Slashdot Mirror

In a 2010 article, Svetlana Holt & Joan Marques wrote the following:

"Supporting Brown ... assertions about the transition of narcissistic tendencies from business schools to business
organizations, Pepper (2005) reveals a concerning fact about narcissism in business leaders. While this quality is
often sought in corporate leaders, because the right dosage of narcissism can lead to optimal innovation, there is often
only a thin line that distinguishes brilliant thinking narcissists, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey and
Jack Welch, who are also charismatic and visionary, from psychopaths such as Bernie Ebbers and Dennis Koslowski,
who use their skills in harmful ways that we have all come to witness in recent years. Andrews and Furniss (2009) take
it a step further and link excessive narcissism in business organizations to psychopathic behavior. They assert that,
perfectly matching to the description of a psychopath, these business executives are superficially charming, grandiose,
deceitful, remorseless, void of empathy, irresponsible, impulsive, lacking goals, poor in behavioral controls, and
antisocial."

(The doi in case anyone wants to see the whole article is http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0951-5 )

Actually, it was 1993.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Schweitzer

And it's been pretty discredited since then.

If all else fails, Google these things and look for the magic words: Consensus between independent researchers with respectable backgrounds.

Without that, nothing means anything. Just this woman career path and the subjects of her official qualifications are enough to worry me.

From the wikipedia article you quoted:

A more recent study (October 2010) published in PLoS ONE contradicts the conclusion of Kaye and supports Schweitzer's original conclusion.[14]

14^ Peterson, JE; Lenczewski, ME; Reed, PS (October 2010). Stepanova, Anna. ed. "Influence of Microbial Biofilms on the Preservation of Primary Soft Tissue in Fossil and Extant Archosaurs". PLoS ONE 5 (10): 13A. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013334.

It sounds like her research isn't as discredited as you make it sound.

What part of her official qualifications are in question? Would you rather that her Ph.D. in Biology come from an institution more prestigious than Montana State University? The field she's working in is quite new; there are very few specimens of intact tissue from that long ago, and not many people are working on it. Broad consensus is hard to reach in young fields, if only because of the small number of qualified researchers.

I'm not saying that we should start conspiracy theories that "the Man" is keeping her down, nor that we should look at her results with unskeptical credulity. On the other hand, your response to her research sounds like an ad hominem attack instead of an actual argument about the research's merit. Cut the girl some slack; if she's wrong she'll have plenty of rope to hang herself with. If she's right, though, we shouldn't reject her results just because they disagree with our preconceived notions.

I think the big questions are how "quantum" (i.e., coherent) their devices actually are and whether this makes them more useful than their classical counterparts. And, if quantum optimization is a good idea to begin with.

That's nothing, my most recent paper has spin right in the title!

As an expert reviewer, it is sometimes necessary to ensure a paper is rejected. This can sometimes be achieved by highlighting improper statistical practice. This technical note provides guidance on how to critique the statistical analysis of neuroimaging studies to maximise the chance that the paper will be declined. We will review a series of critiques that can be applied universally to any neuroimaging paper and consider responses to potential rebuttals that reviewers might encounter from authors or editors.

The costs involved in performing research would preclude this working in most fields. However where there would be considerable value in this sort of 'out of house' service is in performing re-analysis of the raw data behind the publication. Stats is hard and unfortunately it's all too easy to make a bit of a hash out of it. Unfortunately the current peer review process doesn't always address this adequately - either because the reviewers aren't neccessarily any better at statistics themselves or the data as presented has been stepped through processing that may add unexpected bias. Having a career statistician run a leery eye over the analysis in the orginal Wakefield paper certainly wouldn't have hurt.

Hi all,

The butterflies' abnormalities reported in this paper are potentially caused by 1) preexistent character of the populations, 2) inbreeding depression in laboratory, 3) environmental change after quake other than radioactive materials, 4) radioactive materials, and 5) other factors. However, the sampling design is unbelievably bad, and the effects of above factors cannot be isolated. For example, the number of female is very small (Spplementary Table 1), and the control population (Ube) is very distant (Fig. 1a).

