More elements discovered...? 

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Did you know that there's been a few additions to the familiar peridioc chart of elements?

The first 92 elements on the table exist naturally. The rest -- which now extend to element 118 -- were created by scientists in atomic nuclei collision with the aid of particle accelerators. Aptly named, these machines accelerate atoms to nearly 1/10 the speed of light and smash them into other so-called "target" atoms. Sometimes the nuclei of two colliding atoms fuse and a new element is formed.

Its basically modern alchemy. Now the newest addition to the official pantheon is Ununbiam (latin for 112 -- its temporary anyway.)

To produce element 112..., scientists accelerate charged zinc atoms - zinc ions for short - with the help of the 120 m long particle accelerator at GSI and "fire" them onto a lead target. The zinc and lead nuclei merge in a nuclear fusion to form the nucleus of the new element. Its so-called atomic number 112, hence the provisional name "element 112", is the sum of the atomic numbers of the two initial elements: zinc has the atomic number 30 and lead the atomic number 82.

The atomic number indicates the number of protons the atom has in the nucleus.  So, whats it do?

Recent experiments strongly suggest that element 112 behaves as a typical member of group 12, demonstrating properties consistent with a volatile metal 

These new atoms don't last long though.

The most stable isotope discovered to date is ²⁸⁵112 with a half-life of ~30 s. In total, about 60 atoms of ununbium have been detected using various nuclear reactions (see below). An unconfirmed isotope, ^285b112, has a possible half-life of ~9 minutes, and would be one of the longest-lived superheavy isotopes known to date.

The search continues too.  As noted above, elements up to 118 have been discovered, and they're currently trying for heavier elements.  The idea is that above the stable natural elements there are pockets of "special combinations" of unknown elements that will be artifical but stable.  Called "islands of stability" (see image below), these regions are slowly emerging from theory as new elements are formed in the lab.

Image Credit 

The discovery of superheavy elements at the beginning of this century by Oganessian's group also confirmed the existence of the Island of Stability, a theoretical region of the periodic table, which distinguished chemist and Nobel laureate Glenn Seaborg considered as one of the keystones of fundamental science. The "sea-and-island" analogy arose because these superheavy elements lie in an area of the periodic table where other elements are unstable, disappearing in much less than the blink of an eye. The superheavies, in contrast, are somewhat more stable than their shorter-lived cousins.

"The decay properties of all the isotopes that we have made so far paint the picture of a large, sort of flat 'Island of Stability' and indicate that we may have luck if we try to go even heavier," said Ken Moody, Livermore's team leader.

So, is there any practical side to this?

It is difficult to anticipate what practical uses might come out of the search for new superheavy elements. For now, the focus is on discovery, not application. However, some previously synthesized elements have yielded tremendous benefits for people. One example, element 95 -- Americium -- discovered in 1944, is used in smoke detectors and in medical and industrial radiography.

We'll just have to wait and see what develops but some people are already rewriting the perioic table in anticipation of pushing atomic formation as far as it can go (theorized to go as far as Element 210) 

Stay Tuned...

Since the mid-eighties we've been promised so called "room temperature" superconductors were going to change everything.  So, whats up?

Superconductors are materials that exhibit superconductivity. 

Superconductivity is a phenomenon occurring in certain materials generally at very low temperatures, characterized by exactly zero electrical resistance and the exclusion of the interior magnetic field (the Meissner effect).

The electrical resistivity of a metallic conductor decreases gradually as the temperature is lowered. However, in ordinary conductors such as copper and silver, impurities and other defects impose a lower limit...The resistance of a superconductor, despite these imperfections, drops abruptly to zero when the material is cooled below its "critical temperature". An electric current flowing in a loop of superconducting wire can persist indefinitely with no power source.

So what?  Big fracking deal!  Right?  Well, it is a big deal.

Superconducting magnets are some of the most powerful electromagnets known. They are used in MRI and NMR machines, mass spectrometers, and the beam-steering magnets used in particle accelerators.

Promising future applications include high-performance transformers, power storage devices, electric power transmission, electric motors (e.g. for vehicle propulsion, as in vactrains or maglev trains), magnetic levitation devices, and Fault Current Limiters.

Maglev trains alone would be a good realization of this technology.

Magnetic-levitation is an application where superconductors perform extremely well. Transport vehicles such as trains can be made to "float" on strong superconducting magnets, virtually eliminating friction between the train and its tracks. Not only would conventional electromagnets waste much of the electrical energy as heat, they would have to be physically much larger than superconducting magnets. A landmark for the commercial use of MAGLEV technology occurred in 1990 when it gained the status of a nationally-funded project in Japan. The Minister of Transport authorized construction of the Yamanashi Maglev Test Linewhich opened on April 3, 1997. In December 2003, the MLX01 test vehicle (shown above) attained an incredible speed of 361 mph (581 kph).

The problem used to be that materials superconducted only at extremely low temperatures, but in 1986 so called high temperature superconductors were discovered.  These new materials needed to be chilled to "only" 92K (-293.8F).  This was significant because liquid nitrogen is colder at 77K (-320.8F) and cheap enough and easy enough to work with commercially.  If you lived through the mid-eighties maybe you remember as I do the frenzy over the levitating magnets (pictured above.)

But the ultimate goal is a room temperature superconductor.

A room-temperature superconductor is a material yet to be discovered which would be capable of exhibiting superconducting properties at temperatures above 0° C (273.15 K). This is of course not strictly speaking "room temperature" (20-25°C); however, it can be reached very cheaply.

If superconductors could be made to work at temperatures as high as room temperature, they could have potentially limitless applications.

Such as? 

One exciting applications is using superconducting wire to provide lossless power transmission from power stations to cities. Superconducting wire can hold a much higher current density than existing copper wire and is lossless and therefore energy saving.

So, how is the search going?  Pretty good, in fact.  In the last few years there have been a slew of new materials and new theories.  The highest temperature yet achieved your humble bloggist could find was 242K or -24F.  

At any rate, if we keep the pace up, we may just yet acheive room temperature superconductors within the near-term future.

Stay Tuned.

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink?

We have a serious water supply problem. 

