reactions, with the result being a massive release of energy in the form of heat. in every way, this technology matches what i had hoped for throughout my childhood and later on in my life : in addition, the millions of jobs created around the world by a cold - fusion revolution would galvanize the global economy and end the current global recession - and do it all safely, without fukushima - like events. to be blunt, cold - fusion technology holds the potential to transform our world from a planet of poverty, war and self - destruction into a place of enlightened prosperity. on the other hand, the existence of the higgs boson offers no near - term benefits to humanity. it may give us a bit more knowledge about the universe, but no one claims that even one single technology that could be immediately developed using this knowledge. if the existence of the higgs boson could yield a warp drive, free - energy device, gravity - modifying device, or other breakthrough in a reasonable period of time, perhaps the billions of dollars spent would be worth it. but the truth is that just like hot fusion research, the search for the higgs boson is a boondoggle. due to the lack of any near - term benefits, the funds could be better spent elsewhere. if a fraction of the money spent on the search for the higgs boson had been put into cold fusion research 20 years ago, there would be no energy crisis today. instead, cold fusion devices that could produce kilowatts of power and very high temperatures - like the e - cat - would have been quickly developed and commercialized. instead of putting money into practical technologies that could benefit all mankind in the near term, the career scientists naysayed exotic technologies like cold fusion, and lobbied for billions of dollars in additional funding for giant hot fusion reactors and particle colliders. all these years later, we have seen little or no return on the investment in the form of technological advancement. we are still stuck with rockets for propulsion and burning fossil fuels for energy. literally, we are still in a technological dark age when it comes to the most fundamental of technologies - energy and propulsion. ( if you don ' t count the " black, " off - budget projects that use taxpayer money with no taxpayer benefit, and actually have the agenda of making us all slaves. ) i do not want to call the search for the higgs field or the higgs boson totally meaningless. however, i think nicola tesla ' s work ( although still ignored by


a substantial threat to human health and the environment. mine : an underground opening or open pit used for the purpose of extracting minerals. mines commonly include features, such as shafts, adits, pits, trenches, tunnels, waste rock dumps, tailings, and structures including, but not limited to, mills, buildings, head frames, hoists, and loading chutes. potentially responsible party ( prp ) : any individual or entity, including current and past owners, operators, transporters, arrangers, or generators who may be liable for clean - up costs for hazardous substances under cercla section 107 ( a ) or for injuries to natural resources on public lands from hazardous substance releases under section 311 ( f ) of the cwa and cercla section 107 ( f ). project : the investigation, cleanup of safety risks, stabilization, or reclamation of an abandoned mine land site or sites. a project may include one or more individual abandoned mines. the project area may be based on geologic, geographic, hydrologic, watershed, ownership, or other legal boundaries, or based on practical or logistical convenience, and is often contiguous. remedial action : permanent remedy taken to prevent or minimize the release of hazardous substances into the environment. long - term actions ( 5 - 8 years ) are necessary to return a site to its original conditions. removal action : short - term actions necessary to remove or mitigate a release or threat of release of hazardous substances. site : the area identified as being impacted by physical safety and / or environmental hazards. this can include any area where hazardous substances have been released or have migrated. the area size is influenced by the extent of the investigation, migration, evaluation, and past, current, and future clean - up activities. special status species : includes proposed species, listed species, and candidate species under the esa ; state - listed species ; and the blm state director - designated sensitive species ( see blm manual 6840 - special status species management strategic plan : a plan that establishes the overall direction for the blm. this plan is guided by the requirements of gpra, covers a 5 - year period, and is updated every 3 years. it is consistent with flpma and other laws affecting the public lands. total maximum daily load ( tmdl ) : pursuant to the clean water act, an estimate of the total quantity of pollutants ( from all sources : point, nonpoint, and natural ) that may be allowed into waters without exceeding applicable water quality criteria. watershed : this term


