Article 20RZ6 Physics Week in Review: September 10, 2016

Physics Week in Review: September 10, 2016

by
JenLucPiquant
from on (#20RZ6)

6a00d8341c9c1053ef01b8d2197e61970c-800wiPhysicists detect cosmic neutrinos, a working "blood laser," and celebrating the 50th anniversary of Star Trek were among this week's physics highlights.

Me at Gizmodo:

Imposter Supernova Has Erupted At Least Three Times. "The star system Eta Carinae has puzzled astronomers for centuries because of its oddly variable brightness-as bright as a supernova explosion at one point in the 19th century. Now astronomers from the University of Arizona have determined that there were at least two earlier explosions in the star's long history, making this a very strange star system indeed."

Lost Philae Lander Found Wedged Into a Crack on its Comet. "The European Space Agency lost contact with its Rosetta mission's plucky little lander, Philae, in May 2015. Now the orbiter's high-resolution camera has found Philae wedged into a dark crack on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko."

Scientists Just Made a Working Laser Using Blood. Lasers are behind so much of our cutting-edge technology. Now scientists at the University of Michigan have successfully shown that is possible to build a working laser with blood, the better to spot tumors in the human body."

Scientists Have Identified Schadenfreude Brain Cells. "Secretly gloating over the misfortunes of others (a.k.a. schadenfreude) might not be the most noble of human traits, but it's certainly universal-so much so, that it was memorably immortalized in the hit musical Avenue Q. Neuroscientists may have just identified the brain cells associated with that feeling."

Controversial Maya Codex Is the Real Deal After All. "Scientists have been arguing over the authenticity of an ancient document called the Grolier Codex for 50 years. A new analysis published in a special section of the journal Maya Archaeology has concluded that the codex is indeed genuine, making it the oldest surviving manuscript from the pre-Colombian era."

Take a Day Off Between CrossFit Workouts, Study Says. "Yeah, we know, your CrossFit gym has completely changed your life, you've never looked/felt better, and all other exercise programs pale in comparison. But you may want to ease off the intensive workouts now and then. All that over-exertion can actually impair your immune system, according to a new study just published in Frontiers in Physiology."

Scientists Create Robotic Terminator To Hunt 'Darwin's Nightmare' Fish. "Hordes of lionfish have been roaming the Atlantic for several decades now, and their voracious appetite-and lack of natural predators-has seriously upset the ecological balance of those waters. Now there's a new foundation devoted to building robots to hunt them down-a Terminator for lionfish."

Real Stories About Real People Show Complexity of Mental Illness. " A Hungarian-born man is found ranting in the street that he is "king of the Puerto Ricans." A perfectly healthy woman feels compelled to undergo over a dozen operations. A man in a straitjacket somehow manages to commit suicide while inside a locked psychiatric ward. These are just a few of the compelling stories in Mark Rubinstein's new book, Bedlam's Door: True Tales of Madness and Hope." Related excerpt: How the Ghost of Past Trauma Held the Key to One Man's Madness.

It's the Physics That Makes Roller Coasters So Exciting. "If you're taking advantage of the long holiday weekend to visit your favorite theme park, take a moment to learn a little about the underlying physics of roller coasters, via the latest video from the folks at SciShow."

Your Bad Driving Is the Reason Traffic Jams Exist. "We've all been frustrated by city traffic, waiting in a long line of cars for the light to change at an intersection. And then the stupid light turns red again before we can make it through because the cars ahead of us took so long to get going. A new video by CPG Grey deftly explains what's going on."

Other Cool Links:

The extraordinary Link Between Deep Neural Networks and the Nature of the Universe. Nobody understands why deep neural networks are so good at solving complex problems. Now physicists say the secret is buried in the laws of physics.

Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars. "Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes are shaking up astrophysics." Related: What can the surprisingly huge mass of black holes detected by LIGO tell us about dark matter and early universe?

Cosmic Neutrinos Detected, Confirming The Big Bang's Last Great Prediction.

How Scientists Found the Tiny Philae Lander On a Giant Comet.

Why has big G, one of the universe's most fundamental measures, been so hard to calculate?

NASA Just Successfully Launched a Spacecraft to an Asteroid. Related: Why NASA is trying to grab a chunk of asteroid from space. Also: The folks at Wired got creative: "NASA is prone to anthropomorphizing its rovers and spacefaring robots, so we decided to go a step further and make OSIRIX-REx (Rex, for short) the star of his own comic strip."

