It's worth pointing out that perhaps the most productive university in the entire world in the field of astronomy is the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
It is just a coincidence? Astronomers/Astrophysicists always seem to know where to build the best ground-based telescopes (Hawaii, Chile, the Canary Islands...)
I mean, there will be scam artists as long as people are uninformed enough to fall for a scam. Doesn't every single site that you give sensitive information to WARN you that they will never ask you for that information?
I remember the first time I ever logged in to AOL, someone named "SS Rupert" IM-ed me telling me that my credit card number was lost in the last transmission and I needed to re-send it. This is immediately after the old AOL screen that says "We will never ask you for your password or credit card information". I laughed at his IM and asked him how many people fell for that? He told me that he just hung around the "newbie chat" or wherever it was that AOL dumped new users at the time and that he gets about 10 to 15 PER CENT of people to send him one or the other without even questioning him.
I almost completely agree that if you're dumb enough to fall for the scam, you deserve it.
This discovery cemented the theory of quantum chromodynamics...
Not to be too nit-picky, but it's worth mentioning that their work shows that quantum chromodynamics (QCD) accurately describes the strong force only at HIGH energies. The use of asymptotic freedom, or QCD at large energy scales, agrees very well with experiment.
However, the theory does not give reliable predictions in the low-energy (sometimes non-perturbative) regime. To say that QCD is now completely understood ignores this problem, which is the most serious problem left (other than the Higgs) in the Standard Model today. Some possible solutions to the low-energy QCD problem (or the confinement problem) are the people working on Lattice QCD and the people working on the B-T worldsheet formalism.
Sorry for the deluge of information, but I thought it was worth pointing out that there is still plenty of work to be done in understanding this theory. And as an interesting aside, even with these three brilliant men and their work, theoretical calculations only agree with experiment to about a 10% level!
In addition to competition for funding and notoriety in the scientific public, Astrophysicists and High-Energy Physicists often compete for computer resources, such as for the Earth Simulator. (Especially with the QCD High-Energy Physicists.)
If there are significant advances in that sort of computing, perhaps the resources currently taken up by QCD calculations could be used for things like numerical relativity?
This is not such a big problem. People have been doing it successfully for 50 years. The early orbiters didn't even use fancy-schmancy ceramic tiles to keep them safe, they just used tough heat-resistant ablatives to protect the soft, delicious astronauts inside.
No no... I'm sorry. My whole point is that the challenge, as I have understood it (and perhaps I'm wrong) , is that this needs to be reusable. The space shuttle, for instance, is something that could go into orbit, come back down, and be reused. The Apollo modules weren't reusable, and I don't think anything that was really inexpensive (compared to say, the $50 million prize) has been made that's reusable.
So how do you propose to build something reusable that meets all the above criteria?
I would love to see someone take on the biggest challenge, articulated nicely here in the article:
The new contest also presents challenges far greater than the X Prize by requiring development of a vehicle that could maneuver to dock at well over 100 mi. altitude and survive a 17,500-mph. reentry.
The big problem, in addition to getting enough thrust to get up to that speed (and into a stable orbit), is how to get down! Ever climb a tree so high that you couldn't figure out how to get down? The analogy is much worse in outer space.
The whole idea is, you have an atmosphere that you'll be blasting through at that speed, 17,500 mph or so, and you need some way to decelerate and deal with the heat... good luck to those going ahead with this...
For those of you who are visual thinkers like me, this is extremely interesting. There are some wonderful pictures available at this site, and they tell you a bit about what happened there as well.
Excerpt: "This year's winners -- in categories including photography, illustration, instructional graphics, and interactive and noninteractive multimedia -- spanned the gamut, from intricate depictions of events at the cell membrane to the nighttime drama of a sonar-guided bat closing in on its prey."
It is really nice to see public outreach like this that still retains so much information. They should really give us scientists lessons on how to better do this.
NASA's *entire* budget is less than 3% of just the budget deficit. To inform you, Bush's "manned mission to mars" initiative is going to cost more than the budget increase alone, which means that NASA's funding to projects with scientific merit (according to scientists, not politicians) is going to get cut.
It's an unconscionable stretch to blame unemployment in government programs in NYC on NASA! Maybe you should think about offering your Bush tax cut back instead if you want to re-employ government workers?
