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I was at a conference of the ASA a year or so ago, and those in the know at the conference stuck around in one particular room for a particular series of talks.
First the internal review committe from Oak Ridge talked about how they couldn't find much evidence that Taleyarkhan and his group had actually produced bubble fusion -- this was pretty deadly in a scientific sense, since their OWN lab was very critical of their work. But then Taleyarkhan talked, and gave careful and convincing evidence to the contrary: His group actually HAD produced bubble fusion. It was a pretty tense afternoon, though everyone seemed to be of relatively good cheer. Fun times!

I hope Taleyarkhan and his group actually do figure a way to produce and control -- and maybe harness the energies produced -- bubble fusion; since I'm in physical acoustics, this means more jobs for me to go into!

can you provide anymore links links in one sentence?

LostCluster writes:
"Randomness is really sometimes just a proxy for "too complex to be understood". Afterall, in any form of mixing bin, all of the balls inside do have to obey the laws of physics. If you knew the starting positions and details about all of the activities that are going on in the bin, you could possibly solve for which ball is going to be the one selected."

This concept is one I used to share but it was, unfortunately, utterly shattered by Heisenberg.

That is, in fact, faster than the fastest speeding bullet (how fast is a speeding bullet?) So what could you do with a vehicle that fast?

Actually it's not. There is a special projectile/gun type which can reach hypersonic speeds and that is the railgun (no joke). The difference is that the rail gun accelerates in vaccum by electormagnetic means and can easialy reach 5000+ MPh. The US army is experimenting with the thing (which is Huge if large speeds is to be attained) and are planning to build some sort of tank killer using just the kinetic kill principle.

For reference look Here or here

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.

In case you'd care to know - all quantum mechanics really says (in this respect) is that because of the dual wave-particle nature of matter, it is impossible to measure things on an arbitrarily small scale using only particle interactions; this clearly doesn't mean that there is nothing going on there.

Check here if you want better info.

How about dihydryl ether? An ether is an oxygen with (usually!) a carbon chain on both sides. Dihydryl ether would then be the simplest of ethers.

The dihydryl ether name is really pushing it, but I would say that calling water hydranol is a little less incorrect than calling it dihydrogen monoxide. Water behaves more like a simple alcohol than an oxide salt.

Here's two more names: "Look out for that dangerous hydroxic acid!" (OH- acid = OH- + H+)

"Don't worry, I'll neutralize it with this hydronium base." (H3O+ with OH-, actually makes 2H2O)

In reality, water behaves a little like each of these chemical groups. It really is an alcohol, an acid, a base, and even ionic (when dissociated). This is what makes water have so many useful properties.

Interestingly, it turns out that water molecules bond with eachother somewhat covalently, not just with hydrogen bonds as previously thought.

yo.

Personally I wasn't eager to combine our "bouncing with airbags" landing approach with nuclear power -- until I googled a little and found the RHUs (Radioisotope Heater Units) on Sojourner. The Viking missions also used nuclear reactors in some capacity. As of a year ago, there also seemed to be specific plans for a long-term Mars rover with a reactor, to be launched in 2009.

They've worked some on the idea, anyway: Design Concept for a Nuclear Reactor-Powered Mars Rover.

I beg to differ, sir...

Quantum Non-locality
The link goes to an American Institute of Physics bulletin on successful instantaneous determination of a photon's energy from a distance of 10km. It's still got a long way to go until it's true 'communication', but this stuff was known back in 1998.
A google search on 'Wolfgang Tittel' brings up quite a few interesting links, including discussions on Quantum Cryptography.
It seems that we're limited currently by our tools, but it's entirely possible that these limitations can/will be overcome in the future.

Anybody have link to a more verbose article?

thier entire arguement is based on the premise that the heat output from the sun is NOT changing.

Liar

Reading the rest of your post, do you seriously think that the scientists have not thought of this (and a whole lot more besides)? Do you bother to look at the science behind the headlines?

Also seen on Slashdot here in May 2002, so it's a repeat, but from a while ago.

Stop making things so simple

Here's a similar chart from the American Institute of Physics (Fall 2003). They give a range of typical salaries for each degree type, which is an important fact - ChemE students earned 50-55k, while students with a Physics BS pulled in a much larger range, from about 32-52k.

Interesting to note that secondary school teachers seem to have the least opportunity salary-wise (as far as that chart shows); not only is their salary low, but they're locked in to the narrowest range, from about 27-32k.

