up. I cannot express how awesome and excited I am.

Good reading here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/co.../bespoke-life/

Journal article here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidp....1190719v1.pdf

[Chun Liroy]

After reading that I'm sorta disappointed. My teacher from highschool developed oil eating bacteria before (she got a shitload of money from it). I was hoping they cultured some silicon based organism or something completely new rather than taking genetic manipulation to the next level. And just as that article said, the debate between it being synthetic or not will be a boring debate.

Spoiler: show

And yet I still be we have a talk about it on BG

[BerenTebogo]

After reading that I'm sorta disappointed. My teacher from highschool developed oil eating bacteria before (she got a shitload of money from it). I was hoping they cultured some silicon based organism or something completely new rather than taking genetic manipulation to the next level. And just as that article said, the debate between it being synthetic or not will be a boring debate.

Spoiler: show

And yet I still be we have a talk about it on BG

It isn't wtfgroundbreaking but it is very significant. I think if we weren't all so desensitized to the idea from sci-fi and pop culture we'd look at this in more of a "HOLY FUCKING SHIT" light honestly.

The real fun begins now that it exists beyond just a theory. I'm gonna need to stock up on buttered popcorn for when the Congress sits down to try to legislate this. Where's your 5,000 year old Earth now Arizona, Oklahoma, and Michigan republicans?!

[Chun Liroy]

I can't imagine the patenting issues after that will come of this either.

[Kryssan]

Yay Gen IV progress. And GFR progress. We need more.


Countries move to host Allegro

Moves have been made to site the Allegro advanced reactor in central Europe. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia have agreed to make a joint proposal to host the project.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/up...es/Allegro.jpg
The layout of Allegro (click to enlarge)


Allegro is to be a gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR) with thermal capacity in the range 50-80 MW. It has funding support as a demonstration project of the Generation IV International Forum, in which France, Japan, Switzerland and the EU are partners on the GFR concept.
It was France that suggested a joint hosting arrangement in central Europe, and the idea has received support from the Czech, Hungarian and Slovakian governments. Last week a memorandum of understanding on cooperation for the preparatory phase of Allegro was signed in Budapest by the countries' lead nuclear research bodies, AEKI Budapest, UJV Rez and VUJE Trnava, respectively. It covers work for the next two or three years concerning the potential siting of the reactor in the countries, the selection of a specific site and also the overall organization of work for Allegro.
The trio of research bodies have made a joint proposal to have Allegro placed on the road map of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures - a forum at EU level to support large scale research and development facilities.

They will also prepare basic documents that will form the basis to make a later decision on construction and operation of Allegro in one of their countries. Support for this is coming from France's Atomic Energy Commisison(Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, CEA).
Allegro comes under the EU's gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR) program among a range of Generation-IV reactors. It is meant to demonstrate GFR technology and establish its potential relative to a sodium-cooled alternative design as part of the Generation-IV International Forum.

Conceptual design and safety work for Allegro was carried out around 2005. The reactor's primary coolant would be helium gas, with pressurized water in a secondary loop. The core would have either ceramic fuel and an outlet temperature of 850 deg C, or uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuel and an outlet temperature of 560 degrees. The reactor could be built in the period between 2014 and 2022.

Allegro's pilot-scale demonstration would validate the safety reference framework and test the capacity of high-temperature components and heat processes. It would be a step towards a power-generating GFR prototype.

Since it could be a little confusing, the thermal capacity they're talking about is heat output of the reactor, not that its both a fast and a thermal plant. Its a fast reactor with said thermal output (MWt).

[Max™]

That first blog is written by one of the authors being publicly discredited by Woit, which kind of goes against the whole point of the situation. So, lol.

The blog post was about the aDS/QCD black hole concepts, which is something that emerged in part from string models, but it isn't exactly limited to string theory.

Had nothing to do with the author of the post, only the relevance of the anti-De Sitter relationships to physics in general.

If string theory goes down completely, the aDS/CFT correspondence will remain.

