Science Quick Picks

Project Tuva: Videos of Historic Feynman Lectures

Jorge Goncalves — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:51:43 +0000

Microsoft Research and Bill Gates Bring Historic Physics Lectures to Web: Microsoft Research, in collaboration with Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, today launched Project Tuva, a web site that makes an acclaimed lecture series by the iconic physicist Richard Feynman freely available to the general public for the first time. The lectures, which Feynman originally delivered at Cornell University in 1964, have been hugely influential for many people, including Gates. Gates privately purchased the rights to the seven lectures in the series, called “The Character of Physical Law,” to make them widely available to the public for free with the hope that they will help get kids excited about physics and science.

Feynman was one of the most popular scientists of the 20th century, equally regarded for his scientific insights as well as his ability to convey his enthusiasm for science through his lectures and writings. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 and was also known for his quirky sense of humor and eccentric and wide-ranging interests.

“No one was more adept at making science fun and interesting than Richard Feynman,” said Gates. “More than 20 years after first seeing them, these are still some of the best science lectures I’ve heard. Feynman worked hard during his life to popularize science, so I’m sure he’d be thrilled that now anyone, anywhere in the world, can just click a button and experience his lectures.”

Curtis Wong, a principal researcher with Microsoft Research, enhanced the experience of viewing the lectures by integrating the historic video with a Microsoft Silverlight-based video player that allows viewers to search the lectures for references to particular subjects, take notes that are synchronized to the video, and click on hyperlinks to related Web content, among other customized operations.

Microsoft Research: Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies. Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences.

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Project Tuva: Videos of Historic Feynman Lectures

BELLA: Building a Table-Top Accelerator

Jorge Goncalves — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:46:54 +0000

BELLA: Accelerating Science by Accelerating Electrons: Berkeley Lab scientists stunned the world in 2006 when they proved they could accelerate electrons to very high energies (1 GeV, or a billion electron volts) in a distance of centimeters rather than hundreds of meters. Using the same concepts, those scientists plan to take the project to the next level and build a laser-based accelerator capable of zapping electron beams to energies exceeding 10 GeV in a distance of just one meter.

When completed in about four years, the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator, or BELLA, will demonstrate the promise of a novel and compact method of accelerating high-energy particles, by making use of a series of synchronized laser systems. The results will be of interest not only to high-energy particle physicists but also to chemists, biologists, doctors, and national security officials.

Related reading from Berkeley Labs: BELLA – The Next Stage in Laser Wakefield Acceleration

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BELLA: Building a Table-Top Accelerator

How Chemistry can Reveal the Secrets of Ancient Worlds

Jorge Goncalves — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:49:12 +0000

How Chemistry can Reveal the Secrets of Ancient Worlds: The day-to-day lives of prehistoric humans have been revealed following new research developed by chemists at the University of Bristol. The research, which combines archaeology with cutting-edge chemistry allowing scientists to reconstruct the past, will be presented at the Royal Society’s annual Summer Science Exhibition [30 June 2009].

Led by Professor Richard Evershed from the University’s School of Chemistry, the team has developed new methods of forensic-style chemistry enabling the extraction of chemical information from organic molecules that have been preserved in archaeological artefacts and geological deposits for hundreds, thousands or even millions of years. Using this information the team is able to unravel key aspects of the lives of ancient peoples, particularly their diet and agricultural practices.

Richard Evershed, Professor of Biogeochemistry at the University, said: ”While the archaeological record is extraordinarily incomplete, by combining molecular, isotopic and archaeological information we can build up pictures of how people lived in a way that was impossible until now. We use the latest analytical chemical techniques in a forensic approach because of the thousands of years that have passed since the evidence was left behind.”

The latest state-of-the-art analytical chemical techniques are required to reveal and identify the invisible ancient molecules ― ‘biomarkers’ ― which are then matched to modern reference materials. These molecular and isotopic ‘fingerprints’ can be used to trace human activities, adding important new pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of past life on Earth.

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How Chemistry can Reveal the Secrets of Ancient Worlds

New Fluorescent Silicon Nanoparticles

Jorge Goncalves — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:39:53 +0000

University of Leicester researchers discover new fluorescent silicon nanoparticles. Researchers in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester have developed a new synthesis method, which has led them to the discovery of fluorescent silicon nanoparticles and may ultimately help track the uptake of drugs by the body’s cells.

Dr Klaus von Haeften explained: “A key advantage of the new method is the independent control of the nanoparticles’ size and their surface properties. The method is extremely versatile and produces the fluorescent suspensions in one go. The findings may revolutionise the performance of electronic chips while satisfying the increasing demand for higher integration densities.”

