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From: Sam Wormley on 28 May 2010 19:05
> WHAT�S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, May 28, 2010 Washington, DC
>
> 1. SCIENCE: BORN ON THIS DAY 2595 YEARS AGO.
> Not everyone agreed with the designation May 28 as the birthday of
> science. It marks the day that Thales of Miletus is alleged to have
> predicted a solar eclipse. One reader thought the discovery of fire would
> be a better choice, but of course we don't know when that happened or who
> did it. Cause and effect on the other hand applies to all science. We can
> begin with any phenomenon and in principle trace its cause and the cause of
> its cause backward through time to the merger of all such tracks at the Big
> Bang, beyond which presumably no tracks remain. We are trying to re-create
> the last footprints with the LHC. We need a beginning that applies to all
> of science. Causality does that.
>
> 2. GUSHER: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT IS ELEVATED TO A "CATASTROPHE."
> The President went on television yesterday to assure everyone that he�s in
> charge. At this point no one is contesting him for the honor. After top
> kill failed, BP tried "junk shot", the last arrow in their quiver. Same
> result. BP then resumed "top kill." It looks better to be seen doing
> something, even if it doesn't work.
>
> 3. GLOBAL WARMING: NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL RELEASES REPORTS.
> Three new NRC reports draw on published studies that came out too late for
> inclusion in the last IPCC report. The conclusions reached seem roughly in
> line with the emission reduction targets proposed by the Obama
> administration. How will the BP catastrophe affect these conclusions?
> Dumping oil into the ocean is not exactly the carbon sequestration program
> the NRC had in mind. Oil reaching the coastline from the catastrophe will
> devastate the environment for the lifetime of everyone reading this, but
> the effect of oil settling on thousands of square miles of ocean bottom is
> unknown.
>
> 4. HURRICANES TOO? MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE GULF COAST.
> In the Wall Street Journal this morning, Jennifer Levitz wrote, "The coming
> Atlantic hurricane season could be the busiest on record, with the
> possibility of the next six months bringing nearly as many hurricanes as in
> 2005, when Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast, federal forecasters
> said Thursday." Or maybe not; without some sort of probability assessment
> no information is conveyed.
>
> 5. ANTIMATTER: NOW AVAILABLE ON-DEMAND.
> Lots of anti-particles are seen in cosmic rays and in particle
> accelerators, but what about anti-atoms? A CERN collaboration named Athena
> announced this week that it has created perhaps 50,000 antihydrogen atoms,
> but it's pretty hard to build up an inventory. Antimatter is a staple in
> the science fiction world where it is often used to power spaceships. Its
> production in the laboratory is a major scientific milestone. Athena beat
> a CERN collaboration known as Atrap to the goal. Why there is so little
> antimatter in the universe remains a great mystery. Theory requires that
> matter be created as particle-antiparticle pairs. Scientists will be
> looking for any symmetry-breaking difference with ordinary hydrogen.
>
> THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
> Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
> University of Maryland, but they should be.
> ---
> Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org
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