an earthquake is a sudden vibration or trembling in the earth. more than 150, 000 tremors strong enough to be felt by humans occur each year worldwide ( see chance of an earthquake ). earthquake motion is caused by the quick release of stored potential energy into the kinetic energy of motion. most earthquakes are produced along faults, tectonic plate boundary zones, or along the mid - oceanic ridges ( figures 1 and 2 ). figure 1 : distribution of earthquake epicenters from 1975 to 1995. depth of the earthquake focus is indicated by color. deep earthquakes occur in areas where oceanic crust is being actively subducted. about 90 % of all earthquakes occur at a depth between 0 and 100 kilometers. ( source : u. s. geologic survey, national earthquake information center ) figure 2 : distribution of earthquakes with a magnitude less than 5. 0 relative to the various tectonic plates found on the earth ' s surface. each tectonic plate has been given a unique color. this illustration indicates that the majority of small earthquakes occur along plate boundaries. ( source : physicalgeography. net ) at these areas, large masses of rock that are moving past each other can become locked due to friction. friction is overcome when the accumulating stress has enough force to cause a sudden slippage of the rock masses. the magnitude of the shock wave released into the surrounding rocks is controlled by the quantity of stress built up because of friction, the distance the rock moved when the slippage occurred, and ability of the rock to transmit the energy contained in the seismic waves. the san francisco earthquake of 1906 involved a six meter horizontal displacement of bedrock. sometime after the main shock wave, aftershocks can occur because of the continued release of frictional stress. most aftershocks are smaller than the main earthquake, but they can still cause considerable damage to already weakened natural and human - constructed features. earthquakes that occur under or near bodies of water can give rise to tsunamis, which in cases like the december 26, 2004 sumatra - andaman island earthquake reult in far greater distruction and loss of life that the initial earthquake. earthquakes are a form of wave energy that is transferred through bedrock. motion is transmitted from the point of sudden energy release, the earthquake focus ( hypocenter ), as spherical seismic waves that travel in all directions outward ( figure 3 ). the point on the earth ' s surface directly above the focus is termed the epicenter. two different types of seismic waves have been described by geologists : body waves and surface waves


the ilc promises extraordinary power in the study of the terascale. the annihilation of an electron and its antiparticle, the positron, allows the understanding of collisions to an unparalleled level of detail and precision. as others have comprehensively documented, the ilc view of the terascale, complementary to the lhc ' s perspective, makes the ilc an essential tool for unraveling new phenomena discovered at these extreme energies. it makes the ilc the top priority at fermilab for a future global facility. a superconducting ilc cavity credit : fermilab visual media services the ilc ' s opportunities for discovery have motivated the global particle physics community to come together in an effort to design the accelerator and its experimental program. the completion of the reference design report in early 2007 and the structuring of a collaborative worldwide r & d program represent successful community efforts. fermilab has contributed strongly to this effort : the design of the accelerator ; the development of superconducting radio - frequency, or scrf, technology in the u. s. ; the design of the physics and experimental program ; the site studies necessary for hosting the ilc at or near fermilab ; and the establishment of a test - beam facility for the development of ilc detectors. the ilc and related scrf efforts at fermilab make up by far the laboratory ' s largest future program. in the next phase of the ilc effort, fermilab ' s aim is to be a leader in the global engineering design and in the development of the scrf technology, steps necessary to reach a decision early in the next decade to build the ilc. fermilab is building the required infrastructure and test facilities and is coordinating the national efforts in the development of scrf technology, in collaboration with national and international partners in europe, asia and the u. s. to these efforts fermilab brings strong engineering capability, accelerator physics expertise and technology development skills. innovative detectors will be key to exploiting the ilc physics opportunities. in general, an improvement in resolution of both tracking and calorimetric detectors over the present state - of - the - art detectors will allow experimenters to distinguish the signals of new physics from backgrounds much more efficiently. fermilab has a strong instrumentation development effort in collaboration with laboratories and universities across the world. just as important for the global ilc effort, fermilab has developed and will operate a flexible high - energy test beam to provide


until the page is filled ( although, over time, they should be able to condense all the essential material from one entire lecture on the top half of one sheet ). next, students fold the earlier columns behind and engage in repeated sketching and writing of these concepts in columns three and four. the recopying and rethinking of these concepts engages a student ’ s motor memory and visual cortex. dr. heideman says that his method forces students to extract the essentials from a large amount of material and learn the key concepts as sequential events. it is an active - learning method that engages students ’ attention and allows them to review material quickly and to assess how much they have accomplished within a given time. dr. heideman says the method can be applied to other study techniques, such as concept mapping. program director : margaret somosi saha, ph. d. award years : 1989, 1998, 2002, 2006 summary : the college of william and mary is a public research university in williamsburg, virginia. its hhmi - funded educational initiatives emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary and integrative approaches to education and research. they include : - the development of a biological mathematics program ( which includes substantial curricular changes and the addition of new faculty positions ), the strengthening of the interdisciplinary neuroscience major, and the establishment of a new undergraduate applied science minor. - the enhancement of both introductory biology and chemistry and upper - level immunology, molecular genetics, physiology, and neurophysiology laboratories through new equipment and expanded laboratory exercises. - the hhmi freshman research program in biology and chemistry and related sciences, which allows participating students to conduct independent research with a faculty mentor very early in their college careers — as freshmen. many of these students have the opportunity to continue their research during the following summer and throughout the next three years. - student participation in the national genomics research initiative ( ngri ), a national experiment in both research and education sponsored by hhmi ’ s science education alliance. through this initiative, groups of freshmen at selected colleges participate in an authentic research experience — integrated into an introductory laboratory course — on the genetics of phages or bacteriophages ( viruses that infect bacteria ). freshmen in the college of william and mary ’ s program discovered a new life form, a bacteriophage they named crimd. - the expansion of a summer fellowship program to include students at thomas nelson community college and three neighboring hbcu — hampton university, norfolk state university, and virginia state