• Inadequate access to safe drinking water for about 884 million people^[7]
• Inadequate access to water for sanitation and waste disposal for 2.5 billion people^[8]

...According to the World Bank, 88 percent of all diseases are caused by unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.^[11]

Water itself is literally everywhere.

...where there are no lakes, rivers or groundwater, considerable quantities of water are stored in the air. In the Negev desert in Israel, for example, annual average relative air humidity is 64 percent - in every cubic meter of air there are 11.5 milliliters of water.

The problem is merely one of usuable water.  But there's a lot of progress being made on this front...lets check in with a few.  First up, a new technology - removing water literally from thin air.

"The process we have developed is based exclusively on renewable energy sources such as thermal solar collectors and photovoltaic cells, which makes this method completely energy-autonomous. It will therefore function in regions where there is no electrical infrastructure," says Siegfried Egner, head of department at the IGB. The principle of the process is as follows: hygroscopic brine - saline solution which absorbs moisture - runs down a tower-shaped unit and absorbs water from the air. It is then sucked into a tank a few meters off the ground in which a vacuum prevails. Energy from solar collectors heats up the brine, which is diluted by the water it has absorbed.

Because of the vacuum, the boiling point of the liquid is lower than it would be under normal atmospheric pressure. This effect is known from the mountains: as the atmospheric pressure there is lower than in the valley, water boils at temperatures distinctly below 100 degrees Celsius. The evaporated, non-saline water is condensed and runs down through a completely filled tube in a controlled manner. The gravity of this water column continuously produces the vacuum and so a vacuum pump is not needed. The reconcentrated brine runs down the tower surface again to absorb moisture from the air.

I wonder if its cost effective.  How about water from Sewage?  I like recycling. 

Earlier in January, for instance, California approved operation of the Advanced Water Purification Facility (AWPF), the largest water reclamation plant in the nation. It will yield 70 million gallons per day of drinkable water from sewage. That's about 10 percent of the district's daily water demand for its 2.3 million residents. Although AWPF's purification process is complex, it produces clean, pure water that meets or exceeds all drinking water standards, the article notes.

Of course theres plenty of water in the Sea, right?

"Desalinating the sea is an expensive, energy-intensive and greenhouse gas emitting way to get water," says Jamie Pittock, Director of WWF's Global Freshwater Programme.

"It may have a place in the world's future freshwater supplies but regions still have cheaper, better and complementary ways to supply water that are less risky to the environment."

Ok, we'll keep working on that one.  How about giving the salt water to the plants?

"We are looking at ways to grow plants on very salty water without damaging soil," Professor Leslie said.  "We're incorporating a reverse osmosis membrane into a sub-surface drip irrigation system."

Lets not forget about making water safe to drink:

Bacteria often get bad press, with those found in water often linked to illness and disease. But researchers at The University of Nottingham are using these tiny organisms alongside the very latest membrane filtration techniques to improve and refine water cleaning technology.

 

These one-celled organisms eat the contaminants present in water -- whether it is being treated prior to industrial use or even for drinking -- in a process called bioremediation.

 

The water is then filtered through porous membranes, which function like a sieve. However, the holes in these sieves are microscopic, and some are so small they can only be seen at the nanoscale. Pore size in these filters can range from ten microns -- ten thousandths of a millimetre -- to one nanometre -- a millionth of a millimetre.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is like our energy problems, our water problems are solvable.  Water and energy are everywhere.  It will take time, technology, effort and missteps but the water crisis is solvable.  We are in fact making progress:

2 billion people have gained access to a safe water source since 1990. [4] The proportion of people in developing countries with access to safe water is calculated to have improved from 30 percent in 1970^[5] to 71 percent in 1990, 79 percent in 2000 and 84 percent in 2004, parallel with rising population. This trend is projected to continue. [5]

Of course, those advances mean that existing water supplies will get more and more stressed.  Now, we just need to remember not to piss in our pot.

Stay Tuned...

I wrote obtained the below 17 years ago.  I say it that way beacuse I'd like you to read this as if it were what it says it is.  Shorter: Take it literally for a minute. Then give me your thoughts. 

-Yug

[Eds. Note:  This was found in an abandoned crack house in the inner city of Chicago, September 10, 1992, by a social worker.  It was given to me shortly thereafter.  I have changed nothing.]

     I leave this note as a signpost pointing toward the inevitable.  Read it carefully for it holds the key to your future.

     I am from what you would consider the future though it is actually the past.  By my estimates it is now approximately the 21st century on a planet 2/3rds covered by water in the middle of a spiral galaxy.  The names, assuming they haven't changed are Earth and the Milky Way respectively.  This is written in the colloquial language commonly called English. 

     Whatever this message is interpreted to mean, let me make this clear from the outset, this is a message of hope:

     Have you ever contemplated what must have existed before...before everything?  Think for a moment of what must have passed in the universe by now.  Billions and billions of years, and the universe is still young.  Think also of those billions of years to come.  What will have to come to pass with the time.  This universe is sturdy and durable and vast.  And should your descendants, billions of years from now, choose to exist infinitely; they may.  But to the point, I assure you, They will not. 

     Let me explain myself.  In approximately 2 1/2 billion years from now your descendants, Earthlings, as well as many other races and beings will have explored the entire universe.  There will come a time when living-kind will have done it all, experienced it all, and know all.  There will be no more questions to answer, no more mysteries to explore, and no more solutions left to discover.  What I'm trying to tell you is that intelligent beings can only elevate to a finite level and there is a only a finite amount of knowledge to discover.  At some point it has to end, it needs to, lest we fail at some cosmic level.

     Now, to understand how is this a message of hope you need more information.  I must tell you what happens afterwards. After everything.  You see your descendants will one day face the ultimate question; What happens when all has been done, when all suffering ends, when paradise is a reality?  And the answer will be clear.  We must make the struggle continue forever, for the pleasure is in the pursuit of the unknown, and without that the universe is meaningless.

     But there is only one way to enable the pursuit to last forever.  To be blunt, we know how to make the universe collapse upon itself, and intend to implement that knowledge.  It is the only thing that has never been done and in a manner of speaking resets the digit-counters back to zero.

