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The LHC continues to push the envelope in physics and cosmology.
What happens when you put Lead in the LHC and go Boom!
“A miniature Big Bang was created at the Large Hadron Collider this week as the world’s most powerful atom-smasher successfully entered a new phase of exploration.”
Creating the conditions that existed some 14 billion years ago is another new plateau for science and our understanding of our universe.
“These experiments[ attempting to find the Higgs Boson a.k.a the God Particle] were shut down last week, to allow the collider to run with lead ions — atoms from which an electron has been removed — to study different aspects of physics.
The lead ion collisions will allow the collider to create a superheated mixture of subatomic particles called quark-gluon plasma, which pervaded the Universe immediately after the Big Bang.”
“This process took place in a safe, controlled environment, generating incredibly hot and dense sub-atomic fireballs with temperatures of over ten trillion degrees. At these temperatures even protons and neutrons, which make up the nuclei of atoms, melt resulting in a hot dense soup of quarks and gluons known as quark-gluon plasma.”
Mmmm, yummy warm quark-gluon soup. We shall have to wait while the results are analyzed, stay tuned for further LHC updates.
Celebrate rationality, skepticism, critical thought, and the joyous wonder they can bring.
A new discovery on Youtube brings yet another strong voice for rationality and reason to add to the secular chorus of enlightenment.
Smells great, can cause cancer. Awesome!
How safe is that fabric freshener, or that lovely shampoo that smells nice, or even the laundry detergent that adds a bit of zing to your towels and clothes? Possibly not very safe at all:
“U.S. researchers analyzed 25 commonly used scented products, and found that they emit an average of 17 chemicals each. Of the 133 chemicals detected in all the products, nearly one-quarter are classified as toxic or hazardous under at least one federal law.
More than one-third of the products emitted at least one chemical classified as a probable carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.But only one of the 133 chemicals emitted by these items was listed on a product label, and only two of the chemicals were publicly disclosed elsewhere.”
How nice. That cinnamon vanilla sunrise you have been deeply inhaling because it smells so darn fresh could contain carcinogenic ingredients.
“Federal law doesn’t require companies to disclose ingredients used in fragrances, even though a single fragrance can be a mixture of several hundred ingredients, according to lead author Anne Steinemann, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and of public affairs at the University of Washington in Seattle.”
And, of course, if you are not aware of how companies ‘green-wash’ their products:
“We analyzed best-selling products, and about half of them made some claim about being green, organic or natural,” Steinemann said in a university news release. “Surprisingly, the green products’ emissions of hazardous chemicals were not significantly different from the other products.”
As usual, the profit motive comes far ahead of any human safety concerns. But hey, if you do not like it, do not buy it right?
NASA revs up the coverage as buckyballs are discovered in significant quantities in space.
Newsworthy science has catchy names!
PASADENA, Calif. – “A soccer ball-shaped carbon molecule that some scientists think may have helped seed life on Earth is more common in the universe than initially believed.”
Fantastic! Amazing! err….wth is a buckyball? Wikipedia helps a little:
A fullerene is any molecule composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Spherical fullerenes are also called buckyballs, and cylindrical ones are called carbon nanotubes or buckytubes. Fullerenes are similar in structure to graphite, which is composed of stacked graphene sheets of linked hexagonal rings; but they may also contain pentagonal (or sometimes heptagonal) rings.[1]
Where in space?
“Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, researchers spotted the carbon spheres known as buckyballs around three dying sun-like stars in the Milky Way and in the space between stars. The telescope also detected the cosmic balls floating around a dying star in a nearby galaxy.”
We are set, at least as Sciency type news is concerned, especially if it has a cool name.
This video on Stephen Hawking also carried another message about the state of American society. It would seem by the way he phrases his final question, that a lot of people actually believe that god(s) created the Universe. It is shocking to see the evidence of the depth of the religion delusion and how tightly it has people in its grip.
Still a good vid, but the implications are depressing.
Do we really need to follow this particular mode of thought?
The idea that ideology as opposed to reality being in the drivers seat when it comes to decisions that the Federal Conservative government makes is scary. Since when did making policy based on fact become sacrosanct? Did Steven Harper need his own noun to make war on? I propose we give Steve his war, let us call it the “The War on Evidence“.
It certainly seems to be a war with recent policy decisions that are based on what seems to be the zany ideas Harper pulls out of his ass. Cancelling the long form census is the most notable example of policy that seems to have come out of deep right field. I mean the Census is the tool we use to gather data about our country and are people; lets get rid of it? The notion that the mandatory long form census is some sort of violation of privacy rights is clearly absurd. People have lost more private information on facebook in one day than the ‘intrusion’ the long form census presents.
How are we to make rational policy decisions without data? The canaries are already chirping a warning on this topic:
“OTTAWA – The union representing federal scientists says “confusing policy decisions” highlight the need for evidence-based decision-making in Ottawa.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada has launched a campaign to raise public awareness of the work done by government science researchers.
Union president Gary Corbett says the Harper government’s controversial decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census is an example of a long-term trend in devaluing government-funded research.
Corbett says program review and departmental budget pressures are putting the squeeze on federal scientists who are also muzzled by a restrictive communications policy from sharing their research with the public.”
Our government is waltzing away from reality and no one seems to really give a damn. At least not yet.
“The Conservative government has come under repeated attack for shelving or ignoring research from its own bureaucracy on issues such as climate change and criminal justice policy.”
The entire unreported crime fiasco looms large but largely unnoticed by our recalcitrant media. We are set to build new prisons for theoretical crimes and theoretical prisoners. All of this despite the fact that we know that building more prisons is clearly not the answer. Since when did doing things we know are wrong become policy choice #1?
Cynically speaking, I would chalk the systematic ignorance and neglect of science and evidence as a structured part of Conservative policy. Why? Because much of what they support is bug-frakking crazy and faced with evidence and fact that tells them and everyone else so is not particularly good PR. The solution? Move closer to reality and evidence based policy? Hell no! Lets muzzle and undermine scientists and science so we can pass our wack-a-loon policy with no hindrance from reality.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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