Posts Tagged ‘article’
Bio-sensors, transistors and DNA sequencing. Can Graphene make tea???
A variety of very interesting developments take place in the biological physics. Newly discovered quantum properties of this super-strong material find applications in bacterial biology specifically. Even though the biological studies of graphene are limited, scientists concentrate their research on the interfacing between biological systems and 2D layers of novel material.
This and other advances may result in faster DNA sequencing, precise cancer cells detectors and efficient batteries which feed on the energy of bacterial growth.
Job searching – job in its own right!
How do you approach job searching? What is the most optimal way of searching for the right job?
I am conducting an experiment from which I will learn about “correct” CV writing skills, marketing ploys and even how to get an agent be interested in your candidate. I’ll write it up right after I finish the experiment, since I am using this account and corresponding email address for that. One thing I can tell you is this – my CV viewings for two days equal to the number of viewings in two months prior to the experiment.
will report back in due course,
p.
Future is literally here. Astrobiology of today.
As part of my initiative (the sort of 2 cents worth) I reviewed a couple of research papers and one in particular caught my attention. The article attempts to expand the search for exoplanets in systems with no nuclear burning. White dwarfs present a real possibility for the existence of extra-terrestrial life. Most prominent conclusion is that life in such systems can be sustained for billions of years in some cases.
Agol’s simulations (http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.2791) show that it would take 10 years to detect six to 12 planets that fall under his theoretical restrictions. Although this calculation was based on all-sky survey with 1m aperture telescopes for an average of 31 hours for each star. Thus a far more advanced telescopes with wider field angle can considerably reduce the search time. Knowing first hand, with an average observation time of 31 hours per white dwarf this may prove a costly affair. Nonetheless, this is a real possibility.
Unfortunately, simulations are highly sensitive to the constraints one places upon such systems. Therefore the probability distributions vary for different simulations. Yet simultaneous observation of white dwarfs using the Large Synoptic Telescope (http://www.lsst.org/lsst) and its fast read-out capabilities can yield over 9 exoplanets in transition through WD’s habitable zone. These are characterised as planets in continuously habitable zone [CHZ]. This is a step closer to finding a planet orbiting a white dwarf which is similar to Earth.
Another striking result obtained from these considerations that planets in CHZ will have the same view of the companion sun as the Sun appears in the sky back on Earth. Angular size and even colour may approach these of our Sun as viewed from Earth!
With this theoretical prediction come a lot of pitfalls. Probability of finding the right system is around 1%, the composition of the atmosphere of such planets may wildly differ from that on Earth. Planets also transition through the CHZ and end up companions to the cold white dwarfs. Classification of white dwarfs is needed before attempts at measuring their suitability for harbouring Earth-like planet can be made. So, what we have here is the future in the search for exoplanet, expanded to white dwarf systems. It promises, in my view, to be one of the most exciting and intriguing research projects you will be able to undertake in the future at Astrophysics institutes across the country. Look out for them!
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Modelling your household tech bits
How important is your mobile to you? Even though the pieces of technology I own are very few I still like to overload my brain with technological nonsense and dead-end news.
Let’s take a look at what counts towards my happiness as a tech user. First off I need to have some sort of model to be able to describe to you my set up. Planetary model of solar system lands itself perfectly for these purposes. Of course, my desktop computer is the Sun at the centre of my imaginary digital system. It shines is life-line into my dark digital-less existence.
It is a humble piece of equipment that I use to check for e-mail, surf the web and edit my photographs along with *.cpp source files. The mouse and keyboard are natural extensions of my limbs.
Then there are Mercury-ies of my little system – peripheral devices, such as printers, cameras and rest. I load my driver and modules by hand but I recently decided to load CUPS with auto-load option in my rc.conf. I know I am being lazy 😉
Then there is an abstract layer of news. Everything that I could possibly need and want to know is delivered through articles on LXer and distrowatch. They give me a sneak pick of the world of software and Open Source.
A little further away from scorching plasma is the Earth of all the earths – BBC’s Click. It is a sort of middle ground between software and hardware worlds, offering the best of the two.
And then there is CCLonline, the hardware and to some extent software heaven! The latest addition to my digital planetary zoo was 24″ display from this very same on-line shop. Well done guys for all that you do for computer users such as myself.
How about your system? Do you have a more interesting analogy? Post a comment or send me da e-mail!
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Got a rogue nuclear plant? We probably know about it.