     Actually what I said was misleading.  It has been done before, but never by us; by those of us in this incident. But we know that it was done before us, and before them, and before them, stretching back at least 14,000,000 times.  Each time the universe changes less than 1/1trillionth of a percent, explaining my stunning accuracy in picking the right people and time of development when you would be receiving this message.  It is also known that this message, along with others scattered sparsely through time, are the cause of that margin of change.  If we did not participate in this small amount of change the universe would presumably repeat like a stuck record.  Rather than let that come to pass several thousand artifacts like this one will create harmless, even benign, differences in the universal fabric.  By the time the existent species are sufficiently developed to achieve highly civilized tendencies, the differences will grow and blossom; even across incidents.  It is probably not wrong to assume that eventually all the possible outcomes will be exhausted and the universe will close the loop it started at least 14,000,000 times ago, perhaps this is the second lap or the billionth, it doesn't really matter. 

     Take warning, however, for the messages, while the source of the change, are only the catalysts.  The true change comes from those who not only read these prophetic notes, but also heed their monumental warning.  If you are not completely satisfied with every moment, every action, every word, every iota of your being; you must correct your life for you are destined to repeat it not just once, but perhaps for all eternity.  Furthermore, the messages change from incident to incident, (and your descendants will act likewise in order to avoid the repetition of an incident endlessly), so it is highly unlikely you, personally, will receive the opportunity in future incidents to be made aware of your course.  As many religions predict, you will be eternally damned, and in a very understandable way.  If you think death will relieve you of all your worries, think again, for they will be revisited upon you, time after time, after time, forever. 

     But how, you may be still asking yourself, is this a message of hope?  First of all, you know not your individual destiny, for that is what you have.  Your actions, whether they be random or written in stone, feel completely real and unique on a day to day basis.  At some point the original you, if one incident was ever 'first', set up the fate that you have almost guaranteedly fulfilled at least 14,000,000 times.  Secondly, you, with a little help from you wiser ancestors, have been given a singular opportunity to change your fate, most will let it pass.

     On a grander scale though, it's even more simple, for you see every single instance of the universe ends with all known; rather than knowledge being foolishly lost time and time again, we voluntarily surrender it in order to begin again, secure in knowing the end result will be the same, for our ancestors assured us so, having been assured by their ancestors, and so on.  Even more basic is that those who are satisfied, those who find happiness, those who are fulfilled, will be again and again.   It is a benign infinite loop.  As an entity it could be called God and we are its subjects.  The beauty of it is that after all is known, faith in God still exists.  In fact God is undeniable, for only God assures that the first instance is as beautiful as the last and that all in between follow the previous one, albeit by very slightly different paths, to the same conclusion: Perfect Order.

     I leave this universe with these final words written billions of years ago, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  John 1:1.

     To a new Beginning...

What is being done about the honey bee epidemic...?  And what can you do...?

Photo by Ginny Stibolt

As discussed in this post, Honey Bees have been having some trouble lately. 

They're suffering from something called colony collapse disorder (CCD) and they're dying off in droves, and we dont really know why. 

In 2006, CCD began devastating commercial beekeeping operations, with some beekeepers reporting losses of up to 90 percent, according to the USDA. Researchers believe CCD may be the result of a combination of pathogens, parasites and stress factors, but the cause remains elusive.

Now mind you, these are 'domesticated' or commercial honey bees were talking about, not native bees species.  

Now there is some good news; the epidemic may have peaked.  Still, just take a look at the numbers:

Honey bee colony losses nationwide were approximately 29 percent from all causes from September 2008 to April 2009, according to a survey conducted by the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This is less than the overall losses of about 36 percent from 2007 to 2008, and about 32 percent from 2006 to 2007, that have been reported in similar surveys.

"While the drop in losses is encouraging, losses of this magnitude are economically unsustainable for commercial beekeeping," said Jeff Pettis, research leader of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Md.

The genisis of the last post was the discovery of a parasite Nosema ceranae that appears to at least be partly responsible for the disorder.  It didnt take long, but now the parasite's genome has been decoded.

The microsporidian Nosema is a fungus-related microbe that produces spores that bees consume when they forage. Infection spreads from their digestive tract to other tissues. Within weeks, colonies are either wiped out or lose much of their strength.

Sequencing the genome should help scientists trace the parasite's migration patterns, determine how it became dominant, and help resolve the spread of infection by enabling the development of diagnostic tests and treatments.

Genome sequencing is just standard procedure these days if you want to study something.  But there's much we have to learn, including what happens to the native bee population when the domesticated bee colonies collapse and what happens to pollination levels. 

Fear not, in steps more modern technology.  Something called the interwebs, or something?  Actually, more like crowd sourcing, its called the Great Sunflower Project, and it might not be too late for you to participate.  From their website:

By watching and recording the bees at sunflowers in your garden, you can help us understand the challenges that bees are facing. While we are no longer sending out annual Lemon Queen sunflower seeds for 2009...The instructions are here. Do join us!

• It takes less than 30 minutes.
• It's easy.
• Free Sunflower seeds for planting - will be sent for 2010.
• No knowledge of bees required!

Its a great marraige of low cost, remote data gathering and technology. 

"What you do is you stand out there and you time how long it takes for five bees to visit," LeBeun said, up to thirty minutes.

Then watchers report their results on the website or by mail. Soon participants will be able to upload time-stamped digital photographs to vouch for their observations.

New York City has a similar local project called the Great Pollinator Project.

Here's your bee guide!  Now off you go...save the bees!

Stay Tuned...

Dickday wrote here:

I mean they are putting computer chips in brains, people are THINKING INTO THEIR COMPUTERS. Like this is nuts.

It is nuts, DickDay.  It is.  Did you want?

Brain Gate?

BrainGate's mission is to further the advancement of this life-changing technology to promote wider adoption to help impaired individuals communicate and interact with society. For instance, the Cyberkenetics BrainGate Neural Interface is currently the subject of a pilot clinical trial being conducted under an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) from the FDA. The system is designed to restore functionality for a limited, immobile group of severely motor-impaired individuals. It is expected that people using the BrainGate System will employ a personal computer as the gateway to a range of self-directed activities. These activities may extend beyond typical computer functions (e.g., communication) to include the control of objects in the environment such as a telephone, a television and lights.

