Check what China is up to

There's some hot shit in this wikileaked cables!

Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak ... was designed to be a controlled nuclear fusion tokamark reactor with superconductive toroidal and poloidal field magnets and a D-shaped cross-section. One of the experimental goals of this device was to prove that a nuclear fusion reaction can be sustained indefinitely, at high enough temperatures, to produce energy in a cost-effective way. In 2009, IIP successfully maintained a 10 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for 400 seconds. IIP also successfully maintained a 100 million degree Celsius plasma nuclear fusion reaction for 60 seconds. ...

The Chinese Academy of Science ... has developed a biometrics device that uses a person’s pace to identify them.  The device measure weight and two-dimensional sheer forces applied by a person’s foot during walking to create a uniquely identifiable biometrics profile. The device can be covertly installed in a floor and is able to collect ... biometrics data on individuals covertly without their knowledge. When questioned about the device’s potential applications, IIM officials stated the device was being used by “secret” customers and was not available on the commercial market. ...

Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale (HFNL). HFNL has 95 faculty members and roughly 400 graduate students. HFNL research focuses on quantum communication, nanoscience, superconductors, spintronics, and cognitive sciences. In the area of quantum communication, HFNL was conducting research in quantum teleportation and free space quantum cryptography that scientists hope will result in “totally secure” communications. USTC also oversees China’s “Program 178,” although they did not describe the nature of this program. (COMMENT: A cursory walk through their labs seemed to indicate they had already succeeded in single-particle quantum teleportation and are now trying to conduct dual-particle quantum teleportation. END COMMENT)

via wikileaks | img

The next big thing in weight loss: Freeze your ass off

ZELTIQ out of Pleasanton, CA has received FDA approval to market its CoolSculpting system for noninvasive reduction of fat in 'love handles'. The device essentially freezes fat cells under the skin, killing them in the process. It then takes a few weeks for the apoptosis to work itself out and the company claims patients can expect an average 20% fat reduction in the treatment area. The CoolSculpting procedure is not meant as a tool for weight-loss, but to specifically help shape the flank.

I give it less than a year before we hear about some idiot nearly killing himself trying this @ home with liquid nitrogen. Hey, it beats giving up krispy kreme. 


Source: News, image

Migrating birds can see the earth's magnetic field out of their right eyes

... but not their left eye. If the theory is correct, the magnetic field is represented by a dark shading over the rest of the visual image.

From a User-Experience standpoint (yes, I'm a nerd), that's friggin brilliant. I am looking forward to when I can get compass-equipped contact lenses.

source, img credit

Gremlins with a time machine

Two physicists suggest that the interference from the future is causing bad luck to our high-energy physics experiments:

“It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr. Nielsen said in an e-mail message. In an unpublished essay, Dr. Nielson said of the theory, “Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God.” It is their guess, he went on, “that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”

This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the United States Superconducting Supercollider, also designed to find the Higgs, was canceled in 1993 after billions of dollars had already been spent, an event so unlikely that Dr. Nielsen calls it an “anti-miracle.”

via NYT (reg. req.)

Sunday funnies

marriedtothesea.com

also, spanish scientists develop echolocation in humans.

UPDATE: I really thought it was Sunday.

Empirical results to tatoo on my nutsack

Now a new paper, published by the journal Contraception, culls evidence from several studies to argue that withdrawal is actually nearly as effective as condoms in preventing pregnancy. The paper reports that couples who practice withdrawal perfectly over the course of a year -- meaning the male partner always pulls out before ejaculation -- have only a 4 percent pregnancy rate. More "typical" couples using withdrawal (those who sometimes mess up) have a pregnancy rate of 18 percent. |Dana Goldstein|

Friday

At the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project, where thousands of samples of seized marijuana are tested every year, project director Mahmoud ElSohly said some samples have THC levels exceeding 30 percent.

Average THC concentrations will continue to climb before leveling off at 15 percent or 16 percent in five to 10 years, ElSohly predicted.

The stronger marijuana is of particular concern because high concentrations of THC have the opposite effect of low concentrations, officials say. |CNN|

Is the Potency Monitoring Project hiring? I've got some methodological innovations that I'd like to field test.

More seriously, I'd like to know the basis of ElSohly's hypothesis about future patterns of potency growth. My bullshit theory is that he thinks that border brick weed, now testing at an all time high of 7.3%, will never approach the 30% THC concentration found in the dankest buds.

But what the hell does that third paragraph mean about "the opposite effect"? Is the point that ditch weed doesn't get you high? Because I figured that out the hard way years ago, and it doesn't make me think that high potency is any kind of problem.

Putting the bullet back in the "Brain Research Bulletin"

From the NZH:

Personality types are linked with structural differences in the brain - which could explain why one child grows up to be impulsive and outgoing while another becomes diligent and introspective.

If the findings are confirmed by other scientists, they suggest that children are not only born with a given personality type, but they develop anatomically different brains as a result of being that sort of person. It raises the prospect of being able to test a young child's future personality by viewing the anatomy of their brain with a hospital scanner.

"If you are looking at volume, you are quantifying the tissue that is there. What we found was not just speculative. There is quite a bit of difference between people with different personality traits," said Professor Venneri.

The study is to be published in the journal Brain Research Bulletin.

Of course, within the constraints of their hard-coded personalities, people clearly exercise free will.

Science FTW

This has promise:

The solution looks, smells and tastes like water, but carries an ion imbalance that makes short work of bacteria, viruses and even hard-to-kill spores.

Developed by Oculus Innovative Sciences in Petaluma, the super-oxygenated water is claimed to be as effective a disinfectant as chlorine bleach, but is harmless to people, animals and plants. If accidentally ingested by a child, the likely impact is a bad case of clean teeth.

Oculus said the solution, called Microcyn, may prove effective in the fight against superbugs, crossover viruses like bird flu and Ebola, and bioterrorism threats such as anthrax.
| Wired: "Super Water Kills Bugs Dead" |

Really hard to say how much of the news about Microcyn was authored by the Oculus marketing department, but I'll keep an eye out.

By the way

I was chatting with a biologist who works on aging, and he said that, as far as folk remedies go, two seem to stand out in terms of their success in fighting aging.

1) Semi-starvation. A very, very low calorie diet can lengthen life expectancy significantly.

2) Drink the blood of the young (although a transfusion might be better). As we grow older our stem cells die off, and this causes many of the symptoms of aging. By introducing the blood of the young into our system, we can replenish our supply of stem cellls.

My biologist friend, by the way, claims not to engage in either practice. His hopes lie instead with gene therapy. "Living forever would be a mark of professional success," he told me.