Scientific Discovery of the Week - Volume 1

[Agloco]

I'm going to do something new here in the political forum. I'll attempt to post one "cool" scientific discovery a week. Feedback appreciated. Perhaps in the future, some work with the potential to impact current political or economic policy will be in order.

This weeks edition involves quantum entanglement or spukhafte fernwirkung as Einstein once mused.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=room-temperature-entanglement


Usually a finicky phenomenon limited to tiny, ultracold objects, entanglement has now been achieved for macroscopic diamonds at room temperature


A group of researchers report in the December 2 issue of Science that they managed to entangle the quantum states of two diamonds separated by 15 centimeters. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon by which two or more objects share an unseen link bridging the space between them—a hypothetical pair of entangled dice, for instance, would always land on matching numbers, even if they were rolled in different places simultaneously.

Hypothetically speaking, a technology like this could be used to identify "changes" in the state of one object many miles distant through state changes in an object in close proximity (think security). That would, of course, require many refinements to current technology and the ability to reproduce results in an uncontrolled environment.

[TeyshaBlue]

FTL communication ftw!

[spursncowboys]

....

[Vici]

Great idea. Even if I don't post in it every week I will definitely be reading.

[JoeChalupa]

ok

[MannyIsGod]

Thats freaking cool.

[LnGrrrR]

FTL communication ftw!

Nah, we still supposedly can't communicate info ftl... I always thought that no communication theorem was a total copout :lol

Edit: Also, from my laymans perspective, the "dice" analogy seemed poor, as the entangled pair shows the opposite spin/axis of the one measured. A coin flip would have been better, where if one entangled particle showed heads the other would "spookily" flip to tails.

[LnGrrrR]

Still though, it's awesome that the size limits of entanglement keep increasing. Those diamonds are pretty large. Couple that with the delayed quantum eraser (and in the words of zoidberg, some quantum tunneling why not) and you have some freaky possibilities :)

[Winehole23]

totally beyond me. sounds neat tho.

[LnGrrrR]

totally beyond me. sounds neat tho.

Quantum mechanics are the most non-intuitive thing I've ever read about in my life, but that's what makes it fun to learn about.

[mouse]

Was this after they found a cure for cancer?

[boutons_deux]

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Even forgetting about biological evolution and anti-evolution assholes like mouse, quantum, sub-atomic physics is one of those areas that exposes "Christian" Bible-thumpers so ridiculously, evilly wrong, a entire class of simplistic, childish jerks consecrating themselves to believing and propagating lies "in the name of Christ".

Quantum mechanics is child's play compared to the incredible complexity of the biology of cancer. GFY

[RandomGuy]

I'm going to do something new here in the political forum. I'll attempt to post one "cool" scientific discovery a week. Feedback appreciated. Perhaps in the future, some work with the potential to impact current political or economic policy will be in order.

This weeks edition involves quantum entanglement or spukhafte fernwirkung as Einstein once mused.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=room-temperature-entanglement


Hypothetically speaking, a technology like this could be used to identify "changes" in the state of one object many miles distant through state changes in an object in close proximity (think security). That would, of course, require many refinements to current technology and the ability to reproduce results in an uncontrolled environment.

Cool.

Interesting implications for the end of the universe.

Billions of years from now, after entropy and expansion have sucked all the heat out of the universe, I wonder what this would mean for the last, far far isolated chunks of cold matter.

[TeyshaBlue]

Cool.

Interesting implications for the end of the universe.

Billions of years from now, after entropy and expansion have sucked all the heat out of the universe, I wonder what this would mean for the last, far far isolated chunks of cold matter.

Ever read any Stephen Baxter? He likes to play with the entropy scenario.

[TeyshaBlue]

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Even forgetting about biological evolution and anti-evolution assholes like mouse, quantum, sub-atomic physics is one of those areas that exposes "Christian" Bible-thumpers so ridiculously, evilly wrong, a entire class of simplistic, childish jerks consecrating themselves to believing and propagating lies "in the name of Christ".

Quantum mechanics is child's play compared to the incredible complexity of the biology of cancer. GFY

Good grief. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

[boutons_deux]

boutons-stalker TB always bringing high quality content.

[johnsmith]

boutons-stalker TB always bringing high quality content.

I'm not sure you're qualified to make this statement......after all, you did win Worst/most embarassing liberal poster in 95% of other users opinions.

:lmao

[TeyshaBlue]

boutons-stalker TB always bringing high quality content.

lol @ stalker.
You're a walking non sequitur. Get over yourself.

:rolleyes

[RandomGuy]

Ever read any Stephen Baxter? He likes to play with the entropy scenario.

Hmmm, never really read any of his stuff, but will stop by the local 1/2 price tonight.

Thanks!

My general sci-fi reading is more military-ish in nature. Hammers Slammers, Honor Harrington, etc, but occasionally I venture out of my comfort zone, and the wiki description seems intriguing.

I will give it a try.

[TeyshaBlue]

<-------Big David Weber fan.:toast

[baseline bum]

I thought it was strange enough that motion stretches time and space and that you still get an interference pattern on a screen shooting one photon at a time through the double-slit, but quantum entanglement just takes the weirdness to a whole new level.

[mouse]

anti-evolution assholes like mouse,

Page one has yet to get going and this vato is already verbally insulting people? hence why he didn't make the top 10 list.

[mouse]

"Christian" Bible-thumpers so ridiculously, evilly wrong, a entire class of simplistic, childish jerks consecrating themselves to believing and propagating lies "in the name of Christ".