Brain Chips?

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

Chips in the Brain?

Scientists at the University of Florida aren't just creating a neural implant that can translate human brain signals, but one that can act independently to increase its efficiency and synergy with the brain as it learns new things.

"In the grand scheme of brain-machine interfaces, this is a complete paradigm change," said Justin C. Sanchez, Ph.D., a UF assistant professor of pediatric neurology and the study's lead author. "This idea opens up all kinds of possibilities for how we interact with devices. It's not just about giving instructions but about those devices assisting us in a common goal. You know the goal, the computer knows the goal and you work together to solve the task."

The Implications are grand:

However, there is a whole slew of other fantastic sci-fi inspired applications that are theoretically possible with this type of computer "symbiote" implants. For example, how would you like to be able to calculate enormous equations in your own head? You'd just think about what you wanted calculated and your neural implant would do the work for you instantaneously. Or how would you like the entire library of congress stored neatly in your brain where you can access any kind of information you'd ever want instantly just by thinking about. You wonder to yourself, "When was Abraham Lincoln born?" Your symbiote could then theoretically feed the correct answer back to you in what felt as natural as your own thoughts.

Or maybe not so grand?

One day soon were all going to be seriously fucked up!

Stay Tuned...

Oh and you have to check out the EYEBORG!

Part One - Life into Machines.

Part Two tomorrow - Machines into Life.

Image Credit

DNA as building blocks?

The field of DNA nanotechnology has literally gained another dimension.

Using pieces of DNA like so many Legos, researchers made a series of complex, three-dimensional structures. The technique could eventually be used to design custom-shaped, nano-scale drug-delivery systems and diagnostic devices.

"Imagine that you could encode different charge patterns on your Lego bricks, so that they only fit together in a very specific manner," said molecular biologist William Shih of Harvard Medical School, co-author of a study Wednesday in Nature. "We make linear sequences of DNA, throw them into a pot, and let them find each other."

"We'd like to build larger and larger structures," he said. "It's like the evolution of integrated circuit microprocessors. We've been able, over time, to increase the number of transistors on each circuit. We'd like to follow the same trajectory with molecularly engineered objects."

Programming a cell?

In an essential step toward programming cells as precisely as computers, synthetic biologists have finally learned to count.

By linking a series of protein switches, researchers made prototype cell-level counters that could eventually be used to coordinate complex sets of genetic instructions running on biomolecular machines, from disease-hunting cells to intracellular computing networks. In the electronic world, basic counting functions underlie even the most powerful supercomputers.

"What we've done is to impose some of the controls we've imposed in electrical engineering onto the biological cell," said synthetic biologist Timothy Lu at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "We hope to be able to control the cell more reliably, and have it perform more defined functions. This forms the fundamental basis for building more complicated circuits."

Creating artifical Life?

A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life.

It's not as Frankensteinian as it sounds. Instead, a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building simple cell models that can almost be called life.

Szostak's protocells are built from fatty molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids that contain the source code for replication. Combined with a process that harnesses external energy from the sun or chemical reactions, they could form a self-replicating, evolving system that satisfies the conditions of life, but isn't anything like life on earth now, but might represent life as it began or could exist elsewhere in the universe. 

One wonders if our hubris will destroy us someday soon.

Stay Tuned...

How accurate is an atomic clock...?  Is it accurate enough...?

Image Credit 

Ok, get this:

How an Atomic Clock Works (Theory)

The atom can be pictured as a mini solar system, with the heavy nucleus at the centre surrounded by electrons in a variety of different orbits.

The orbits correspond to energy levels, and electrons can only move between levels when they absorb or release just the right amount of energy.

This energy is absorbed or released in the form of electromagnetic radiation, the frequency of which depends on the difference in energy between the two levels.

This transition is the source of the term "quantum jump", quantum referring to the tiny but precise amount of energy needed to allow the electron to jump to a different level.

By measuring the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation, like counting the number of pendulum swings on a pendulum, we can measure the passage of time

So what is a second?  Currently this is the exact definition:

Since 1967, the International System of Units (SI) has defined the second as the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of radiation corresponding to the transition between two energy levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.

In other words a caesium atom occilates more than 9 trillion times a second and we can measure that exactly.  That boggles the mind and it is by no means the fastest thing in the universe.  Plus, it never changes.  In theory at least, a million years into the future and in another galaxy, a caesium atom should occilate exactly the same amount of times.  Ok, back to the clocks.   How accurate are these clocks?

By tossing caesium clouds upwards over the course of a day and averaging the resulting frequency, the most accurate caesium-fountain clocks, the NIST-F1 clock in Boulder and similar devices at the Reference Systems for Time and Space (SYRTE) lab of the Paris Observatory in France, can now keep time with an accuracy of 1 second in around 80 million years

You'd think that'd be enough for scientists, but they are developing ever more accurate clocks.

With caesium, that is about the best that can be achieved. But caesium is by no means the fastest atomic oscillator. It was chosen as a matter of convenience: it was easy to excite using microwaves, and its oscillation produced a signal of the right frequency to be fed into the counters used in existing microelectronic circuits. Other atoms have transitions 100,000 times quicker, and so might make more precise clocks

...in March 2008, NIST compared a single-ion mercury transition with a transition in trapped aluminium atoms, obtaining accuracies of just 5 parts in 10¹⁷ - about 1 second in 650 million years (Science, vol 319, p 1808). Caesium's 53-year reign as king of the clocks was over.

As clocks get more accurate strange things start to occur. You see, Einstiens theory of general relativity (the best we have to describe how space, time & gravity interact) tells us that:

a clock will tick faster by 1 second in 10¹⁸ for every centimetre it is raised in Earth's gravitational field.  

So if we get clocks any more accurate that they are now...

the time it told would be different according to how far up the wall it was fixed.

