Category Archives: Science

CERN Pressure Test Failure

photo of Femilab inner triplet quadrupole at CERN

On March 27th a high-pressure test at CERN of a Fermilab-built ‘inner-triplet’ series of three quadrupole magnets in the tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider failed. Fermilab Director on the test failure:

We test the complex features we design thoroughly. In this case we are dumbfounded that we missed some very simple balance of forces. Not only was it missed in the engineering design but also in the four engineering reviews carried out between 1998 and 2002 before launching the construction of the magnets. Furthermore even though every magnet was thoroughly tested individually, they were never tested with the exact configuration that they would have when installed at CERN–thus missing the opportunity to discover the problem sooner.

We need and want to make sure that we find the root causes of the problem and from the lessons learned build a stronger institution. Beyond that, there is no substitute for the commitment each of us makes to excellence, to critical thinking and to sweating every detail.

In a Fermilab Update on Inner Triplet Magnets at LHC they state: “The goal at CERN and Fermilab is now to redesign and repair the inner triplet magnets and, if necessary, the DFBX without affecting the LHC start-up schedule. Teams at CERN and Fermilab have identified potential repairs that could be carried out expeditiously without removing undamaged triplet magnets from the tunnel.”

Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability

Climate Change 2007: Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – summary (pdf) [the broken link has been removed]

Related articles: International report details impact of global warming [the broken link has been removed] – Climate change around the world – U.S., China Got Climate Warnings Toned Down – Permanent drought predicted for Southwest [paywall added so the broken link has been removed]

Solar Flares May Threaten GPS

Solar Bursts May Threaten GPS (site broke link so I removed it):

The cause for their concern, Johnson said, was an unexpected solar radio burst on Dec. 6 that affected virtually every GPS receiver on the lighted half of Earth. Some receivers had a reduction in accuracy while others completely lost the ability to determine position, he said.
…
And protecting the system is no simple task, added Paul M. Kintner Jr., a professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University, who monitored the December event. There are two possible ways to shield the system, he said, both very expensive. Either alter all GPS antennas to screen out solar signals or replace all of the GPS satellites with ones that broadcast a stronger signal.

That’s why it’s essential to learn more about the sun’s behavior quickly in an effort to find ways to predict such events, the researchers said. In addition to the GPS system, the December solar flare affected satellites and induced unexpected currents in the electrical grid, Johnson said.
…
Dale E. Gary, chairman of the physics department of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said the burst produced 10 times more radio noise than any burst previously recorded.

Related: Solar Storms – Solar Eruption Photo

Science Journalism

Don’t dumb me down by Ben Goldacre:

Science stories usually fall into three families: wacky stories, scare stories and “breakthrough” stories.

Last month there was an interesting essay in the journal PLoS Medicine, about how most brand new research findings will turn out to be false. It predictably generated a small flurry of ecstatic pieces from humanities graduates in the media, along the lines of science is made-up, self-aggrandising, hegemony-maintaining, transient fad nonsense; and this is the perfect example of the parody hypothesis that we’ll see later. Scientists know how to read a paper. That’s what they do for a living: read papers, pick them apart, pull out what’s good and bad.

Scientists never said that tenuous small new findings were important headline news – journalists did.

Interesting read, if a bit harsh, it serves to highlight real problems. There are good sources such as: Seed, National Geographic, Knight Science Journalism Tracker, PLoS, Scienceblogs -see more in our science links directory.

Fellowship Winners

Several fellowships and scholarships have announced winners for this year:

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
Department of Defense (NDSEG) Fellowships – no online list of winners yet
Marshall Scholarships (link broken, so removed)
Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship – blog announcement

As I have mentioned before I work for ASEE (which manages the NSF and NDSEG fellowships): this blog is my personal blog and is not associated with ASEE.

