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A bit of science for us all. TEAM 0.5 has debuted. What is TEAM? Its the worlds most powerful transmission electron microscope. It gives images with .5 angstrom resolutions, which just so happens to be half the diameter of a single hydrogen atom. It’s located at NCEM at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. THey hope to setup a control room that shows the sample on a screen that looks like an HD flatscreen. 🙂 As of now, their opening date for outside users, is October 08. It corrects for a aberration that has long plagued such high res microscopes that make points of light look like disks. Fixing this has upped the resolution greatly. As of now, they can perform spectroscopy on one atom at a time, which allows scientists to precisely locate impurities of 1 atom per sample.
Here…is a mindblowing example:
Shown here is a gold crystal bridge. Those dots…..those are gold atoms

Thanks Eurekalert, and congrats to the folks at NCEM

A few days ago, an unlikely individual published a paper on the theory of everything. This guy isn’t a college professor or any typical “Einstein” like figure. And yet, he has struck upon a possible theory of everything based on a mathematical pattern. The Theory of Everything 1.0 Beta was essentially Einstein’s Space-Time continuum. TOE 2 was String Theory. It is still a widespread theory though still contested heatedly. And now, TOE3 arises from a mathematical pattern named E8. It is an intricate pattern of 248 points distributed over 8 dimensions.
To introduce the Theory of Everything…it is the holy grail of physics. It is the quest to find a mathethematical set of formulas that would unite the forces of Electromagnetism, strong force, weak force, and gravity. Standard Model as of now unites 3 out of these 4. It leaves gravity alone, as no one has been able to make gravity “work” with the others.
This individual, Garrett Lisi was studying the E8 pattern and realized that some equations about this structure resembled the equations governing particles. He was able to place particles on each of the points. Any blank points left are supposedly particles that we have not yet discovered, such as the elusive graviton. Using the family of patterns that E8 belongs to, he was able to fill the object. By rotating the pattern using a computer and projecting it into 2 dimensions, he could see different interactions between the particles. He could see gravity-electro-weak interactions between particles. So far, all the observations made using this pattern have fit real-world observations. This model uses nothing but simple math and of course…8 dimensional geometry. However, this appears at first glance to be much more elegant and simple than String Theory. We may be seeing the discovery of the Theory of Everything…or, simply a spectacularly wrong theory that is elegant nonetheless. Read the article on NewScientist

I seem to be on a roll here with quantum mechanics and news…weird.

This company has claimed that it will demonstrate a 16-qubit quantum computer! WHats different about this computer? Well, other quantum computers are shy…if they exist in “this” world they don’t work. Thermal noise, outside interactions, would essentially fry the machine. After reading that, i decided that we computer builders don’t have that much to complain about…sure, we have to be aware of static charge…but, these guys have to worry about stray PHOTONS!

However, D-Wave Systems has created one that is immune to such effects, also know as being adiabatic.
Now, lets get into the system.
Its 16 qubits, which means it has 16 quantum bits which is simultaneously 1 and 0. Even though its only 16, it is supposedly able to perform 64,000 calculations simultaneously via parallel “universes”
Hope this thing works 😀
The pictures sure look shiny enough to warrant credit 😛
Check it out at the D Wave blog

Hmm, interesting…

The Freeform fabricator is the size of a microwave…and costs only 2400 dollars. It makes 3d objects out of plastic, and other materials.
Its been used with silicone, plaster, playdoh, chocolate, icing…this is great 😛
I mean..this is just awesome. think of the possiblities…
What would you make using this thing?

