Category Archives: Science

Science Topics Explained on One Page

Seed Magazine has one page crib sheets on science topics as guides for living in the 21st century. For example, String Theory:

To unite the seemingly incompatible worlds of the very large and the very small, physicists propose string theory, a model of the universe in which tiny strings vibrate in more than three dimensions. This Cribsheet covers the basics of string theory: what it says, why we think it might give us a unified theory of physics, and whether experiment supports it. In addition, we tell you how the strings are shaped and why string theory may not be the final “theory of everything.”

Other topics: stem cells, climate change, avian flu, hybrid cars, nuclear power, hurricanes, extinction and the elements. Great stuff.

Related: Physics Concepts in 60 Seconds

Deforestation and Global Warming

Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming:

In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change.

Tropical Deforestation, Climate Impacts (NASA by Rebecca Lindsey):

Undisturbed tropical forests may be nearly neutral with respect to carbon, but deforestation and degradation are currently a source of carbon to the atmosphere and have the potential to turn the tropics into an even greater source in coming decades.

New Yorker on CERN’s Large Hadron Collider

Can a seventeen-mile-long collider unlock the universe?

A proton is a hadron composed of two up quarks and one down; a neutron consists of two downs and one up.) Fermions also include neutrinos, which, somewhat unnervingly, stream through our bodies at the rate of trillions per second.
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The L.H.C., Doser explained, relies on much the same design, and, in fact, makes use of the tunnel originally dug for LEP. Instead of electrons and positrons, however, the L.H.C. will send two beams of protons circling in opposite directions. Protons are a good deal more massive than electrons—roughly eighteen hundred times more—which means they can carry more energy. For this reason, they are also much harder to manage.

“Basically, what you must have to accelerate any charged particles is a very strong electric field,” Doser said. “And the longer you apply it the more energy you can give them. In principle, what you’d want is an infinitely long linear structure, in which particles just keep getting pushed faster and faster. Now, because you can’t build an infinitely long accelerator, you build a circular accelerator.” Every time a proton makes a circuit around the L.H.C. tunnel, it will receive electromagnetic nudges to make it go faster until, eventually, it is travelling at 99.9999991 per cent of the speed of light. “It gets to a hair below the speed of light very rapidly, and the rest of the time is just trying to sliver down this hair.” At this pace, a proton completes eleven thousand two hundred and forty-five circuits in a single second.

Encyclopedia of Life

Our goal is to create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike. To transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating all known data about every living species. And ultimately, to increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.

They are using wiki technology to create an encyclopedia of life as discussed by E.O. Wilson in his TED Prize Wish speech. It seems like a great idea to me.

Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

Bee Die-Off Threatens Food Supply:

In fact, about one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Still threatening the food supply seems like an extreme claim to me, but maybe I am just too optimistic.

Colony Collapse Disorder podcast:

In our first episode, hear from Senior Extension Agent and Honey Bee Specialist, Maryann Frazier, about honey bees and why they are such important pollinators in Pennsylvania and the United States. Find out why this die off is getting the attention of experts, and learn about the characteristics and extent of the collapse. Finally, get a preview of who the key players are and what is being done to investigate Colony Collapse Disorder.

Being Bad is Best for Bacteria

That conclusion is based on the first experiments investigating how natural selection influences the transmission of infectious disease. The outcome of those experiments defies old assumptions that pathogens evolve to become less infectious
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The scientists analyzed the patterns of disease transmission and found that strains of bacteria with the greatest damage to their virulence genes were slowest at spreading from one host to another. The strain of pathogen with all of its virulence genes intact spread the fastest. Strains of pathogen lacking the ability to inject any proteins into the host were completely unable to spread between hosts, suggesting that these swapped virulence genes are essential for spread.

Why do We Sleep?

Study puts us one step closer to understanding the purpose of sleep:

Sleep remains one of the big mysteries in biology. All animals sleep, and people who are deprived of sleep suffer physically, emotionally and intellectually. But nobody knows how sleep restores the brain.
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Although an electronic power-napper sounds like a product whose time has come, Tononi is chasing a larger quarry: learning why sleep is necessary in the first place. If all animals sleep, he says, it must play a critical role in survival, but that role remains elusive.

Based on the fact that sleep seems to “consolidate” memories, many neuroscientists believe that sleeping lets us rehearse the day’s events.

Tononi agrees that sleep improves memory, but he thinks this happens through a different process, one that involves a reduction in brain overload. During sleep, he suggests, the synapses (connections between nerve cells) that were formed by the day’s learning can relax a little.

Home Experiments: Quantum Erasing

Do your own experiment on quantum erasing – Quantum Erasing in the Home (for instructions). From the accompanying article, A Do-It-Yourself Quantum Eraser:

The light patterns that you will see if you conduct the experiment successfully can be accounted for by considering the light to be a classical wave, with no quantum mechanics involved. So in that respect the experiment is a cheat and falls short of fully demonstrating the quantum nature of the effect.

Nevertheless, the individual photons that make up the light wave are indeed doing the full quantum dance with all its weirdness intact, although you could only truly prove that by sending the photons through the apparatus and detecting them one at a time. Such a procedure, unfortunately, remains beyond the average home experimenter.

Hacking Your Body’s Bacteria

Hacking Your Body’s Bacteria for Better Health by Brandon Keim

In sheer numbers, bacterial cells in the body outnumber our own by a factor of 10, with 50 trillion bacteria living in the digestive system alone, where they’ve remained largely unstudied until the last decade. As scientists learn more about them, they’re beginning to chart the complex symbiosis between the tiny bugs and our health.

“The microbes that live in the human body are quite ancient,” says NYU Medical Center microbiologist Dr. Martin Blaser, a pioneer in gut microbe research. “They’ve been selected (through evolution) because they help us.” And it now appears that our daily antibacterial regimens are disrupting a balance that once protected humans from health problems, especially allergies and malfunctioning immune responses.

Funding for Science and Engineering Researchers

To authorize programs for support of the early career development of science and engineering researchers, and for support of graduate fellowships, and for other purposes. passed the house on a vote of 397 – 20 and was forwarded to the senate. From the majority whips talking points:

supports outstanding researchers in the early stages of their careers through grants at the National Science Foundation (NSF)
and the Department of Energy of $80,000 per year for 5 years
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enlarges an existing program at NSF supporting graduate students in multidisciplinary fields of national importance

This bill started with the same name as the Sowing the Seeds Through Science and Engineering Research Act – though seems to be missing much on fellowships now.