Find out more about these and other science and engineering fellowships and scholarships. Also see: How to Win a Graduate Fellowship – NSF Undergraduate STEM Scholarships

Yale Cultivates Young Scientists

Yale Science and Engineering Association (YSEA), Outreach programs cultivate young scientists:

Since 1989, YSEA has funded high-school science fair awards all over the world; in 2006, 241 outstanding high school students were awarded YSEA medals. By getting the Yale name into the public consciousness, YSEA hopes to draw high school applicants who intend to major in the sciences.
…
For New Haven high school students, the New Haven Science Fair Program pairs them up with Yale graduate students for one-on-one mentorships. The students select a field that interests them, then develop an in-depth science fair project that teaches them about the scientific process. It’s an enjoyable introduction to the world of science research, and in early March, the students got the opportunity to show off what they’d learned in the yearly science fair, held in Commons.

What Makes Scientists Different :-)

From the excellent xkcd comic – The Difference:

the difference between scientists and regular people

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Schoolgirls Find Vitamin C is Missing

Schoolgirls rumble Ribena vitamin claims:

“We thought we were doing it wrong. We thought we must have made a mistake,” Anna told New Zealand’s Weekend Herald. The girls were both 14 and students at Pakuranga College in Auckland when they did the experiment in 2004. Given Ribena’s advertising claims that “the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges”, they were astonished and wrote to the manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). When they got no response, they phoned the company, but were given short shrift. “They didn’t even really answer our questions. They just said it’s the blackcurrants that have it, then they hung up,” Jenny said.

But then the girls’ claims were picked up by a TV consumer affairs programme, Fair Go, which suggested they take their findings to the commerce commission, a government watchdog. GSK said the girls had tested the wrong product, and it was concentrated syrup which had four times the vitamin C of oranges. But when the commerce commission investigated, it found that although blackcurrants have more vitamin C than oranges, the same was not true of Ribena. It also said ready-to-drink Ribena contained no detectable level of vitamin C.

GSK is in court in Auckland today facing 15 charges relating to misleading advertising, risking fines of up to NZ$3m (Â£1.1m). In Australia, GSK has admitted that its claims about Ribena may have misled consumers.

Virus Traps

Scientists Explore Ways to Lure Viruses to Their Death by Carl Zimmer:

Viruses invade a cell by latching onto certain proteins on its surface. Once attached, they can slip inside the cell and manipulate it into making new copies of themselves. But viruses cannot infect red blood cells. Unlike most other cells in the body, as red blood cells develop in bone marrow they lose their DNA. If a virus ends up inside a red blood cell, there are no genes it can hijack to replicate itself.

“It occurred to us that if a virus bound to a red blood cell, that was a dead end,” said Dr. Robert W. Finberg, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
…
To test the model, the scientists mixed normal bacteria with different levels of mutant traps and then infected them with viruses. After letting the viruses replicate, the scientists took a small sample to start a new colony. They discovered there was indeed a trap threshold above which the virus population could not survive. Above that threshold, the viruses disappeared by the time the scientists started the third round of colonies.

Open Access Science Education Journal

Science in School is an open access journal focused on science education published quarterly.

Science in School aims to promote inspiring science teaching by encouraging communication between teachers, scientists, science teachers and everyone else involved in European science education. Science in School addresses science teaching both across Europe and across disciplines: highlighting the best in teaching and cutting-edge research. It covers not only biology, physics and chemistry, but also maths, earth sciences, engineering and medicine, focusing on interdisciplinary work.

The contents include teaching materials; cutting-edge science; education projects; interviews with young scientists and inspiring teachers; European education news; reviews of books and other resources; and European events for teachers.

The latest issue includes: Silky, stretchy and stronger than steel by Giovanna Cicognani and Montserrat Capellas (on spider silk), A fresh look at light: build your own spectrometer by Mark Tiele Westra, Fair enough? Balanced considerations for future science-fair organisers by Eva Amsen and Fusion in the Universe: we are all stardust by Henri Boffin and Douglas Pierce-Price.