July 2009
41 posts
Scientific cranks: Going strong since at least... →
Interesting blog post from Skulls in the Stars about how not much has changed in the last 200+ years. Also, a good discussion of dia- and paramagnetism.
The Race For The Secret of The Universe |... →
Aforementioned article in Parade magazine about the search for the Higgs at Fermilab.
Q&As on Higgs search article in Parade magazine |... →
Great Q&A about the Higgs
Building blocks of early Solar System came from... →
macmankev:
Strong winds from a nearby dying star may have injected radioactive material into the early Solar System, according to a new model of star death.
The findings challenge the theory that radioactive isotopes trapped in meteorites from the dawn of our Solar System originated in a supernova. They also shed light on the origins of water on Earth, says a study in the journal Meteoritics...
WatchTrailer for the documentary The Matter of Everything, which focuses on physicists at Fermilab. It looks like it really makes particle physics interesting for non-physicists.
Quantum tic-tac-toe →
Cute.
Cagey Solution: Will Nano Traps Make Geothermal... →
There are so many buzzwords in that headline at first I thought it was a joke.
July eclipse is best chance to look for gravity... →
Chinese geophysicists will test whether gravity drops slightly during a total eclipse. Most scientists think this anomaly doesn’t exist, and the Chinese experiment should put any arguments to bed.
Cambridge Physicists Devise Working Scientific... →
“Overthrow the establishment using empirically-derived strategies”
The aftermath of supernovae... in Antarctica |... →
“Milk production at a dairy farm was low so the farmer wrote to the local...”
– Spherical cow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bill Gates offers the world a physics lesson |... →
My hiatus put me a little behind on this one, but Bill Gates has put a bunch of Feynman lectures from the ’60s online and available for free.
Hiatus
So I just moved (to Philly! for grad school!) so you will have to phind your physics phun elsewhere for a couple days. Until my return, oscillate on!
-Kate
Colored bubbles arise after 15-year quest |... →
See the useful things you can do with 15 years and a degree in chemistry?
Just kidding, chemists, you know I love you.
Mix Master Magnets | Physical Review Focus →
Using a rotating magnetic field and some beads, researchers can stir a fluid using “self-assembled stir bars.” It’s an itty bitty blender!
“What do you get if you cross a mountaineer with a mosquito?
Nothing, of...”
– Sorry again.
“What do you get when you cross a hippo and a cat?
Hippo cat sine theta!”
– Sorry.
The call of the wild | physicsworld.com →
A former string theorist uses physics to study DNA in E. coli. Neat.
A Desktop Particle Accelerator? Where Do I... →
I mean, you wouldn’t want to get too close to one of these while it’s running, but if you’ve got a Cold War-era bunker in your backyard then this could be a good use for it.
Cosmic Protons Gone Wild | ScienceNOW →
Tennessee physicist sentenced to 4 years for... →
Whoa.
Astronomers Size Up a Candidate for Midsize Black... →
The best candidate yet for a mid-sized black hole, bigger than the BHs created by collapsing stars but smaller than the holes at the centers of galaxies. Note that we don’t have proof that this is a mid-sized BH, just that this is as close as anyone has come to finding one.
New Recipe for True Muonium - Take One Muon ... |... →