If you want the actual paper, and have access to the journal, it's published on the online version of Physics Review Letters Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 040403 (2004)

abstract here for those with access.

Before anybody jumps on this, the better solution is likely to be microwaves. You don't want to be pointing a multikilowatt laser at the Earth, for obvious reasons. The Industrial Physicist magazine had a recent article on this, with a followup article two months later. There were also a number of letters to the editor with responses from the author on this issue.

Before anybody jumps on this, the better solution is likely to be microwaves. You don't want to be pointing a multikilowatt laser at the Earth, for obvious reasons. The Industrial Physicist magazine had a recent article on this, with a followup article two months later. There were also a number of letters to the editor with responses from the author on this issue.

I always call attention to the fact that many of our greatest minds, a perfect example being Albert Einstein, would today have been diagnosed with ADD, prescribed stimulants, and had the insights that they would have otherwise shared with the world snuffed out and replaced with mindless conformity.

Einstein did not exhibit the symptoms that are typically diagnosed as ADD. He did not play well with the other kids, but he was very good at concentrating. That could be considered similar to autism, but is not at all like ADD.From the AIP website:

One story Einstein liked to tell about his childhood was of a "wonder" he saw when he was four or five years old: a magnetic compass. The needle's invariable northward swing, guided by an invisible force, profoundly impressed the child. The compass convinced him that there had to be "something behind things, something deeply hidden." Even as a small boy Einstein was self-sufficient and thoughtful. According to family legend he was a slow talker at first, pausing to consider what he would say. His sister remembered the concentration and perseverance with which he would build up houses of cards to many stories. The boy's thought was stimulated by his uncle, an engineer, and by a medical student who ate dinner once a week at the Einsteins'.

"At the age of 12, I experienced a wonder in a booklet dealing with Euclidean plane geometry, which came into my hands at the beginning of a school year. Here were assertions, as for example the intersection of the three altitudes of a triangle in one point, which -- though by no means evident -- could nevertheless be proved with such certainty that any doubt appeared to be out of the question. This lucidity and certainty made an indescribable impression on me."

Although he got generally good grades (and was outstanding in mathematics), Einstein hated the academic high school he was sent to in Munich, where success depended on memorization and obedience to arbitrary authority. His real studies were done at home with books on mathematics, physics, and philosophy. A teacher suggested Einstein leave school, since his very presence destroyed the other students' respect for the teacher. The fifteen-year-old boy did quit school in mid-term to join his parents, who had moved to Italy.

(It is my personal opinion that Ritalin is useful in many cases, but has been generally over-prescribed. The problem is that, due to feminist theory, boys are no longer allowed to be boys.)

I'm getting really tired of all these stupid shit pyschiatrists diagnosing anyone who is energetic and different w/ ADHD, or ADD, or whatever their latest buzzword of the decade is.
Think about it. Almost all of the brightest minds of the history of the human race have been not "normal" in one way or another. Manic depressive, hyperactive, unable to sleep, etc. A lot of them didn't do well in school. Hell, Einstein quit school .

So rather than spending the money to assure that your child has a healthy environment that encourages them to learn, society would rather funnel money to a bunch of fucking quacks that dose their kids up on harmful drugs ( think about : Ritalin is an amphetamine, as are a number of the other drugs used to "treat" ADHD ) until their kid becomes "normal". Wonder how many potential Van Goghs ended up doing graphic design because they became "normal"?

What I've briefly read from googling seems to suggest that there's no drugs or any physical aspect to the therapy, but they don't come out and say it ( as in bragging about natural and good their therapy is ), so I really doubt that it doesn't involve some physical "therapy". And the harm that I think a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists do is irreparable ( while there are some good ones, my experience is that they are few and far between ).

To the parent who posted this : what the hell do you think you're doing feeding your kid Ritalin? It's fucking speed. Repeat after me : Ritalin is an amphetamine. Of course she's going to have nervous tics. Probably doesn't sleep very well either, unless the head shrinker has her on downers as well ( which a lot of them do ). Think about it : the human race did quiet well before we had Ritalin, psychiatrists, or all this self-help bullshit, and I think we'll be even better when those things are gone. Let your kid be a kid. Of course they're hyper. Kids are. Not interested in school? Name one kid who likes being at school, even if they do like some of the subjects. If she's not interested in school, try getting her interested in some of the subjects. Trust me, I've been down that road, and from the child's perspective, it's horrible. Noone tries to pay attention to what you really need, they just try to tell you what you need to do and give you "medicine" until you can't think or feel anything but what's right in front of you. Then the parents are really surprised when their teenager ends up a violent drug-addict. Christ, it took me years to unfuck my head from what my family, the courts, mental hospitals, schools, and shrinks did to me.

