The Carnival of Space # 149 is up at Starry Critters, and you can catch up with the best astronomy and space bloggy goodness of the past week there. And if you go now, you’ll win a pony*.
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When you first look at it, you think it might be a flaw in the image. After studying it for a while, you realize it proves the existence of black holes, dark matter, and the warping of the fabric of space.
Light Warping Around Mass - NASA/ESA
The ring-like distortion effect on an image you see in gravitational lensing is referred to as Einstein Rings, mostly because Einstein predicted and quantified their existence in 1912. We’ve talked about gravitational lensing before, specifically in this post discussion on gravitational lensing used to prove the existence of dark matter.
What basically happens is that as light travels toward you, if there is something of respectable mass between you and the light source, the light will bend around it in response to its gravity. Science realized that sometimes they were looking at light bending around something they couldn’t see. Something of extremely large mass.
Light waves, left alone, will travel in a straight path away from its source. It doesn’t bend and warp on its own, but it will warp around a body of mass large enough to act on it. We see that as a distortion in the image. There are several different types of distortion we will see, and an Einstein Ring is just one. The Ring occurs when the mass source lines up “perfectly” between us and the light source. The more complete the Ring, the more “perfect” the line up. The Hubble Space Telescope found the first complete Ring in 1998.
If you like it mathematically, this is what it looks like geometrically:
Image released to public domain - author discourages attribution
It’s been almost a century since Einstein first predicted this effect. Using the Hubble ST to map the known Rings, science has reached a clearer understanding of the distribution of dark matter and energy around us, the nature of galaxies as distant as 11 bly, and the curvature of the known universe. I think that’s pretty amazing.
Kate and Miriam brought this terrific young explorer to my attention--and I have a hunch we'll hear more from Fairy Scientist Lydia in another decade or so! The details:
The Fairy Scientist was one of 9 finalists in the annual Project Reason Video contest. Voting is now closed and our little scientist did not win any of the three grand prizes. Oh well, the Nobel is still up for grabs. Children are natural scientists - filled with wonder and curiosity, they yearn to know about the world around them. Join Fairy Scientist, Lydia as she sets out to discover the secret world of Fairies. Lydia comes from a family of accomplished scientists; her grandfather is a PhD Oceanographer with NOAA and her great-grandfather is professor emeritus of Horticulture at Oregon State University. Lydia's father is an Electrical Engineer with Hewlett-Packard with numerous patents to his credit. Scientist, Lydia, is the granddaughter of "Andrus" producer/director, Robert Neary. Though she took a little direction from her director grandfather, her comments and observations are completely unscripted and entirely her own. Lydia's academic studies has her currently in the First Grade, but her inquisitiveness and curiosity show great promise in her achieving a notable scientific career.
A quantum-encrypted future is a step closer this week after researchers announced a great advancement in speed: from fast enough to encrypt voice transmissions to fast enough to encrypt video.
For decades now scientists have tried to develop reliable quantum cryptography systems that take advantage of the quirks of quantum mechanics. Thanks to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, for example, we know that you can’t measure a photon of light without altering it. Thus, the thinking goes, if you encode information into photons of light, no hacker could intercept the information without giving themselves away. In 2008, we covered the scientists who orchestrated a secure video conference by using a quantum key, a security key derived from the patterns of arriving photons. Now, the Toshiba Research Lab in Cambridge [England] has reported a secure bit rate of 1 MB/sec, which is over 100 times better than previously achieved, making it suitable for commercial application [Nature]. The team outlines this research in Applied Physics Letters.
Research leader Andrew Shields says the key to this advance in quantum key distribution (QKD) is the marvelously named “semiconductor avalanche photodiodes,” in which a photon hits a bit of semiconductor to trigger an “avalanche” of electric charge. It takes time for that avalanche to build and pass, which limits the detector’s rate. New photodiodes can sense smaller avalanches and, hence, run faster, Shields says [ScienceNOW]. There’s also a stabilization system to adjust for the fiber-optic cables heating up.
The encryption method is considered to be perfect because it uses extremely long encryption keys only once and so cannot be cracked using crypto-analysis [Computer Weekly]. That big claim will be put to the test in October in Japan, when a quantum key distribution demonstrator will test the secure key across a wider “metropolitan network”, which may ultimately lead to the technology becoming commercially available [Wired.co.uk]. Someday many scientists hope to expand to an entire computer network employing quantum mechanics, including the possibility of messages encrypted with quantum entanglement. But now that researchers are surmounting some of the technical challenges, the next problem is, naturally, cost.
Related Content:
80beats: Quantum Cryptography Takes a Step Toward Mainstream Use
80beats: Harnessing Quantum Weirdness To Make Spy-Proof Email
DISCOVER: Future Tech: The quantum cryptography race is on
Image: iStockphoto
Apple's only mention of any kind of new iPhone hardware (besides the letter they sent us), and mentions of "future product transitions" during its live earnings call: Apple COO Tim Cook made a single reference to "new hardware" for the iPhone. More »
Apple sold 8.75 million iPhones in the last three months. That's over double what they did a year ago—the most quarterly ever—and how Apple nearly doubled profits: Up 90 percent for their best ever non-Christmas quarter. Updated live. More »
what's the common problem in the ceg ups?
