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Physics Week in Review: October 26, 2013

Another week, another round of physics link-y goodness! On October 23, the Bad Astronomer wished everyone a Happy Mole Day and gave 6.02 x 10^23 reasons to celebrate.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Another week, another round of physics link-y goodness! On October 23, the Bad Astronomer wished everyone a Happy Mole Day and gave 6.02 x 10^23 reasons to celebrate.

The Financial Times magazine ran a "physics special issue" last weekend; here's a few highlights. Physicists have been lured into the financial market for decades, prized for their insights and data-crunching skills. But in a time of turbulence, flash crashes and high-frequency trading, can they really spot things that others miss? Honor Harger converts radio waves emitted from celestial bodies into sound waves we can hear. Cake Theory: His career in physics has taken Peter Barham from a university lab to Heston Blumenthal’s kitchen. The New Physics: Scientists are racing to solve the mysteries of physics, from ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to a unifying theory that explains the fabric of reality.

More on the science of Gravity: it isn't set in the present, more like 5 years in an alternate future. "A person who dies alone in space dies a cheerful death": A German astronaut fact-checks Gravity. Joel Achenbach on how Earth is itself a spaceship, inhabited by us. Related: Battling Space Junk With a Tractor Beam of Static Electricity.


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Hungry Rumblings from the Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way.

What Superman 3teaches us about computer programming.

Time travel. Fight bears. Fist of Awesome.

The recently proposed idea of “black hole firewalls” has physicists questioning some of their most cherished ideas. "The new paper strengthens and simplifies the case for firewalls by sidestepping the issue of entanglement altogether, Marolf says. 'It shows very clearly that some things you might have worried about are red herrings and not relevant to the argument.'"

What was the universe like when it was just a baby? It took 13 billion years for astronomers to find out.

NASA Shoots Lasers at the Moon to Create Insanely Fast Internet.

Quantum Erasure: what’s a delayed choice quantum eraser do?

What Love Looks Like – the physics of love in six micro-movies.

Feel the squee! Highly Anticipated Dark Matter Update Expected Next Week.

Step Inside the Russian Spacesuit Factory that has been building Russian spacesuits for 60-plus years.

Near-Mutiny on Apollo 7: Colds, Tempers Marred Mission.

The reins of Casimir: engineered nanostructures show way to control quantum effect. Bonus for Game of Thrones allusion.

A British analysis of the physics of a tea kettle whistle: “The aeroacoustics of a steam kettle.”

The Best Science-inspired Album Covers Of All Time.

How to Turn a Smartphone Into a Digital Microscope Using Inexpensive Materials.

Graduate student Shaun Maguire reviews the 10 biggest physics breakthroughs since his birth.

Angela Belcher Attacks Problems in Energy, the Environment, and Health Care—Using Biology.

Artificial intelligence won't take our jobs. (And, there's always being a human-battery as a back-up.) More on why AI won't take your job. At least not in the medium term.

Facilities suggested by Lewis Carroll for a school of mathematics at Oxford, 1868.

Squirtle, I (Should) Choose You! Settling a Great Pokémon Debate with Science.

Nature Op-Ed: "Anecdotes all point to sexual harassment being a real stain on science.... Every­one knows a Dr. Inappropriate."

The Anatomy of a Scientific Rumor (about the Higgs boson discovery). Related: Step inside the LHC: Human side of the search for Higgs boson brought to dramatic life at Science Museum.

Legendary astronomer and trailblazing woman-in-science Vera Rubin on science and success.

Fluid knots and smoke ring physics: "filamental vortex loops" abound in a number of fluid dynamics applications.

Company to Balloon Tourists to the Edge of Space for a cool $250K a pop.

The Curious Astronomer: Blackbody radiation and the "ultraviolet catastrophe.

Can an Algae-Powered Lamp Quench Our Thirst For Energy?

You may have heard about bio-inspired tech -- but have you heard of tech-inspired biology?

The Tragic Tale of a Romance Undone by Radium: 12-panel pitch focusing on the Radium Girls.

Information gained through a CERN experiment will help scientists create better climate models.

The Swindler's Coin: The fourth in a series of seven fables/lessons/meditations on probability.

Using carcasses of common loon and lesser scaup species to determine how water current, wind velocity, affect drift.

Gal Science: When a Scientist Tries to be Funny.

Follow the Glow-in-the-Dark Road.

Walk Or Run In The Rain? There's An Equation For That!

Scientists readying to blast crater in asteroid to find out what it is made of successfully tested new space cannon.

Your LEGO Dose of Awesome: Pacific Rim's kaiju battles recreated entirely out of LEGO.

This just in: Einstein is (still) right, and the aether (still) does not exist.

New algorithm helps cochlear implants detect music, allows patients to hear differences in pitch and timbre.

Experiment of the Day: This unique restaurant uses liquid nitrogen to make truly made-to-order ice cream.

What Does A Bee Look Like When It’s Magnified 3000 Times?

The Boomerang Nebula, coldest spot in the universe, confirms Einstein's theories about the photoelectric effect. Related: Who's a cute Little Sombrero Galaxy? *You* are!

How much energy *do* young people expend during sex? Answer: 85 kCal/minute.

Five Unanswered Questions that Will Keep Physicists Awake at Night.

Danceroom Spectroscopy: dancing molecules bring the atomic world to life - An educational, interactive visualization.

See the Original, 17th Century Drawings of the Microscopic World Robert Hooke Discovered.

Martin Gardner's surprise puzzle about Möbius strips: Try it with paper, scissors, and crayons.

The river of spacetime. "Spacetime is the water, the current is gravitation. Weak gravity is a lazy river, while strong gravity is raging floodwater. Objects on the river could be planets, stars, spaceships…anything affected by gravity."

Math for Babies: Math at 6 Months Sorta Predicts SAT study. "The better a baby’s number sense at 6 months old, the stronger her mathematical abilities three years later. What’s more, the relationship held after controlling for general intelligence."

Jellyfish developed in space have trouble getting around on Earth.

This “Death Watch” Allegedly Counts Down the Last Seconds of Your Life. Ad tagline: "Make every second count." Gulp.

Battlefield ER: Combat Medicine Fights To Keep More Troops Alive. Surprising new treatments for trauma are emerging from Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Doodling in Math Class, Fractals Explained With Drawings of Dragons and Dungeons. -

What if you could build a machine that slowed time to imperceptibility? In The Decelerators, people do just that