In addition, similar abnormality of this butterfly is reported "before quake" by Otaki et al. (2010). As written in this paper, the distribution area of this butterfly is expanding to the northward in recent years (Fig. 1), and color-pattern abnormality of the range-margin population was known. The cause of color-pattern abnormality is considered to be low temperature in this paper.

More importantly, the corresponding authors of Otaki et al. (2010) and the focal paper is same. The authors of the focal paper "must" know preexistent abnormality of this butterfly, but northern populations were not surveyed although they should be able to survey easily.

Thus, I concluded that this paper may be publicity seeking by the authors. It has been very prosperous.

Another paper, published in the same journal, concluded that "the heat wave falls within the realm of natural variability ... [and] appears not to be the product of long-term climate changes"

That quote neither appears in the paper you reference (M. Matsueda, "Predictability of Euro-Russian blocking in summer of 2010", Geophys. Res. Lett. 38: L06801, 2011) nor the NOAA press release.

Also, some researchers in Germany analyzed the data and published a paper, entitled "Large scale flow and the long-lasting blocking high over Russia", which says that the heat wave "appears as a result of natural atmospheric variability".

The quote taken from (the abstract of) that paper, by Schneidereit et al., was in reference to R. Dole, et al. ("Was there a basis for anticipating the 2010 Russian heat wave", Geophys. Res. Lett. 38: L06702, 2011). Schneidereit et al. also mentioned, citing a study by Schar et al. ("The role of increasing temperature variability in European summer heatwaves", Nature 427: 332-336, 2004), that a long-lasting blocking high could occur more often with climate change and the expected change in the year-to-year variability.

Yet more scaremongering from the statistically-incompetent Jim Hansen. Regarding the heat wave in Russia, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a press release entitled "Natural Variability Main Culprit of Deadly Russian Heat Wave That Killed Thousands"; the press release is based on a paper that was published in Geophysical Research Letters. Another paper, published in the same journal, concluded that "the heat wave falls within the realm of natural variability ... [and] appears not to be the product of long-term climate changes". Also, some researchers in Germany analyzed the data and published a paper, entitled "Large scale flow and the long-lasting blocking high over Russia", which says that the heat wave "appears as a result of natural atmospheric variability".

In short, the claim about Russia is false. The claim about the European summer of 2003 is also debunked. (I am not familiar with Texas.) And why does Hansen not mention extreme cold recently in Alaska?—is that also due to global warming? Bad weather has always existed.

I'm afraid the DOI system doesn't actually bypass any paywalls. I was simply noting that this particular article was publicly available (most Nature articles are not). A DOI is just a persistent, unique "digital object identifier". It is now extremely common for academic journal articles to have a DOI assigned to them. The DOI for an article remains constant, and resolution from the DOI to the current URL at which the article can be found is handled by the DOI resolution system. The DOI for this article is 10.1038/487407a, and one way to resolve it is to prefix it with 'http://dx.doi.org/'. If you want to read more about DOIs, there is plenty of information at http://www.doi.org./

Link to Nature article http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/487407a (no paywall).

IEEE Comsoc have a series of so far five articles on history of packet switching, including An Early History of the Internet by Len Kleinrock which starts with:
"It is impossible to place the origins of the Internet in a single moment of time."

The others are of the Internet and related technologies from different perspectives:
UK by Peter Kirstein
Canada Datapac
France Transpac
US Telenet currently paywalled but will probably soon be available at
http://www.comsoc.org/commag/history-communications

We find the bulk modulus of M-carbon to be 365+/-38 GPa, thus is one of the stiffest materials known comparable to that of cubic-BN (387+/-4 GPa) and wurtzitic BN (375+/-9 GPa). ... M-carbon also shows anisotropic compressibilities along lattice axes: the a axis is stiffest [527+/-2 GPa] and the b [271+/-1] and c [267+/-1 GPa] axes are roughly equivalent ...

It seems that the anisotropy does give a lower compressibility, but not dramatically more as in graphite (weaker plane compressibility is 2.7% of the stronger plane). It's also clear that the diamond in the diamond anvil cell used to make this is damaged by the material. The picture in the Yale News article is the damaged anvil, not the M-carbon. In SEM images, it doesn't look like graphite at all, but more like fused grains. Characterization and proof of structure is done by X-ray diffraction, a standard materials science method, using synchrotrons, which are giant particle accelerators, namely ALS at LBL and APS at Argonne.