Another Previously Undiscovered Asteroid Just Buzzed Past Earth for the Second Time in Two Weeks.

Moving to the Music: "Composers usually arrange musical notes to express emotion. To set a mood. To get people dancing. To give life to inspiration. To sell records. A team of scientists at Aalto University in Finland is arranging notes for a totally different purpose-to move objects.?

How will longer and deeper space travel affect humans? Scientists study the blood of twin NASA astronauts for clues.

6a00d8341c9c1053ef01b8d21b0790970c-320wiHappy 50th Anniversary, Star Trek! Check out io9's Best Star Trek Posts of All Time. And here are all the technologies Star Trek accurately predicted, plus some Enduring Lessons from the series -- because Star Trek can teach us how to live. Related: Five times Star Trek brought out the science nerd in all of us. Also: Annalee Newitz on What Deep Space Nine does that no other Star Trek series can. Wired ponders: What if Star Trek Had Never Existed?

And there's more! Might Star Trek's Warp Drive Become A Reality? Why Star Trek's Prime Directive could never be enforced. Ars Technica asked lawyers to explain how the show's most famous rule would really work. Plus, here's some fun Nerdgassing about Star Trek: Voyager: Would a starship really leave a wake in a nebula? This is how a space saga inspired a generation of scientists & writers. Bonus: Star Trek and Corgis, Because What More Do You Want From Us, Internet? And finally, in recognition of the series' 50th anniversary, the scientists and engineers of NASA collectively wished the entire Star Trek family a happy anniversary. [Image: NASA's image of "Enterprise" nebula as seen by the Spitzer Space Telescope]

Not to be left out of the festivities, Nature had a special sci-fi issue, including a love letter to Star Trek by Sidney Perkowitz. Also: HG Wells reinvented sci-fi, but even his most fantastic works contain lessons for the present.

Is the Higgs Boson Acting Weird Again at the LHC?

Galactic Model Simulates How ET Civilizations Could Be Deliberately Avoiding Earth. "One hypothesis suggests that extraterrestrials haven't contacted Earth because they're ignoring us. Now astronomers have simulated how difficult that would be to do."

The Science of Rubber Suction Pants: "The latest in astro-chic fashion aboard the International Space Station is sure to generate a lot of buzz - among scientists, at least. Where else can you get away with wearing rubber suction pants?"

"Growing" a Solution to a Complex Biological Problem.

Spiders 'Tune' Their Webs Like Guitar Strings.

What Is The Biggest Black Hole As Seen From Earth?

How The Blind See The Stars. "He's blind," a woman on the bottom step said. "I'm his wife. I know. He's barely seen anything all his life, just lights and shadows. But for him, tonight he saw a star."

An Adventure in the Nth Dimension: On the mystery of a ball that fills a box, but vanishes in the vastness of higher dimensions.

6a00d8341c9c1053ef01b7c8909879970b-320wi29 unreal images from a man who's spent 29 years inside a legendary physics lab. For instance, check out the photomultiplier tubes being cold-tested in a vat of liquid nitrogen for the MicroBooNE neutrino detector. [Image: Reidar Hahn/Fermilab, 2011]

How to Read a Closed Book without ever opening it: Terahertz imaging.

The Best and Worst Prediction in Science: how many ERGs are in empty space? And what's an ERG anyway?

Japan's lurch away from nuclear hasn't caused fossil fuels to boom. The emergency shutdown of nuclear reactors hasn't been an emissions disaster.

Math of Wheelchair Basketball. Players and coaches maneuver a numerical classification system in Paralympic sport.

A Mathematical Birthday Life Hack: Save money and be the life of the next party with this one weird trick.

How the Bit Was Born: Claude Shannon and the Invention of Information. "Information is what our world runs on: the blood and the fuel, the vital principle " transforming every branch of knowledge."

There Are Still a Lot of People That Don't Believe We Landed on the Moon.

Reporters should ask themselves: 'What would Einstein do?' As Tom Levenson writes, "There is a direct correspondence between Einstein's emphasis on the need to come up with a consistent picture of an event as seen by any observer ... and a critical demand for journalistic rigour."

Physicist Sean Carroll on how the jazz of Von Freeman helped him through a tough moment in his career.

Forest of Resonating Lamps: Brilliant Interactive Illuminated Installation.

A Visit to 'Ark Encounter', Where Creationism and Dinosaurs Collide.

Dye and Soap in Macro Looks Like Exploding Galaxies:

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