A very nice explanation of how the protons in the LHC are created, accelerated and eventually forced to collide:

See also: How the Large Hadron Collider Works

Anatomy of a Stock Selling Frenzy

From the article:

In case you missed the brouhaha on Monday, United Airlines’ stock dropped from $12.50 to $3 per share in the matter of 15 minutes because of an Internet bot

The article then follows through the chain of events to explain exactly what happened. It is incredible to think that many people probably lost 75% of their money, and many others made 75% 15 minutes later.

There is a new way to create color prints. It uses no cartridges, no inks. The color is in the paper, activated by heat. This article describes the idea:

Ink Inc.

You can see a printer in action here:

For more info see: Zink.com

[See previous invention]

Do you “check your e-mail more than once an hour”? Then you may be an email addict. Check the warning signs here:

E-Mail Addiction: Five Signs You Need Help

Or perhaps its worse than you think. You might be addicted to the Internet:

A New Addiction: Internet Junkies

[See previous PSA]

Webcams on the ground: LHC Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment Webcams

Here is the satellite view as well: Earth Webcam

[See previous Funny]

This article looks back at the disaster that arrived as Windows Vista was released, and also explores what needs to be different in Windows 7.

Exclusive Interview: Microsoft Admits What Went Wrong with Vista, and How They Fixed It

Microsoft are co. are also pushing out videos showing some of the new features in Windows 7:

If you have played with the Microsoft Surface demo machine, you will see some similarities. Several of the demos shown are straight off the Surface.

Humans and other primates have spent millennia evolving the ability to understand very subtle facial expressions. So if robots can mimic human expressions, they are likely to be better accepted and better “understood”. This fascinating video shows the latest in hyper-realistic robots, as well as more stylized robots that can nonetheless convey expressions:

VIDEO: Robots “Express Themselves”

This article explains the huge problems seen at the Freedom Tower construction site:

Of Time and the Freedom Tower

From the article:

The toughest of all ground zero questions is: What’s taking so long? The reason it’s so tough to answer isn’t because there are no answers; it’s tough because none of the dozens of answers is a sound bite, and trying to parse them is like uncrumpling a train wreck.

Here’s what it looks like today:

Here’s what it will look like:

[See previous Doesn’t Work]

Fermilab Looks for Visitors from Another Dimension - “The detection of extra dimensions beyond the familiar four—the three dimensions of space and one of time—would be among the most earth-shattering discoveries in the history of physics. Now scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., are designing a new experiment that would investigate tantalizing hints that extra dimensions may indeed exist…”

The Amazing 150″ Panasonic Life Wall TV Learns Your Preferences - “How about having a TV that will move with you as you walk around the living room to keep the display right in front of you? The display would be large or small depending on how far away from the screen you were. It could display a screen saver instead of a black screen when turned off…”

A week of Chrome: Google’s browser gets 7% share at Ars - “Net Applications, which has been tracking Chrome market share on an hourly basis, shows that the browser’s popularity peaked at roughly 1.7 percent of the global browser market on September 5. It has fluctuated in waves since then and is currently hovering around 1 percent. According to Net Applications, Chrome has already passed Netscape and Opera, which are both around 0.75 percent…”

Run Windows Apps 100% Seamlessly on Ubuntu! - “But running an app on a virtual machine doesn’t eliminate Windows from the equation. Right? So I will show you now how to run Windows apps 100% seamlessly on Ubuntu. You know something like this…”

10 interesting open source software forks and why they happened - “Much of the open source software that is in popular use today was born from other projects. We thought it would be interesting to take a look at the history of some of these software forks and find out WHY they happened in the first place…”

DRIVABLE STAR WARS LANDSPEEDER - “This Star Wars Landspeeder is a full-sized, drivable, Jedi-approved replica built by former LucasFilm employee Daniel Deutsch, who designed his version from the ground up. Neatorama dug up this 1:1 scale speeder, which has a custom aluminum chassis, fiberglass body, and an electric drive system that hits lightspeed at 25 mph…”

The First City in the U.S. to Make Natural Gas from Our Poop - “A composting toiletSan Antonio, Texas will be the first city in the United States to produce natural gas from the methane that comes from the poop of its residents on a large, profitable scale. Our excrement is being more technically referred to as “biosolids” by the companies and agencies involved in the project. And the project is by no means a joke…”

U-M physicists’ analysis leads to discovery of new particle - “University of Michigan physicists played a leading role in the discovery of a new particle, the Omega b baryon, which is an exotic relative of the proton. It was detected for the first time in a particle accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois, Fermilab has announced…”

Researchers Developing the “Internet for Energy” - “The center will develop technology to transform the United States’ outdated centralized power grid to a “smart” grid that can store and distribute alternative energy from solar panels, wind farms, and more. The center’s plan even allows for community involvement— individual citizens can harvest their own energy and sell it back to power companies…”