The nanoparticles contain just a few hundred silicon atoms and their fluorescence were discovered after mixing them with water. This resulted in stability in fluorescence intensity over more than a three month period.

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New Fluorescent Silicon Nanoparticles

Enviro-Health Links – 2009 H1N1 Flu

Jorge Goncalves — Mon, 11 May 2009 22:11:21 +0000

Enviro-Health Links – 2009 H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) is a huge collection of links to H1N1 Flu related materials. These links are presented in several categories like Federal and Local Response, International Resources, Guidance for Professionals, Maps, News, Twitter, Webcasts, Information from the National Library of Medicine (drugs information, consumer health information, biomedical journal literature, influenza virus sequence database), Veterinary Resources and Full text Journals and Books.

This valuable collection of links was compiled by the Specialized Information Services (SIS) of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).

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Enviro-Health Links – 2009 H1N1 Flu

Weekend Quick Picks

Jorge Goncalves — Sun, 10 May 2009 14:15:13 +0000

NewScientist: Eight ways to boost your creativity.
Online College Degree: 100 Excellent Online Tools to Feed Your Creativity.
Shiv on Learning: 20 Educators Explain How They Use Second Life in 20 Seconds Each.
The Independent: Explosive Material: Can Angels & Demons Make Particle Physics Sexy?
Free Technology for Teachers: Seven Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter.

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Weekend Quick Picks

Christine Laine Named Editor of Annals of Internal Medicine

Jorge Goncalves — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:12:25 +0000

The American College of Physicians (ACP) has named Christine Laine editor of its flagship journal, Annals of Internal Medicine. A former vice president and senior deputy editor of Annals, Christine Laine succeeds Harold C. Sox who will retire in July.

The Annals of Internal Medicine New Editor is the youngest editor in the history of Annals of Internal Medicine and brings a unique perspective to the journal. She plans to continue the tradition of excellence established by her predecessors, while striving to chart new and innovative courses that will help to make the journal invaluable to general internists and subspecialists alike.

Christine Laine, a widely respected name in the field of medical journalism, is Secretariat for the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the Vice President of the Council of Science Editors, and a member of the Ethics Committee of the World Association of Medical Editors. She is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Internal Medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia where she continues to teach and see patients.

Established in 1927 by the American College of Physicians (ACP), the Annals of Internal Medicine is the leading journal for studies in internal medicine. The purpose of the journal is to promote excellence in the clinical practice of internal medicine. Annals of Internal Medicine is one of the most widely cited peer-reviewed medical journals in the world. The journal accepts only 7 percent of the original research studies submitted for publication.

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Christine Laine Named Editor of Annals of Internal Medicine

Nature’s Scitable

Jorge Goncalves — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:39:07 +0000

Scitable is an open online teaching/learning portal combining high quality educational articles authored by editors at Nature Publishing Group with technology-based community features to fuel a global exchange of scientific insights, teaching practices, and study resources. Scitable currently contains articles in the field of genetics, and is intended for college undergraduate faculty and students. Future plans involve extension of Scitable to other fields within the life sciences, as well as to other audiences.

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Nature’s Scitable

FluTracker: Tracking the Progress of H1N1 Swine Flu

Jorge Goncalves — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:19:01 +0000

FluTracker: Tracking the Progress of H1N1 Swine Flu. The map and the data behind it were compiled by Dr. Henry Niman, a biomedical researcher in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, using technology provided by Rhiza Labs and Google. The map was compiled using data from official sources, news reports and user-contributions.

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FluTracker: Tracking the Progress of H1N1 Swine Flu

Is the Climate Warming or Cooling?

Jorge Goncalves — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:13:02 +0000

Climate Experts Warn that Short-Term Snapshots of Temperature Data Can Be Misleading: Focus Instead on the Bigger Picture. In the hotly debated arena of global climate change, using short-term trends that show little temperature change or even slight cooling to refute global warming is misleading, write two climate experts in a paper recently published by the American Geophysical Union — especially as the long-term pattern clearly shows human activities are causing the earth’s climate to heat up.

In their paper Is the climate warming or cooling? David R. Easterling of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center and Michael Wehner of the Computational Research Division at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory note that a number of publications, websites and blogs often cite decade-long climate trends, such as that from 1998-2008, in which the earth’s average temperature actually dropped slightly, as evidence that the global climate is actually cooling.

However, Easterling and Wehner write, the reality of the climate system is that, due to natural climate variability, it is entirely possible, even likely, to have a period as long as a decade or two of “cooling” superimposed on the longer-term warming trend. The problem with citing such short-term cooling trends is that it can mislead decision-makers into thinking that climate change does not warrant immediate action. The article was published April 25 in Geophysical Research Letters.

