Take a look at the periodic table and you’ll find that almost all the elements up to the atomic number 94 occur on Earth in relatively decent amounts. In addition, nuclear physicists can prepare samples of elements up to 104 because they form as by-products of the decay of other elements.

Beyond that, the so-called superheavy elements have to be made by hand, using particle accelerators to fuse nuclei together. In this way, physicists have fashioned elements with atomic numbers all the way up to 118. Atoms of these elements survive for only a fraction of a second before decaying, which is why they don’t occur naturally on Earth.

But these elements are more stable than physicists originally thought, leading to the prediction that there ought to be an “island of stability” for superheavy elements further up the periodic table.

That raises an interesting question: why don’t we see these elements on Earth? The answer, according to Amnon Marinov at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is that we do see them, but only in concentrations too small for most analytical techniques to detect.

He’s even claimed to have found the superheavy element 122 in a sample of thorium.

Today, Marinov is back with a similar claim. He says that the superheavy element 111, also known as roentgenium, is chemically similar to gold and so ought to be found in tiny quantities in any lump of gold.

{ The Physics arXiv Blog | Continue reading }

illustration { Lil Fuchs }

Cryogenics is the study of the production of very low temperature (below −150 °C, −238 °F or 123 K) and the behavior of materials at those temperatures.

The word cryogenics stems from Greek and means “the production of freezing cold”; however the term is used today as a synonym for the low-temperature state. It is not well-defined at what point on the temperature scale refrigeration ends and cryogenics begins, but most scientists assume it starts at or below -240 °F (about -150 °C or 123 K).

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

Quitting smoking is certainly healthy for the body, but doctors and scientists haven’t been sure whether quitting makes people happier, especially since conventional wisdom says many smokers use cigarettes to ease anxiety and depression. In a new study, researchers tracked the symptoms of depression in people who were trying to quit and found that they were never happier than when they were being successful, for however long that was.

{ Brown University | Continue reading }

related { Smoking may thin the brain }

photo { Paul Rodriguez }

{ Caravaggio, Ecce Homo, 1605 }

related { Anarchist Survival Guide for Understanding Gestapo Swine Interrogation Mind Games: Staying Free by Shutting the Fuck Up! By anarchist, author, jailhouse lawyer & prisoner Harold H. Thompson }

quote { Charles Baudelaire, ‪Paris spleen, 1869‬ }

Seek serenity to accept what you cannot change, courage to change what you can, and wisdom to know the difference. (…)

We usually have far less control over and understanding of our relations than we think. Sure we can list features we like and dislike, all else equal. And we might be mostly correct about which way those features influence our attraction. Even so, we mostly just don’t know why we like some and dislike others. Sometimes we don’t even realize who it is we like and dislike.

If we calculate that it would be in our interest to like or dislike someone more, we have only a very limited ability to actually make ourselves do this. Even when we decide we’d be better off breaking it off a relation, we can find that quite hard to actually do so. More likely we’ll break something off and then make up reasons about why that was a good idea.

{ Overcoming Bias | Continue reading }

images { 1. unsourced | 2. Toshio Saeki | More: Toshio Saeki, Japan’s master of erotic illustration }

Multitasking, in short, is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think.

Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas.

{ The American Scholar | Continue reading }

FRIEND: so have you decided what you are going to do about the websites?
ZUCK: yea i’m going to fuck them
ZUCK: probably in the year
ZUCK: *ear

In another exchange leaked to Silicon Alley Insider, Zuckerberg explained to a friend that his control of Facebook gave him access to any information he wanted on any Harvard student:

ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don’t know why
ZUCK: they “trust me”
ZUCK: dumb fucks

According to two knowledgeable sources, there are more unpublished IMs that are just as embarrassing and damaging to Zuckerberg. But, in an interview, Breyer told me, “Based on everything I saw in 2006, and after having a great deal of time with Mark, my confidence in him as C.E.O. of Facebook was in no way shaken.”