The observations reveal that the jets of the gamma-ray burst called GRB 080319B were aimed almost directly at the Earth. - “Astronomers from around the world combined data from ground- and space-based telescopes to paint a detailed portrait of the brightest explosion ever seen. The observations reveal that the jets of the gamma-ray burst called GRB 080319B were aimed almost directly at the Earth…”

Melting ice caps could suck carbon from atmosphere
- “It’s not often that disappearing Arctic ice is presented as good news for the planet. Yet new research suggests that as the northern polar cap melts, it could lift the lid off a new carbon sink capable of soaking up carbon dioxide…”

[See previous IR]

The XR3 is a hybrid car that claims to get up to 225 MPG and can be built for about $25,000:

The XR3 Do-it-yourself Hybrid

Here’s a view of the XR3 on the road:

To order plans and read more about the car, go to: The XR-3 Hybrid

[See previous DIY]

We try so hard to communicate with each other…

15 funny signs

[See previous Funny]

What is global dimming? Here’s the answer:

Blue skies, scorched Earth? What is Global Dimming?

See also this video on global dimming:

- global dimming part 2

- global dimming part 3

Also interesting: Study: If we painted every rooftop in 100 major cities white, it would offset the entire planet’s carbon dioxide emissions for one year. That’s nearly 44 metric gigatons.

[See previous question]

Ever thought about how ridiculous the prices of cell phone text messages are? If your provider charges 5 cents for a 100 character text message, that works out to $500 per megabyte. It’s nuts. Finally, congress is taking a look:

Congress questions high cost of texting

From the article:

The price of text messaging has doubled industry-wide in the last three years, and Congress wants to know why.

Sen Herb Kohl, chair of the Antitrust Subcommittee in the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter Tuesday to the four major wireless carriers–AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile–asking them to explain the dramatic price increases for text messaging services…

[See previous Doesn’t Work]

Here’s the answer:

What Happens if You Fall Into a Black Hole?

Also interesting: Maximizing Survival Time Inside the Event Horizon of a Black Hole

[See previous question]

It’s called Swype, and it is a new way to enter text on touch screens. After a little training, it’s claimed that people can hit 50 words a minute:

Here is a Q&A session:

The evolution of the college dorm

[See previous photos]

Should you call it pop or soda? Here’s the answer:

The Pop Vs Soda Map

[See previous Question]

Build Linux lab equipment from a Sony PLAYSTATION 3 - ” In this series of articles I will be using a Cell/B.E. processor resident within an off-the-shelf PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) to build a Linux-hosted piece of laboratory equipment, namely a simple audio-bandwidth spectrum analyzer and function generator…”

ET could ‘tickle’ stars to create galactic internet - “Advanced extraterrestrial civilisations may be sending signals through space by “tickling” stars, new research suggests. The signalling would be the galactic equivalent of the internet…”

Ten things you don’t know about the Earth - “Good advice from the 70s progressive band. Look around you. Unless you’re one of the Apollo astronauts, you’ve lived your entire life within a few hundred kilometers of the surface of the Earth. There’s a whole planet beneath your feet, 6.6 sextillion tons of it, one trillion cubic kilometers of it. But how well do you know it?”

NASA’s options for space program dwindling - “NASA is about out of options for keeping U.S. astronauts in space after 2011. Unless President George Bush intervenes, or whoever succeeds him in January immediately steps into the space arena, the dismantling of the space shuttle program will be too far along to reverse course…”

Q: How do you make the object of your affections fall in love with you? A: Take them for a ride on a rollercoaster - “If you fancy someone and want them to fall for you the usual plan of action involves flowers, chocolates or just a few meaningful glances…”

How long would it take the LHC to defrost a pizza? - “Forget black holes. Here’s the real question about the Large Hadron Collider: How fast could it defrost a pizza?”

Why delaying gratification is smart: A neural link between intelligence and self-control - “If you had a choice between receiving $1,000 right now or $4,000 ten years from now, which would you pick? Psychologists use the term “delay discounting” to describe our inability to resist the temptation of a smaller immediate reward in lieu of receiving a larger reward at a later date. Discounting future rewards too much is a form of impulsivity, and an important way in which we can neglect to exert self-control…”

Why drunks forget the embarrassing things they do - “Research at the University of Sussex has found that alcohol influences the brain’s ability to form memories, making memories before a drink stronger and memories of things that happen while under the influence weaker…”

Bus of future rolled out for first test drive - “California’s dream of using self-steering buses to fight traffic congestion made headway in San Leandro on Friday when UC Berkeley researchers conducted their first test on a public street of a bus guided by magnets…”