at the heart of materials science is an understanding of the microstructure of solids. " microstructure " is used broadly in reference to solids viewed at the subatomic ( electronic ) and atomic levels, and the nature of the defects at these levels. the microstructures of solids at various levels, especially the defects, profoundly influence the mechanical, electronic, chemical, and biological properties of solids. the phenomenological and mechanistic relationships between the microstructure and the macroscopic properties of solids are, in essence, what the materials science is all about. this is best represented by the " materials science triangle " : synthesis - microstructure - properties. materials engineering, on the other hand, is concerned with the design, fabrication, and testing of engineering materials. such materials must fulfill simultaneously the dimensional properties, quality control, and economic requirements. several manufacturing steps may be involved : ( 1 ) primary fabrication, such as solidification or vapor deposition of homogeneous or composite materials ; ( 2 ) secondary fabrication, including shaping and microstructural control by operations such as mechanical working, machining, sintering, joining and heat treatment and ( 3 ) testing, which measures the degree of reliability of a processed part, destructively or non - destructively. because the science of materials branches into other fields of study, the department offers joint fields of study in collaboration with other departments. a degree specializing in electronic materials is offered which provides a broad - based background in materials science, with the opportunity to specialize in semiconducting materials used in electronic and optoelectronic devices. the program incorporates several courses in electrical engineering in addition to those in the materials science curriculum. a joint major field, chemistry / materials science, is offered to students enrolled in the department of chemistry and biochemistry ( college of letters and science ). several courses in the undergraduate curriculum also play an important role in the manufacturing engineering program. the graduate program allows for specialization in one of the following fields : ceramics and ceramic processing, electronic and optical materials, and structural materials.


the most romantic way i have ever heard chaos theory described is, “ there are patterns, and even great beauty, in seemingly chaotic events. ” formally, chaos theory is defined as a sub - discipline of mathematics that studies complex, or dynamic, systems. these complex systems contain so many moving parts that it takes computers to calculate and model all of the movements of the system. in fact, it has been said that the emergence of this theory could not have happened without the invention and proliferation of the computer. up until what is called the quantum mechanical revolution, “ people believed that things were directly caused by other things. ” in latin it is referred to as post hoc ergo propter hoc, or after, therefore, because of it. in essence, if one thing follows another, it must have been caused by it. it is the basis of freudian psychoanalysis, “ a belief that malfunctions in the mind are the results of traumas suffered in the past ” and that regression therapy — pinpointing when and how these traumas occurred — would allow us to heal. it is called linear cause and effect. chaos theory, however, tells us that it is less about linear effect and more the existence and production of patterns caused by many different forces, the most important of which are initial conditions, popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. the butterfly effect posits that the flapping of a butterfly ’ s wings in south america could affect the weather in texas, meaning that the smallest, seemingly inconsequential part of a system can have a huge effect on all the other parts. simply said, “ unless all factors can be accounted for, large systems would be impossible to predict with total accuracy because there are too many unknown variables to track. ” the study of chaos theory has helped us understand simple, or everyday, phenomena such as water boiling on a stove and complex events such as how birds migrate, how vegetation spreads and the structure of stars in the night sky, but its origins stem from the study of weather systems. it all started in 1960 when edward lorentz created a weather - model on his computer at the massachusetts institute of technology. lorentz ’ s weather model consisted of an extensive array of complex formulas that successfully modeled, and later helped predict, the weather and turned a large, unpredictable system into one of those everyday phenomena, the daily weather forecast. this month ’ s quality continues in the tradition of mr. lorentz with michelle bangert ’ s analysis of our annual spending study, “ quality spending stays strong


