-FUPPETS- For Readers XXXVI - Science Compendium

-FUPPETS- likes to aim your mind's-eye squarely in the direction of interesting scientific discovery. With the world's supply of top-shelf researchers at such a high number, it is surely a steady stream of new science being discussed on a daily basis. Remember, for every question answered, at least ten questions appear. This is the way of the Multiverse. With this in mind, here are some of the latest scientific endeavours that -FUPPETS- is keeping an eye on.

Scientists have discovered the first animals that live without oxygen. Deep under the Mediterranean Sea, small animals have been discovered that live their entire lives without oxygen and surrounded by 'poisonous' sulphides. The above image is of one such multi-cellular organism, the only one found so far that exists without mitochondria which uses oxygen to process energy sources. ( Science Daily )

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Scientists create world's smallest micro-laser. (Click the image above for a larger version.) "It's 30 micrometers long -- that's 30 millionths of a meter -- eight micrometers high and has a wavelength of 200 micrometers. This makes the laser considerably smaller than the wavelength of the light it emits -- a scientific first. After all, lasers normally can't be smaller than their wavelength, the reason being that in conventional lasers light waves cause an optic resonator to oscillate -- much like acoustic waves do to the soundbox of a guitar. In doing so, the light waves basically "travel" back and forth between two mirrors. The principle only works if the mirrors are larger than the wavelength of the laser. Consequently, normal lasers are limited in terms of their size. Other researchers have endeavored to push the boundaries; "But by developing a completely new laser concept we were able to go quite a way below the limit," says Christoph Walther." - ( Science Daily )

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SLIDESHOW: A Cretaceous Menagerie Preserved in Amber. Man, this is some cool shit. As mentioned previously on -FUPPETS- , an amazing amber deposit has been found in Ethiopia which contains animals, plants, fungi, and insects from the Cretaceous period. The link above will take you to a slide show of some of the amazing finds trapped in amber tens of millions of years old. - ( Science Now )

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Cold Atoms and Nano-Tubes Come Together in Atomic "Black Hole". The image above is an artist's representation of a newly discovered phenomenon. "Physicists at Harvard University have found that a high-voltage nanotube can cause cold atoms to spiral inward under dramatic acceleration before disintegrating violently. Their experiments, the first to demonstrate something akin to a black hole at atomic scale, are described in the current issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. "On a scale of nanometers, we create an inexorable and destructive pull similar to what black holes exert on matter at cosmic scales," says Lene Vestergaard Hau, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard. "As importantly for scientists, this is the first merging of cold-atom and nanoscale science, and it opens the door to a new generation of cold atom experiments and nanoscale devices." - ( Science Daily )

-FUPPETS- Loves Science!

The Large Hadron Collider has finally managed to collide the beams inside it. This is very exciting. As with any massive undertaking, there were several kinks to work out, as well as system failures to correct. Since November 2009 the LHC has been sending it's energy beams at ever faster speeds and ever higher energy levels. They plan to run the collisions constantly for almost 2 years. In those two years the amount of scientific data that will be gained will seem so massive, it will take scientists and researchers decades to analyze it all. The video below details some of the issues the LHC has had in the 18 months since it went online.


As readers of -FUPPETS- know, -FUPPETS- and Astronomy go together like Ice T and Coco Austin. Astronomy is possibly the oldest scientific field, and yet it is still the one where intelligent amateurs can contribute in meaningful ways. Sometimes backyard astronomers discover new comets, or help do stellar cartography. Sometimes, like Robert Harrison explains in the video below, these amateur astronomers figure out novel ways to capture images of our planet and of space. Robert Harrison sent a camera with balloons up to 22 miles above the Earth to take spectacular images.

-FUPPETS- Takes the Wise Council of Richard P. Feynman

-FUPPETS- Hero and all-around bad-ass mo-fo, Richard P. Feynman, was a man for whom life held nothing but opportunities for exploration. Whether it was the arcane language of quantum mechanics, the rhythm of the bongo drums in a Brazilian festival, or the breaking of combination lock codes, Richard P. Feynman was in it to win it.
(-FUPPETS- highly recommends a book by Mr. Feynman called What Do You Care What Other People Think? It is not just a physics treatise, but instead a treatise on living one's life in the best manner possible, as well as his account of the Space Shuttle Challenger investigations.)
Richard P. Feynman became known as one of the preeminent lecturers on physics and on science in general. His ability to open minds made his recorded lectures best-sellers, as far as science lectures go.
The following videos find Mr. Feynman in good humor, discussing the crucial skill that all scientists and, in fact, all people should strive for, and that is the ability to look at things from a different point of view. -FUPPETS- loves this crazy man!

Take The World From Another Point of View (part 1)

Take The World From Another Point of View (part 2)

Take The World From Another Point of View (part 3)

Take The World From Another Point of View (part 4)

Particle Physics Rocks -FUPPETS-

The above Feynman Diagram shows the process by which a "top quark" (labeled "t" above) was created and discovered by scientists at the world's most powerful particle accelerator, Fermilab's Tevatron.
Quarks are the seemingly fundamental particles that, when combined in threes, make up the hadrons in our Universe. Hadrons are particles such as neutrons and protons, the major constituents of all matter.
Quarks come in six different types, or "flavors", up (symbol: u), down (d), charm (c), strange (s), top (t) and bottom (b). These names do not intend any meaning other than a method of differentiating between the 6 types. Up and Down quarks are relatively light in mass and occur throughout nature. Protons, for example, are composed of two Up quarks and one Down quark. The other 4 however are much more massive and can only be seen or detected in high energy particle collisions, such as those produced in the Fermilab.
The collisions seen at Fermilab produced single Top quarks, (The lowercase t in the top diagram), the first time ever we have managed to create and study them in detail.

Searching for single-top production makes finding a needle in a haystack look easy. Only one in every 20 billion proton-antiproton collisions produces a single top quark. Even worse, the signal of these rare occurrences is easily mimicked by other “background” processes that occur at much higher rates. - ( Science Daily )

The highly massive (relatively speaking) Top quarks have a very short existence, something on the order of 1 × 10 to the −25 seconds. That is nearly non-existent and shows how hard it is to actually document the creation of one of these bad-boys.

Quarks were discovered in 1965 when, in an experiment which used a particle accelerator to shot electrons at atomic neutrons, it was found that the electrons "bounced off" the neutrons not as if off of a single particle, but as if the neutron was composed of three separate particles. These came to be known as quarks. Here is a diagram showing the current standard model for the fundamental particles that make up existence as we know it.