And now you know:

We have studied Pb-isotope systematics of chondrules from the oxidized CV3 carbonaceous chondrite Allende. The chondrules contain variably radiogenic Pb with a (206)Pb/(204)Pb ratio between 19.5–268. Pb-Pb isochron regression for eight most radiogenic analyses yielded the date of 4566.2 ± 2.5 Ma. Internal residue-leachate isochrons for eight chondrule fractions yielded consistent dates with a weighted average of 4566.6 ± 1.0 Ma, our best estimate for an average age of Allende chondrule formation.

You should check out some of the latest biologic-based treatments for psoriasis that are "in the pipeline:" http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nm0512-638

Biologics typically have the benefit of being very specific against their target with few - if any - side effects. The downside is usually the cost/method of treatment, but thats another story...

Some relevant data here (per pupil spending):
US average - $10499
Alabama - $8870
California - $9657
Mississippi - $8075

You'd be surprised, but California is really not spending a lot on their kids either. The places that are spending a lot:
DC - $16408
New Jersey - $16271
New York - $18126
Alaska - $15552
Vermont - $15175

For comparison to your 2008-2009 data, here's the 2008 data for OECD countries (PPP so local cost of living is taken into account, data is from this page):

Australia - $7814
Canada - $8388
France - $8559
Germany - $7859
Italy - $9071
Japan - $8301
S. Korea - $6723
Poland - $4682 (the U.S. educational results are closest to Poland's)
Spain - $8522
Sweden - $9524
U.K. - $9169

Denmark - $10429
Austria - $10994
U.S. - $10995
Norway - $12070
Switzerland - $13775
Luxembourg - $16909

As for how the students perform in school vs. amount spent, refer to chart B7.2 on this spreadsheet. Basically, only Italy gets worse test results per dollar spent on each student. So yeah by U.S. standards California is "really not spending a lot on their kids". But compared to other OECD countries, California's spending is well above average. These results suck any way you cut them.

> If it was an engine going out, then they could have just
> shut it down and flew home on the remaining engine

It's not so simple at takeoff and landing, any time you are below or near low speeds and at low altitudes things get very very complicated.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/AERO.2000.878212
http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-58841.html

In summary - in theory you can always save the day. In reality -- one mistake, and you're going down hard.

Lasers with cylindrically symmetric polarization states are predominantly based on whispering-gallery modes, characterized by high angular momentum and dominated by azimuthal emission. Here, a zero-angular-momentum laser with purely radial emission is demonstrated. An axially invariant, cylindrical photonic-bandgap fibre cavity8 filled with a microfluidic gain medium plug is axially pumped, resulting in a unique radiating field pattern characterized by cylindrical symmetry and a fixed polarization pointed in the azimuthal direction. Encircling the fibre core is an array of electrically contacted and independently addressable liquid-crystal microchannels embedded in the fibre cladding. These channels modulate the polarized wavefront emanating from the fibre core, leading to a laser with a dynamically controlled intensity distribution spanning the full azimuthal angular range. This new capability, implemented monolithically within a single fibre, presents opportunities ranging from flexible multidirectional displays to minimally invasive directed light delivery systems for medical applications.

In answer to your question, no this isn't a hologram, although in some sense it achieves a similar goal. Regular screens control the emission of light as a function of position. Holograms control not just the intensity of the emanating light but also the phase; this phase information carries all the extra information about the light field passing through a given plane. This new device controls the intensity and angular spread of the light coming from each pixel, which is also thereby controlling the full shape of the light-field being emitted from the plane of the screen.

With both a hologram and this directional-emission concept, you're controlling the angular spread of the light coming from each point, are thus fully specifying the light-field, and thus creating 'proper 3D' that is physically-realistic and fully convincing. (Assuming you have enough angular resolution in your output to create the small differences the eye is looking for, of course.)

