Article 20RYW Physics Week in Review: November 5, 2016

Physics Week in Review: November 5, 2016

by
JenLucPiquant
from on (#20RYW)

6a00d8341c9c1053ef01bb094f3d59970d-800wiThe cocktail party is back after a much-needed vacation, with your weekly physics highlights round up. First and foremost, I'm delighted to be back writing for Quanta with this feature on a fascinating new hypothesis by physicist Matthew Fisher. A New Spin on the Quantum Brain: how fragile quantum states may be able to exist for hours (or more) in our warm, wet brain.

The week kicked off with Halloween, and there was plenty of science-y angles floating around the Internet. The Quantum Frontiers blog wished everyone a Happy Halloween from...the discrete Wigner function? Sure, why not? The Science Behind All the Best Halloween Party Tricks, plus The Science Behind The World's Most Convincing Ghost Effect: Pepper's Ghost. Related: The top three scientific explanations for ghost sightings.

Meanwhile, NASA/JPL Absolutely Killed the Halloween Pumpkin Carving Competition. Speaking of NASA/JPL: "On Halloween 1936, five Caltech grad students and two amateur rocket enthusiasts drove out to a dry canyon wash in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and helped jump-start the Space Age." Here's a spooky collection of creepy, sciencey Halloween pictures from the Bad Astronomer, plus Please Enjoy These Spooky Victorian Ghost Photos. Finally, You could definitely use these scary physics movie posters to decorate your dept for Halloween.

Almost 120 years after the particle's discovery, hologram imaging gives us a peek at the electron.

Physicists Discover Stunning Structural Similarities in Human Cells and Neutron Stars.

Things You Can Do with a Loop of Cold Atoms. Gretchen Campbell describes the new and emerging field of atomtronics, which seeks to make circuit-like devices with extremely cold atoms.

A Material From Shapeshifting Planes Could Heal Human Flesh.

6a00d8341c9c1053ef01b8d234ed8b970c-320wiBright Ideas for Dark Art: Murals by Skurk Play Tricks with Light & Night. Per Web Urbanist: "Hailing from New Zealand but living in Bergen, Norway, street artist Skurk hand-cuts stencils and paints large-scale murals around different themes but often involving light and shadow. The works are also site-specific, made to interact with and respond to conditions in a given physical context." [Image: Skurk/Web Urbanist]

ER=EPR: Entangled Wormholes Could Pave the Way for Quantum Gravity.

No, astronomers haven't reversed course on dark energy and decided it's non-existent.

Using the Universe to calculate the mass of a dark matter candidate (axions). Related: No Number Of Additional Galaxies Can Prevent The Universe From Needing Dark Matter.

A Hidden Gem At An Old Experiment? Old collision data hints at new particle. Related: A visit to the CERN cafeteria to see how physicists are recovering from this summer's particle "hangover."

Lighting Up the Night Skies. "Astronomers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, in Perth in Western Australia, have produced what they call the Gleamoscope to dial up visions of the night sky over Australia in whatever kind of light you prefer."

No, The LHC Hasn't Shown That We Live In A Multiverse.

RIP, Schiaparelli: European Mars Lander's Crash Site Seen By NASA Probe. Computer glitch may have doomed ExoMars lander. What does that mean for ESA's 2020 rover?

If Europa has life, this scientist will help find it. NatGeo profiles my buddy, the awesome Kevin Hand of JPL.

MIT's Fusion Reactor Broke a World Record Right Before the Feds Shut It Off.

Honeycomb-shaped streets would stop traffic from getting sticky.

Elegant physics (and some down and dirty Linux tricks) threaten Android phones in an entirely new way.

Doctor Strange opens this weekend. The Science and Entertainment Exchange teamed up with Marvel for a special event on the underlying science that went into creating this wonderful piece of fiction. And then they made a video about it.

The Science of The Flash's Infinite Mass Punch. Related: Physics says it's fine that MacGuyver uses a body bag and fire extinguisher to jump out of a window, while this MacGuyver Video shows you How To Make A Pulley System. Also: Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox Discuss Lightsaber Physics. Bonus: The Correct Way to Design the Death Star, According to Science. And one more: Adam Rutherford on the science of aliens in films - in which he pretty much eviscerates the "science" in Prometheus.

How music sampled science: from Kate Bush to the Mosquito.

Aerospace engineers found a way to predict with 100% accuracy where the cream ends up when you twist an Oreo.

How Much Does it Cost to Blow Up a Planet?

Here's the physics of how that daredevil jumped 8 stories into the water without dying.

How Water Can Identify Murder Victims and Fake Scotch by the isotope ratio in the water.

Salt crystals are beautiful. This oddly satisfying video shows how they form.

The Social Physics of Trump's Shock Tactics (phase transitions are still way cool and relevant).

Modeling a pendulum's swing is much harder than you think.

The Magic of Invisible Polymer Water Balls is Science.

An Australian bar sells neon layered cocktails that are unlike anything we've seen.

New research from CERN: Cosmic rays and other radiation may help clouds form, but their effect is marginal.

Lightbulb made of modified E. coli fuses biology and electronics.

