The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

Levitate me.

Step back, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Telegraph reports on a new a levitation machine:

Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing this pheneomenon, known as the Casimir force, so that it repels instead of attracts.

Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.

…

The [Casimir] force is due to neither electrical charge or gravity, for example, but the fluctuations in all-pervasive energy fields in the intervening empty space between the objects and is one reason atoms stick together, also explaining a “dry glue” effect that enables a gecko to walk across a ceiling.

Entered on 31 July 2008 at 6:19 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Watch Facebook crumble….

From the TECH MEANS WASTING TIME Desk: As you all probably know by now, Scrabulous is down. You probably also know it’s due to a lawsuit launched by Hasbro, the makers of Scrabble, and you might have heard that there’s some kind of officially endorsed replacement game.

But that strange scratching noise… that’s the sound of million fingernails desperately scratching at monitors in workplaces across the U.S. and Canada. (By the way, can U.K. Facebook people still play?) For some of us, it was the only thing that made Facebook worthwhile any longer.

Entered on 30 July 2008 at 16:15 in the Science file | 2 Observations |  Print

Turning off old age.

Stanford researchers have discovered something strange about microscopic worms, ScientificBlogging reports. These nematodes have specific genes that regulate the aging process:

The researchers examined the regulation of aging in C. elegans, a millimeter-long nematode worm whose simple body and small number of genes make it a useful tool for biologists. The worms age rapidly: their maximum life span is about two weeks.

Comparing young worms to old worms, Kim’s team discovered age-related shifts in levels of three transcription factors, the molecular switches that turn genes on and off. These shifts trigger genetic pathways that transform young worms into geezers. The findings will appear in the July 24 issue of the journal Cell.

…

“Everyone has assumed we age by rust,” Kim said. “But then how do you explain animals that don’t age?”

Some tortoises lay eggs at the age of 100, he points out. There are whales that live to be 200, and clams that make it past 400. Those species use the same building blocks for their DNA, proteins and fats as humans, mice and nematode worms. The chemistry of the wear-and-tear process, including damage from oxygen free-radicals, should be the same in all cells, which makes it hard to explain why species have dramatically different life spans.

“A free radical doesn’t care if it’s in a human cell or a worm cell,” Kim said.

And if aging is caused not by wear-and-tear but by genes, we can create a therapy that’ll turn them off.

Entered on 29 July 2008 at 6:12 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Zapping the blues.

PhysOrg reports on a new treatment that aims at eliminating depression by directly stimulating the brain:

DBS [Deep Brain Stimulation] uses high-frequency electrical stimulation targeted to the specific areas of the brain involved in neuropsychiatric disease. Twenty patients received SCG DBS for 12 months. Twelve of 20 patients experienced a significant decrease in depressive symptoms (defined by a 50 percent decrease in the Hamilton Depression rating scale) by six months, with seven patients essentially well with few remaining symptoms (remission, defined as a Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score <8). Benefits were largely maintained at 12 months with continued stimulation. No long-term side effects were reported.

Each study patient was implanted with two thin wire electrodes (one on each side of the brain) in the white matter adjacent to SCG. The other end of each wire was connected under the skin of the neck to a pulse generator implanted in the chest – similar to a pacemaker – that directs the electrical current. The researchers regulated the intensity of the current according to the response of the patient.

Entered on 28 July 2008 at 18:51 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Science Art: “Ericsson Taxen ritn,” Nordisk familjebok

An early telephone schematic found in a very special category on Wikimedia Commons.

Entered on 27 July 2008 at 6:09 in the Science Art file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

“Something big smacked into Mars…”

“…and stripped half the crust off the planet.” That’s a new theory about the Red Planet reported in Science News and elsewhere.

The problem: The north half of Mars is very smooth, while the southern half is covered in craters and craggy plateaus. The proposed solution is the title of this post.

By mapping surface elevations, crustal thickness and variations in gravitational pull, MIT’s Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna and colleagues uncovered a gigantic scar – a pockmark covering about 40 percent of the planet’s surface. “Finding this elliptical boundary is a smoking gun,” Andrews-Hanna said.

I suppose it’s too early yet to say if an impact like this would be enough to zap a planet’s store of liquid water (and its technologically advanced alien civilization). But it sure is fun to speculate.

NB: In that same issue of Science News, there’s a rather nice column by Dudley Herschbach called “Seeding liberal arts courses with science parables,” about the stories of scientific discovery. If anyone ever wonders why students learn calculus, the bit about Jefferson’s plow is instructive.

Entered on 25 July 2008 at 6:12 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Snikt.

Symmetry unveils the biological oddity of animals with organic metal parts:

The metals accumulate after molting, as the animals grow into adulthood. Researchers monitored the percentage of metal deposits at different times during development and observed the channels through which the metals migrate into appendages. They found that different metals settle in different areas: zinc is found in the tips of spider fangs while manganese is found in the trunk.

Including the current survey, metal atoms have been found in 136 species of insects, 30 species of arachnids, 12 species of polychaete worms and four species of centipedes. Even so, there are still thousands of species to examine. Ultimately, researchers hope that understanding this biological pattern found in so many current species will guide the search for a common ancestor.

Entered on 24 July 2008 at 6:07 in the Science file | 2 Observations |  Print

SONG: We Climb.

SONG: “We Climb.” _{(To download: double right-click & “Save As”)}

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: “Fossil fills out water-land leap”, BBC News, 25 Jun 2008, as used in the post “Four-legged Fish.” (There’s also a side-order of “Anti-evolutionary Bayou Seeping Into US Politics” in there, but you probably knew that.)

ABSTRACT: Well, we all love transitional life forms – lizards with feathers, mammals that lay eggs, Sasquatch… and Ventastega curonica, the alligator-fish. Transitionals show us where revolutions happen and where our desire, as living creatures, for what could be can take us. Those who don’t hold with evolution are fond of saying they don’t exist. And yet here they are. Look, a fish that learned to walk! Just to see what’s up there!

Recording this, I felt a little pressed for time, but the process overall was the reverse of last month – I wished I could spend more time working on words, and maybe less diddling with melodies. Because I said goodbye to my faithful old 1997 Compaq this month, I wound up salvaging and fooling around with an old program called JamWin (that I think came bundled with Cakewalk) that functions as a kind of semi-intelligent accompanist. You plug in chords and it spits out a drum, bass and rhythm track. It’ll even do little bits of melody. It’s a way to make MIDI when you don’t have a keyboard, too, and doesn’t sound half bad when you start tweaking it with some analog-ish effects. So that’s the drums and organ. The electric guitar and voice are all me, recorded in the usual way (in the living room between 11 pm and 2 am).

Entered on 23 July 2008 at 8:17 in the Songs file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

The Totality of the Universe (nutshell version).

I’m quite impressed by “Cosmology in 10 Minutes” by Danielle Fong, her attempt to explain why scientists believe what they do about how this all came to be:

Guth said, suppose you started with pretty much any initial universe. Suppose you also had an extremely strong, extremely smooth field of energy. If this field started dumping energy into the rest of the universe, it would also, evenly expand space itself. The universe would undergo a period of exponential expansion — inflation — having the effect of flattening and smoothing the rest of the universe. Inflation is God’s clothing iron.

Go, read, understand.

Entered on 22 July 2008 at 6:11 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Oh, why not?

Vote if you will by clicking the image below:

Entered on 21 July 2008 at 15:05 in the Guild Affairs file | Care to make an observation? |  Print