As for why they are using a laser as the source light, it's mostly because they want detailed polarization control. (Coupling lasers into fiber-optics is well-established technology for telecommunications.) By controlling the exact mode of the laser-light propagation through the fiber, they can control the polarization of the light that shines out of the fiber, and thereby use conventional tricks to modulate that light. In particular, in an LCD screen, small fields are used to re-orient liquid-crystal molecules, which then either extinguish or transmit the light (based on whether the orientation of the LC molecule is aligned with the polarization of the light).

Overall it's an ingenious trick: have a light fiber emit light with controlled polarization. Then have a series of LC pixels on the outside of the fiber, whose orientation can now not just modulate the intensity of emission as a function of position along the fiber, but also as a function of angle for each position along the fiber. The end result is that you control the light field emanating from the device, and so can (in principle) reconstruct whatever full-3D image you want.

Of course the prototype in the article only has four LC channels along the fiber. Enough to create a different image on the front vs. the back of the screen. Not nearly enough to create realistic 3D. Also they are only controlling the angle in one direction (around the fiber axis), a

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

The article implies that the method is new, which is not the case - in fact it even has its wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptychography). The team (J. Rodenburg's) behind that press release is indeed among the pioneers.

The whole idea behind the technique is to illuminate the sample at different positions using an electron or X-ray beam, with an overlap between the different positions of the beam. Once this is done the algorithm reconstructs both the structure in the sample (the electronic density) and the structure of the probe (the electron or X-ray beam).

For those who can access articles behind paywalls :
[1] W. Hoppe, Ultramicroscopy 10 (1982) 187–198. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(82)90038-9
[2] B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Ultramicroscopy 52 (1993) 85–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3991(93)90024-R
[3] P.D. Nellist, B.C. McCallum, J.M. Rodenburg, Nature 374 (1995) 630–632. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/374630a0
[4] P.D. Nellist, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010490
[5] T. Plamann, J.M. Rodenburg, Acta Crystallogr A Found Crystallogr 54 (1998) 61–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S0108767397010507
[6] J.M. Rodenburg, H.M.L. Faulkner, Appl. Phys. Lett. 85 (2004) 4795. http://dx.doi.org/http://link.aip.org/link/APPLAB/v85/i20/p4795/s1&Agg=doi

It's also used with X-rays (the last article is open access) :
[1] J.M. Rodenburg, A.C. Hurst, A.G. Cullis, B.R. Dobson, F. Pfeiffer, O. Bunk, C. David, K. Jefimovs, I. Johnson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 034801. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.034801
[2] P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, O. Bunk, C. David, F. Pfeiffer, Science 321 (2008) 379–382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1158573
[3] M. Dierolf, A. Menzel, P. Thibault, P. Schneider, C.M. Kewish, R. Wepf, O. Bunk, F. Pfeiffer, Nature 467 (2010) 436–439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09419
[4] C.M. Kewish, P. Thibault, M. Dierolf, O. Bunk, A. Menzel, J. Vila-Comamala, K. Jefimovs, F. Pfeiffer, New J. Phys. 110 (2010) 325–329. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.01.004

You should actually learn Relativity.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.881171

Unrelatedly: have they/will they publish a paper on this? I can't find anything mentioning a paper in the press releases.

The actual paper was published today in Science:
Sebastian Loth[1,2], Susanne Baumann[1,3], Christopher P. Lutz[1], D. M. Eigler[1], Andreas J. Heinrich[1] (Affiliations: [1] IBM Almaden Research Division, [2] Max Planck Institute, [3] University of Basel) Bistability in Atomic-Scale Antiferromagnets Science 13 January 2012: Vol. 335 no. 6065 pp. 196-199 DOI: 10.1126/science.1214131.

The abstract is:

Control of magnetism on the atomic scale is becoming essential as data storage devices are miniaturized. We show that antiferromagnetic nanostructures, composed of just a few Fe atoms on a surface, exhibit two magnetic states, the Néel states, that are stable for hours at low temperature. For the smallest structures, we observed transitions between Néel states due to quantum tunneling of magnetization. We sensed the magnetic states of the designed structures using spin-polarized tunneling and switched between them electrically with nanosecond speed. Tailoring the properties of neighboring antiferromagnetic nanostructures enables a low-temperature demonstration of dense nonvolatile storage of information.

