Agg. 16.50
We did it! Trovate! Gabriela Gonzales di LIGO – raggiante – spiega come e ne fa ascoltare il suono, però “allungato”. Paper sulle Phys. Rev. Lett. in open access, server debordato; altri a seguire anche sull’Astrophysical Journal.
Commento di Davide Castelvecchi e Alexandra Witze su Nature (link aggiunti)
At 10.50 a.m. Central European Time on 14 September, during the experiment’s first observing run, LIGO physicist Marco Drago at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover, Germany, saw a strange signal on his computer. …
Adrian Cho, su Science
Proving that gravitational waves exist may not be LIGO’s most important legacy, as there has been compelling indirect evidence for them. In 1974, U.S. astronomers Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor discovered a pair of radio-emitting neutron stars called pulsars orbiting each other. By timing the pulsars, Taylor and colleague Joel Weisberg demonstrated that they are very slowly spiraling toward each other—as they should if they’re radiating gravitational waves. (…)
Non è finita, ci sarebbero altri flebili cirp cirp da analizzare:
Meanwhile, other detections may come quickly. LIGO researchers are still analyzing data from their first observing run with their upgraded detectors, which ended 12 January, and they plan to start taking data again in July. A team in Italy hopes to turn on its rebuilt VIRGO detector—an interferometer with 3-kilometer arms—later this year. Physicists eagerly await the next wave.
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Il telescopio Santilli, parte seconda, è su Oggi Scienza, segnalo agli aspiranti al titolo “criminale giude*” e “arab* servile” conferito dall’invasatoventore.
Per non sgranocchiarmi le unghie fino al gomito e alle 16,30 ora italiana quando inizia la conferenza stampa di LIGO, ho letto questo su Nature:
– ieri dicevo che i paper su Ebola sono in open access. Joshua Quick (nome omen) e molti altri, anche cervelli nostrani in fuga, descrivono un “laboratorio portatile” (circa 40 kg…). Al pari di uno specializzato, identifica le mutazioni genetiche del virus in 24 ore, con un sequenziatore MinION che pesa solo 100 grammi abbinato un laptop. Articolo esemplare anche per la quantità di dati resi subito accessibili e le collaborazioni sul campo per collaudare l’affidabilità del lab durante l’epidemia.
– Steinke et al. del Lawrence Berkeley National Lab propongono un acceleratore a plasma con doppio laser che consente di saltare tappe intermedie, risparmiando tempo ed energia
This represents a milestone in the development of laser-driven, plasma-based accelerators for particle colliders, and for any other LPA application that requires electron energies beyond the limits of single stages.
Piccolino e compatto, ma al contrario dell’ e-cat “a osso di cane” e a “pacchetto di sigarette” o della prodigiosa o-cat Leonarda 8.0, consuma energia invece di produrne.
– Nooo, Mitchell Waldrop scrive
Next month, the worldwide semiconductor industry will formally acknowledge what has become increasingly obvious to everyone involved: Moore’s law, the principle that has powered the information-technology revolution since the 1960s, is nearing its end.
Per fortuna:
Everyone agrees that the twilight of Moore’s law will not mean the end of progress. “Think about what happened to airplanes,” says Reed. “A Boeing 787 doesn’t go any faster than a 707 did in the 1950s — but they are very different airplanes”, with innovations ranging from fully electronic controls to a carbon-fibre fuselage. That’s what will happen with computers, he says: “Innovation will absolutely continue — but it will be more nuanced and complicated.”
– un editoriale chiede un applauso per Jimmy Carter che attraverso la sua fondazione ha eradicato la terribile dracunculiasi in Africa subsahariana – salvo in pochi villaggi sulle rive del Ciad, dove i cani si infettano con il verme mangiando scarti di pesce.- L’anno scorso ci sono state 22 vittime rispetto a 3,500 milioni/anno negli anni Ottanta:
There is no vaccine or treatment for Guinea worm, and eradication efforts have focused on community-based approaches to change behaviour, such as teaching people to filter all drinking water, to avoid recontaminating water sources, and to report cases to health authorities.
– il terzo se la prende con la moda fra i politici dei BECCS, che sta per “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage” e dovrebbe ridurre magicamente la CO2 atmosferica, nessuno sa come
Yet at the Paris climate talks late last year, which were widely acclaimed as a triumph, the BECCS scheme was quietly installed as the world’s Plan A.
That’s because it comes with a very catchy tune that politicians can’t get out of their heads. BECCS solves the problem of future carbon emissions and cleans up the past. The plants suck CO2 from the atmosphere, which ends up safely underground. We get the benefit of burning them to generate electricity, the world gets to keep its power infrastructure, and the atmosphere experiences what BECCS enthusiasts call negative emissions. Rather brilliantly, the more energy the scheme produces, the more the planet edges away from dangerous levels of global warming.
E un pony…
Non esistono studi affidabili né sono previste ricerche, scrive Phil Williamson, altrettanto scettico di Kevin Anderson a dicembre. Meno male, prima sembravano scettiche solo le Ong contro la fame.