Magnetic Brains Give Birds An Inner Compass - “Birds have good vision, but their brains turn out to be even more eagle-eyed…”

Top 10 Most Famous Hackers of All Time - “The reality, however, is that hackers are a very diverse bunch, a group simultaneously blamed with causing billions of dollars in damages as well as credited with the development of the World Wide Web and the founding of major tech companies. In this article, we test the theory that truth is better than fiction by introducing you to ten of the most famous hackers, both nefarious and heroic, to let you decide for yourself…”

Large Hadron Collider: Best- and Worst-Case Scenarios - “We break down how five major physics theories — and the theorists who’ve spent their lives developing them — may be impacted by the discoveries that could emanate from the LHC. We also provide answers to all your LHC FAQ in 140 characters or less, so you can send them to your friends on Twitter…”

The future of gaming is all in the mind - “Be excited, but be scared. A world of mind-blowing possibilities is suddenly being thrust upon the world of video gaming…”

Can Diesel Ever Become Fashionable In The U.S.? - “There has been overwhelming response to my story this week, “The 65 MPG Ford The U.S. Can’t Have.”The fact that the story has gotten picked up on so many news aggregators, blogs and other sites tells me there is a huge appetite for fuel efficient cars despite the recent drop in oil and gasoline prices…”

7 Years of iPod: What You Paid and What You Got - “With yesterday’s refresh to Apple’s iPod line, it was hard not to feel at least a little deja vu. I’ve been following new iPod announcements—which often come more than once a year—since 2001, when the first iPod showed up in stores for an astronomical $399…”

Laptop delivers all-day computing - “Hewlett-Packard (HP), the world’s largest computer company, has developed a new generation of laptops with a 24-hour battery life…”

Google Considering Internet Search Version 2.0 - “The future of Google search might look a lot like the current set up on sites like Reddit where users can submit, comment on, and vote for links they like. A limited number of Google users have begun to see up and down arrows next to all links on a search result page, and a place to leave comments about a website that appears in said search results…”

[See previous IR]

Here’s the answer:

The 28 Best Wii Games!

I had no idea…

[See previous question]

Helium and Sulfur hexafluoride:

Xenon:

…and educational at the same time:

History of the browser user-agent string

See also:

Even more detail: Why Mozilla is committed to Gecko as WebKit popularity grows

[See previous Funny]

There is something new in the TSA: behavior detection officers. It’s also called psychological screening. behavior detection officers WATCH passengers and try to recognize ourward signs of fear, stress or deception.

This article describes the effort in more detail:

How to Spot a Terrorist on the Fly

From the article:

Imagine if that screener had been taught to discern the signs of deception in a person’s facial expressions, voice, body language and gestures. With such training, he could have been confident enough to report the hijacker’s behavior. SPOT, which the Transportation Security Administration introduced this year at 14 U.S. airports, including Washington’s Dulles International, is the first attempt at using observational techniques as part of our security approach, and it is promising. Preliminary findings show that the overwhelming number of those who are taken out of line and detained for further investigation were intending to commit or had committed some kind of wrongdoing: They were wanted criminals, drug smugglers, money smugglers, illegal immigrants — and, yes, a few were suspected terrorists.

SPOT’s officers, working in pairs, stand off to the side, scanning passengers at a security checkpoint for signs of any behaviors on the officers’ checklist, such as repeated patting of the chest — which might mean that a bomb is strapped too tightly under a person’s jacket — or a micro-expression.

The items on the SPOT checklist are culled from law enforcement experience and research on deception and demeanor. What about your face, voice and body betrays the fact that you’re lying?

[See previous PSA]

If you watch this video, you can see a very curious effect. At the beginning of the video, you see a large puddle of water with wind-blown ripples on the surface. By pouring a little bit of oil onto the water, you can eliminate the ripples. As the video progresses and the oil spreads, the surface of the puddle becomes completely smooth:

This effect explains the term “oil slick”. If there is an oil spill, it will calm the water, making it appear smooth and slick.

Why does this happen? The layer of oil can only be a few molecules thick in the video, so how is it able to have such an obvious effect?

First it is helpful to understand waves:

Ocean Waves Styles and Patterns

Oil on the surface of water will calm capillary waves. It does not have an effect on swells. In the puddle seen above, all of the waves are capillary waves, so the water becomes completely smooth.

This paper contains a number of images:

Oils and surfactants

The main idea of the article is to show how ships can be detected by looking for the oil-calmed water behind them. In addition, figure 11.8 shows how ocean water with swells is calmed by oil. The capillary waves are removed but the swells remain.

Here is a complete answer to the question, starting on page 494. The answer itself is on page 501:

Why a film of oil can calm the sea

[See previous question]

There are about 10,000 pieces of space junk greater than 10 cm in size orbiting the earth. If you go down to 1 cm, there’s perhaps half a million.