NIST Collaboration Heats Up Exotic Topological Insulators.

Alice, Bob, and Eve Are Neural Networks. And They Have Secrets.

Tiny graphene radios may lead to Internet of Nano-Things.

A New Style of Power Generation: Smart clothes and wearable monitors.

How One Man's Bad Math Helped Ruin Decades Of English Soccer.

There's a mathematical model for engineering food that delights our senses.

How to Use Statistics to Understand Poll Results and keep yourself from being duped by misleading information. Related: Mathematical alternatives to the electoral college.

Why Math Education in the U.S. Doesn't Add Up: emphasis on memorization, rote and speed impairs learning.

What Math Do You Need For Physics? It Depends. Related: If you want to teach physics lab right, skip the manual.

Helen Quinn's research helped reshape physics. Now she's reshaping U.S. science education. Related: First-Grade Teachers Still Favor Boys Over Girls In Math, Research Suggests.

The physics of brain folding: 3D printing provides a new way of modelling the formation of cortical convolutions.

The World's Largest Telescope Might Not Be Built in Hawaii After All. Thirty Meter Telescope project chooses La Palma as back-up site.

Can a biochemistry technique win the battle against background for scientists studying the nature of neutrinos?

How NASA Research could end NASCAR Engine Failures Due to Trash on the Grille.

National Geographic brings Mars to Manhattan. A full-body Martian experience is available under a dome in downtown Manhattan.

What are parallel universes, and why do we think they might exist? Related video: How Parallel Universes May Have Formed and What They Could Be Like:

A primer on gravitational-wave detectors: Physicists are searching for gravitational waves all across the spectrum. Related: The Cosmologists Who Faked It: The inside story of the gravitational wave signal injection.

Inside Microsoft's quest for a topological quantum computer.

After 15 months, New Horizons has finally sent home all 6.25 gigabytes of its Pluto data. Here's how.

Is That An Alien Signal? Please Answer On A Scale Of 1 To 10.

The Potential Threat of Vacuum Decay, The Most Efficient Way to Destroy the Universe.

Engineers Debut the Acoustic Prism: The device splits sounds without digital help.

The Simple Logical Puzzle That Shows How Illogical We Are.

The strange tale of Schridinger's Iguanodon and some of his other less familiar whimsical creatures.

"Is This Phone Vegan?": Blood Component May Double Battery Life.

This plant grows shimmering blue leaves to help it survive in the dark.

Why would disco-goers, bedecked in feathers and glitter, buckle on accelerometers and dance for science?

America's nuclear-waste plan is a giant mess. An explosion caused by cat litter at a storage site was just the beginning.

What does a particle accelerator have to do with painting, sculpture, poetry? Perhaps a lot.

The Arsenic Pigments that Poisoned the Victorian Age.

6a00d8341c9c1053ef01b8d234ea0e970c-320wiAn Attempt to 3D Model Jorge Luis Borges's Library of Babel by programmer Jamie Zawinski. [Image: Jamie Zawinski]

This Is The Physics Of Light In Motion.

Nonsense paper written by iOS autocomplete accepted for (money-making scam) nuclear physics conference.

Isaac Newton's Recipe for the Mythical 'Philosopher's Stone' Is Being Digitized and Put Online. Related: How a misguided refutation of Newton inspired artists and philosophers with a new visual aesthetic.

How Pioneering Physicist Lise Meitner Discovered Nuclear Fission, Paved the Way for Women in Science.

Secret life of a physicist: moments of transcendence offset by months of confusion. Having to move position so regularly means there is little stability, but there is something special about uncovering nuggets of universal truth about the cosmos.

Five simply stated, yet unsolved math problems: Collatz to sofas, inscribed squares and perfect cuboids to happy endings.

These giant mechanical flip books are hiding in the woods of New Hampshire.

Ben Franklin's Glass Instrument Stirs Back to Life.

Record Breaking: Magnetic Levitating Turntable Lets Vinyl Defy Gravity.

Make a 3D "hologram" using your smartphone and a CD jewel case.

These are awesome. Albert Einstein Now Has His Own Emoji Keyboard.

MyElementals, Adorably Illustrated Creatures Who Embody the Elements of the Periodic Table.

Symmetrical Paint Mixing is Strangely Mesmerizing.

Settlers of Catan Redesigned For Space Is Stunning.

Introducing the first episode of Pipette, a new video series on women in science for Jezebel, on what happens when you die.

How To Cut String With Your Bare Hands: It's all about friction, baby!

Watch how a mathematician explains an astonishing coincidence.

Perimeter Institute Lecture: Watch a Physicist Explain How to Make 'Bulletproof Custard.'

The Waterphone: "an unusual instrument that often contains a bit of water to help create its signature sound."

This Pilot Wave Theory Video Will Make You Totally Rethink Quantum Mechanics. For more on pilot waves, see my pieces at Gizmodo and NOVA's Fabric of Reality blog, and Quanta's ongoing coverage.

What is the purpose of life? Life itself runs on increasing entropy. Here's the final collaborative video from Minute Physics and Sean Carroll; Sean also posted all five videos in the series on his blog.

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