and Higgs singlet:

how messages might be sent

to the past or future

Stephanie Gardiner

March 22, 2011 – 5:01PM

Workers walk past a giant photograph of a part of the Large Hadron Collider. Photo: Getty Images/ Sean Gallup

Scientists believe they are one step closer to creating time travel.

American physicists from Vanderbilt University believe they may be able to use the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s biggest atom smasher buried underground near Geneva, to send a type of matter called the Higgs singlet into the past.

But they’re unsure if the Higgs singlet actually exists and whether the machine can produce it, according to a report by Live Science.

The Higgs singlet is related to another hypothesised particle called the Higgs boson, dubbed “God’s particle” because it is associated with giving other particles mass, which the 27-kilometre long atom smasher may produce.

If the Higgs boson is created, the Higgs singlet may also appear, scientists say.

The Higgs singlet may be able to jump through space and time, travel through a hidden dimension, and then re-enter our dimension forwards or backwards in time, physicists Professor Thomas Weiler and graduate fellow Chui Man Ho believe.

“One of the attractive things about this approach to time travel is that it avoids all the big paradoxes,” Professor Weiler said in a statement on research website arxiv.org.

“Because time travel is limited to these special particles, it is not possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his parents before he himself is born, for example.

“However, if scientists could control the production of Higgs singlets, they might be able to send messages to the past or future.”

The singlet, a highly technical term to describe the particle that doesn’t interact with matter in the usual way, and boson are both named after theoretical physicist Peter Higgs.

The researcher’s study is based on M theory, or “the theory of everything”, which attempts to unite the cause of all matter.

But it’s much too early to start thinking like Back to the Future’sMarty McFly.

University of Sydney Associate Professor of Physics Kevin Varvell said the study was highly speculative, something the researchers themselves admit.

“From my reading of the paper, these guys themselves aren’t going crazy over the idea of time travel,” Professor Varvell said.

“They explicitly say we’re not talking about time travel for humans, they’re talking about potentially one might be able to send information through the production of these particles.

“But they’re also saying that’s very, very highly speculative as well.

He said it’s one of many ideas that proposes using the collider and it is serious scientific work.

“But, again, I think we need to find the Higgs boson or something like it, before we can entertain other new particles being produced in association with it.”

The Large Hadron Collider, which cost more than $4 billion to build, has attracted plenty of controversy.

Before it started working, some feared it would create black holes and its operation was delayed several times due to a string of technical problems, including a liquid helium leak in 2008.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

The Scenario: A man decided to have a quick cup of coffee. He places a cup of water in a microwave oven to heat it up (something he has done numerous times before). When the timer shut the oven off, he removed the cup from the oven. As he was about to add the coffee granules to the hot water, he noticed the water did not appear to
be boiling, but suddenly the water “blew up” into his face scalding him.
Why did this happen?

The water actually became “superheated.” Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at normal atmospheric pressure but in a microwave oven it can be superheated without tell tale bubbles appearing. If a litre of water is superheated by only 1 degree, it is in an unstable state and can suddenly produce about 3 litres of steam while quickly returning to boiling point.
The following conditions promote this potentially dangerous event:- Using a container with a very smooth surface, such as an unscratched glass or glazed container; heating for too long; or quickly adding a substance such as coffee granules or even a spoon. Even a jarring action can cause it to “explode.”
How to avoid it:
• The best advice is not to heat water in a microwave oven. Use an electric jug or kettle or a saucepan on a stove.
• Before putting the water into the oven, insert a non-metal object with a surface that is not smooth. (e.g. a wooden stirrer).
• Use a container, the surface of which is at least a little scratched or not new.
• Do not heat for longer than the recommended time for the quantity of water used.
• Tap the outside of the container with a solid object while it is still in the microwave oven.
An explanation:

In a microwave oven, the water is usually hotter than the container, whereas parts of a kettle or saucepan are usually hotter than the water. Further, the surfaces of some containers used in microwave ovens may be very smooth, almost at a molecular scale, whereas this is not true for kettles or saucepans.
Microwave ovens heat the water directly: the microwaves pass through the container and the water, and the water itself absorbs energy from them. The container absorbs little energy directly. In a kettle or saucepan, the container itself (saucepan) or a heating element (some kettles) is hotter than the water. The hottest points cause a small amount of local superheating, boiling is initiated here, and this then stirs the water.

Received & published by Henry Sapiecha

Tracking Device Fits on the Head of a

Pin: Mini-Gyroscopes to Guide

Smartphones and Medical Equipment

Science (Oct. 8, 2010) — University of Illinois chemistry professor Alexander Scheeline wants to see high school students using their cell phones in class. Not for texting or surfing the Web, but as an analytical chemistry instrument.