Unlike the GBA, the nintendo DS doesn't allow you to play your favorite nintendo games from other consoles... no NES, no Super NES, no N64, no Gamecube compatibility.
I wish that they would publicize the things that the ESA does well, such as the upcoming Herschel mission, the upcoming Planck space satellite (the successor to WMAP and COBE), etc. Instead all we hear about in the US is a disappointing garbage idea like this (with no scientific merit) and the disaster of the BEAGLE 2.
Come on, people. Don't take this seriously (and if you have the power, don't support this) -- this is basically a time capsule. Whatever we do to our Earth, I'm still sure it will provide a better record of life on Earth than whatever we might drop on the moon.
This is so on-point it's frightening. I was a high school teacher in Los Angeles from 2000-2001, and it's frightening how much of what is articulated in this exerpt I *experienced*.
We had a principal who was fantastic, because he was a former teacher from the area. But when he was replaced by someone with more "administrative experience" it was appalling how quickly things declined. Children aren't held to standards, parents come at odds with teachers, administrators point the finger at teachers, and the children are the ones left out in the cold.
In just one year there, I was chastised for 1) Driving students home to bad neighborhoods after dark. 2) Creating an extra-curricular dance program that "interfered" with the students curriculum. 3) Attempting to engage students with "dangerous" science demonstrations (i.e. using a bunsen burner constitutes dangerous, using 1 Tesla Magnets constitutes dangerous.) 4) Breaking up a fight with my bare hands (I was chastised for "laying my hands" upon the students.)
The list goes on. I truly believe that the entire system needs reform, from the bottom up and the top down. But without involved parents, administrators who take full responsibility, students who are forced to live with their choices instead of having excuses made for them, and up to date equipment and books, it truly is a lost cause except for the few self-motivated students.
Parent is absolutely right. Despite the demonization of nuclear energy (from Chernobyl to Three Mile Island to Mr. Burns), it really does have the potential, if implemented responsibly (which it looks like this IS), to be one of the safest and most productive energy sources ever.
And in China, of course, there won't be any of those pesky worker protests, singing:
"Come gather round children it's high time you learned bout a hero named Homer and a devil named Burns.
We'll march till we drop the girls and the fellas we'll fight till the death or else fold like umbrellas.
So we'll march day and night by the big cooling tower they have the plant but we have the power!"
Sound is just a pressure wave through the medium of choice -- in this case air. It seems totally obvious in hindsight that in addition to affecting your ear canals, loud sounds can affect your lungs, especially when you're standing with your face by the source of the air compressions.
It's no surprise that sound waves have been used to probe all sorts of cavities, everything from ultrasounds in pregnant women to determining the extent of underground caves. A big sound wave in a small cavity can cause damage -- I wonder why no one thought to apply that reasoning to lungs before? Maybe because the pulmonary cavities are so large compared to, say, the ear?
As an aside, this article talks about the brighter side of sound, that using sound waves at just the right frequency can fight cancer.
The year was 1994 -- I had a 14.4 fax/modem, and was the only person in the house who knew how to use commands in MS-DOS, much less use the net, do some mild hacking, etc.
I learned more about computer security by trial and error on a piece of crap 486SX than I think I could learn from a book. Why don't more of these parents spend $100 on a crappy old machine than $100 on the best in virus protection and let the kids go nuts? They'd probably learn a whole lot more...
Ground based astronomy isn't as sexy as space based astronomy, but has one big advantage -- light gathering power. We can build 8-meter (SUBARU and GEMINI), 10-meter (KECK), and in the near future 30 to 50-meter telescopes. The JWST, by comparison, is only 6.5 meters, and that's still 7 years away (at least).
It's expensive to get telescopes into orbit, first off, and to send a probe up, well, you only get one look at the system with that! Additionally, launching anything drives the cost up by tens of millions of dollars. Ground based telescopes are easier to service, last virtually forever, and only have the disadvantage of having the atmosphere to fight with.
Adaptive optics, and camera technology have significantly advanced in recent years, so that ground based telescopes with adaptive optics have huge advantages over those without it. They haven't caught the space telescopes yet, but the gap is closing. I'm a huge advocate of hubble, chandra and other space-based missions, but what can be accomplished on the ground (such as this) should NOT be overlooked!