But lets one up that; maybe there is no time at all:

The trouble with time started a century ago, when Einstein's special and general theories of relativity demolished the idea of time as a universal constant. One consequence is that the past, present, and future are not absolutes. Einstein's theories also opened a rift in physics because the rules of general relativity (which describe gravity and the large-scale structure of the cosmos) seem incompatible with those of quantum physics (which govern the realm of the tiny). Some four decades ago, the renowned physicist John Wheeler, then at Princeton, and the late Bryce DeWitt, then at the University of North Carolina, developed an extraordinary equation that provides a possible framework for unifying relativity and quantum mechanics. But the Wheeler-­DeWitt equation has always been controversial, in part because it adds yet another, even more baffling twist to our understanding of time.

"One finds that time just disappears from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation," says Carlo Rovelli, a physicist at the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille, France. "It is an issue that many theorists have puzzled about. It may be that the best way to think about quantum reality is to give up the notion of time--that the fundamental description of the universe must be timeless."

No one has yet succeeded in using the Wheeler-DeWitt equation to integrate quantum theory with general relativity. Nevertheless, a sizable minority of physicists, Rovelli included, believe that any successful merger of the two great masterpieces of 20th-century physics will inevitably describe a universe in which, ultimately, there is no time.

No time like the present, I always say.

Stay Tuned...

Did you miss the most popular stories this month?  Pick what you like.

Most Popular

DARK ENERGY.  74% of the universe is Dark Energy.  Read about the mysterious force that some say is the greatest mystery science has yet to solve.  This got linked off site somewhere and got a lot of hits for some reason.  Read it if ya missed it! (Here's the link to DARK MATTER if you want it - its another 22%.)

BATTERIES - This article featured the latest in rechargable batteries.  This one was the favorite of the regulars.

MULTIVERSES - Adjust your tinfoil hats and get ready for the idea that there may be more than one universe. 

PHILOSPHY - In this post we discussed that with science everything is broken down into its components, but are we greater than the sum of the parts?

BLACK HOLES- We haven't seen one yet but we soon might see the one at the center of our galaxay.  Its called Saggitarius A (tenatatively, since we haven't seen it yet).

And since I didnt keep good statistics for the first part of the month I nominate for honorable mention these two, both proof that we are going to have to radically change our views of how our bodies work.

H. PYLORI - Friend or foe.  This is a good post on how we need to recognize that we dont live in the same space as bacteria...we live with them.  We cannot just affect them and expect no consequences.  (also follow on with the MICROBIOME if you want more)

ARTIFICIAL LIFE.  Scientists are getting closer to recreating the chemical reactions that make life.  Its a good read and I sketch out a few big picture questions.

This is the end of my first full month and I want to thank everyone who reads this blog for your time.  I write for me and what interests me, but many have expressed kind words and that encourages me to try to do it better.  Oh and the discussions are fun too.  Come out lurkers.  Say Hi. 

Thanks.

Yug.

Stay Tuned...

I want to talk about god.  Do you...?

(I wanted to post this last night, but a party intervened)

 Image Credit

I believe that things happen for a purpose.  I can't prove it.  I just feel it in my bones or my soul or gut or spirit or what.  I just cannot accept that things happen for no reason; that things are just a series of random events.  In a way, that's why sometimes I become obsessed with a determinate universe for then everything happens according to plan.   Of course as we discussed in the last two weeks, determinism raises serious issues of free will.  How can we have free will if everything that happens as scripted.  You can't really.  On the other hand true free will that anyone can act out any way they choose, I feel that road leads to chaos.

Here's why I think so:  If there is free will then things can happen unpredictably.  There is no set path.  One could even call that randomness. Indeed as we discussed the last two weeks that it's likely that there is randomness in the universe.  A completely determinate universe is hard to swallow.

But if we are free to affect the universe as we see fit and whatever consequences that result from our unpredictable acts, then here's my problem... how could god exist in this scenario?  If we express god as all powerful but there is randomness is not the effects of the randomness theoretically more powerful even than god?  What if, a stray particle, or a random act of free will from a conscious being sets off a chain reaction eventually destroying the universe?  Would an all powerful god allow the involuntary destruction of the universe? 

This might surprise you but I believe in god.  I don't know if god is a he or a she or an it or even anything that can match what my tiny brain can conjure; if god is the universe or bigger than the universe; perfect or imperfect; if god is time or energy or the laws of physics, or the whole universe; if god has a consciousness or self-awareness.  I have ideas but I don't know...no one can.  But I believe in something greater than us and I want to share that spirituality with others who believe, many who do not subscribe to any formal religion.

Religion is merely the merger of spirituality with ritual.  (Ritual and tradition are very similar) I think the major problem is that people confuse the ritual with the spirituality and then fight over it.  The spirituality part at least by my definition respects differences and is never violent or angry or hateful.  So anyone that excludes people or hates them is not spiritual in my book and if they say they're religious I consider them merely ritualistic.

I believe somehow god acts.  I believe I have experienced the phenomenon of things happening for a reason...many times.  I ascribe that to god.  But as a logical thinking person I cannot see how god can cause things.  Does god obey the laws of physics; does he violate them; is the true truth forever hidden from us?  I just have no clue.

I think balance is the fundamental property of the universe.  For every force there is an equal and opposite force.  Every time something happens it is automatically opposed.  This is how the universe keeps us in control.  You could call that Yin and Yang.

Maybe that's the key though; god constrains us with limits.  We can act but there will be a counter force returning things to balance.  The harder we act against order, the harder the counter forces will react restoring the balance.  Thus we have free will but within limits and within reason.

How do I justify what I feel to someone who doesn't accept god - like an atheist?  I have no problem with atheism; on the contrary it's far more logical.   I respect that.  I have a hard time arguing with it.  But it breaks down for me when you ask it the big questions?  I can't accept that everything is just a pile of random bullshit with no purpose, no direction, no plan. I just can't.  Even if you show me a determinate universe without a god, it still formed by chance.  

Thus I don't find it useful to be an atheist.  Again, I have zero problems with atheism and I want to hear from atheists how they get past what I call the big questions.  What is going on?  Where are we headed? What is our purpose?  Why do people suffer?  Do we have free will?  What is consciousness? What does it all mean?

There's no god in any of those questions but I find God the concept helps me answer those questions. To me god is more about philosophy and psychology than god is about science.  But that doesn't make god any less real to me.