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Is the Climate Warming or Cooling?

ScienceWatch: The Hottest Research of 2007-08

Jorge Goncalves — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:26:14 +0000

ScienceWatch: The Hottest Research of 2007-08. ‘It’s time again for Science Watch from Thomson Reuters to take its annual look back at the hottest of recent research. The first table below lists the researchers who, during 2008, accounted for the the highest numbers of Hot Papers published over the preceding two years. The second table features the papers published during 2008 (aside from reviews) that were most cited by year’s end.

Among the scientists, none fielded more Hot Papers during 2008 than Kuo-Chen Chou of the Gordon Life Sciences Institute and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His 17 Hot Papers published since 2007 cover a variety of sequencing tools for predicting protein location (e.g., “Euk-mPloc: a fusion classifier for large-scale eukaryotic protein subcellular location prediction by incorporating multiple sites,” J. Proteome Res., 6[5]: 1728-34, 2007). Thirteen of these reports were coauthored with another of the featured scientists, Hong-Bin Shen.’

Scientists with Multiple Hot Papers.

The Red-Hot Research Papers of 2008.

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ScienceWatch: The Hottest Research of 2007-08

All H1N1 Related Articles Published in PNAS Freely Available Online

Jorge Goncalves — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:08:57 +0000

Seen on Liblicense – All H1N1 (swine flu) related articles published in PNAS are now freely available online: In light of the current alert about H1N1 (swine flu) issued by the World Health Organization and the public health emergency declared by the United States government, PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) has made related research articles free online at www.pnas.org to assist with research on this topic.

Twelve research articles published within the past 6 months are now freely available online. All PNAS articles are accessible at no charge after 6 months.

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All H1N1 Related Articles Published in PNAS Freely Available Online

HealthMap – Global Disease Alert Map

Jorge Goncalves — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:38:07 +0000

HealthMap brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available Web site integrates outbreak data of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization). Through an automated text processing system, the data is aggregated by disease and displayed by location for user-friendly access to the original alert. HealthMap provides a jumping-off point for real-time information on emerging infectious diseases and has particular interest for public health officials and international travelers.

Also from HealthMap: Swine flu alerts on Twitter.

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HealthMap – Global Disease Alert Map

April 22: Earth Day

Jorge Goncalves — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:06:42 +0000

This classic photograph was taken on December 7, 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. Credits: Photograph AS17-148-22727: NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth

Earth Day 2009: The Green Generation. Earth Day 2009, April 22, will mark the beginning of The Green Generation CampaignTM which will also be the focus of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day in 2010. With negotiations for a new global climate agreement coming up in December, Earth Day 2009 must be a day of action and civic participation, to defend The Green GenerationTM’s core principle.

Earth Day Network: Earth Day Network was founded on the premise that all people, regardless of race, gender, income, or geography, have a moral right to a healthy, sustainable environment. Our mission is to broaden and diversify the environmental movement worldwide, and to mobilize it as the most effective vehicle for promoting a healthy, sustainable environment. We pursue our mission through a combination of education, public policy, and consumer activism campaigns. Our campaign and programs are predicated on the belief that an educated, energized population will take action to secure a healthy future for itself and its children. Earth Day Network has a global reach with a network of more than 17,000 partners and organizations in 174 countries. More than 1 billion people participate in Earth Day activities, making it the largest secular civic event in the world.

Chemists Celebrate Earth Day: Earth Day was first officially recognized on April 22, 1970 as a way to demonstrate support for a healthy environment, raise awareness about environmental issues, and remind people that we all need to contribute to a sustainable planet.
For years, chemists have been promoting a better world through recyclable plastics, cleaner-burning fuels, phosphate-free detergents, environmental monitoring, and green chemistry initiatives. The American Chemical Society joined the Earth Day celebration on April 22, 2003. There have been annual Chemists Celebrate Earth Day (CCED) events ever since.
Each year, ACS highlights one of four general topics (water, air, plants/soil or recycling) and chooses a specific “theme name” under the topic to focus the CCED celebration.

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April 22: Earth Day

Nano Flower Bouquet

Jorge Goncalves — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:23:13 +0000

Found at Nanotecnology Now Art Gallery

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Nano Flower Bouquet

Science Quick Picks

Project Tuva: Videos of Historic Feynman Lectures

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BELLA: Building a Table-Top Accelerator

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How Chemistry can Reveal the Secrets of Ancient Worlds

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Enviro-Health Links – 2009 H1N1 Flu

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Christine Laine Named Editor of Annals of Internal Medicine

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Nature’s Scitable

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FluTracker: Tracking the Progress of H1N1 Swine Flu

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