And by that I basically mean that if I'm not an authority in the field, as none of us are, I'm going to go with the expert in the field with tenure at Columbia University who has worked side by side with Brian Greene, the man doing more for bringing S/M-T information to the general public than any other author I've come across besides maybe Hawking or Kaku, for more than a decade over some guy from the Czech Republic unless I can be shown a valid reason not to.

I wasn't saying you shouldn't, I was pointing out the things which we know work, and the biggest thing is the aDS/CFT bit.

Spurious, untestable claims about potential applications are not a form of such reasons.

This is correct, but I'm not sure why you would be saying it in response to my post as if I didn't already know it.


The synthetic life stuff is indeed interesting, though I already had my first "counter-response" pop up on another board. "They're just sticking DNA they tweaked into existing cells, it's not the same as making it all from scratch."

>.<

I dunno lol.

[Caiti]

I guess I misinterpreted the reason for the link. I skimmed the article and inevitably ended up at his far-flung conclusion about the ToE.

Hurr durr on my part.

Re: genetic synthesis

Step 1 is the most important. Now that we've broken this huge barrier that we've faced for decades I'm sure it will progress faster and faster. Like genetics. I remember watching the news when they finally mapped the full human genome. Must've been...8? I don't know exactly, but the science sky-rocketed from there.

[Woozie]

Posting from the observatory where the wow signal was heard.

I love this place. I got to see Saturn (and Titan), Venus, Mars and the moon through a telescope for the first time last night. A HUGE telescope. It was so awesome. Unfortunately my project isn't astronomy-related, so I wont get to come to the observatory often

I want to come back when Jupiter rises. You can actually see the bands through the telescope, and the four Galilean moons. The moon is awesome too.

[Woozie]

Also:

http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon...._cid=thefilter

[Max™]

http://www.bigear.org/wowmenu.htm

Incidentally

http://www.bigear.org/wowsignal.gif
http://www.bigear.org/6equj5.htm


Fuckin lol: "The telescope HUUBBBBLLLLEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!"

[Waraji]

Anyone here watched Mr. Nobody yet? It's pretty great, plot contains a lot of superstring theory elements, as well as other "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"-esque scenes. A great watch.

Good luck finding the one torrent with great quality, let alone in english. Only one I've found has russian subtitles, but very watchable.

[Mizango]

Posting from the observatory where the wow signal was heard.

I love this place. I got to see Saturn (and Titan), Venus, Mars and the moon through a telescope for the first time last night. A HUGE telescope. It was so awesome. Unfortunately my project isn't astronomy-related, so I wont get to come to the observatory often

I want to come back when Jupiter rises. You can actually see the bands through the telescope, and the four Galilean moons. The moon is awesome too.

You'll never forget your first time.

[Cochise]

Goodbye Betelgeuse R.I.P.

http://unixronin.livejournal.com/763082.html

[Max™]

Fuck yes, that is going to be fucking amazing!

Guess you get your wish after all, eh Woozie?

[Eliseos]

Oh my god if that's true it'd be amazing.

[Max™]

This is where Orion will be sitting from Memphis, (42 lat 42 lon) at 4:00 pm 6/1/10.

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...ru/Yoursky.gif

Will be overhead during the daytime for us northern hemisphere folks until august, assuming it pops soon.

Should still be visible though, which would be pretty epic.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Yoursky

Here's the site I use to find it.

[brisk]

I'm actually pretty stoked for this. New camera and ready to take some pictures of the skies but never thought it would go Supernova way this fucking early. Hopefully it stops being cloudy so it can be much more visible at night.

[Psion]

Oh wow max, I just noticed that website link you posted (http://www.fourmilab.ch/) for finding the stars in your area is also one that does retropsychokinesis study online as well. @.@ Small world.

They're under the consciousness studies link if you care. Though you probably wouldn't.

Anyways, I wish I could see the milky way band... I'm so envious, but in southern California it's nigh impossible to avoid light pollution to the point you can see only 5-10 stars in the sky. ><

[Mizango]

Goodbye Betelgeuse R.I.P.

http://unixronin.livejournal.com/763082.html

Good call, we talked about this in class today and was coming here to post it Holy fuck im stoked!