There is much science doesn't know but science is good and it's an important part of how we recognize and interact with the world.  And science is rational and I am a rational being and I believe in science.  But I just think there are things that are greater things beyond our science because this universe contains strains of beautiful order.  And that order to me seems to be the purpose that we all exist for.  We're all part of bringing that order about.  The universe could devolve into chaos very, very quickly and the fact that it doesn't just speaks to me... An atheist would probably say it's just random luck but then we live the existence of insignificant grains of sand with the ability to contemplate the meaning of the universe.  And maybe that's true.  Ecclesatices says, in the end; its all vanity and chasing after wind.  And it's hard to argue with that, even after adding in god.

That's all I want to say for now.  But I genuinely want to hear others ideas.  I'm not interested in criticizing anyone or even debating.  I think god can be approached logically and I'm curious as to others thoughts and concepts.  I have learned much by taking to others, and I hope you will open up here in the comments.

Stay Tuned...

Is the 'Chameleon Particle' dark energy...?  Bonus news at the bottom.

There is a theory about dark energy that is gaining some traction.  Its called the Chameleon Particle theory and it states that maybe dark energy is actually a particle that is hard to find because of its strange properties.  When it combines with a photon (light) the combined particle changes its mass depending on its surroundings and makes it hard to find.  Hence the monicker. 

This is how wiki describes it:

The "chameleon" is a postulated scalar particle with a non-linear self-interaction which gives the particle an effective mass that depends on its environment: the presence of other fields. It would have a small mass in much of intergalactic space, but a large mass in terrestrial experiments, making it difficult to detect. The chameleon is a possible candidate for dark energy and dark matter, and may contribute to cosmic inflation.

Now the theory has some promise:

By comparing light emitted across a range of frequencies from the luminous centres of 77 active galaxies, Douglas Shaw at Queen Mary University of London and his colleagues have found what they call "good evidence" that some photons have gone missing in transit.

If the light is missing, they theorize, then maybe it changed into something else.   

By itself, the findings dont show more than an unanswered question but if the theory is true the particle should be detectable.  Because they would be able to change their mass, they should get heavier as they try to pass through a special chamber and thus get trapped.  Then we could finally "see" them.

Chameleons can be confined in hollow containers because their mass increases rapidly as they penetrate the container wall, causing them to reflect. One strategy to search experimentally for chameleons is to direct photons into a cavity, confining the chameleons produced, and then to switch off the light source. Chameleons would be indicated by the presence of an afterglow as they decay back into photons

So now the first round of lab results are in.  How'd it go?  Not so good.

While they didn't find a signal in this round of work, the results did put constraints on some of the properties of the evasive particle, including its mass and its coupling to photons.

But the latest observations are reviving hope

...the group's analysis appears to get a boost from an independent study into an unusually high flux of high-energy photons spotted by the MAGIC telescope on La Palma and the VERITAS telescope in Arizona. The results have perplexed astronomers because very high-energy photons should be kept from reaching Earth by interactions with the cosmic microwave background radiation.

Now, they want to run the tests again in light of the latest observations. 

The GammeV group is now preparing to test for chameleons in that "interesting range", says Weltman.

Can anybody spare a dime?

Stay Tuned...

BONUS NEWS: the hubble just got a major upgrade in the search for new and exciting things:

The mission's major upgrades to Hubble and what they provide:

Wide Field Camera 3 - Hubble's new panchromatic camera will allow astronomers to better observe galaxy evolution, dark matter and dark energy.
Cosmic Origins Spectrograph - The most sensitive spectrograph ever flown on Hubble, the new instrument will peer further into the universe than ever before in the near and far ultraviolet ranges.
Advanced Camera for Surveys - Now repaired, it's one of Hubble's primary cameras, which stopped working in 2007. It's responsible for some of the most famous images from Hubble.
Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph - Inoperable since 2004, the repaired instrument reveals information about planets, comets, stars and galaxies.
Science Instrument Command and Data Handling System - Replacement of the unit that failed in September 2008, returns full function for sending information and receiving commands.
Fine Guidance Sensor 2 - Replaced, it is one of three sensors that help point and lock the telescope on targets.
Rate Sensor Units - The six new gyroscopes in these units work with the Fine Guidance Sensors to help precisely point the telescope.
Battery Module Units - Replaced, they power Hubble when the solar arrays are out of the sun's reach.

What is fracking and is it safe?

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There is a new trend in natural gas and oil well drilling.  Its called Multi-Stage Fracking (MSF) and its all the rage.  Why?  Because it allows for the collection of natural gas from sources that in the past could not be tapped or needed to be tapped with many wells and can now be tapped with just one long horizontal well. 

While I'm impressed with the technology and its rapid development, everything I have seen shows the hazards of this recclamation technique seem poorly understood (probably intentionally) and potentially very dangerous.

First what the frack is fracking? (this is the only wiki link today)

A hydraulic fracture [or frack] is formed by pumping a fracturing fluid into the well bore at a rate sufficient to increase the pressure downhole to a value in excess of the fracture gradient of the formation rock.  The pressure then causes the formation to crack which allows the fracturing fluid to enter and extend the crack further into the formation. 

In other words, a well is drilled and fluid is pumped into a rock formation with trapped water, gas or oil in it to fracture the rock and release the desired substance. Here's the rest in tech speak:

 In order to keep this fracture open after the injection stops, a solid proppant is added to the fracture fluid. The proppant, which is commonly a sieved round sand, is carried into the fracture. This sand is chosen to be higher in permeability than the surrounding formation and the propped hydraulic fracture then becomes a high permeability conduit through which the formation fluids can be produced back to the well.

Here's a great video showing how the process works.  I highly reccomend you watch it.

Fracking itself is not new, going back to at least the turn of the century but MSF in horizontally drilled wells is relatively new.

...improvements to MSF are still being made - the industry is continually getting more production, more fracs, or stages, per well. Initial fracing was done in 4 stages over 500 meters.  Now you can see 16 stages over a 1600 metre horizontal length.

The industry hasn't hit the end of what MSF can do; innovation is still happening.   And they're fracing tighter and narrower reservoirs or payzones.  One of the largest oil discoveries in North America is the Bakken play, which straddles the Dakotas and Saskatchewan (the US Geological Society estimates over billion barrels are there)  - but the zone can often be as narrow as 3 metres, or 9.5 feet.