mar. 4, 2013 behind locked doors, in a lab built like a bomb shelter, perry gerakines makes something ordinary yet truly alien : ice. this isn ' t the ice of snowflakes or ice cubes. no, this ice needs such intense cold and low pressure to form that the right conditions rarely, if ever, occur naturally on earth. and when gerakines makes the ice, he must keep the layer so microscopically thin it is dwarfed by a grain of pollen. these ultrathin layers turn out to be perfect for recreating some of the key chemistry that takes place in space. in these tiny test tubes, gerakines and his colleagues in the cosmic ice lab at nasa ' s goddard space flight center in greenbelt, md., can reproduce reactions in ice from almost any time and place in the history of the solar system, including some that might help explain the origin of life. " this is not the chemistry people remember from high school, " says reggie hudson, who heads the cosmic ice lab. " this is chemistry in the extreme : bitter cold, harsh radiation and nearly non - existent pressure. and it ' s usually taking place in gases or solids, because generally speaking, there aren ' t liquids in interstellar space. " the cosmic ice lab is one of a few laboratories worldwide where researchers have been studying the ultracool chemistry of cosmic ice. with its powerful particle accelerator, the goddard lab has the special ability to mimic almost any kind of solar or cosmic radiation to drive these reactions. and that lets them dig deep to study the chemistry of ice below the surface of planets and moons as well as ice in space. recipe for disorder in a vacuum chamber about the size of a lunchbox, gerakines recreates a little patch of deep space, in all its extremes. he pumps out air until the pressure inside drops to a level a billion times lower than normal for earth, then chills the chamber to minus 433 degrees fahrenheit ( 15 kelvins ). to get ice, all that remains is to open a valve and let in water vapor. the instant the sprightly vapor molecules enter the chamber they are literally frozen in their tracks. still pointing every which way, the molecules are transformed immediately from their gaseous state into the disorderly solid called amorphous ice. amorphous ice is exactly the opposite of the typical ice on earth, which forms perfect crystals like those that make up snowflakes or frost needles. these crystals are so orderly


gaseous state into the disorderly solid called amorphous ice. amorphous ice is exactly the opposite of the typical ice on earth, which forms perfect crystals like those that make up snowflakes or frost needles. these crystals are so orderly and predictable that this ice is considered a mineral, complete with a rating of 2. 5 on the mohs scale of hardness - - the same rating as a fingernail. though almost unheard of on earth, amorphous ice is so widespread in interstellar space that it could be the most common form of water in the universe. left over from the age when the solar system was born, it is scattered across vast distances, often as particles no bigger than grains of dust. it ' s also been spotted in comets and icy moons. the secret to making amorphous ice in the lab, gerakines finds, is to limit the layer to a depth of about half a micrometer - - thinner than a strand of spider ' s silk. " water is such a good insulator that if the ice gets too thick, only the bottom of the sample, closer to the cooling source, will stay sufficiently cold, " says gerakines. " the ice on top will get warm enough to crystallize. " the superthin ice can be spiked with all kinds of interesting chemicals found in space. one set of chemicals that gerakines works with is amino acids, which are key players in the chemistry of life on earth. researchers have spent decades identifying a whole smorgasbord of amino acids in meteorites ( including some involved in life ), as well as one found in a sample taken from a comet. " and because water is the dominant form of frozen material in the interstellar medium and outer solar system, " says gerakines, " any amino acids out there are probably in contact with water at some point. " for his current set of experiments, gerakines makes three kinds of ice, each spiked with an amorphous form of an amino acid ( either glycine, alanine or phenylalanine ) that is found in proteins. the real action begins when gerakines hits the ice with radiation. earlier studies by other researchers have looked at ice chemistry using ultraviolet light. gerakines opts instead to look at cosmic radiation, which can reach ice hidden below the surface of a planet or moon. to mimic this radiation, he uses a proton beam from the high - voltage particle accelerator, which resides in an underground room lined