I can't believe this! Here we have some strong evidence that this nanotechnology can prove dangerous, and our government does nothing to inform people of the risks.
BOTOX injections are just fine, too, apparently. Why would botulanum toxin be dangerous, anyway?
Yet, on the other hand, potentially life-saving research like stem-cell research is *banned* by the US government.
Maybe what should happen is that in vitro testing of *all* such biotechnology should be allowed without regulation, but once human test subjects come into play, that's when the government needs to step in. (Sorry for the outrage at the government's inconsistency and irresponsibility.)
There's very little new information available from their website Da Vinci, but you can always look to the X-prize site for information about the teams.
I personally think that the development of many different ways of reaching your goal is the best way to go -- facilitating as much development of future technology as possible! (Which is probably the whole point of this anyway.)
I'm no expert on the fear and politics surrounding HST, but I am an expert on the physics/astronomy front (IAAAP). That said, I am profoundly disturbed by NASA's decision to cancel future missions to extend the lifetime of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
Hubble is still profoundly useful, and even its proposed successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, cannot probe the same regions as HST. The reason has to do with the filters hooked up to it. James Webb is designed to view the highest redshift objects, so its filters are very red. The "bluest" light it can observe is about 600 nm, which appears yellowish-orange to our eyes, up to about 2000 nm, far into the infrared. HST can observe wavelengths between ~200 nm (ultraviolet) and ~850 nm (near infrared). I don't know why people keep spouting off that the James Webb is a superior replacement to HST, because it probes an entirely different type of light.
It's also worth noting that all of these extra-solar planets are gas giants, comparable to Jupiter-sized objects. The reason people are interested as far as life goes is not that they expect to find life on these planets, but that these planets may be indicators of other, Earth-type planets, in the same solar system.
They have a bit of the motivation on *why* they think this is a pretty reliable method if they find a signal what they're looking for here.
Those artificial sounds bear only a modest resemblance to actual waterfall sounds
To respond to your comment, no, I don't think it sounds exactly like the right waterfall, but the resemblance is strong enough that if you listen to the artificial one alone, you go, "Oh, that's a waterfall." Play the real one, and you'd say "Oh, that's a waterfall." You might say they're different waterfalls, but they sound similar enough to me.
Same thing here, if you hear the "(m)ethane-fall" signal and play it next to the simulation, you would conclude they're two of the same phenomena, just not identical examples of it.
Go figure, NASA decides to abandon the ISS once the USA's commitment is finished, and somehow, the science used to build the ISS due to international collaboration just might save one of our most invaluable satellite telescopes.
I think as long as something is done to save the HST for a few more years, we're in excellent shape. FYI -- the HST is the only instrument that can observe the lyman alpha/beta/gamma/etc. emission lines from the furthest galaxies (z >= 7)... despite all the redshifting, the James Webb Space Telescope won't be able to observe the most powerful of emission lines as the HST still can!
It depends on what you decide is more important to your life/society -- and many people are more interested in finding/looking for extraterrestrial life.
I think personally, the sooner the better. We all have short lifetimes here on this earth, and light-travel time limits how long it will take us to contact anyone. If there are ET's within about 20-30 light years, it's reasonable to expect that we can contact them (and hear back from them) within some of our lifetimes -- which is a very exciting (though perhaps too optimistic) possibility. Imagine the benefits to society contact with an alien race could bring!
Even if it's too far to contact and hear back from in our lifetime -- there's something to be said for looking for them. Even if we just get and decode their message, there could be some wonderful information that could advance any given field by thousands of years of research...
This is definitely "order of magnitude" a typical strong decay.
There are two things which are unusual about this, however:
1) It's a strong decay, and the particle is more massive than other exotic (with more than just down/up quarks) mesons, but this one lives longer than light mesons in its family. Whether this means it's longer lived than charm-down or charm-up mesons or longer lived than a lighter resonance of charm-strange isn't enunciated here, but either way, that's a surprise. There may be some type of parity conservation at work.
(NB - strong interactions conserve parity)
2) It decays into an eta particle much more often (6x more) than decay into a kaon. This is unusual, because more phase space is available for kaons (they have less mass than etas, therefore it's energetically favorable). Again, this could be related to parity issues, like pion decay (prefers muons over less-massive electrons), but that isn't enunciated here either.