French nuclear researchers have conducted a study whereupon they introduced certain improvements to existing techniques for detecting neutrinos produced by a nuclear plant. The research focused on long range detection techniques. Specifically: ‘[ed. the] article is to address the possibility of detecting undeclared nuclear reactors across borders…‘ In their paper arxiv:1011.3850v1 they argue that such methods should enable the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor rogue states over the next 50 or so year…
In their simulation of 201 IAEA-compliant multi-core plants over a half-year period illustrated how many of such neutrino events can be detected globally. Interestingly enough the team used Google Maps data to check geo-locations of each and every one of those plants to 1/100th of a degree…
Our thoughts:
Perhaps this is not the quickest way of identifying rogue reactors and the fact that at least four such detectors have to be deployed before an accurate position can be established is quite an investment from IAEA. Although such technology could be used by the world governments. In fact this technology can be used for pre-emptive military and economic actions…
Complete version of this article will be uploaded later on GDocs. Watch out for Twitter and blog updates!
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Reply to “Hammering at the gates”
Perhaps not surprisingly the government is re-assessing its IT procurement strategy whilst under pressure from the budget deficit and FOSS advocates. Microsoft tie-in, proprietary and fairness are a few words that get constantly repeated in the relevant media sources. My problem with it is the following. It looks at times that the FOSS community is trying to kill off Microsoft altogether. The problem that the local and national governments have is that their IT infrastructure heavily depends on proprietary software. FOSS community argues that a fair and equal opportunity should be given to Open Source projects and that it does everything better and more than the proprietary solutions. Hold your horses. The problem is not in the fact that companies, governments and individuals are locked-in to Microsoft products and that it does not allow fair competitiveness. No. The fact is in the solutions that an IT company can offer which in turn impacts on its strategies, size and ability to compete. The FOS software reminds me of any Linux distro out there – patchy. There is always a trade-off either in terms of quality, licence, availability and lock-in, even in the FOSS world. Not once could I install something with full integration for every application, hardware support and platform orientation. Then you get to the question of fragmentation in the FOSS market. Which solution to choose? Complete Libre? Core? Or proprietary?
Another question is that of a licensing nature. Yes, it is true that neither you or your government is going to sue Microsoft, but at least there is a working contract which means you can always rely on the software distributor (however bad they may be). Yet having something with GPL may not necessarily mean that the services won’t have contract of their own. Think of Ubuntu. Sure, the software is free and licensed accordingly, but there is nothing to stop some SME (small, mid enterprise) to pull out on the grounds of GPL support. This means that the extra costs factored in may be the deal-breaker.
I love and use Linux under GPL (and one or two proprietary licenses) but I just can’t see it work as smoothly as the large corporations have it. Thus the time may be right for FOSS to attack Microsoft positions, but I don’t think it is a good time to win the hearts and minds of governments and users.
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Afterthought: A New Dogma by Laughlin and Pines?
It was very interesting to write an article about the Theory of Everything. The way these big minds presented their ideas was affecting me in more ways than other. In my undergraduate understanding things were neatly interrelated and finding links according to some rule of conduct (meaning the experimental procedure) it was a shocker to treat science any other way. And the way these guys had done it seems almost like a call for a new paradigm shift in physics and certainly less like blasphemy. I admire Laughlin, not only because he’d recieved the Nobel Prize in physics, but also for the fact that my undergraduate report was based on his work in 2D quantum gases.
I was quite scared to write about this paper.
When I first read it there was some feeling of euphoria, the feeling of righteousness. As if my eyes were opened for the very first time. It was a bit scary to write about their ideas. In science if you are shot down, it is sometimes difficult to recover, thinking of Climate Change E-mail scandals here. What they have done, was simple and if to be honest a template for the work carried out in the research centres across the country. We are no longer tied to a particular set of instructions or science, if you feel it is a good idea to study your experimental as a physicist in the field of biology then do so. And it is a historical fact that at the onset of complexity science people worked in areas before unrelated to their research. And it feels great. This paper is a push towards the new science and let’s hope the increasing academic fees won’t affect much of this neo-physics thinking.
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You can find the first issue of the Pops-eye Magazine here.
A quick note…
I won’t be writing any articles this week since I was working for a few days on a digital copy of the magazine. there will be four articles to take a look at and I’ll post an executive summary here later in the week. The paper will be made available from Facebook account of Pops-Eye Magazine.
Pops-eye Magazine Blog 