Black Hole Machine, Clever Crows & Parisian Salmon
Aug 12 at 5:05pm by Aileen
In general science news this week there is some good news, some interesting news, and some not-so good news. First off, Alexander Higgins asks whether the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is worth what’s been poured into it. For the $10 billion it has cost so far, it has operated for a grand total of nine days and has yet to smash a single atom.
There were concerns as it neared completion over whether or not it might create a black hole that would eventually swallow the earth, but scientists are still insisting they MUST have this machine in order for them to understand the nature of the universe. Or to destroy it, whichever point of view one cares to hold. Since the dramatic failure of its superconducting supermagnets last September, 53 of them had to be dismantled, cleaned and repaired. Tons of supercold helium escaped from the system, and soot covered the vacuum tubes.
CERN has estimated repairs and expanded safety systems to cost another $37 million over several years, if nothing else goes wrong when the collider goes to half power in November. Just before being shut down again for the winter, so as not to irradiate the skiers. And despite doubts expressed by opponents, scientists still maintain that the LHC is perfectly safe. So long as it’s not operating while you’re on ski vacation, and you aren’t a particle physicist in the tunnel.
In other news, Atlantic salmon have returned to the Seine river in France, even though nobody’s done anything to extend a formal invitation. Hundreds of salmon have been reported swimming past the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame this year, after being entirely absent for nearly a century due to industrial pollution, agricultural pollution and dams.
The Atlantic salmon is listed as an endangered species throughout Europe, so their return can be considered a significant milestone in anti-pollution efforts – at least, in France. In addition to the salmon, at least 27 other species of fish have recently moved back into the river after a long absence.
Last but not least in the lineup, researchers studying the corvid bird species – that’s crows, ravens and jays – have managed to determine that their use of tools and ability to solve problems logically makes them at least the equal of great apes in intelligence. Of course, since ravens are known to quite readily learn to speak human languages and can put word-concepts together in novel ways to express themselves, some might argue that they’re quite a bit smarter than great apes.
One of these days we’re going to have to rid our store of epithets of the insult “bird brain,” as even though bird’s brains are not very much like mammalian brains, they do appear to be quite adept at all the things we human mammals consider signs of functional intelligence. Researcher Nathan Emery isn’t even very sure that young humans could accomplish one of the feats he and fellow researchers observed in crows – the dropping of stones into a bowl of water to raise the water level so they could easily drink…
“It’s not clear to me that even humans could do this without any knowledge of the properties of water or stones,” Emery said. “We will therefore be giving the task to young [human] infants.”
Popularity: 29% [?]
2009 Templeton Prizewinner
Apr 15 at 6:06pm by Aileen
French physicist d’Espagnat wins prestigious Templeton Prize
The Templeton Foundation awarded its $1.42 million prize this year at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] in Paris to French physicist and philosopher Bernard d’Espagnat for his work in quantum physics that, d’Espagnat says, reveal a reality beyond science that spirituality and art could help to grasp.
d’Espagnat is a former senior physicist at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva and professor. He has argued in his books that modern quantum physics demonstrates that ultimate reality cannot be described.
“Mystery is not something negative that has to be eliminated. On the contrary, it is one of the constitutive elements of being.”
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Intelligent Design from Biology
Feb 3 at 7:07pm by Aileen
No, no. I’m not talking about what gets taught in high school biology classes or hotly debated in the ideological forever-wars between science and theology. I am talking about human engineers and inventors who develop newer, better and more sustainable technologies inspired to the designs that life has managed to come up with on its own over the course of evolution.
Brainz offers The 15 Coolest Cases of Biomimicry, a post that explains a little about what biomimicry (a.k.a. bionics, biomimetics) is and gives some very cool examples beyond the usual Velcro. My favorite is #8, artificial photosynthesis. But I’m sure readers will split fairly evenly over the entire 15 examples, and perhaps start looking around with ‘new eyes’ to appreciate the designs of life. Maybe even be inspired to invent some new product or technology that mimics those designs.
Do check out the article, it’s a fun read.
In other news, surely everyone has heard by now about a California woman who gave birth to octuplets last week. Today (the day after Phil the Groundhog reminded us yet again that spring doesn’t start until March 21) marks the continuing survival of all eight babies for a solid week, which is historically unprecedented.
According to news reports, all 14 of 33-year old Nadya Suleman’s children (oldest is 7) were conceived with the aid of in-vitro fertilization. These latest 8 children apparently represent the last of the frozen embryos Suleman had created from her eggs and a donor’s sperm before her first child was born. Medical ethicists all over the world have weighed in on the situation, most suggesting that the implantation of this many embryos is or should be an actionable ethics violation, but it is possible that she received fewer embryos and that they split (twinned) after becoming attached to the uterine wall.
Links:
The 15 Coolest Cases of Biomimicry
Birth of octuplets rattles fertility experts
Suleman Octuplets
Brainz: grey matter at its best
Popularity: 11% [?]
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