quantum teleportation leaps to new distance record a new record of roughly 60 miles has been set in the field of qubit transmission. " this is just a transmission method, so it could have wide utility, though i expect the cost will initially make it best for huge data streams, " said analyst rob enderle. " something like this could turn us into a saas world. " scientists in china have transmitted quantum bits, or qubits, over a record distance of 97 km, or roughly 60 miles. this is more than six times the distance of the previous record of 16 km, set by another team of chinese researchers in may of 2010, as reported in nature. com. the results represent a step toward the establishment of a global quantum network, and the methods used in the experiment could be utilized for satellite - based quantum communications, the scientists said. " this is just a transmission method, so it could have wide utility, though i expect the cost will initially make it best for huge data streams, " rob enderle, principal analyst at the enderle group, told technewsworld. this technology " could end up changing much of the world " because it ' s both potentially higher bandwidth and lower latency, approaching zero, and these factors " could drive massive computer centralization on a world scale and force a massive shakeout of security, networking and computer companies, " enderle continued. " something like this could turn us into a saas ( software as a service ) world. " the theory behind the experiment the latest experiment demonstrated quantum teleportation of an independent unknown state between two optical free - space links 97 km apart with multi - photon entanglement. quantum teleportation is a process for transmitting information using quantum physics to, in effect, encrypt the data transmitted. it ' s also known as entanglement - assisted teleportation. in quantum teleportation experiments, beams of lights are used to encode qubits. the encoded beam of light, which is described as quantum entangled, is split into two and transmitted. when a qubit at one receiver is observed and take a defined form, the other half of the qubit at the other receiver takes the same defined form. quantum entanglement results when particles such as photons or electrons interact physically and then become separated but remain in the same quantum state. a quantum state is a set of mathematical variables, including position, momentum and spin, that fully describes a quantum system


its electrons orbit the atomic nucleus like the planets orbit the sun. exactly 112 electrons circle the atomic nucleus in an atom of the new element " copernicium ". element 112 is the heaviest element in the periodic table, 277 times heavier than hydrogen. it is produced by a nuclear fusion, when bombarding zinc ions onto a lead target. as the element already decays after a split second, its existence can only be proved with the help of extremely fast and sensitive analysis methods. twenty - one scientists from germany, finland, russia and slovakia have been involved in the experiments that led to the discovery of element 112. since 1981, gsi accelerator experiments have yielded the discovery of six chemical elements, which carry the atomic numbers 107 to 112. the discovering teams at gsi already named five of them : element 107 is called bohrium, element 108 hassium, element 109 meitnerium, element 110 darmstadtium, and element 111 is named roentgenium. the new element 112 discovered by gsi has been officially recognized and will be named by the darmstadt group in due course. their suggestion should be made public over this summer. the element 112, discovered at the gsi helmholtzzentrum fur schwerionenforschung ( centre for heavy ion research ) in darmstadt, has been officially recognized as a new element by the international union of pure and applied chemistry ( iupac ). iupac confirmed the recognition of element 112 in an official letter to the head of the discovering team, professor sigurd hofmann. the letter furthermore asks the discoverers to propose a name for the new element. their suggestion will be submitted within the next weeks. in about 6 months, after the proposed name has been thoroughly assessed by iupac, the element will receive its official name. the new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table. “ we are delighted that now the sixth element – and thus all of the elements discovered at gsi during the past 30 years – has been officially recognized. during the next few weeks, the scientists of the discovering team will deliberate on a name for the new element ”, says sigurd hofmann. 21 scientists from germany, finland, russia and slovakia were involved in the experiments around the discovery of the new element 112. since 1981, gsi accelerator experiments have yielded the discovery of six chemical elements, which carry the atomic numbers 107 to 112. gsi has already named their officially recognized elements 107 to 111 :


atommate is a chemistry card game that consists of a deck of 49 playing cards with the names, symbols and facts about the elements of the periodic table. it is used to play games that involve making chemical compounds. designed for students aged 10 and up, it is a grow - with - me game. beginning students learn the names and symbols of the elements. intermediate students learn to combine the elements to form molecules and compounds. more advanced students can use the cards to enhance their understanding of simple reactions. instructions for eight easy games, which range in difficulty from easy to complex, are included. there are several games that may be played with these cards. all games are designed for 2 to 4 players. the deck contains a sub - set of the elements in the periodic table, with repetitions of some elements. some of the elements have the word toxic on them - this gives the card special powers in some of the games. there are 8 non - element cards : 4 reduce and 4 oxidize. these allow the player to make additional moves in some of the games. the following information on the cards may be used to play the games : atommate is a game developed by dr. carol brevett who has taught chemistry at iowa state university and has been working in industry, including at the dupont company of delaware, as a research scientist for over 13 years. she has developed and tested the atommate games over many years. a must for the chemistry enthusiast, the science scholar, the science - oriented pupil or anyone who wants to play an unusual and novel card game. with each order we ' ll send you a free silky periodic table bookmark and a free glossy laminated postcard sized periodic table for your noticeboard! delivery and shipping | terms and conditions | about us |