{ New Yorker | Continue reading }

Chinese netizens have already started selecting the Internet catchphrases of 2010. (…)

Geili Geili used to be a word only spoken in the northern dialect literally meaning “giving power,” but is now widely accepted as an adjective describing something “cool,” “awesome,” or “exciting.” Its antonym “bugeili” means “far from desirable,” “dull” or “boring.”

Magic horse is just floating cloud. “Magic horse” actually does not refer to a horse, but is rather a homophone of “shen me” meaning “what.” “Magic horse” replaced its predecessor “xia mi” as the most popular phrase in the Chinese Internet community shortly after its emergence. “Floating cloud” here indicates “purely imaginary” or “disappearing quickly.” Altogether, the phrase means “nothing is worth mentioning.”

{ People Daily | Continue reading }

Memory difficulties such as those seen in dementia may arise because the brain forms incomplete memories that are more easily confused, new research from the University of Cambridge has found. The findings are published today in the journal Science.

Currently, memory problems are typically perceived to be the result of forgetting previously encountered items or events. The new research (using an animal model of amnesia), however, found that the ability of the brain to maintain complete, detailed memories is disrupted. The remaining, less detailed memories are relatively easily confused, leading to an increased likelihood of falsely remembering information that was not encountered.

Dr Lisa Saksida, from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, said: “This study suggests that a major component of memory problems may actually be confusion between memories, rather than loss of memories per se.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

photo { Susan Meiselas, Returning backstage, Essex Junction, Vermont, 1973, from Carnival Strippers }

{ Kim Beom, Horse Riding Horse (After Eadweard Muybridge), 2008 | screenshot }

Intelligence Hierarchy: Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom

Data: Data is the raw building blocks; it consists of raw numbers, but lack context or meaning. 1,200, 9.6%, and  $170k are all piece of data.

Information: Is the application of structure or order to data, in an attempt to communicate meaning.  Knowing the S&P500 is at 1,200 (up 5% YTD), Unemployment is at 9.6% (down from 11%), and GDP is 2.5% (revised from 2%) are examples.

Knowledge: An understanding of a specific subject, through experience (or education). Typically, knowledge is used in terms of a persons skills or expertise in a given area. Knowledge typically reflects an empirical, rather than intuitive, understanding. Plato referenced it as “justified true belief.”

Wisdom: Optimum judgment, reflecting a deep understanding of people, things, events or situations. A person who has wisdom can effectively apply perception and knowledge in order to produce desired results. Comprehending objectively reality within a broader context.

{ via Barry Ritholtz | Continue reading }

photo { Justin Fantl }

Assuming you’re in a heterosexual relationship, which is worse: for your partner to be unfaithful with a person of the opposite or the same sex?

According to a pair of US psychologists, the answer depends on whether you’re a man or woman. Men, they’ve found, are less likely to continue a relationship with an unfaithful partner who’s had a heterosexual affair, as opposed to a homosexual affair. For women, it’s the other way around - they’re more troubled by their male partner going off with another man.

{ BPS | Continue reading }

What are we to do when people disagree with one another? Is it possible for one argument to be right while another is wrong? Or is everything just a matter of opinion?

In some cases, there is a way to tell good arguments from bad using what is called informal logic. This name distinguishes it from formal logic, which is used in mathematics; natural language is less precise than mathematics, and does not always follow the same rules. (…)

The distinction between validity and truth is important. Technically, logic cannot establish truth; logic can only establish validity. Validity is still useful. If an argument is valid and the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. Once we know that an argument is valid, the premises are the only possible source of disagreement.

{ Ars Technica | Continue reading }

photo { Bob O’Connor }

{ Nicolai Howalt }

NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn’t share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything. (…) NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic.

{ Wired | Continue reading }

Scientists said Thursday that they had trained a bacterium to eat and grow on a diet of arsenic, in place of phosphorus — one of six elements considered essential for life — opening up the possibility that organisms could exist elsewhere in the universe or even here on Earth using biochemical powers we have not yet dared to dream about.