I'm all for space exploration, but this just strikes me as nothing more than a political game.

That $1 billion increase sounds good at first, but spread it out over 5 years, and you've got $200 million/year. On the other hand, increasing NASA's budget at a rate consistent even with November's unusually low inflation rate of 1.77% would give a yearly increase of $230 million. So, in the best case, they're treading water. (For comparison, NASA's 2004 budget received a roughly 3% increase over 2003.)

What about that other $12 billion in exploration money? It "will come from reallocation of $11 billion that is currently within the five-year total NASA budget of $86 billion". So, NASA just got 13% of their budget reallocated.

Aside from the apparent fiscal impotency of the plan, the thing is just dripping with political rhetoric. From the white house release: "From 1992 to 2000, NASA's budget decreased by a total of 5 percent. Since the year 2000, NASA's budget has increased by approximately 3 percent per year." What an interesting point to suddenly bring up! Why yes, it is an election year!

Too bad the last stages are a bit crude.
The protons are shown as perfect spheres, and seem to contain thousands of quarks (instead of the usual 3).
See AIP

What if we keep the high voltage idea and simply mount a power grid ?

He sure can drive to the nearest Toys-R-Us and buy a "My First 765kV power grid" junior kit, with all poles included. A 765kV transmition line is enough to supply 3.8 GW for a 100 miles distance (dropping to 2.0 GW if the distance is 400 miles).

The coolest thing with high voltage is that you can buy, in this same store, the infamous "Frankestein kit". It's basically a brainless Frankestein. You just have to find a brain that nobody is using.. I suggest you use the one from a 419 scam victim, as he probably won't even notice his brain is missing.

Ultimatelly, you could also run your very own nuclear plant. This should be enough to power your computer. But it's much harder to do. First you have to consult your local terrorist organization on how to get some uranium, and then your local mafia on how to deal with ambientalists.

1. $9bn will not "reduce lift costs to orbit from $10000/pound to $100/pound". NASA funding was ~$14bn in 2002 alone, and you can't increase efficiency that much, even in cuckoo land, unless you have a very good idea?

2. 1bn is way way way below the invested amounts in NASDAQ, even on IPO, full of tech companies that have neat ideas.

3. ...six billion people now have practically free electrical power and consequently, pure water as extracted from seawater through desalination plant. I'm sorry, but unless the electricity is beamed and desalinated water materialised you still need low level electricity distribution and water transportation. Production costs are low compared to costs of transportation.

I'm all for teaching people to fish rather than giving them a fish, but although $10bn is obscene for an individual, is is small fish on the global investment scale of things. Cool technology is cool, but it is not a cure-all, it is a part of a means to an end, but only a part. Nor will space-travel/exploitation be a cure-all for world poverty et al, low level solutions need to be made, the UN needs more money, development charities need more money, developing countries need more money (or be freed from their debt, but this is another discussion). Bringing back trillions of tons of ore from asteriods will make no difference if the price of ore is immediately depressed and people from developing countries still have no direct water supply, still have no electricity pylons to their village, or still have inadequate access to education. Old fashion engineering and logistics are the only things that can solve this.

There are actually about 10,700 hits for "Global Cooling", but about 1,640,000 hits for "Global Warming".

Last but not least.

In 1982, East Anglia confirmed that the cooling that began in the 1940s had turned around by the early 1970s. 1981 was the warmest year in a record that stretched back a century. (34*) Returning to old records, in 1986 the group produced the first truly solid and comprehensive global analysis of average surface temperatures (including the vast ocean regions, which had been neglected by most earlier studies). They found considerable warming from the late 19th century up to 1940, followed by some regional cooling in the Northern Hemisphere but roughly level conditions overall to the mid-1970s. Then the warming had resumed with a vengeance. The warmest three years in the entire 134-year record had all occurred in the 1980s.

A nice article on plasma engines can be found here.

Do you people actually know this, or is it just kibbitzing about a possible typo?