Scheeline developed a method using a few basic, inexpensive supplies and a digital camera to build a spectrometer, an important basic chemistry instrument. Spectrophotometry is one of the most widely used means for identifying and quantifying materials in both physical and biological sciences.

“If we want to measure the amount of protein in meat, or water in grain, or iron in blood, it’s done by spectrophotometry,” Scheeline said.

Many schools have a very limited budget for instruments and supplies, making spectrometers cost-prohibitive for science classrooms. Even when a device is available, students fail to learn the analytical chemistry principles inherent in the instrument because most commercially available devices are enclosed boxes. Students simply insert samples and record the numbers the box outputs without learning the context or thinking critically about the process.

“Science is basically about using your senses to see things — it’s just that we’ve got so much technology that now it’s all hidden,” Scheeline said.

“The student gets the impression that a measurement is something that goes on inside a box and it’s completely inaccessible, not understandable — the purview of expert engineers,” he said. “That’s not what you want them to learn. In order to get across the idea, ‘I can do it, and I can see it, and I can understand it,’ they’ve go to build the instrument themselves. ”

So Scheeline set out to build a basic spectrometer that was not only simple and inexpensive but also open so that students could see its workings and play with its components, encouraging critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. It wouldn’t have to be the most sensitive or accurate instrument — in fact, he hoped that obvious shortcomings of the device would reinforce students’ understanding of its workings.

“If you’re trying to teach someone an instrument’s limitations, it’s a lot easier to teach them when they’re blatant than when they’re subtle. Everything goes wrong out in the open,” he said.

In a spectrometer, white light shines through a sample solution. The solution absorbs certain wavelengths of light. A diffraction grating then spreads the light into its color spectrum like a prism. Analyzing that spectrum can tell chemists about the properties of the sample.

For a light source, Scheeline used a single light-emitting diode (LED) powered by a 3-volt battery, the kind used in key fobs to remotely unlock a car. Diffraction gratings and cuvettes, the small, clear repositories to hold sample solutions, are readily available from scientific supply companies for a few cents each. The entire setup cost less than $3. The limiting factor seemed to be in the light sensor, or photodetector, to capture the spectrum for analysis.

“All of a sudden this light bulb went off in my head: a photodetector that everybody already has! Almost everybody has a cell phone, and almost all phones have a camera,” Scheeline said. “I realized, if you can get the picture into the computer, it’s only software that keeps you from building a cheap spectrophotometer.”

To remove that obstacle, he wrote a software program to analyze spectra captured in JPEG photo files and made it freely accessible online, along with its source code and instructions to students and teachers for assembling and using the cell-phone spectrometer. It can be accessed through the Analytical Sciences Digital Library.

Scheeline has used his cell-phone spectrometers in several classroom settings. His first classroom trial was with students in Hanoi, Vietnam, as part of a 2009 exchange teaching program Scheeline and several other U. of I. chemistry professors participated in. Although the students had no prior instrumentation experience, they greeted the cell-phone spectrometers with enthusiasm.

In the United States, Scheeline used cell-phone spectrometers in an Atlanta high school science program in the summers of 2009 and 2010. By the end of the 45-minute class, Scheeline was delighted to find students grasping chemistry concepts that seemed to elude students in similar programs using only textbooks. For example, one student inquired about the camera’s sensitivity to light in the room and how that might affect its ability to read the spectrum.

“And I said, ‘You’ve discovered a problem inherent in all spectrometers: stray light.’ I have been struggling ever since I started teaching to get across to university students the concept of stray light and what a problem it is, and here was a high school kid who picked it right up because it was in front of her face!” Scheeline said.

Scheeline has also shared his low-cost instrument with those most likely to benefit: high school teachers. Teachers participating in the U. of I. EnLiST program, a two-week summer workshop for high school chemistry and physics teachers in Illinois, built and played with cell-phone spectrometers during the 2009 and 2010 sessions. Those teachers now bring their experience — and assembly instructions — to their classrooms.

Scheeline wrote a detailed account of the cell-phone spectrometer and its potential for chemistry education in an article published in the journal Applied Spectroscopy. He hopes that the free availability of the educational modules and software source code will inspire programmers to develop smart-phone applications so that the analyses can be performed in-phone, eliminating the need to transfer photo files to a computer and turning cell phones into invaluable classroom tools.

“The potential is here to make analytical chemistry a subject for the masses rather than something that is only done by specialists,” Scheeline said. “There’s no doubt that getting the cost of equipment down to the point where more people can afford them in the education system is a boon for everybody.”