The oil and gas industry loves fracking because its highly profitable

...a properly frac'd horizontal well greatly improves economics. A frac can create kilometers of contact area for the oil or gas to flow into the well. Even though it costs twice as much as a vertical well, production can increase 400-700% and give payback to the operator in only a few months

So what's the problem?  Well part of the problem is the fracking fluids used to make the fractures in the rock formations.  They're proprietary and the drilling companies are under little to no obligation to disclose what they're pumping into the ground.  Now, the industry claims (and there's at least fair reason to believe) that they retrieve and recycle or clean the frack fluids after using them.  But there are increasing reports that there are ground water pollution and health problems caused by the fracking.

...in sworn testimony before Congress last fall, environmental health analyst Dr. Theo Colburn - an opponent of drilling - said she was able to obtain a list of one fracking chemicals to be used in Colorado drilling. She says there were 171 substances on the list, and that 92 percent of them had health effects ranging from sinus irritation to reproductive organ damage. 

Worse the Federal Government has no power to regulate the process that the industry claims is completely safe.

Industry and environmental groups dispute whether hydraulic fracturing has a significant environmental impact, with arguments centered around the extent to which fracturing fluid could contaminate water supplies. In the United States, a 2004 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study concluded that the process was safe and didn't warrant further study, because there was "no unequivocal evidence" of health risks, and the fluids were neither necessarily hazardous nor able to travel far underground. The report did find uncertainties in knowledge of how fracturing fluid migrates through rocks, and upon its release service companies voluntarily agreed to stop using diesel fuel as a component of fracturing fluid, due to its potential as a source of benzene contamination.

Hmmm, who was running the government back in 2004....?  Oh, yeah, Bush!  How'd he do?

(dateline July, 2004) The head of the Environmental Protection Agency for two Republican presidents criticized President Bush's record on Monday, calling it a "polluter protection" policy.

Russell E. Train, who headed the EPA from September 1973 to January 1977 -- part of the Nixon and Ford administrations -- said Bush's record on the environment was so dismal that he would cast his vote for Democrat John Kerry.

"It's almost as if the motto of the administration in power today in Washington is not environmental protection, but polluter protection," Train said. "I find this deeply disturbing."

As if you didnt know that!  At least the Republicans were running congress and they must have been on the watch...

The 2005 Energy Policy Act exempted hydraulic fracturing from regulation under the Safe Water Drinking Act.

Oh, nevermind. 

On the bright side, there is a growing movement to repeal the exemption, at least so we can know what's in the fracking fluids.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) proposed a bill last year to repeal that exemption. DeGette is now talking with Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) about either inserting her bill into pending climate legislation or reintroducing the measure on its own.

Even if Congress can pass a repeal of the exemption on regulation for hydraulic fracturing, it could take U.S. EPA some time to write new regulations, Book said, "but gas producers' mandatory disclosures of fracking fluid contents under the Safe Drinking Water Act could potentially trigger state-level regulations even before the EPA rulemaking has been finalized."

Yug is passing the ball on this one to the more politically tuned bloggers on the site...but please for this one, everyone

Stay Tuned...

Has anyone seen a Black Hole?  Is it even possible?

 The Sagittarius A* supermassive black hole, as seen by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Nobody has yet seen the black hole directly (Image: NASA)

Supposedly theres a black hole at the center of the milkyway galaxy.  In fact its theorized that many, if not most or all galaxies have one at the center.  Now, this topic is too much to cover on one post, but lets take a first whack at it.

In general relativity, a black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, including light, can escape its pull. The black hole has a one-way surface, called an event horizon, into which objects can fall, but out of which nothing can come. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits it, reflecting nothing.

Despite its invisible interior, a black hole can reveal its presence through interaction with other matter. A black hole can be inferred by tracking the movement of a group of stars that orbit a region in space which looks empty. Alternatively, one can see gas falling into a relatively small black hole, from a companion star. This gas spirals inward, heating up to very high temperature and emitting large amounts of radiation that can be detected from earthbound and earth-orbiting telescopes. Such observations have resulted in the general scientific consensus that, barring a breakdown in our understanding of nature, black holes do exist in our universe.^[2]

In case you didnt know, and for simplicity's sake, general relativity is Einstein's theory that describes gravity.  Its a great theory, answers a lot of questions about how the heavens work; definitely have to do a post about that.  Now, back to Black Holes.  There are a couple of problems with them.  For one they're only theoretical.  No one has ever seen one.  You could say duh, but dont; Ill get to that in a minute.  Another problem is that according to the theory of general relativity, what happens at the center of the black hole is quite mind boggling, and probably impossible.  Its called the singularity.

At the center of a black hole lies the singularity, where matter is crushed to infinite density, the pull of gravity is infinitely strong, and spacetime has infinite curvature.  This means that a black hole's mass becomes entirely compressed into a region with zero volume. This zero-volume, infinitely dense region at the center of a black hole is called a gravitational singularity.

The singularity of a non-rotating black hole has zero length, width, and height; a rotating black hole's is smeared out to form a ring shape lying in the plane of rotation.  The ring still has no thickness and hence no volume.

The appearance of singularities in general relativity is commonly perceived as signaling the breakdown of the theory.

Anytime you have something that indicates that our basic understanding of the universe is not complete or even wrong, it should make you stand up and take notice.  Thus, black holes are not just interesting, but crucial to understand if we are to make any sense of things.  Since no one has ever seen one, it makes the whole proposition a little more difficult to figure out.  Now we have detected the shape of them (we think), and we believe they are very important to regulating the development of galaxies but we've never seen them.  Yet...

Astronomers are working to tie together a network of microwave telescopes across the planet to make a single instrument with the most acute vision yet. They will turn this giant eye towards what they believe is a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, code name Sagittarius A* (see image).

Soon, Doeleman and his team hope to see the hole's dark silhouette. Then they want to watch matter falling into it in order to trace out the twisted space-time around the black hole. That could tell us how it formed and grew.

These observations will also be the sternest test yet of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which predicts the existence of black holes. If relativity breaks down, Doeleman and his team might not see a black hole at all, but something even stranger.