It just goes to show that there's a lot left to investigate just in the basic standard model -- something that a lot of the SUSY/string-loving public forgets quite often. (IAAP, btw)
I have to object to referring to the 1960's/70's as NASA's golden age. Surely, that should be regarded as NASA's infancy, and that NASA's golden age may be yet to come?
Maybe it's too optimistic, but I'm a 25 year old astrophysics grad student, and I know how much is out there waiting to be explored and examined -- I don't want to have to live my life in the belief that my industry's best days were before I was born!
Exactly. As every goephysicist knows, you cannot predict earthquakes!
We just don't know enough about the Earth's interior, including all the fault lines and their details to be able to do it. The best we can do, as far as I know, is to detect tremors and give a few minutes warning. From the article above, here's what Arthur Smith has to say:
Scientists cannot predict earthquakes - otherwise we would not have
so many where hundreds or thousands of people get killed, like
the recent one in Japan. After an earthquake has happened there are
various things geologists look for in the "fault" associated with
the earthquake to give some idea of how long it will be till the
next one. The "fault" is the part of the earth's crust where two
sections are sliding against one another in some fashion. To make
real predictions would require knowing the location of all these
faults (some kind of map), knowing at what stage each of them
is (how much tension there is and what kind of things are preventing
the fault from slipping) and how they interact with one another.
Even for very carefully studied regions like southern California,
we have only a very small fraction of the information that would
be needed for true prediction.
I mean, it's easy to bash someone. Read the critique from the article:
The continuing efforts to produce a new-product road map less than a year after the last one is an indication that the marketplace is confused by the company and its strategy, said Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst at IDC. "They're seeing that people don't know who they are, and if they don't know who they are, they're not buying from them," he said. The company continues to do a lackluster job in creating brand awareness, and it hasn't been able to create a pull to its products for potential customers, he said. "This is the same conversation that has recurred since the former Santa Cruz Operation [the company's original name] and Caldera [after the merger in 2000] and now SCO."
Isn't is just fair to say that the old strategy wasn't working (as evidenced by the 20% drop in revenue), so they're trying something new? That's what they say -- they're coming out with new products to try and be more competitive...
UnixWare 7.1.4 and the new Smallfoot embedded Unix products are shipping now, while SCOoffice Server 4.1 will ship next month and Vintela Authentication From SCO Release 2.6 will be available in August.
Slashdot Mirror
It's worth pointing out that perhaps the most productive university in the entire world in the field of astronomy is the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
It is just a coincidence? Astronomers/Astrophysicists always seem to know where to build the best ground-based telescopes (Hawaii, Chile, the Canary Islands...)
Seriously, doesn't the parent have a point here?
I mean, there will be scam artists as long as people are uninformed enough to fall for a scam. Doesn't every single site that you give sensitive information to WARN you that they will never ask you for that information?
I remember the first time I ever logged in to AOL, someone named "SS Rupert" IM-ed me telling me that my credit card number was lost in the last transmission and I needed to re-send it. This is immediately after the old AOL screen that says "We will never ask you for your password or credit card information". I laughed at his IM and asked him how many people fell for that? He told me that he just hung around the "newbie chat" or wherever it was that AOL dumped new users at the time and that he gets about 10 to 15 PER CENT of people to send him one or the other without even questioning him.
I almost completely agree that if you're dumb enough to fall for the scam, you deserve it.
In addition to competition for funding and notoriety in the scientific public, Astrophysicists and High-Energy Physicists often compete for computer resources, such as for the Earth Simulator. (Especially with the QCD High-Energy Physicists.)
If there are significant advances in that sort of computing, perhaps the resources currently taken up by QCD calculations could be used for things like numerical relativity?
I cannot understand this line of thinking.
NASA's *entire* budget is less than 3% of just the budget deficit. To inform you, Bush's "manned mission to mars" initiative is going to cost more than the budget increase alone, which means that NASA's funding to projects with scientific merit (according to scientists, not politicians) is going to get cut.
It's an unconscionable stretch to blame unemployment in government programs in NYC on NASA! Maybe you should think about offering your Bush tax cut back instead if you want to re-employ government workers?
