Happy Big Bang Day!
For SCIENCE!
Via the UK Telegraph:
Large Hadron Collider: subatomic particles to travel on second circuit
Last Updated: 10:01am BST 10/09/2008
Scientists working on the most powerful particle accelerator ever built have successfully sent subatomic particles on one circuit of the Large Hadron Collider and are now preparing to send them on a second circuit, in the opposite direction.
The first test, at 9.30 am local time (8.30 am British Summer Time), 300 feet below the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, fired a beam of protons all the way around a 17-mile tunnel.
The team was holding its breath in the countdown to the switch-on after a series of technical hitches, including problems with the cooling system.
The clockwise test went smoothly, and now scientists plan to send the beam counterclockwise.
The rest of the article is at the link. Here's hoping the idiots are wrong again, and we don't all end up falling into a black hole. (Yes, they're idiots, but you know what they say about even stopped clocks.)
Another interesting bit:
from Terra Daily:
Mirror self-recognition found in magpies
by Staff Writers
Frankfurt, Germany (UPI) Aug 20, 2008
A German study shows self-recognition, thought a hallmark of advanced cognitive abilities in animals, might also be present in magpies.
Frankfurt University psychologist Helmut Prior and Ruhr University biopsychologist Onur Gunturkun said they have discovered evidence of self-recognition in magpies -- a bird species with a brain structure very different from mammals.
The researchers said they placed a mark on magpies in such a way that it could only be seen in a mirror. When the magpies engaged in activity that was directed towards the mark, for example scratching at it, the researchers were able to conclude the birds recognized the image in the mirror as themselves, and not another animal.
The researchers said their findings not only indicate non-mammalian species can engage in self-recognition behavior, but that self-recognition can occur in species without a neocortex -- an area of the brain that has been thought to be crucial to self-recognition in mammals. Its absence in the study, said the scientists, suggests higher cognitive skills can develop independently along separate evolutionary lines.
More at the link, again. Also, apparently PLoS is actually a free-to-access journal, so you can read the study itself (rather than just an article about it) here.
In other news, I'm home sick from work today. Feeling a lot better than I did last night, but still going to try to take it easy today so hopefully I'll be back up at close to 100% tomorrow.
By the way, author of the day is John Scalzi. If you haven't read anything by him, pick up "Old Man's War" immediately. That's an order, soldier!
Via the UK Telegraph:
Large Hadron Collider: subatomic particles to travel on second circuit
Last Updated: 10:01am BST 10/09/2008
Scientists working on the most powerful particle accelerator ever built have successfully sent subatomic particles on one circuit of the Large Hadron Collider and are now preparing to send them on a second circuit, in the opposite direction.
The first test, at 9.30 am local time (8.30 am British Summer Time), 300 feet below the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, fired a beam of protons all the way around a 17-mile tunnel.
The team was holding its breath in the countdown to the switch-on after a series of technical hitches, including problems with the cooling system.
The clockwise test went smoothly, and now scientists plan to send the beam counterclockwise.
The rest of the article is at the link. Here's hoping the idiots are wrong again, and we don't all end up falling into a black hole. (Yes, they're idiots, but you know what they say about even stopped clocks.)
Another interesting bit:
from Terra Daily:
Mirror self-recognition found in magpies
by Staff Writers
Frankfurt, Germany (UPI) Aug 20, 2008
A German study shows self-recognition, thought a hallmark of advanced cognitive abilities in animals, might also be present in magpies.
Frankfurt University psychologist Helmut Prior and Ruhr University biopsychologist Onur Gunturkun said they have discovered evidence of self-recognition in magpies -- a bird species with a brain structure very different from mammals.
The researchers said they placed a mark on magpies in such a way that it could only be seen in a mirror. When the magpies engaged in activity that was directed towards the mark, for example scratching at it, the researchers were able to conclude the birds recognized the image in the mirror as themselves, and not another animal.
The researchers said their findings not only indicate non-mammalian species can engage in self-recognition behavior, but that self-recognition can occur in species without a neocortex -- an area of the brain that has been thought to be crucial to self-recognition in mammals. Its absence in the study, said the scientists, suggests higher cognitive skills can develop independently along separate evolutionary lines.
More at the link, again. Also, apparently PLoS is actually a free-to-access journal, so you can read the study itself (rather than just an article about it) here.
In other news, I'm home sick from work today. Feeling a lot better than I did last night, but still going to try to take it easy today so hopefully I'll be back up at close to 100% tomorrow.
By the way, author of the day is John Scalzi. If you haven't read anything by him, pick up "Old Man's War" immediately. That's an order, soldier!