Some big names are on this paper (Don Eigler is a pioneer of STM; responsible for the famous "IBM written with xenon atoms" proof-of-concept, and along with Lutz worked on the also-famous "quantum corrals").

I am an instructor at a university in Canada, and I find it frustrating sometimes that I have 3rd- and 4th-year students who have never had any experience with online learning. It makes my job more difficult when I have to teach basic skills instead of the courses I am supposed to be teaching.

I currently run my courses in a hybrid manner, part traditional, and part online. This allows the students to feel comfortable with the traditional part of the course, and makes the online portion less intimidating. Here's a link to a paper I recently wrote about my class, and which describes the approach I take. The same approach with hybrid classes and software has been used in elementary and secondary schools.

The real problem with technology in schools is not the technology itself, but a lack of clear pedagogy on the part of the teacher. Just throwing technology into a class and waiting for a miracle to happen is ineffective. The teacher should decide which technologies support their teaching objectives and use those. The UNESCO Towards Knowledge Societies report (2005) states,

"Teacher training must therefore extend beyond the bounds of competency in a particular discipline and must include, as components in their own right, training in the new technologies and study of the ways and means of stimulating the students’ motivation and personal commitment. What they will need to learn, then, is not so much a technical skill as the ability to choose from among the increasingly abundant array of teaching and other software and educational programmes on offer, those that are most appropriate. Face-to-face tuition to learners, remains nonetheless essential in basic education. " (pp. 82-83)

Reference:

UNESCO. (2005). Towards Knowledge Societies. UNESCO World Report (p. 220). Paris: UNESCO Publishing.

Afaik, even considerably larger miniature heat engines have significant problems, which are only recently being solved, but most of the existing research is on things more in the millimeter to centimeter range. I suppose micrometer engines might face different problems entirely, but quite impressive.

For example, a discussion of difficulties in building a miniaturized combustion-based heat engine:

The problem being faced by micro-miniature heat engines is that, as the size is reduced, the surface-area-to-volume ratio of the combustor begins to dominate the combustion process. Both the chemical reactivity of the wall and the heat transfer to the wall affect the radical recombination and generation rates of the reactants. If important radicals such as hydroxyl or methyl are destroyed at or near the wall too quickly, the combustion process can be quenched. The thermal and chemical quenching pathways are strongly coupled, so that very small changes in temperature or chemical activity of the wall can lead to significant changes in radical concentration near the wall, making gas phase combustion using air as the oxidant difficult to sustain below a critical length scale (i.e. quenching distance) of a few millimeters (Kuo, 1986).

Source: This paper (PDF, 2005)

And a working-in-simulation model of a 65 x 22 cm Stirling engine: from a 2008 paper

Not really. There are connected problems involving finding information about lattices that are in general NP-complete (in particular, given an explicit lattice in k dimensions, finding the shortest non-zero vector in the lattice is NP-complete. One needs to be careful here to turn this into a decision problem from a function problem but this is a technical detail. But those problems are in arbitrarily many dimensions and don't in any obvious way get easier when one can pack spheres efficiently. (Instead if one had efficient ways of solving those problems one could possibly pack spheres more efficiently. For low dimensions we can solve the lattice problem efficiently, and the general belief is that in high dimensions the best packings will not necessarily be lattice packings. There are a few other packing problems that are NP hard or NP complete (see e.g. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1009831621621 ) but this is a much more general problem. Moreover, it isn't at all clear that this procedure even gives much better asymptotic behavior for the narrow problem in question (although it probably does). So overall, this really doesn't impact P ?=NP issues much at all.

This is impressive discovery, but it's no longer news. The paper was published in April 2010: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys1636 Admittedly the authors only recently uploaded a copy to arXiv on October 17, but can we not pretend this is some breaking news for nerds?

Where did you get the idea that /. was about breaking news? The stuff that shows up on here is usually two of: interesting, breaking, accurate. Thankfully, the editors often choose accurate over breaking.

This is impressive discovery, but it's no longer news. The paper was published in April 2010: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys1636 Admittedly the authors only recently uploaded a copy to arXiv on October 17, but can we not pretend this is some breaking news for nerds?