One way to find space debris:

Countdown to man’s Big Bang begins - “Scientists are today preparing to switch on the world’s biggest scientific experiment…”

Did we out-breed slow-maturing Neanderthals? - “Neanderthal women had just as much trouble in childbirth as modern women – and their kids took just as long to grow up…”

Memory Enhanced By Sports-cheat Drug - “A drug used to increase blood production in both medical treatments and athletic doping scandals seems also to improve memory in those using it. New research shows that the memory enhancing effects of erythropoietin (EPO) are not related to its effects on blood production but due to direct influences on neurons in the brain…”

French revolt over Edvige: Nicolas Sarkozy’s Big Brother spy computer - “President Nicolas Sarkozy faced an embarrassing split in his Cabinet today over a computer system that a new French internal intelligence service will use to spy on the private lives of millions of law-abiding citizens…”

Exercise trumps obesity gene in study - “Vigorous physical activity can help even people genetically prone to obesity keep the weight off, U.S. researchers said on Monday…”

What to Expect from Google in the Next 10 Years - “Fine, but we at eWEEK are more interested in what Google will do in the next 10 years. Come along for the ride…”

Top 10 Amazing Physics Videos - “Mythbust Tesla coils, superconductors, and hilarious music videos are great reasons to be excited about physics. Here are some of our favorites…”

Clumps Growing on Phoenix Lander Legs - “Clumps of material have adhered to the legs of the Phoenix Mars Lander, and the clumps continue to change and grow. The science team has discussed various possible explanations for these clumps…”

How Many Americans? - “When the Census Bureau released its new population projections last month, most of the media focused on the country’s changing racial composition. But this was almost certainly not the most important finding. The projections show that the U.S. population will grow by 135 million in just 42 years — a 44 percent increase…”

Human Genetics is Now a Viable Hobby — 23andMe Cuts its Price to $399 - “Personalized genomics just got a lot more accessible. Until tonight, the cheapest genome scan was available for just under a thousand dollars. Thanks to improvements in microarray technology, 23andMe has been able to cut that cost by more than half — to $399 — well within the reach of cash-strapped grad students, frugal genealogy buffs and other not-so-early adopters…”

Land Of Big Science - “The Large Hadron Collider is a symptom of America’s decline in particle physics and, some fear, in science overall…”

[See previous IR]

Here’s the answer:

How Much Will Vanishing Glaciers Raise Sea Levels?

[See previous question]

The ElectraFlyer C is a fully electric plane with the following features:
- 18 HP DC motor
- Lithium-polymer batteries
- 5.6 kilowatt-hour battery capacity
- Batteries weigh 78 pounds
- 75 volts at 200 amps at takeoff
- About 2 hours to recharge
- A full charge costs 60 cents for the electricity, and flies for about 1.5 hours
- Cruise speed is about 70 MPH
- Airframe is a Moni Motorglider

The most amazing thing is the flying cost, as described in this article:

ElectraFlyer-C electric mini plane makes flying cheaper than driving

From the article:

Costs? A full charge will cost you around 60 cents depending on where your power comes from. The battery pack can last 1000 cycles (charging and depleting) and then you would need to buy another lithium ion battery pack. The top end battery pack costs 8,500 $. So that is 1000 cycles = 1500 flying hours at a cost of 6.2 $ per hour! (cost of battery replacement divided by flying hours plus 60 cents per charging cycle).

Here is the plane in action and a description:

For more info see: See #53]

The Ford Nucleon was the 1950’s version of the nuclear car:

The Atomic Automobile

From the article:

It was during this honeymoon with nuclear energy– in 1957– that the Ford Motor Company unveiled the most ambitious project in their history: a concept vehicle which had a sleek futuristic look, emitted no harmful vapors, and offered incredible fuel mileage far beyond that of the most efficient cars ever built. This automobile-of-the-future was called the Ford Nucleon, named for its highly unique design feature… a pint-size atomic fission reactor in the trunk.

[See previous BFTP]

Awesome Football Trick Play - Watch more free videos

[See previous Funny]

We have been hearing about Spore for years, and now it is finally here.

Unfortunately, Spore is getting lots of negative publicity for its Digital Rights Management (DRM), AKA copy-protection. This article describes the problem:

Gamers fight back against lackluster Spore gameplay, bad DRM

From the article:

Another gamer was just as blunt. “The DRM on this thing is less friendly than my recent colonoscopy—you get three installs. That’s it. No install returned for uninstallation, or anything else. You install it three times, then you’re out $50,” they wrote. “I won’t rent my video games, EA.”

The game itself is getting decent reviews, like this:

12 years later… we’re playing Spore

See also:

[See previous Doesn’t Work]