This week the International Astronomical Union has downgraded Pluto to the status of “dwarf planet.” Whaaa? You may be asking yourself, why would someone do this? Well, reclassifying pluto puts it in company with objects more like itself. Objects like Ceres (formerly the asteroid ceres) and any other rocky bodies we may discover whirling around in the Kuiper Belt. The real question here is, will the earth be next?

Honey, I Shrunk the Solar System | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

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The good folks at the National high magnetic field lab have been up to some interesting stuff. See these guys?

They are covered in a pigment called Han purple that was painted on them when they were created over 2000 years ago. For whatever reason the researchers were studying this substance, and well, let’s see a quote from the article.

“They observed that at high magnetic fields (above 23 tesla) and temperatures between 1 and 3 degrees Kelvin (approximately -460 degrees Fahrenheit), the magnetic waves in three-dimensional crystals of Han purple “exist” in a three-dimensional world as per conventional wisdom. However, below those temperatures, near the quantum limit, one of the dimensions is no longer accessible, with the unexpected consequence that magnetic ripples propagate in only two dimensions. (Kelvin is the temperature scale used by scientists; zero degrees Kelvin is absolute zero, a temperature so low it is experimentally unreachable.)

The magnetic waves in the pigment exist in a unique state of matter called a Bose Einstein condensate (BEC), so named for its theoretical postulation by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein. In the BEC state, the individual waves (associated with magnetism from pairs of copper atoms in BaCuSi2O6) lose their identities and condense into one giant wave of undulating magnetism. As the temperature is lowered, this magnetic wave becomes sensitive to vertical arrangement of individual copper layers, which are shifted relative to each other – a phenomenon known as “geometrical frustration.” This makes it difficult for the magnetic wave to exist in the third up-down dimension any longer, and leads to a change to a two-dimensional wave, in very much the same way as ripples are confined to the surface of a pond. The theoretical framework that leads to this interpretation was provided by Cristian Batista at LANL.”

What are the practicle implications for this? I have no idea, those warriors are awesome looking though.

Raiders of the lost dimension

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This story neatly dovetails in the book I am currrently reading, Warped Passages by Lisa Randall. Here’s a quote from the article:

“Charles R. Keeton of Rutgers and Arlie O. Petters of Duke base their work on a recent theory called the type II Randall-Sundrum braneworld gravity model. The theory holds that the visible universe is a membrane (hence “braneworld”) embedded within a larger universe, much like a strand of filmy seaweed floating in the ocean. The “braneworld universe” has five dimensions — four spatial dimensions plus time — compared with the four dimensions — three spatial, plus time — laid out in the General Theory of Relativity.

The framework Keeton and Petters developed predicts certain cosmological effects that, if observed, should help scientists validate the braneworld theory. The observations, they said, should be possible with satellites scheduled to launch in the next few years.

If the braneworld theory proves to be true, “this would upset the applecart,” Petters said. “It would confirm that there is a fourth dimension to space, which would create a philosophical shift in our understanding of the natural world.” The scientists’ findings appeared May 24, 2006, in the online edition of the journal Physical Review D. Keeton is an astronomy and physics professor at Rutgers, and Petters is a mathematics and physics professor at Duke. Their research is funded by the National Science Foundation.

The Randall-Sundrum braneworld model — named for its originators, physicists Lisa Randall of Harvard University and Raman Sundrum of Johns Hopkins University — provides a mathematical description of how gravity shapes the universe that differs from the description offered by the General Theory of Relativity. Keeton and Petters focused on one particular gravitational consequence of the braneworld theory that distinguishes it from Einstein’s theory. The braneworld theory predicts that relatively small “black holes” created in the early universe have survived to the present. The black holes, with mass similar to a tiny asteroid, would be part of the “dark matter” in the universe. As the name suggests, dark matter does not emit or reflect light, but does exert a gravitational force. The General Theory of Relativity, on the other hand, predicts that such primordial black holes no longer exist, as they would have evaporated by now.”

Light bedtime reading.

ScienceDaily: Scientists Predict How To Detect A Fourth Dimension Of Space

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The Washington post is running an article about one of my favorite subjects, the planned moon missions and permanent base.

The Washington Post

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Current antibotics are running into a roadblock, germs like MRSA and VRE are becoming a big problem. A new therapy is needed to combat these organisms that have become reisistant to earlier drugs. Here’s a quote from the website about a new compound researchers have isolated:

Jun Wang of Merck Research Laboratories and his colleagues tested 250,000 compounds extracted from microorganisms for antibiotic properties. Platensimycin, isolated from a strain of Streptomyces platensis found in a soil sample from South Africa, showed both strength and discretion in biochemical assays, targeting and defeating pathogens while seeming to show little danger of unwanted interactions. So the researchers tested it against superbugs in vitro. The compound bested methicillin-resistant S. aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci as well as other antibiotic-resistant microbes. It also showed no toxicity when put in contact with mammalian cells. Wang and his colleagues then tested the compound in mice infected with S. aureus. After 24 hours of treatment, the compound reduced the bacterial outbreak at least 10,000-fold and showed no deleterious effects on the mice themselves.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: New Antibiotic Eliminates Superbugs

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Science Daily has printed a very interested article from researchers at Penn State University, who have been trying unravel what happened at the beginning of our universe. The singulairity, the point from which our entire universe sprang, is a wall that classical physics cannot break through. The laws of the large scale universe are no longer sufficient to tell the rest of the story. Quantum physics in tandem with general relativity has revealed some very facscinating models. What this research has shown is that the beginning of our universe was not a “big bang” but a “quantum bounce.” Their theory holds that when all the matter in the universe is compressed as severely as it is during this event, gravity becomes repulsive instead of attractive. This puts us once again into the picture of an endless expanding and contracting universe. Let the debate begin. Again.

ScienceDaily: Penn State Researchers Look Beyond The Birth Of The Universe

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The gritty city landscape, it’s a place where the mettle of people are tested. The city is a tough place to survive, but humans are not the only creatures that inhabit the urban landscape. These man-made habitats are a relatively new addition to the landscape, and critters that were adapted to nature are having to evolve to be sucessful in the new world. This is a new area of study, and many interesting new discoveries are awaiting us. Squirrels will be hailing cabs in no time.

New Scientist Evolution gets busy in the urban lab - News

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The traditional representations of early homonids show our ancestors as fierce hunters, stalking any animal we liked, warring upon each other and generally behaving much as we do now. New research into early proto-human life is starting to change that picture. The picture of humans as warriors is slowly starting to morph into humans as prey. In terms of the whole history of life on the planet, our acescendancy as the dominate form of life is but a mere blinking of the eye.
The Chronicle: 4/21/2006: Humans as Prey

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It’s finally happened, burito and chili lovers of the world rejoice! Science has improved upon the humble bean. No longer hampered with the stigma of being a flatulence generating legume, the bean is now free to be eaten without fear. By using the same lactobacillus bacteria that is used to create yogurt, beans can be rendered more easily digestable. Not only are the beans easier to absorb, but more free nutrients are available in the treated specimens and they have the added benefit of reduced non-soluble fiber that is converted to methane by microorganisms that are already found the human body.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Bacteria Render Beans Easier to Digest and More Nutritious

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A supercomputing super computer, the most extreme massive objects in the universe, and now they collide. This is just cool, black holes smashing into each is a cataclysmic event that takes a heavy duty computer to accomplish, thankfully someone found one that was up to the challenge and we now have a working mathematical model of what happens when these singular objects meet. Check out the full story and the animation, definitely worth watching.
ScienceDaily: NASA Scientists Simulate Gravitational Waves Churned By Collision Of Black Holes

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