Selected readings 1/24/10

Interesting reading and news items.

These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account.

Full Speed Ahead

Physical forces acting in and around cells are fast—and making waves in the world of molecular biology. [The Scientist, 12/1/09]

24 Questions for Elementary Physics

One of the motivating ideas that was mentioned more than once was the famous list of important problems proposed by David Hilbert in 1900. These were Hilbert’s personal idea of what math problems were important but solvable over the next 100 years, and his ideas turned out to be relatively influential within twentieth-century mathematics. Our conference, 110 years later and in physics rather than math, was encouraged to think along similarly grandiose lines. [Cosmic Variance, 1/15/10]

Superior Super Earths

Super Earths are named for their size, but these planets - which range from about 2 to 10 Earth masses - could be superior to the Earth when it comes to sustaining life. They could also provide an answer to the ‘Fermi Paradox’: Why haven’t we been visited by aliens? [Physorg.com, 11/30/09]

Super Earths May Be Superior at Fostering Life

Rocky planets found so far are actually more massive than our own. Dimitar Sasselov, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, coined the term "Super-Earths" to reflect their mass rather than any superior qualities. But Sasselov says that these planets – which range from about 2 to 10 Earth masses – could be superior to the Earth when it comes to sustaining life. [Space.com, 12/1/09]

Believers' inferences about God's beliefs are uniquely egocentric

Religious people tend to use their own beliefs as a guide in thinking about what God believes, but are less constrained when reasoning about other people's beliefs, according to new study published in the Nov. 30 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Physorg.com, 11/30/09]

What Is the Meaning of 'One' Plant or Animal?

High cooperation and low conflict between components, from the genetic level on up, give a living thing its "organismality," whether that thing is an animal, a plant, a bacteria -- or a colony. [ScienceDaily, 12/2/09]

Double Sunsets May be Common, But Twin-Star Setups Still Mysterious

The Earth may orbit around a single star, but most stars like our sun are binaries — two stars orbiting each other as a pair. In fact there are many three-star triple systems, even going up perhaps as high as seven-star — or septuplet — systems. Although astronomers once thought these systems might not easily support planets, worlds with multiple sunsets might actually prove common. [Space.com, 1/18/10]

European space missions given cost warning

Europe's scientists have presented the six dream space missions they would like to fly before 2020. The concepts ranged from a quest to map the "dark" components shaping the cosmos, to a plan to find far-off planets that most resemble Earth. [BBC News, 12/2/09]

Quantum computer simulates hydrogen molecule just right

Groups at Harvard and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, have designed and built a computer that hews closely to these specs. It is a quantum computer, as Feynman forecast. And it is the first quantum computer to simulate and calculate the behavior of an atomic, quantum system. [Science News, 1/22/10]

A tale of two qubits: how quantum computers work

Quantum information is the physics of knowledge. To be more specific, the field of quantum information studies the implications that quantum mechanics has on the fundamental nature of information. By studying this relationship between quantum theory and information, it is possible to design a new type of computer—a quantum computer. [Nobel Intent, 1/18/10]

Supernova winds blow galaxies into shape

New computer simulations show that winds generated by supernovas, which are the explosions of massive stars, can push stars out from the center of a dwarf galaxy. This simulation of supernova winds redistributes both ordinary matter and invisible dark matter in a way that almost perfectly matches observations of the way matter is distributed in actual dwarf galaxies. [Science News, 1/13/10]

Fermi’s excellent adventure

Since its launch in June 2008, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has shed light on some of the brightest, most explosive events in the universe and opened tantalizing windows into dark matter and the nature of space-time. [Symmetry, 12/1/09]

The Maverick Bacterium

Whether it’s powering through the cytoplasm leaving a trail of polymerized actin, activating an arsenal of virulence factors through changes in RNA structure, or storing the code for RNA transcripts on the wrong side of DNA, Listeria makes up its own rules for survival. [The Scientist, 1/1/10]

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