Again, you have clearly no idea what you're talking about. I'd advise you to stop blustering and get more than a Masters level education in statistics.

Nowhere does the article claim that calibration is "twisting the data" or "changing the data". It quite clearly says that calibration is changing the values of variables used in the model: "Calibrating a complex model for which parameters can't be directly measured usually involves taking historical data, and, enlisting various computational techniques, adjusting the parameters so that the model would have 'predicted' that historical data."

What the article is describing is fitting a model: finding parameter values that cause it to fit the data.

"Calibration" is a commonly used statistics term in some sub-disciplines. (Others call it "fitting", "tuning", or "parameter estimation".) It literally means "fitting the model", or in a Bayesian context, computing a posterior distribution over the model parameters (e.g., this discussion).

It is simply false that a model which validates well on out-of-sample data will necessarily predict well. The article is in fact about circumstances under which this assumption does NOT hold, such as in statistically non-identifiable models.

One way in which this can happen is if your likelihood surface (or, more generally, objective function or error metric) is multimodal. It can easily happen that both your training data and validation data identify the same mode, but the true value ends up being a different mode, and you can only find that out farther into the future.

To understand better what the article is talking about, you may want to read this paper, which I suspect is by the same guy cited in TFA.

And yes, I do build statistical models for a living. Pretty much everything I do on a daily basis is model calibration. I am not a card-carrying statistician myself (i.e. my Ph.D. is not in statistics), but I'm trained in the field, all of my research is in statistics, I collaborate regularly with statisticians, and publish research in statistics journals.

A lot of people are holding forth on why economic models are wrong, but few comments are related to the actual subject of the article. (By the way, unless I missed something, the article itself is very vague on what work is done. I think it may be referring to this Jonathan Carter, and the research findings may be related to this 2005 paper.

The article is about the following situation: you have a model (statistical model, computer simulation, etc.) that you want to use for prediction. It has some "knobs" (parameters) that you can twiddle to change its output; this is necessary because the settings of these knobs are often unknown a-priori. So people "tune" or "fit" or "calibrate" the model to observed data to determine the parameter settings in order to make predictions.

A problem occurs if there are many different "knob settings" that cause the model to behave similarly on past observed data. Statisticians call this an "identifiability problem" (since you can't hope to identify the true value of the parameters from the observed data. Ecologists call it "equifinality", since there are many equally good ways to reach the same final outcome. And engineers call it "multimodality", where the fit of the model has many local minima. (Or you could get a whole "ridge" in parameter space that is equally good everywhere along the ridge crest.)

In such circumstances, you can't determine the true values of the parameters very well, even if the model is perfect. This isn't about imperfections in the numerical model, or in the mathematical theory. It's an inherent consequence of the relationship some models have with the data.

This also is not a consequence of imprecise data. There is always some uncertainty about model parameters given noisy data, so you'll never determine the true value of parameters exactly. But this isn't what it means to be non-identifiable.

An example of the real problem of non-identifiability: suppose your model is y = (A+B) * x + error. It's pretty clear that if you measure y and x, all you can hope to determine is the linear combination A+B, and not A or B individually, even if you have perfect data. (That is, unless you have some additional source of information to constrain their values other than y and x.)

The above is a case of perfect non-identifiability. Other models are just "nearly" non-identifiable (e.g., they have "almost flat" ridges in parameter space). Then you can identify the parameters eventually, but only with unusually good data, or multiple data constraints. As an example of the latter, you could observe one quantity that constrains the parameters to a ridge in parameter space, and another quantity that constrains the parameters to a perpendicular ridge, and the intersection of the ridges is well constrained. (Think of an "X" shape, or something like this figure, except the ellipses are stretched into ridges extending across the whole parameter space).

Non-identifiability is sometimes a problem for prediction, and sometimes not. The issue is that different parameter values can be consistent with the same data. If this relationship also holds into the future, then it may not matter: you might not know what the true value of a parameter is, but if all the allowed parameter settings lead to the same predictions, maybe you don't care if you get the parameters themselves wrong.

However, the relationship may not hold into the future: parameter settings that give similar predictions for historical data may lead to very different predictions for the future. This is the real problem, and it can't necessarily be solved with better data if the model is truly non-identifiable. Then you have to simply prepare for the wide range of possible outcomes.