Yes, they do. Or have googled it. For example, this article in the Industrial Physicist mentions 300mm wafer sizes in the sixth paragraph.

I was under the impression nm was a more relevant unit.

Relevant for the features within devices, not the wafers the devices are fabricated on. Many, many devices are made on a single wafer.

Actually the problem was the DE-regulation of the power grid, ie, the ability to use "backup" power lines for the wholesale selling and transfer of power.

These emergency lines were never meant for this, and since the companies that were buying and selling power didn't own the lines, they had no motivation to upgrade the capacity.

This article explains alot.

No, they think it is most likely to be a combination of four quarks - charm/anti-charm and up/anti-up. This hasn't been seen before but is perfectly valid under the standard model... they've already seen pentaquark states after all.

Do I have to find you the references? No.

Yes, you do. You made the claim, you back it up. Simple as that. Now, I can back up my claim with fully referenced sites litke this. Can you?

Also, I think you are mistaking my statements as dismissive of global-warming. Try a little balance.

No, I am considering your statements as profoundly lazy; I get the impression that you believe anything that supports what you think you know and reject anything different without bothering to look into it.

I am wondering what changed scientist's minds when they had rock-solid evidence a mere 20 or so years ago that we were going into an ice-age

There was never any 'rock solid' evidence, it was never a consensus, and a couple of pop-science articles about a potential ice age appeared circa 1974, closer to 30 than 20 years ago. I'd suggest here for some more reading; you may still disagree, but at least you might be informed.

Based on that, can we trust that global-warming is real?

Because it is massively backed by several different avenues of scientific research (paleoclamatology, recent measurements, physics calculations, modelling, etc.).

How much of your own global-warming fanaticism (see your previous post as an example) is shaped by the media?

None. I'm a geoscientist and computer modeller by training. I regard most of the mainstream media's science, energy and environmental reporting as criminally underinformed, frequently outright wrong and almost invariably misleading.

I've heard the ozone-hole above the pole has started to shrink... Wasn't that one of the indicators of global-warming?

No.

..bleat on like other sheep..

Wait a minute - you're the one mindlessly repeating the old '1970s ice age prediction. And then accusing me of being a fanatic when I point out just how wrong that statement is on so many levels.

The Industrial Physicist has an interesting article (PDF file) on rare earth elements that mentions terbium and dysprosium. According to the article, 3.6 kg of dysprosium will set you back about $50,000 US.

The Industrial Physicist has an interesting article (PDF file) on rare earth elements that mentions terbium and dysprosium. According to the article, 3.6 kg of dysprosium will set you back about $50,000 US.

Yes. Has everyone forgotten 1999?

Some info on the widespread abuse and resulting public anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan.

Some more info on the Tokaimura incedent. There's an interesting bit about 2/3rds of the way down about how they needed to replace a core shroud (this is INSIDE the reactor) at one of the flagship plants. They just hired about 1,000 unskilled laborers, and each one worked inside the reactor for their legally allowable annual dose of 3 minutes. Note: I'm not a socialist - this was just one of the more informative Google hits.

Some references...astronomy.net and the referred to article

I don't see anything unexpected in the report. In particular the statement "When the loading parameter is larger than a threshold value, each bus carries a full load of passengers throughout its trip" means "if more passengers want to use the service than the buses can carry, then the buses will be full and the queues of passengers will get longer over time". This is a standard result of queuing theory as well as being common sense.

Just to be clear, they aren't the first to look at Mn-doped ZnO as a spintronic material - people have been working on this material since the 1990s. Theoretical work by researchers at Tohoku University in Japan and others predicted that Md-doped ZnO could work at room temperature. After which, Others started work investigating the properties, and trying to improve the fabrication of the material to reach ferromagentism at higher temperatures.

I can't speak for the other sciences, but a PhD physicist working in industry (not at a university) made an average of $100,000/year in 2002 (source: Industrial Physicist Magazine.

Of course, before you get to that point, you have to go through the grad school grind, post-doc etc. This is analogous to how medical doctors have internships, residencies, etc. It ~is~ a long hard road. Reducing the number of foreigners coming in won't result in more US scientists - it will just result in more scientists working in other countries. People tend to go into science because they love science - that applies to people in Mumbai as well as here.

