Still science-ing…

Hey, I’m still here! I’ve just been stuck in Armstrong (the armpit of Ontario) for the past month in a not-so-awesome hotel, so keep it real just for a few more days! Then keep it real some more…

The LHC: What is it?

I’ve been meaning to write something about the LHC for awhile now, and since we’re on the verge of it’s re-start, I figured I’d get’er done and get something out.

For those who are new to the LHC, hopefully I can give you some super cheap and easy run-down about what it is, because even I won’t be able to explain it very well.

The LHC stands for Large Hadron Collider, and is in essence, a particle accelerator.  It’s built in the shape of a ring so particles sent in opposite directions along the ring will eventually collide.  The circumference of this beast is roughly 27km, making it the largest particle accelerator in the world.  It’s based in Geneva, Switzerland, but it’s shear size (it’s about 100m underground, by the way) puts half of it over the border into France.

One of the giant magnets of the LHC.

In a sense, this is basically a giant physics experiment.  So big in fact, that it cost a solid £2.6 billion (roughly $4.6 billion), spread over the cooperation of 20 European countries.  The entire instrument was created by CERN, or the European Center of Nuclear Research.  If you’re curious how that acronym  works, CERN stands for the french version (Centre European de Researche Nucleaire).

While the LHC was built over the years from 1996 to 2004, it’s first start-up was not until August 2008, which ended with some faulty wiring (can’t remember the cause), causing it to shut down for repairs.  With a re-start planned for sometime this year, it should be coming soon!  At the moment, I think they’re cooling it down yet again, down to 1.9K (K meaning Kelvin).  For reference, zero degrees Kelvin is -270C.

More to come about the LHC, including it’s experiments, and it’s issues.

More blackey holeness.

People seem to really be digging the black holes these days, but I don’t mind one bit, because as soon as there’s a story about one (and I actually hear about it), then it’ll be here!

So to keep on with that theme, Chinese scientists have apparently created an artifical black hole, without the help of the LHC.

Some type of experiment... can't really even make something up at this point.

It an attempt to actually capture and trap visible light, an 8.5 inch black hole was created.  However, don’t worry your pretty little heads, because unlike your typical black hole out in space, this one was induced magnetically, not gravitationally. The reason the LHC was so ‘frightening’ when it turned on, was for the fear of creating a black hole which would pull everything around into it’s blackey abyss, which includes this fantastic, oxygen-bearing planet of ours.  However, this one is not the same.  In other terms, instead of sucking in the surrounding light into it’s center, this artificially created black hole, bends the light towards the center, creating a relatively harmless black hole, except for all those stupid photons… AAAHAHAHAHA!  Useless I tells you!

Anyways, with the advancement of this technology, the hope is to create a ‘trap’ for light gathered from the Sun via solar cells.  Sort of like a storage for sunlight, which sounded a lot cooler when I wrote it.  Doesn’t that sound cool?!  Imagine carrying a briefcase of sunlight around!?  I know that’s not exactly what they intend to do, but it’s still cool… so shut it!

Time to initiate some fun…

Popping up around Europe, and created by Volkswagen, this is probably the best initiative I’ve heard about in awhile.

I can’t remember where I heard about this, but it’s a wicked initiative bent on turning mundane things in everyday life into something that you look forward to, or just plainly have fun doing!  The video below explains it all, via an experiment done in Stockholm, Sweden, to get more people to use the stairs instead of the escalator.

The initiative is called The Fun Theory, and was created by Volkswagen as a way to get people to basically kick their daily routine up a notch, and hopefully get their asses moving in the meantime (like myself).  Not only is this a good idea, but I think supremely necessary for us.  More and more, we take for granted of certain devices (i.e. escalators) and services (i.e. hookers) that may make our lives easier, but necessarily better.  Integrating all this into our everyday lives, we forget how beneficial it was without any of it.

Here’s a link to the offical site for The Fun Theory, which unfortunately is all in German, so if you speak or read German, good for you.

UPDATE:  They updated the english site!

Stop embarrassing yourselves…

I understand the whole activist thing, and I don’t mind it at all,  but Greenpeace… really.