What the article doesn't make clear is that not all models have this problem.

The details are here --> http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2046707.2046756 (as posted by a commenter below) Subscription is required to read the full paper, I suppose.

I'm not a security expert, just an enthusiastic, so what scarce bits I understood from the article may be wrong but they're here. The attack is a side-channel exploit. It doesn't matter what underlying encryption algorithm one actually use as long as it's a block cipher. The exploit relies on two things, i.e. the cipher-blocking chaining (CBC) and the error messages returned by the server. The CBC has weakness, i.e. a recursion relation between the ciphertext and the plaintext that allows the latter to be figured out by the attacker. The error messages returned by the server are usually too informative so that the attacker can use the information to find the initial values required to break CBC. I guess both CBC and this smart behavior of the error handling are mandated by the standard, and that's why they're calling for a rewrite of the standard itself.

You're right though, fossil fuels (for example) are an actual energy source when compared to typical current photovoltaic solar panels which use more energy to produce than they'll generate over their lifetime (and that's before the conversion losses). The typical solar panel you see on a rooftop is really more a coal burning panel.

Now you're making things up. According to NREL, back in 2004, the time needed to generate the amount of energy used to produce solar panels was about 3-5 years or less, depending on the type of panels ( http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf ). The financial payback time (time to recover the dollar cost through savings on your bill) without subsidies is longer because you're paying for more than manufacturing energy, and because the competing technologies are both subsidized and are also larger, more established industries.

According to Murphy & Hall ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1749-6632.2009.05282.x ), the EROI for PV is 6.8. That means it takes one unit of energy from somewhere else to result in 6.8 units of electricity from the panels. Compare that to natural gas, which has an EROI of 10, which means it takes 1 unit of energy from other sources to get enough gas out of the ground to burn for 10 units of energy. This comparison doesn't take into account that the "energy returned" is in the form of a finite resource you have to burn in the case of gas. In other words, with 1 unit of natural gas, you can generate 6.8 units of electricity by using it to build PV, or you can get around 0.4 units of electricity by burning it in a turbine, after deducting the amount needed to get another unit of gas out of the ground. For comparison, the same source says that nuclear power has an EROI of 5-15, and coal is higher at 80. Again, this doesn't take into account that you're using the fuel itself.

Nothing against research into solar energy, just when you find people deploying with current technology onto their rooftops (or window panes) and announcing their "helping the environment" or that they have a "carbon neutral" energy source or that what they're doing makes economic sense is laughable.

In terms of environmental impact, grid-tied solar power makes sense with today's technology (or 10-year old technology for that matter). In terms of dollar cost for putting it on residential roofs, maybe you don't save money without the subsidies. For the window film, who knows.

Solar panels are not carbon-neutral, but they generate about 90% less greenhouse gas emissions than the conventional plants they displace, which are primarily coal- and gas-fired.

The Klein-Gordan equation predates Dirac's work. Dirac even cites Gordon's work in his 1928 paper as part of the introduction to the construction of the Dirac equation.

Having eventually found the actual paper, it looks like it's trying to describe beams with orbital angular momentum (where, if you cut through the beam, the phase of the light depends on the position) in a similar way to that used for linearly or circularly polarized light. The paper itself is entirely theoretical work, but the results will hopefully be used in future experiments to carry more data, pretty much as the parent post says.

The same group of researchers published a paper in 2009 in the journal Science using a technique called atomic force microscopy (AFM) rather than the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) approached used here. This technique allowed them to resolve the atomic structure of pentacene, showing the classic ring structure as one might see drawn on a chalk board in their chemistry class. Combined with their means of imaging molecular orbitals by STM, these researchers have developed some really nice tools for studying molecules. Here's the citation for the AFM paper:

Gross et al. (2009) The Chemical Structure of a Molecule Resolved by Atomic Force Microscopy. Science, 325: 1110. doi:10.1126/science.1176210

Case Western news release
Paper: " Bio-inspired, efficient, artificial lung employing air as the ventilating gas"

The antimicrobial action is hypothesized to be largely physical (disruption of the cell membrane leading to cell death). Barring some relatively significant mutations that greatly change the overall structure of the bacteria, a "resistance" would be relatively unlikely.

