Daily science stuff

[Alelou]

Sounds so cute, pizzley bear. But I'm sure a mix of those two species would very happily eat you for dinner.

[JadziaKathryn]

Matter Triumphs Over Antimatter
I have a hard time with the concept a bit - does that mean there is, say, antigold and antioxygen? - but it's an interesting article anyway.

[Elessar]

Matter Triumphs Over Antimatter
I have a hard time with the concept a bit - does that mean there is, say, antigold and antioxygen? - but it's an interesting article anyway.

There could be if you could 'assemble' the nuclei and get it to capture positrons, so on and so forth. It's a pretty expensive and complicated process, and I don't think anything nearly as heavy as gold or oxygen have been made. I know that anti-hydrogen, anti-helium and possibly anti-lithium nuclei have been made.

Of course, what's really weird about anti-nuclei is that the positron cloud is POSITIVELY charged instead of negatively like electrons, and the nucleus is negatively charged. Anti-neutrons exist, but naturally they still have a neutral charge. The common understanding of anti-matter is that it is "matter with an opposite charge", but in fact it's a set of baryons and fermions made up of quarks with opposite charges from normal quarks, so there is still a distinction between neutrons and anti-neutrons and a neutron is u-d-d and anti-neutron is u*-d*-d* (* is the bar for anti-)

Interesting note: It appears as though some physicists expect to see neutron-anti-neutron oscillation (a physical process in nature that often occurs is an oscillation of two particles between identical or similar energy states with different signs), but it would require "baryon number violation", since a neutron has a baryon number of 1 and anti-neutrons of -1. There's something in a number of quantum theories called "chiral symmetry"... and baryon number violation is a chrial anomaly.

I found all of this tremendously confusing until I read this article, which was incredibly helpful since I've always wondered what "chiral symmetry", "chirality", and "parity" were:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(physics)

[Elessar]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37256799/ns ... e-science/

We're doing SCIENCE!!!

First artificial cell created.

[honeybee]

Both eerie and cool - rather than looking for the Higgs Boson - some scientists are listening for it. Here's some simulations of what the might find:

Want to hear what the God particle sounds like?

[aadarshinah]

I found all of this tremendously confusing until I read this article...

If you're looking for a good book on anti-matter and string theory in general, I suggest reading Michio Kaku's Hyperspace: A Scientific Oddessy through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension. Not only is it easy to read, but Kaku is a Trekkie himself, and a large section of part three - Wormholes and their practical applications - discusses how an actual warp drive might work.

[honeybee]

I love Michio Kaku - he's just a charmer! And a trekkie, yes! And when he was in grad school, he consulted Kubrick on 2001. I haven't read Hyperspace, but I did read: Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos and loved it.

Welcome, aadarshinah, btw.

[aadarshinah]

My favourite part about Hyperspace - well, one of them anyway - is Kaku's story of how, when he was in high school, he convinced his parents to let him build an atom smasher in his garage. He and his parents spent all of his christmas vacation winding copper wire at the football feild to make a huge electromagnet... And it worked!

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Absence of sunspots make scientists wonder if they're seeing a calm before a storm of energy

[honeybee]

A picture of the universe. . .

[panyasan]

A picture of the universe. . .

It may not be the most scientific thing to say, but WOW this is beautiful (and good way of spending my EU tax money ).

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Neat!

Now, where are we in that photo?

[honeybee]

If you click through the main article, I think you'll find out we're somewhere in the white center disk - not sure where though!


http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMF2FRZ5BG_index_0.html


They definitely need to add a little arrow with a "you are here".

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

They definitely need to add a little arrow with a "you are here".

I can already imagine the inevitable t-shirt!

[justTripn]

If you click through the main article, I think you'll find out we're somewhere in the white center disk - not sure where though!


http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMF2FRZ5BG_index_0.html


They definitely need to add a little arrow with a "you are here".

You in the middle looking at that picture which wraps around you 360 degrees. The white line is the Milky Way, I would think.