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

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Received & published by Henry Sapiecha

]]> http://www.sciencearticlesonline.com/2010/06/1419/feed/ 0 http://www.sciencearticlesonline.com/2009/10/apatite-food-gemstone-or-fertilizer/ http://www.sciencearticlesonline.com/2009/10/apatite-food-gemstone-or-fertilizer/#comments Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:38:18 +0000 Editor http://www.sciencearticlesonline.com/?p=1100 Apatite

A mineral for hungry people? Apatite is a phosphate mineral with the composition Ca₅[PO₄]₃(OH,F,Cl). It has been used extensively as a phosphorus fertilizer and is still mined for that purpose today. The mineral called “asparagus stone” is a appropriately a type of green apatite. Ironically, apatite is the mineral that makes up the teeth in all vertebrate animals as well as their bones.

The gem material makes a great faceted stone.

Thanks to ‘Sparkly’ Sally Ewen for suggesting this molecule and to Sean and to Kay Dekker for some info about it.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 18th October 2009

Angelic acid isn’t very angelic at all – it’s a defence substance for certain beetles. It gets its name from the Swedish plant Garden Angelica (Archangelica officinalis) from whose roots it was first obtained in the 1840s. Its proper name is (Z)-2-methyl-2-butenoic acid. The other isomer (E) goes by the equally silly name of tiglic acid (from the plant Croton tiglium, the source of croton oil) and is also a beetle defence substance.

Thanks to Andrew Walden for suggesting these molecules and to Florian Raab and Bo Ohlson for providing some of the information about them.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 18th October 2009

Fuki is the Japanese word for the butterbur flower, and Fukiic acid is the hydrolysis product from this plant, Petasites japonicus. Interestingly, further oxidation of this produces the wonderfully named Fukinolic acid. (I wonder if fukanolic is anything like alcoholic…) Anyway, since the conjugate base of fukinolic acid is fukinolate, it’s probably about time we stopped!

Thanks to Anton Sherwood for info on fukiic acid, and to Andrew Reinders for suggesting fukinolate.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 13th Oct 2009

for science photography

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The definition of ‘science’, for the purpose of this prize,is a comprehensive one. It includes all asp[ects of science [such as nature, technology, health] as well as work that addresses the social or economical aspects of science.

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http://www.austmus.gov.au/eureka

Sourced and Published by Henry Sapiecha 23rd May 2009

fruit fly

PASADENA, Calif. (UPI) — A U.S. biologist says he has used the behavior of fruit flies to study human behavior and, perhaps, develop new treatments for mental illness.

BRINGS A NEW MEANING TO THE TERM ‘FRUIT LOOP’

Am I mad

I have an  eye for the ladys though

Professor David Anderson of the California Institute of Technology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator noticed fruit flies subjected to even gentle wind will assume a defensive position, halting flying until the wind ceases.

Anderson and colleagues subsequently discovered the flies’ wind-sensitive neurons exist in the same sensory organ in the flies’ antennae as the neurons that process the sound of the song of a potential mate.

The next challenge was determining how the same organ processed two distinct stimuli, leading to two distinct behavioral responses. The team mounted a fly under a very powerful two-photon microscope and cut a hole in the shell covering the fly’s brain to observe when any neurons were activated by a particular stimulus.

Simultaneously playing recordings of mating sounds and using a fan to make a breeze, the scientists identified the neurons being activated.

“And it was absolutely obvious that neurons in different regions of the brain were being activated by the sound or activated by the wind, and these regions were different, even if we applied the two stimuli simultaneously,” said Anderson

HEAD SCAN

He said the findings have potential application for the treatment of mental illnesses and might target medications to precisely where they are needed, as opposed to treating the brain globally.

The study appears in the journal Nature.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 24th March 2009

space age movement detection

POTSDAM, Germany (UPI) — German scientists say they have created windows and doors that can detect suspicious movements before a crime is committed and, if necessary, sound an alarm.

keep an eye out

A motion sensor developed at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Applied Polymer Research in Potsdam and by Computer Architecture and Software Technology in Berlin can enable window panes and glass doors to detect movements because of a special polymer coating.

“The glass is coated with a fluorescent material,” said IAP group manager Burkhard Elling. “The coating contains nanoparticles that convert light into fluorescent radiation.”

burglar

He said an ultraviolet lamp “illuminates” the window panes and generates fluorescent radiation in the coating that is channeled to the edges of the window, where it is detected by sensors. If someone steps into the light, less light reaches the coating and less fluorescent radiation is produced. If several sensors are installed on all four sides of the window frame, conclusions can be drawn from the data as to how fast and in what direction an object is moving.

Elling said size can also be estimated by the sensors. Is it a small creature such as a bird or is it a person? The threshold for the alarm can be set, so that moving objects the size of birds, for example, do not trigger an alarm.

flying bird

IT IS SAID THAT WALLS HAVE EARS-WINDOWS

NOW WINDOWS AND  DOORS HAVE EYES

A demonstrator system already exists, and the researchers now say they plan to refine the technology.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 24th March 2009