What we do know for sure is that something big lurks at the centre of our galaxy - because its powerful gravity affects the motion of nearby stars and gas. That something is about 4.5 million times the mass of the sun and crammed into an area the size of the inner solar system. There are few obvious ways to pack stuff in so tightly. Four million suns would be a dead giveaway, for instance. A swarm of neutron stars or small black holes would be highly unstable. So our best bet is one massive black hole.

But, we still cant see it right?

Of course, the black hole itself does not shine since it actually swallows light. That is how we hope to be able to see it: light from gas swirling round the hole will be devoured, so the hole should show up as a shadow or silhouette against the background of hot, shining gas.

Seeing this shadow is not easy. It won't have sharp edges because we will still see light and other radiation from gas in front of the hole. It will also look very small. According to relativity, a black hole of 4.5 million solar masses should be 27 million kilometres across, and even though its gravity warps nearby light rays, making it appear about twice that size (see diagram) it will still seem very small. From our distant viewpoint halfway across the galaxy, that would cover an angle of only about 50 micro-arcseconds - the size a football would appear on the moon, or a small bacterium held at arm's length.

So what happens if we find something unexpected?

It could mean the relativity is radically wrong when it comes to super-strong gravity. And the monster at the centre of the galaxy will be even more shadowy than we thought.

Stay Tuned...

What does it all mean?

Its Saturday night, so its time for the science to give way to philosophy.

Last week we discussed reductionism...the idea that everything can be explained by looking at its components. In the comments everyone had their own perspective...and that's great because as was discussed, no one really knows anyway. Part of the conversation veered towards determinism and indeterminism.

Indeterminism says that at least some things are unpredictable or happen randomly.

Determinism is the concept that everything happens in a completely predictable way. Some might call that fate. We cannot change anything. It was destined to happen. If this is true then how can we have free will?

Last week Merill brought up chaos theory and quantum mechanics . Both raise difficult issues.

As merrill noted:

quantum mechanics in physics, and chaos theory in large systems make determinism implausible...

At a macroscopic level, things may be deterministic -- but it doesn't really matter for certain classes of non-linear systems. You cannot measure the state of the system at one point in time accurately enough to predict what its state will be at a significantly later point in time. So it may as well be non-deterministic. Therefore, the natural universe appears to be non-deterministic.

From Wiki:

In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems - that is, systems whose states evolve with time - that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos

Systems that exhibit mathematical chaos are deterministic and thus orderly in some sense; this technical use of the word is at odds with common parlance, which suggests complete disorder. However, even though they are deterministic, chaotic systems show a strong kind of unpredictability not shown by other deterministic systems.[5]

Devon had this to add:

There's too much out there for any evolutionarily viable organism to take in and process, and as such, there are naturally indeterminately many subsets of information that a complex creature like me (if I may say so myself) could take in. Each complex state I enter, given what I take in, has a range of probable responses. The more complex the organism, presumably, the more varied the possible subsets, and the more varied the possible responses (the tiger peering out from the forest might make me, but not my more fortunate dog, think about Blake, or about the pretty eyes of the girl who dumped me when I was 12, or maybe even about fleeing).

Once you get to a large enough sets of sets of information, behavior becomes difficult for epistemically limited creatures to predict. And reductionism seems implausible, though perhaps only because we're kinda dumb.

Quantum mechanics raises its own issues

But Einstein himself did not accept this. As Einstein famously said "God does not play dice with the universe".  He explained:

I still believe in the possibility of a model of reality - that is, of a theory which represents things themselves and not merely the probability of their occurrence.

I am . . . firmly convinced that the essentially statistical character of contemporary theory is solely to be ascribed to the fact that this theory operates with an incomplete description of physical systems.

Some scientists in an attempt to show that this universe, with its incredibly balanced set of rules that allow us to exist, is indeterministic, try to demonstrate that lots of universes exist. But if everything that can happen, does happen, how is that not deterministic?

And I think the key is things seem indeterministic. Systems appear random, especially complex systems that combine so many interacting variables. But is this true randomness, a function of ignorance or will the universe simply not let us know certain things?  

Personally, For me I don't accept that the universe formed from randomness and that makes some form of determinism almost inescapable. But at the same time, there are so many possibilities and variables, and since this is my first time through the universe (that I'm aware of.)..it all seems new to me; and that's good enough. I'm just along for the ride.

I think we had a great discussion last week. But what about the implications of a deterministic universe. Or of an indeterministic one. Do we have free will even in a predictable universe? What does consciousness add to the system, does it allow us to alter the very nature of the universe? To answer these questions it seems certain that we need to define those terms, and that wont be easy.

So, what is your definition of free will and what is consciousness?

Discuss...and

Stay Tuned...

How our DNA is folded makes a difference...?

Epigenetics, as I mentioned in this previous post, is the science of gene expression (turning them on and off) from outside the actual DNA.  As we learn about the mechanics of gene expression our understanding of 'what is life?' is going to change, since we are learning that it takes more than just DNA to make, or even understand, a being.  There's fertile ground for a number of posts on this subject but today lets tackle chromosomal topography.  Once again Wired has the story:

By linking changes in gene activation to changes in their physical arrangement, researchers provided the clearest evidence yet that the genome's three-dimensional architecture, not just its sequence, determines cell fate and function.

"Genes are not randomly placed in the genome, but they're often next to each other on adjacent chromosomes," said Northwestern University cell biologist Steven Kosak. "You can only understand the genome by knowing what it looks like."

In the last few years, scientists noticed that certain genes only seem to be activated when arranged in a certain configuration. Though unable to explain exactly why this happens, they're convinced that understanding chromosomal topography is absolutely essential to understanding the genome.

"Pick a random person of the street, say 'genome,' and they'll think 'sequence.' But what's becoming clear from the sequencing efforts is that if you want to understand how a genome functions, the sequence won't tell you," said Tom Misteli, a National Cancer Institute cell biologist. "How a genome is organized inside a cell is important. It's a fundamental property of the genome and of cells, but it's been a little forgotten in the focus on sequence."

This is going to take a while, but 20 years from now, we won't even recognize medicine by today's standards.

Stay Tuned...