Unlike the GBA, the nintendo DS doesn't allow you to play your favorite nintendo games from other consoles... no NES, no Super NES, no N64, no Gamecube compatibility.
Will this hurt nintendo?
I wish that they would publicize the things that the ESA does well, such as the upcoming Herschel mission, the upcoming Planck space satellite (the successor to WMAP and COBE), etc. Instead all we hear about in the US is a disappointing garbage idea like this (with no scientific merit) and the disaster of the BEAGLE 2. Come on, people. Don't take this seriously (and if you have the power, don't support this) -- this is basically a time capsule. Whatever we do to our Earth, I'm still sure it will provide a better record of life on Earth than whatever we might drop on the moon.
This is so on-point it's frightening. I was a high school teacher in Los Angeles from 2000-2001, and it's frightening how much of what is articulated in this exerpt I *experienced*.
We had a principal who was fantastic, because he was a former teacher from the area. But when he was replaced by someone with more "administrative experience" it was appalling how quickly things declined. Children aren't held to standards, parents come at odds with teachers, administrators point the finger at teachers, and the children are the ones left out in the cold.
In just one year there, I was chastised for
1) Driving students home to bad neighborhoods after dark.
2) Creating an extra-curricular dance program that "interfered" with the students curriculum.
3) Attempting to engage students with "dangerous" science demonstrations (i.e. using a bunsen burner constitutes dangerous, using 1 Tesla Magnets constitutes dangerous.)
4) Breaking up a fight with my bare hands (I was chastised for "laying my hands" upon the students.)
The list goes on. I truly believe that the entire system needs reform, from the bottom up and the top down. But without involved parents, administrators who take full responsibility, students who are forced to live with their choices instead of having excuses made for them, and up to date equipment and books, it truly is a lost cause except for the few self-motivated students.
Parent is absolutely right. Despite the demonization of nuclear energy (from Chernobyl to Three Mile Island to Mr. Burns), it really does have the potential, if implemented responsibly (which it looks like this IS), to be one of the safest and most productive energy sources ever.
And in China, of course, there won't be any of those pesky worker protests, singing:
"Come gather round children
it's high time you learned
bout a hero named Homer
and a devil named Burns.
We'll march till we drop
the girls and the fellas
we'll fight till the death
or else fold like umbrellas.
So we'll march day and night
by the big cooling tower
they have the plant
but we have the power!"
Sound is just a pressure wave through the medium of choice -- in this case air. It seems totally obvious in hindsight that in addition to affecting your ear canals, loud sounds can affect your lungs, especially when you're standing with your face by the source of the air compressions. It's no surprise that sound waves have been used to probe all sorts of cavities, everything from ultrasounds in pregnant women to determining the extent of underground caves. A big sound wave in a small cavity can cause damage -- I wonder why no one thought to apply that reasoning to lungs before? Maybe because the pulmonary cavities are so large compared to, say, the ear? As an aside, this article talks about the brighter side of sound, that using sound waves at just the right frequency can fight cancer.
The year was 1994 -- I had a 14.4 fax/modem, and was the only person in the house who knew how to use commands in MS-DOS, much less use the net, do some mild hacking, etc.
I learned more about computer security by trial and error on a piece of crap 486SX than I think I could learn from a book. Why don't more of these parents spend $100 on a crappy old machine than $100 on the best in virus protection and let the kids go nuts? They'd probably learn a whole lot more...
Ground based astronomy isn't as sexy as space based astronomy, but has one big advantage -- light gathering power. We can build 8-meter (SUBARU and GEMINI), 10-meter (KECK), and in the near future 30 to 50-meter telescopes. The JWST, by comparison, is only 6.5 meters, and that's still 7 years away (at least). It's expensive to get telescopes into orbit, first off, and to send a probe up, well, you only get one look at the system with that! Additionally, launching anything drives the cost up by tens of millions of dollars. Ground based telescopes are easier to service, last virtually forever, and only have the disadvantage of having the atmosphere to fight with. Adaptive optics, and camera technology have significantly advanced in recent years, so that ground based telescopes with adaptive optics have huge advantages over those without it. They haven't caught the space telescopes yet, but the gap is closing. I'm a huge advocate of hubble, chandra and other space-based missions, but what can be accomplished on the ground (such as this) should NOT be overlooked!