The bacterium, scraped from the bottom of Mono Lake in California and grown for months in a lab mixture containing arsenic, gradually swapped out atoms of phosphorus in its little body for atoms of arsenic.

Scientists said the results, if confirmed, would expand the notion of what life could be and where it could be. “There is basic mystery, when you look at life,” said Dimitar Sasselov, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and director of an institute on the origins of life there, who was not involved in the work. “Nature only uses a restrictive set of molecules and chemical reactions out of many thousands available. This is our first glimmer that maybe there are other options.”

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

photo { Jackson Eaton }

Men and women have been pairing off since the dawn of humanity. For most of its history, marriage was an economic institution that created advantageous alliances between clans and was arranged, often, without much input from the bride or groom. But by the 19th century, many in the Western world had begun to marry for love, making the relationship infinitely more complicated and divorce a lot more common.

Romantic love assumed a position of high value but even higher vulnerability.

Still, until the second half of the 20th century, these ubiquitous couplings went largely unstudied. What happened behind closed doors generally remained private, unless one had a particularly nosy set of in-laws or a manner of fighting that necessitated police intervention.

Marriages, with the power to affect everything from personal income levels to mental and physical health, remained a hazy mystery. But with the advent of the affordable video camera in the late 1960s, psychologists began recording couples’ interactions. The scientists hooked up their subjects to monitors that detected changes in blood pressure or stress hormones, and then coded even their slightest movements — an eye roll or a knuckle crack. The couples were interviewed about their marital satisfaction and were, in some cases, tracked for years.

{ Washington Post | Continue reading }

Unhappy couples in New York have long gone to extremes to throw off the shackles of matrimony—in the worst cases, framing their spouses, producing graphic testimony about affairs, or even confessing to crimes they did not commit. All this will fade into the past if, as expected, Gov. David Paterson signs a bill making New York the last state in the country to adopt unilateral no-fault divorce.

Their counterparts in other states have had it much easier. California adopted the first no-fault divorce bill in 1970; by 1985, every other state in the nation—but one—had passed similar laws. In New York, the miserably married must still charge each other with cruel and inhuman treatment, adultery or abandonment—or wait one year after a mutually agreed legal separation—in order to divorce.

{ Wall Street Journal | Continue reading }

Why does a child grow up to become a lawyer, a politician, a professional athlete, an environmentalist or a churchgoer?

It’s determined by our inherited genes, say some researchers. Still others say the driving force is our upbringing and the nurturing we get from our parents.

But a new child-development theory bridges those two models, says psychologist George W. Holden at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Holden’s theory holds that the way a child turns out can be determined in large part by the day-to-day decisions made by the parents who guide that child’s growth.

Parental guidance is key. Child development researchers largely have ignored the importance of parental “guidance,” Holden says. In his model, effective parents observe, recognize and assess their child’s individual genetic characteristics, then cultivate their child’s strengths.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

In 2005, the French city of Lyon introduced a shared bicycle system called Velo’v that has since inspired numerous other schemes around the world.

Velo’v differed from earlier schemes in its innovative technology, such as electronic locks, onboard computers and access via smart cards. The system now offers some 4000 bikes at almost 350 stations around the city. (…)

Since its introduction, the system has kept track of the start and finishing location plus travel time of every journey. Today, we get a detailed analysis of this data. (…)

Some of what they found is unsurprising. Over an average trip, cyclists travel 2.49 km in 14.7 minutes so their average speed is about 10 km/h. (…) During the rush hour, however, the average speed rises to almost 15 km/h, a speed which outstrips the average car speed. (…)

Curiously, the Wednesday morning speeds are systematically higher than on other days, even though there is no change in other factors such as the number of cars. This, say Jensen and co, is probably because women tend to stay at home and look after their children on a Wednesday in France. So the higher proportion of men pushes up the average speed.

{ The Physics arXiv Blog | Continue reading }

{ Deceptive AssVertising | Copyranter }