Here is the actual article link, since it's busted in the summary:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/am200324f
or
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/am200324f

Abstract:

One-Step Photochemical Synthesis of Permanent, Nonleaching, Ultrathin Antimicrobial Coatings for Textiles and Plastics

Antimicrobial copolymers of hydrophobic N-alkyl and benzophenone containing polyethylenimines were synthesized from commercially available linear poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline), and covalently attached to surfaces of synthetic polymers, cotton, and modified silicon oxide using mild photo-cross-linking. Specifically, these polymers were applied to polypropylene, poly(vinyl chloride), polyethylene, cotton, and alkyl-coated oxide surfaces using solution casting or spray coating and then covalently cross-linked rendering permanent, nonleaching antimicrobial surfaces. The photochemical grafting of pendant benzophenones allows immobilization to any surface that contains a C–H bond. Incubating the modified materials with either Staphylococcus aureus or Escherichia coli demonstrated that the modified surfaces had substantial antimicrobial capacity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria (>98% microbial death).

thx, was looking for that

also, clicky
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/am200324f

Doesn't this give us a steer towards a short-term fix? ... we could offset warming with some floating mirrors [or] tinfoil kites [or] pump some more dust up there.

The problem with these geoengineering approaches is that a ton of CO2 added to the atmosphere will continue to warm the planet for thousands, of years. On the other hand, these solutions are temporary, e.g., aerosols are washed out of the atmosphere within a few months or years.

You didn't suggest this, but if we continue emitting CO2 and try to mask the effect with aerosols, we will need to add more and more aerosols every year, until it becomes economically unfeasible and environmentally devastating. You don't want to live in a world where we pump enough aerosols into the atmosphere to mask 700 ppm CO2, and they all come back as acid precipitation.

Doesn't this give us a steer towards a short-term fix? ... we could offset warming with some floating mirrors [or] tinfoil kites [or] pump some more dust up there.

The problem with these geoengineering approaches is that a ton of CO2 added to the atmosphere will continue to warm the planet for thousands, of years. On the other hand, these solutions are temporary, e.g., aerosols are washed out of the atmosphere within a few months or years.

You didn't suggest this, but if we continue emitting CO2 and try to mask the effect with aerosols, we will need to add more and more aerosols every year, until it becomes economically unfeasible and environmentally devastating. You don't want to live in a world where we pump enough aerosols into the atmosphere to mask 700 ppm CO2, and they all come back as acid precipitation.

Doesn't this give us a steer towards a short-term fix? ... we could offset warming with some floating mirrors [or] tinfoil kites [or] pump some more dust up there.

The problem with these geoengineering approaches is that a ton of CO2 added to the atmosphere will continue to warm the planet for thousands, of years. On the other hand, these solutions are temporary, e.g., aerosols are washed out of the atmosphere within a few months or years.

You didn't suggest this, but if we continue emitting CO2 and try to mask the effect with aerosols, we will need to add more and more aerosols every year, until it becomes economically unfeasible and environmentally devastating. You don't want to live in a world where we pump enough aerosols into the atmosphere to mask 700 ppm CO2, and they all come back as acid precipitation.

I pulled up the IEEE bit since it's written for a very general audience, but Oliver's comment on this paper doesn't sound any more positive that the previous ones: "To be clear, this system was not used to perform any computational algorithm." ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/473164a ). The paper is a good first step, but doesn't come anywhere near to proving the claims that the company has made. It is also way less exciting that things that other groups have done, without all the hype, http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5654 being the most recent example. It's a good illustration through (PoV-ray, wut wut).

Ughh. way to gut the summary I had written.

Anyway here's the original paper in nature photonics
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2011.74

Basically the advancement in this technique is to take several incoming tributaries of data and use an optical FT method (OFDM) to encode into a single laser for transmission. Apparently the encoding/decoding is simple and low-power enough to fit on a silicon chip so this technology seems very implementable, just by upgrading the hardware on either end of existing fiber optic cables.

The BBC article with their 0.1 Libraries of Congress per second was great too ;)