Yet again they attack the Tar Sands of Alberta.  Now, I’m a little torn to be completely honest.  I’m in the geology business, but I refuse to work for oil.  Not because I think it’s wrong, and the Earth is being destroyed yada yada, but because why would I want to work anywhere near the root of all current controversy?  No thanks… keep me out of Alberta.  But on the other side of the coin, in current times oil is pretty essential.  It’s too bad that it has become essential, but we’re in too deep now, and until we’re able to weasle our way of it, we’re going to have to keep using it.

At least they're wearing protective gear.

Ok wait, I forgot to mention how I got to this.  The other day, 12 Greenpeace activists stormed an upgrader (a giant building where they break down oil for other uses… like say, gas for your car to drive to a Greenpeace rally).  The upgrader is located in the Alberta tar sands, and this is apparently the 4th time they’ve done this.  The first three must not have worked, because nobody cared.  Regardless, they’re protesting the ‘dirtiness’ of retrieving oil from the sands, and the energy it uses, and all the environmental implications.  Yes, it’s a dirty job… yes, it mostly revolves around giant corporations making money, and that’s a total downside to the system, and most people end up getting the shaft.  But, this will never change… again, we’re in too deep, and whether we like it or not, we rely on oil.

I hate to say it, but taking over factories, and chaining yourselves to trucks is not going to do a whole lot.  I’m glad you’re taking interest, but you’d have more chance of making a difference if you became a politician.  In fact, you’d have more chance of making a difference if you wrote a letter to a politician.  In case you’re wondering, there isn’t much of a chance… point is, aggressive activism such as Greenpeace demonstrations, do so much less than other forms of activism.

And unless these people that came from all over the world to protest, came by sailboat, or Davinci’s peddal-bird, and used bacon grease to run their trucks to storm the place, I’m calling them hipocrites.  I’m guessing they didn’t, since they’re probably vegetarians too, and don’t eat bacon.  It’s a humdinger if I ever dinged a hum…

(I’d say hummed a ding, but that just doesn’t seem right…)

Giant tool makes $35 Million trip to space

What a fail, in my books anyways.  This morning, the Soyuz spacecraft took off towards the ISS (International Space Station).  It’s passengers consisted of a Russian cosmonaut/scientist, an American astronaut/scientist, and finally, a Canadian entertainer/f#@%ing moron…

I want to punch this man in the face...

Yes, Guy Laliberte, founder of the famous Cirque du Soleil acrobatics show(s), took off into space as the first Canadian space tourist.  This seriously drives me nuts… not so much that he’s up there, but the fact that he spent a cool $35 million to do it.  $35 million smackers to go to a place where your presense in no way benefits anybody… anywhere.  If it does, for the love of god someone explain it to me.

He’s a billionaire… great… and yes, I’m sure he’s donated to several charities, and helped out a lot of people, sure… But this seems like a pretty smug move, I mean, look at his smug face!!  In one article, he said he’s going to “tickle the astronauts [on the ISS] while they sleep”.  Really…??

Guy Laliberte’s Space Itinerary

9:45am – Lift off

10:30am – Tell jokes while pilots are trying to fly billion dollar machine.

11:00am – Dock with ISS, see how happy people are to see me.

11:01am – Begin doing nothing, because I’m useless.

1:30pm – Bedazzle space suits.

4:45pm – Decorate science lab!

6:00pm – Eat alone.

9:45pm-Midnight – Tickle astronauts.

Next day – repeat.

Really, I hate this man, and I’m embarassed to be even remotely associated with him as a Canadian… yes, I’m judging a book by it’s cover, but I don’t care.  You would think $35 million dollars could buy him a better reputation, but I guess that would be a waste of money.  Alright, I’m done…

The end is nigh…

Damned things...

I figure this is the sign we’ve all been waiting for…

I always thought there was something just not quite right about squirrels, and their nervous jumpy ways.  We have red squirrels up here in north Ontario, but grey squirrels have been (sneakily) making their way up… there’s one that walks along the fence in my backyard, stealing all my fruit and nuts, car keys, etc.  For some reason, people think they’re super cute, until they get their face bit off.  That’s why I like having a cat around, but alas, I don’t.  But apparently, in a bizarre twist of nature, a squirrel maimed and attempted to kill a bat, which is unusual… so now they’re out to kill… perfect.  Now they’re getting the extra weary eye from me.