Read the article on newscientist (video is also there)

The Compact Muon Solenoid CMS particle detector is being constructed at CERN in Geneva. The thing is HUGE! What its going to do, is have the Large Hadron Collider accelerator hit a particle inside the CMS. It will (should) (better…) show us what the universe may have looked like instants after the big bang and allow us to track and find fun particles. Mainly, the Higgs-Boson. 😀
We shall see….it will be turned on around Christmas 2007. A nice present for those crazy physicists. Yay! Science Daily

Yes…here is another one. Different though. This one is for flying. hehe

It uses microwaves, apparently, as propulsion. It uses a cavity that directs microwaves to bounce around without loosing energy (or less of it) and this increases energy pressure which apparently can push the cavity in one direction. Now, lets see, its being pushed by microwaves.
Microwaves are photons. They have no mass. But! they have momentum. Thus, they actually CAN push things with force. They have very very very^10 small momentum though, so it is his cavity shape that hopefully can magnify the force. I don’t even think to be able to understand this, although the basic idea is easy. Oh, and some chinese company has already tried to buy this. lol
Now, apparently, he also wants to use this for cars. I dont know how well thats going to go, but, check it out here

I gotta say though, the sheer number of promising methods for transporation is just mind bloggling. I can’t believe there are so many of these that arent even getting the attention and funding they deserve.

So, in addition to the air car, we have the ceramic electric car. Yes, its batter powered. No, it doesnt have 5 tons of acid. It uses ceramics to store electricity, similar to a capacitor. Translated: Charges in seconds, doesn’t blow up, and has theoretically infinite number of charge cycles. Its also cheap and holds more power. Their estimate of their car is 500 miles/9 bucks of electricity. Charged in about 5 minutes. Their declaring that it can drive like a Ferrari, I’m going to hold out on that, but seriously, either of these cars actually become reality, we are going to be 😀
Read it here

Yes, 1000 pages per minute.
Sadly, it has not been built. :'(  slight problem there eh?

But, its an interesting printer head that looks plain wierd. Its just plain wierd. Seriously. I dont know how to describe this. Just read it. here. 😉

Now, lets see:
Car runs on plain air. Check
Car works. Check
Car exists. Check
Car to be sold next year. Check
Car can drive from CA to NY on one tank. Check
Car has awesome milage. Check
Car costs ~15,000 bucks. CHECK!

Go Go Go!

Although, I really think their idea of using aluminum as the chassis, is just slightly stupid, as aluminium is flammable. Provided, there is less gasoline in the engine now, but still, its “bloodly flammable.”
The plan uses compressed air as the force to drive the pistons up and down. For higher mileage and speed, it will use a bit of gasoline or biofuel to help the air. Takes a few min to compress all the tanks, which are made of carbon fiber ( 😀 )
It has an onboard compressor 😀 that will do its work in 4 hours when plugged in at home. This sounds more and more like the next revolution in transportation.
Now, lets get this thing into the market shall we?
Check out the video here

Ok, I have to get this straight with everyone who reads flashladybug.
Now, yesterday, CERN’s new neutrino laser came “online.” It was officially commissioned into use.
This is a neutrino laser, mind you. Billions of neutrinos pass through the earth every day, and guess what, we dont feel it, see it, hear it, or anything else it.
Neutrinos have such little effect on matter that their one of the hardest types of particles to detect.
What do you think a neutrino laser would do? It’ll GO THROUGH YOU. Nothing…maybe one random molecular damage hit, 1 in a billion. There are people running around with signs and shrilly screaming that the world is going to end. With all due respect, if one of you is reading this blog right now, I would like to smack you. Hard.
First of all, what you people are frothing at the mouth about is the CERN lasers and particle accelerators creating either mini black holes or stranglets. Now, why in gods name would you protest against the neutrino laser? Its seriously not able to interact with ordinary matter much. Particle acclerators, sure, theres a minute chance that it could happen. Stranglets are theoretical objects, and high speed impacts could perhaps create quark matter. This is not strangelets. Black holes. Lets see, steven hawking first theorized about these things. Tiny black holes that have a fraction of the suns mass. Their properties are similar to normal black holes, only they vaporize in microseconds. Their size and matter within itself expells in its emissions. There wouldnt be any black hole.
Again, its absolutely nonsensical to protest the neutrino laser, and second of all what are they going to do about it?
Yes, the United States Government is going to ban all mini black holes or stranglets. All such objects are hereby illegal and will be considered contraband. Creation or transportation  of such objects will be punishable with a fine no less than 2 trillion dollars and lifetime prison sentence.

*Provided the world still exists
It just aint going to happen. Honestly, think about it. Then, email me if you still think this way. I’m bored. 😉