Image from PopSci

There has been an unexpected discovery at FermiLab that may hint at a previously unimagined particle or perhaps even a “new force of nature”.  The “asymmetrical behavior” of top quarks and anomalous energy readings during proton/antiproton collisions is pointing to what may be a completely unknown and un-theorized property of subatomic physics.

read more here at PopSci

In California scientists are filled with curiosity by a series of rocks which in Death Valley which seem to be slowly migrating aimlessly across the desert floor.  Dubbed “Sailing Stones”, they are more specifically found in the dried out lake bed known as the “Racetrack Playa” (and no, that’s not the name of a rap artist).

The rocks careen about in a seemingly random pattern, rocks very rarely moving in parallel. The exact causes are not known and remain a bit of a mystery to this day, though many scientists do have theories.

Wind and ice both are the favored hypothesis for these mysterious sliding rocks. Noted in Don J. Easterbrook’s “Surface Processes and Landforms”, he mentioned that because of the lack of parallel paths between some rock paths, this could be caused by the breaking up of ice resulting in alternate routes. Even though the ice breaks up into smaller blocks, it is still necessary for the rocks to slide.

from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

“Why won’t it just tell me what it’s about?” said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. “There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I’ve looked everywhere—there’s nothing here but words.”

“Ow,” Thomson added after reading the first and last lines in an attempt to get the gist of whatever the article, review, or possibly recipe was about.

- from theonion.com

————

This article perfectly describes how I feel when I try to read a book these days. I’ve gotten better about it since I canceled my TV service and have been spending less time online, but I still have a hard time at it. I think the internet has indeed managed to make us all semi-illiterate.

Damn you internet!

There has been much talk lately about pediatricians wanting to invent some sort of choke proof hot dog.  Supposedly, it’s a major killer of kids under fourteen.

I can think of a great way to make hot dogs choke proof and it comes from an dumb holiday joke.

“Q:What do you call an empty hot dog?  A: A hollow weenie”

Just hollow out the hot dogs length-wise, providing a tunnel running down the length of the hot dog that would allow the kid to breath through the hot dog even if it became lodged.

Does that sound possible?  Or would the “tunnel” running down the length of the dog collapse under the pressure of the kid’s esophagus?

DARPA has gone an created a real working version of the chronically obstinate, endlessly useful M.U.L.E. from old Atari gaming days.

Here are the key requirements that the robo-mule must stand up to:

• It must be capable of carrying sufficient payload capacity, range, endurance, and low noise signature for dismounted squad support, while keeping weight and volume scaled to the squad level.
• The robot must support all manner of walking, trotting, and running/ bounding and capabilities to jump obstacles, cross ditches, recover from disturbances and other discrete mobility features. The LS3 must be able to follow a leader between 5m and 100m ahead, in dynamic, cluttered environments with other moving soldiers in close proximity.
• It must have the ability to perceive and traverse its immediate terrain environment autonomously with simple methods of control.
• The robot must understand simple soldier-to-LS3 interaction with minimal direct control of the platform’s speed and heading (joy-sticking and tele-operating are examples of direct control). The vehicle must require minimal oversight or direct control (e.g. joystick control) from an operator.  Direct control modes should only be used for error recovery, and should not be needed more than 3 times per 24-hour operational period, for no more than 5 minutes at a time.
• The robot must be able to follow a leader between 5m and 100m ahead, in dynamic, cluttered environments with other moving soldiers in close proximity.
• The robot must be able to operate for arbitrarily long periods without GPS as well as be able to negotiate slopes up to 30 degrees fully loaded and go up steps up to 12 inches high.
• The robot must be able to wade through 36 inches of water.

from networkworld.com

Okay, it’s not quite the hunk o’ junk the autonomous beasts of burden were in the classic game, but it seems to me to be something that can be retrofitted to fulfill a wide variety of purposes, not just hauling cargo.  Farming?  Mining? Hunting wumpuses?  (wumpi?)  Only the future will tell.

For those of you who just gotta hear that theme song, here you go:

I dig that synthy music they’re playing in the background… oh yeah, and the 3D desktop fabrication process is pretty darn neat too.

Pretty clever.  Hope dolphins don’t start using tools or we’re screwed.

WOOHOO!!!!

Today’s “Frank and Earnest” may be funny, but perhaps no joke in the near future.  I could easily imagine vending machines that might even give you your product for free if you would first endure some sort of presentation for a product first.

Really, it’d have to be interactive to ensure you’re watching it or engaged in the process somehow and not ignoring the commercial.  Perhaps you get your snack for free if you take a verbal quiz on some product’s merits:

“Why is the 2012 Ford pickup ther best truck in the world?”

“Because of the super fine suspension, the Google Maps integration and its ultra efficient all-electric engine.”

“Correct, you may now have your snack.  Buy American!”

Check out PeepResearch.com and see how peeps react to a variety of environments and conditions.

New Scientist: Our Universe Might Be a Giant Hologram

I had read before about the theory that our universe may be “holographic”, meaning that there may be less “real” dimensions than previously believed and that the method in which the universe exists on in a low dimensional space “reflects” a higher dimensional universe.

A search for gravitational waves from black holes had turned up an even stranger tidbit: that our universe is perhaps made out of evenly spaced “pixels”, and that these “pixels” exist on a lower dimensional plane which then “reflect” our higher dimensional universe.

Evenly spaced pixels? Representing many dimensions with just a few? This reminds me too much of my own experiences with game programming.

When you play your nice 3D games on your computer you may not notice that all three dimensions are represented by a one-dimensional array. Nothing but ones and zeroes in a row. The computer has the ability to take the one-dimensional data and transform it into the full-dimensional masterpieces we call computer games.

I eagerly await the disproving or proving of the holographic universe theory. This could all become the new “string theory”: a hotly contested series of theories about the universe that will get all those stuffy physicists shouting and getting into minor kerfuffles.

I now more than ever believe I want to go into Physics for my post-graduate work.

In other words, people you never meet but meet people that you know affect your happiness more than the people you know.

That’s it, everyone better make me happy or St. Louis suffers.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080923-dark-flows.html

I have stated before that “dark matter” is actually a series of locations where our universe is colliding or being affected by something outside our universe (I’ve stated that the random energy we see pop in and out in the vacuum comes from outside our universe as well), and now here is evidence of something perhaps quite similar if not the same phenomenon.

Also it backs up the idea that there was not really a single “big bang”, but a series of bangs that resulted from a collision between our universe and another, though this article uses terms like “giant, massive structures much larger than anything in our own observable universe” which more imply objects not outside our own universe but bigger than anything we’ve ever seen.

So, I guess really this article is not backing up my idea of dark matter and dark energy being caused by things outside of our universe, but it is the conclusion I draw from it myself.

http://www.newscientist.com/

Are the concepts of yes and no part of the universe, an aspect of the human mind, or a meme and its opposite battling each other in our thoughts and words since humankind first spoke? Are we in reality able to choose to do anything we want to do, or are we only able to choose the fork in the road we want to choose from, or can we not even choose which fork in the road from which we choose left or right on?

Are we scratching at the door of duality because it is part of the nature of the universe, or is it a virus that has been carried and spread by human speech and writing, enforcing a limitation upon our choices between a choice and an anti-choice? Or is it a natural part of “how things are”, an actual existence of a “is” or “is not is” in the fabric of existence?

I need a drink…