Of course, if you want to pay scientists more, I'm not complaining! But until you convince more US kids to love science, cutting off our foreign compatriots just leaves us even more short-handed than we already are. This is the current situation

Actually, a more accurate version of the Heisenbug (Heisenbug v 1.1?) would be:

Heisenbug (n.): A defect in software code such that the more precisely one identifies how to fix it, the more difficult it becomes to ascertain where in the code it occurs. See also Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Ever try debugging a garbage collector? Every bug is a Heisenbug in those things :)

The key distribution problem can be partially solved by quantum mechanics using the idea of quantum key distribution (QKD). The first and best-known protocol, usually called "BB84" because it was published in 1984 by Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard,6 is described in the box below. In a prototypical QKD protocol, Alice sends some nonorthogonal quantum states to Bob, who makes some measurements. Then, by talking on the phone (which need not be secure), they decide if Eve has tampered with the quantum states. If not, they have a shared key that is guaranteed to be secret. Note that Alice and Bob must share some authentication information to begin with; otherwise, Bob has no way to know that the person on the phone is really Alice, and not a clever mimic. The key generated by QKD can subsequently be used for both encryption and authentication, thus achieving two major goals in cryptography.

Taken from Physics Today

Also, a talk on the same topic by the same guy.

Economically, none of the existing ones have ever turned a profit without generous government assistance. I humbly submit an interesting organizations' website to this discussion: The Rocky Mountain Institute. They are a think tank on environmental and energy issues, which strives not to have a particular agenda, but only to base their analyses on proven science and solid economic reasoning. They don't lobby governments, and most of their recommendations are squarely aimed at industries.

Also, the notion that solar energy generation could never provide enough energy without taking up too much space is absurd. A back of the envelope calculation shows that a desert installation of mirrors focused on heating towers (working prototypes exist) or photovoltaics with today's available efficiencies, can do the job. The USA's electricity demand could be met with an installation the size of Rhode Island.

Readers of The Industrial Physicist will also recall from a recent article (and discussion in the letters to the editor) that we are not limited to Earth-based generation. Within decades, we could be placing photovoltaic installation on the moon, and beaming the energy to stations on the Earth's surface by focussed microwaves.

Economically, none of the existing ones have ever turned a profit without generous government assistance. I humbly submit an interesting organizations' website to this discussion: The Rocky Mountain Institute. They are a think tank on environmental and energy issues, which strives not to have a particular agenda, but only to base their analyses on proven science and solid economic reasoning. They don't lobby governments, and most of their recommendations are squarely aimed at industries.

Also, the notion that solar energy generation could never provide enough energy without taking up too much space is absurd. A back of the envelope calculation shows that a desert installation of mirrors focused on heating towers (working prototypes exist) or photovoltaics with today's available efficiencies, can do the job. The USA's electricity demand could be met with an installation the size of Rhode Island.

Readers of The Industrial Physicist will also recall from a recent article (and discussion in the letters to the editor) that we are not limited to Earth-based generation. Within decades, we could be placing photovoltaic installation on the moon, and beaming the energy to stations on the Earth's surface by focussed microwaves.

RTA (quoting physnews)

Taking advantage of the fact that light emitted from a laptop display is naturally polarized to begin with, a 3D stereoscopic effect can be achieved by covering half the screen with a cellophane sheet in order to construct orthogonally polarized left and right scenes while the viewer wears eyeglasses holding two polarizers oriented 90 degrees apart...

With a quick google search, you can find a number of references to the use of spintronics for disk drive heads. Here are just a couple.

Here is something from 1999:

MAGNETOELECTRONICS, SPIN ELECTRONICS, AND SPINTRONICS are different names for the same thing: the use of electrons' spins (not just their electrical charge) in information circuits. One magnetoelectronic device is the magnetic hard drive based on the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) effect. In a GMR material, consisting of a stack of alternating layers of magnetic and nonmagnetic atoms, a small magnetic field can produce a large change in electrical resistance. Already a billion dollar business, GMR read heads will boost disk drive densities from 1 to 20 Gbits, and GMR might be incorporated into random access memory units as well (Gary Prinz, Science, 27 Nov 1998). The latest demonstration of spin versatility is the organized movement of a herd of spins over a lateral distance of 100 microns. In an experiment at UC Santa Barbara, David Awschalom first aligned the spins of a swarm of electrons and then nudged them across a semiconductor strip without the spin bunch falling apart. Such coherence will be necessary if spin currents are to transport information from place to place, particularly in quantum computers. (Nature, 14 Jan 1999.)