GFY

When has anyone in this topic brought up the bible, Christ, or religion?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Agloco, I am posting this in the spirit of this thread and hope not to hijack it. If i am stepping on toes then by all means tell me to fuck off. I just thought that this was truly groundbreaking as it allows us to model the mechanics of biology in the nucleus. With all that is being done with gene therapy now, this has obvious application implications.

If you can model gene expression then you can find ways to manipulate the model. Chemicals that straighten out DNA and nanotechnology delivery systems already exist. Thats just off the top of my head.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-genome-3-d


The mapping technique that Aiden and his colleagues have come up with bridges a crucial gap in knowledge—between what goes on at the smallest levels of genetics (the double helix of DNA and the base pairs) and the largest levels (the way DNA is gathered up into the 23 chromosomes that contain much of the human genome). The intermediate level, on the order of thousands or millions of base pairs, has remained murky.

As the genome is so closely wound, base pairs in one end can be close to others at another end in ways that are not obvious merely by knowing the sequence of base pairs. Borrowing from work that was started in the 1990s, Aiden and others have been able to figure out which base pairs have wound up next to one another. From there, they can begin to reconstruct the genome—in three dimensions.


Through their research over the past few years, Aiden and his colleagues have discovered that at the level of a megabase—1 million base pairs—the human genome has wrapped itself into a structure known as a fractal globule. Although the spherical globule might look like a mess, the researcher discovered that by analyzing proximity data it is in fact an elegantly organized structure, which can be unfurled without getting tangled.

"Though it may sound abstract," Aiden wrote in his new Science essay, "the fractal globule is easy to explain to graduate students because it closely resembles the only food we can afford: Ramen." Uncooked, 30 meters of noodles fit neatly into a small package, woven together without being tangled.

Brave New World.

[TE]

I nominate the discovery of Kepler 22b for next weeks discovery of the week.

[TE]

On a serious note though, this quantum entanglement method may also have some biological application in some uncovered fields of metabolic biochemistry. Imagine the implication in identifying the underlying mechanism with which molecule x, a metabolic component that disturbs the uptake of cholesterol via rme. People who have this defective metabolic intermediate readily uptake LDL. Imagine being able to fix this at the quantum level? Imagine the manipulation... A couple of years ago, I read in an article that researchers have now been able to precisely determine when and how an enzyme will open to its substrate. It was a pretty detailed paper... I can't remember the enzyme but this was about five years ago that I found this out. I'm pretty sure much more has been discovered since then. Sounds like one of those nights of curiosity...

[Agloco]

Agloco, I am posting this in the spirit of this thread and hope not to hijack it. If i am stepping on toes then by all means tell me to fuck off. I just thought that this was truly groundbreaking as it allows us to model the mechanics of biology in the nucleus. With all that is being done with gene therapy now, this has obvious application implications.

Not at all Fuzzy. Posting of related material is what I'm after here. My basic motivation for creating these threads is to spark some discussion of discoveries in a particular area without hijacking the the entire forum. One article won't suffice. Input from all forum members is exactly what I'm looking for.

As for your article, I wasn't aware of this (not at the level of detail presented). It appears to be quite elegant in it's explanation of molecular genomics. Personalized medicine is the wave of the future (triggeredexcellence.....I'm pointing at you as I write this...). I'll take some time to digest it during my trip to Austria next week.

[Winehole23]

does this (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419143123.htm) sort of thing count?

[Winehole23]

in new findings published in the journal Science, Georgia Tech researchers have introduced what appears to be a universal technique to reduce the work function of a conductor. They spread a very thin layer of a polymer, approximately one to 10 nanometers thick, on the conductor's surface to create a strong surface dipole. The interaction turns air-stable conductors into efficient, low-work function electrodes.

The commercially available polymers can be easily processed from dilute solutions in solvents such as water and methoxyethanol.


"These polymers are inexpensive, environmentally friendly and compatible with existent roll-to-roll mass production techniques," said Bernard Kippelen, director of Georgia Tech's Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE). "Replacing the reactive metals with stable conductors, including conducting polymers, completely changes the requirements of how electronics are manufactured and protected. Their use can pave the way for lower cost and more flexible devices."


To illustrate the new method, Kippelen and his peers evaluated the polymers' performance in organic thin-film transistors and OLEDs. They've also built a prototype: the first-ever, completely plastic solar cell.


"The polymer modifier reduces the work function in a wide range of conductors, including silver, gold and aluminum," noted Seth Marder, associate director of COPE and professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "The process is also effective in transparent metal-oxides and graphene."

[Winehole23]

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=124901) from materials (http://www.newswise.com/articles/stable-electrodes-for-improving-printed-electronics) provided by Georgia Institute of Technology (http://www.gatech.edu/), via Newswise (http://www.newswise.com/).
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:


Y. Zhou, C. Fuentes-Hernandez, J. Shim, J. Meyer, A. J. Giordano, H. Li, P. Winget, T. Papadopoulos, H. Cheun, J. Kim, M. Fenoll, A. Dindar, W. Haske, E. Najafabadi, T. M. Khan, H. Sojoudi, S. Barlow, S. Graham, J.-L. Bredas, S. R. Marder, A. Kahn, B. Kippelen. A Universal Method to Produce Low-Work Function Electrodes for Organic Electronics. Science, 2012; 336 (6079): 327 DOI: 10.1126/science.1218829 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1218829)

[Wild Cobra]

does this (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419143123.htm) sort of thing count?
Love how Science Fiction and the real world can merge.

Anyone see the spinoff "Caprica" from the re imaged "Battlestar Galactica?" They have computers with screens you roll up.

[rjv]

two-particle experiments have been going on for a while from bohm to bell and some tests conducted at the university of paris in the 80's. if i recall, this started discussions on non-locality and even led to continued support for theories of a holographic universe or a 'veiled reality'.