By the way, have you ever googled squirrel for images?  For some reason they’re all dressed up, and it’s disturbing…

Cats…

I’m getting lazy with my post titles… Alright, so I’ll admit, I’m a cat man.  Don’t get me wrong, dogs are awesome, I have two.  But there’s just something about cats that are just…. VERY awesome… but they’re still bitches.

What’s even cooler, are big cats… freaking awesome.  I saw a cougar once from a helicopter a few years ago, but the MNR likes to keep their sighting under wraps for some reason.  Anyways, an elusive big cat, known as the African golden cat, was photographed in the thick jungle brush of Uganda.  Apparently only one picture exists of the mighty beast, and you can barely tell it’s any other type of cat because it’s in black and white… but I’m no cat expert, so I’m sure there are tell-tail signs (get it?  tell-TAIL signs?!).  You don’t have to acknowledge that, I already sacked myself for it.

The african golden cat, scowering for some tasty golden eagle.

This kind of makes me think about the endangered species list.  There are a ton of animals on that list, but you would think the ones that you’d never see or hear about are the ones that are most likely the worst off.  I don’t know how it works, but if nobody hears about them because there are so few, then I guess they wouldn’t be hunted?  Dammit, I just don’t know.

I love how they say in the article (click on the picture), that the cat is so rare that very few scientists in Africa have seen it, ha!  I kind of figure that the fact that people never see this cat is the reason it’s rare to begin with, no?  Call me crazy…

Chemistry gets awesomized!

Holy crap I hate chemistry… Doesn’t it suck when stupid profs ruin shit for you?  Yep, it happens…. But, I’m briefly interested in chemistry again!

A couple weeks ago, scientists photographed a single molecule for the first time, which I figured was pretty cool to begin with.  Then I realized that it was pretty intense, not thinking that chemistry, like much of science, is borderline still theory because many interactions or say, individual molecules, can’t be directly observed.  So this is kind of a big deal.

The first photographed molecule..... pentacene.

Why I think this is so incredible is because before this photograph, the structure of any molecule is ‘predicted’ using energy, repulsion, and interactive techniques of individual atoms to figure it out.  So, the fact that this picture turned out to be pretty much identical to the ball and stick model of a pentacene molecule predicted using the interactions between carbon and hydrogen atoms, is pretty incredible.

Now let’s see how it interacts with fire again…

Tidal Energy

While I have a small bit of rum and calmly watch my quiche burn in the oven, I can’t help but think about tidal energy…

… I read about this project going on off the coast of the UK, and now learn that they’ve actuall constructed it this year, so I thought I’d just mention it.  In what I think is probably one of the best attempts at producing green energy, tidal energy seems to be making just as much headway as solar power (I have zero evidence to back this up).  Marine Current Turbines seems to be on of the leaders into this technology, creating a few (4?) anchored propellers in the water off the west coast of the UK as a project called SeaGen.  In it’s super simplest form, it’s basically taking a wind turbine and putting it in the water.  It uses the the tide cycle, which occurs twice a day, to drive turbines generating electricity, not unlike a wind turbine; the blades spin one direction for the incoming tides, then the blades rotate to accomodate the outgoing tide later on (or is it outgoing, then incoming?  I can’t remember…).  Below is a little visual put out by Marine Current Turbines to explain it with pretty pictures…

I hope this idea catches on, seeing as tidal energy can be harnessed wherever there’s a coastline pretty much.  What caught my attention was an ongoing project with Marine Current Turbines in eastern Canada to harness the energy of the Bay of Fundy, which has the largest tides in the world weighing in at 15m.  While there are already dams in place to control the flow of the tides, a propeller turbine system like the SeaGen seems a lot less invasive and less of an eyesore.

Ummm… apparently that’s all I’ve got.  I seem to be a little tired.