I can't believe this! Here we have some strong evidence that this nanotechnology can prove dangerous, and our government does nothing to inform people of the risks.
BOTOX injections are just fine, too, apparently. Why would botulanum toxin be dangerous, anyway?
Yet, on the other hand, potentially life-saving research like stem-cell research is *banned* by the US government.
Maybe what should happen is that in vitro testing of *all* such biotechnology should be allowed without regulation, but once human test subjects come into play, that's when the government needs to step in. (Sorry for the outrage at the government's inconsistency and irresponsibility.)
There's very little new information available from their website Da Vinci, but you can always look to the X-prize site for information about the teams. I personally think that the development of many different ways of reaching your goal is the best way to go -- facilitating as much development of future technology as possible! (Which is probably the whole point of this anyway.)
I'm no expert on the fear and politics surrounding HST, but I am an expert on the physics/astronomy front (IAAAP). That said, I am profoundly disturbed by NASA's decision to cancel future missions to extend the lifetime of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
Hubble is still profoundly useful, and even its proposed successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, cannot probe the same regions as HST. The reason has to do with the filters hooked up to it. James Webb is designed to view the highest redshift objects, so its filters are very red. The "bluest" light it can observe is about 600 nm, which appears yellowish-orange to our eyes, up to about 2000 nm, far into the infrared. HST can observe wavelengths between ~200 nm (ultraviolet) and ~850 nm (near infrared). I don't know why people keep spouting off that the James Webb is a superior replacement to HST, because it probes an entirely different type of light.
It's also worth noting that all of these extra-solar planets are gas giants, comparable to Jupiter-sized objects. The reason people are interested as far as life goes is not that they expect to find life on these planets, but that these planets may be indicators of other, Earth-type planets, in the same solar system.
Go figure, NASA decides to abandon the ISS once the USA's commitment is finished, and somehow, the science used to build the ISS due to international collaboration just might save one of our most invaluable satellite telescopes. I think as long as something is done to save the HST for a few more years, we're in excellent shape. FYI -- the HST is the only instrument that can observe the lyman alpha/beta/gamma/etc. emission lines from the furthest galaxies (z >= 7)... despite all the redshifting, the James Webb Space Telescope won't be able to observe the most powerful of emission lines as the HST still can!
It depends on what you decide is more important to your life/society -- and many people are more interested in finding/looking for extraterrestrial life.
I think personally, the sooner the better. We all have short lifetimes here on this earth, and light-travel time limits how long it will take us to contact anyone. If there are ET's within about 20-30 light years, it's reasonable to expect that we can contact them (and hear back from them) within some of our lifetimes -- which is a very exciting (though perhaps too optimistic) possibility. Imagine the benefits to society contact with an alien race could bring!
Even if it's too far to contact and hear back from in our lifetime -- there's something to be said for looking for them. Even if we just get and decode their message, there could be some wonderful information that could advance any given field by thousands of years of research...
This is definitely "order of magnitude" a typical strong decay.
There are two things which are unusual about this, however:
1) It's a strong decay, and the particle is more massive than other exotic (with more than just down/up quarks) mesons, but this one lives longer than light mesons in its family. Whether this means it's longer lived than charm-down or charm-up mesons or longer lived than a lighter resonance of charm-strange isn't enunciated here, but either way, that's a surprise. There may be some type of parity conservation at work.
(NB - strong interactions conserve parity)
2) It decays into an eta particle much more often (6x more) than decay into a kaon. This is unusual, because more phase space is available for kaons (they have less mass than etas, therefore it's energetically favorable). Again, this could be related to parity issues, like pion decay (prefers muons over less-massive electrons), but that isn't enunciated here either.
It just goes to show that there's a lot left to investigate just in the basic standard model -- something that a lot of the SUSY/string-loving public forgets quite often. (IAAP, btw)
I have to object to referring to the 1960's/70's as NASA's golden age. Surely, that should be regarded as NASA's infancy, and that NASA's golden age may be yet to come? Maybe it's too optimistic, but I'm a 25 year old astrophysics grad student, and I know how much is out there waiting to be explored and examined -- I don't want to have to live my life in the belief that my industry's best days were before I was born!