And this is from 2003, or at least, last updated in 2003:

A new approach to electronics, called 'spintronics' ( a short for spin electronics), is now emerging, and it is based on the up and down spin of the charge carrier rather than on electrons and holes as in traditional semiconductor electronics. Spintronics, also called magnetoelectronics including all the electronic devices where ferromagnetic thin films play an essential role, is today one of the most rapidly growing fields in electronics. A recent example of a rapid transition from discovery to commercialization in spintronics is the giant magnetoresistance effect (GMR), as applied to magnetic information storage. Although the first commercial product using GMR ( a magnetic field sensor) was available in 1994, the first products to have economic impact are read heads for magnetic hard disk drives, which were announced by IBM in 1997. The market for these products is estimated to be on the order of $1 billion per year and will increase the storage on a disk drive from 1 to 20 gigabits, merely by the incorporation of the new GMR materials.

Maybe this is offtopic, but if you want really elegant language processing you should check this out. Basically, you look at the compressiblity of given text and can determine what language it's in, or even what author produced it. This works with as few as 20 words.

I realize this isn't translation, but cool nonetheless. For further reading see here and here.

So he screwed us in scientific research how?

He has increased the budget of the National Science Foundation for the next fiscal year by only 3.2%, compared to 10.4% this year. He thereby ignores a law, which he has himself signed into effect, to double the NSF budget within 5 years.

Various important fields of research have to live with increases below the inflation rate. A group of Nobel Laureates and industry leaders already see the leading role of the USA endangered.

BTW, I'm not a US citizen, so I follow the political activities in the USA only very loosely. I'm sure you know the various budget proposals in your own country better than I do, so you should have no difficulties in understanding what Bush does to your scientific research.

Here's a recent possibility for a tetraquark.

One obvious difference between the real machine and the fictional version is the fact that the movie Gammasphere emits gamma rays that cause Banner to transform from human to Hulk every now and then. The real Gammasphere detects the weak gamma ray signals emitted by decaying atoms, and is harmless

While you can easily do this sort of research yourself with an obscure tool known as "Google", I'll help you.

http://www.nature.com/nsu/011004/011004-8.html
http://www.sciencenews.org/20020323/bob9.asp
http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/2001/split/558-2 .html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/blackhole-01b.html

These reputable enough? They're all on the first page of results when searching for "large hadron collider" "black hole".

You shouldn't judge a newspaper by its name; the Christian Science Monitor is actually one of the best English language papers there is, and in my experience, their science reporting is much better than average.

Or here if you don't like pdf's.

The article shows much more clearly than the pop news release that the rotation has nothing to do with quantum spin, and is entirely a classical electrostatic phenomenon. I will try to translate the article briefly:

Essentially, when you apply a charge to the first of the three metal spheres, the charges all repel each other and go to the outside of the first sphere. This exerts a repulsive force against the like charges on the other two spheres, causing an imbalance as more charges are pushed to the far side of the spheres (from the first one) than are on the close side of the spheres. Then, because the second and third spheres have an imbalanced charge distribution, they also exert forces on each other which further displace the charges.

The displaced charges result in a potential which isn't perfectly balanced like two spheres would be, and the resulting calculation shows an interaction proportional to 1/(r^6), where r is the separation distance, which yields a rotation.

I think this is an example of an overly-zealous press release from a university employee trying to make it sound more exciting than it is. The actual article (+ errata) by the researchers can be found at
http://ojps.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?p rog=normal&id=APPLAB000080000015002800000001&idtyp e=cvips&gifs=yes
Sorry, if you aren't browsing from an institution that subscribes to Applied Physics Letters, you probably won't be able to download the article for free. But I'll be happy to paraphrase what I understood from the article:

This phenomenon was purely predictable from Coulomb's law and Gauss's laws of electrostatic attraction/repulsion. Many of you should have learned about these in freshman physics. The spheres were arranged in an assymetric pattern, so rotation isn't breaking any kind of symmetry. If you arranged their spherical balls in a mirror image pattern, the rotation will reverse. The authors aren't trying to say they measured some kind of new mystical force that hasn't already been understood for 100's of years but simply that there could be an engineering application that no one had thought of before.

I'm inclined to agree with the original poster's comment that this has nothing to do with quantum mechanical spin.