In today’s not-shocking news, researchers have determined that teenagers like to text–a lot.
The new study by the Pew Center shows that the mobile phone has become the preferred mode of communication for American teens, with one in three teens sending more than 100 texts a day. Also in the category of not-shocking, the researchers found that older teenage girls are the most enthusiastic texters.
Some of the key findings:
When the teens aren’t texting, they report using their cell phones to listen to music and to take and share pictures with their friends. A whopping 83 percent used their phones’ cameras, but a relatively small number of teens said they sent and received sexually suggestive images by text (”sexts”). Just 4 percent of teens say they have sent a sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude image of themselves via text message, with older teens more like to receive “sexts” than younger ones.
If this study is making your nervous about your teen’s texting behavior–then you’re not alone. The study found that 64 percent of all parents snoop around on their kids’ cell phones and more than half have taken the device away to punish a child.
Related Content:
Discoblog: Who Has Dumber Fans, Ashton Kutcher or Justin Bieber? Math Reveals the Answer…
Discoblog: Teen Sues Mom for Hacking His Facebook Account
Discoblog: Teen Tries a Walkman for the First Time; Takes 3 Days to Find Side B
Discoblog: New Villain in the Obesity Epidemic: Mean Gym Teachers
Image: Wikipedia
For many software and Data centre installations predominantly UPS supply is used .
How to arrive the short circuit MVA at the output bus of UPS,given the kva rating and output voltage of UPS.
What is the basis of protection coordination.
Please enlighten on this
advance thanks f
A controlled leak? The lost iPhone planted by Apple? You have no idea how Apple PR works—and how, like it or not, Gizmodo finally beat them at their own game. More »
Same billing codes. One month ago.
If you thought $.45 on the dollar was bad… well, now it’s $.20. I posted this just in case you thought “oh, maybe Cigna had a good reason to not cover your service.”
And why does Cigna not pay us? Oh, I’m sure it’s somehow “our fault.” I’m sure I could spend two hours fighting on the phone, fax, and snowmail to learn nothing about why we’re not getting paid.
Hey, did you see? They have a website! All I need to do is fax their registration form, and they’ll send a “team of healthcare representatives,” to “install” their website on my computers, and then I can learn why their not paying me in Internet Explorer 6 via a Java plugin which doesn’t work on their usually broken website exactly as slowly as receiving Cigna’s snowmail! Aren’t computers great?
I guess we didn’t study hard enough to make the Cigna grade this time. I guess we’ll just have to Try Harder. Will I be able to bare the shame of not meeting my obligations as a loved and trusted member of the Cigna family? No. Also, it’s almost certainly a violation of “contracts” and “HIPPA” (misspelled, of course) to post this sentiment and these bills on a public website.
The interest in the tale of Apple's next iPhone is melting our servers and causing some technical difficulties. As a result, we had to temporarily shut off our comments system. More »
Oh hello, pretty. This appears to be Microsoft's upcoming Project Natal, complete with instructions, as seen by someone hired to test its speech recognition. More »
Cultural innovation, Pleistocene environments and demographic change. Gene-culture coevolution gurus Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that climatic fluctuations may work to the advantage of humans because of the adaptive flexibility inherent in a cultural species.
Common versus rare variants, again. Some skepticism of the new exhortation to look for rare variants of large effect instead of common variants of more modest effect. This sort of posturing by biologists strikes me as similar to what happens in social science (to a great extent all of what falls under the rubric of sociology seems to be posturing with doctorates). Does this happen in the physical sciences?
Sean Carroll Talks School Science and Time Travel. I wonder when he’s going to stop being asked about how he got together with Jennifer Ouellette. People meet up through internet. Via blogs. It happens.
Media to Tea Partiers: Can You be More Racist? Mind-reading is hard. Conservatives are racists and liberals are crypto-Leninists. Meanwhile, there’s life to be lived.
Neural Correlates of Being a Total Bad-Ass. Psychology with fMRI = telling you stuff you already know with a pretty picture to boot.
can someone send me a sample project for auto transformer protection schemas as pdf or as autocad file.
thanks a lot.
Devon claims that their $15,000 Tread 1 watch, a motorized, belt-driven contraption, is "a big, bold sexy declaration of independence from the status quo." The status quo, in this case, being affordable, legible, sensible timepieces. But all those belts. More »
Great article on extending the Cassini Mission from the New York Times.
In six years of cruising around the planet Saturn and its neighborhood, the Cassini spacecraft has discovered two new Saturn rings, a bunch of new moons and a whole new class of moonlets. It encountered liquid lakes on the
hi, i have installed a 56 kw induction motor with pump. but at the time of starting with load it's heating. i have all ready checked the alignment it is ok. it is all so taking rated current volt is also normal. what may the problem.
Here’s how much of your thousands of dollars in medical insurance premiums actually go to the medical doctors who do the work.
This is a settlement from Cigna for $89.57 of a $475.00 medical bill including a complete medical physical and a new patient office consult of moderate complexity. This represents about one to two hour of our medical and administration time providing service including review of records, intake, and documentation. A full roster of patients like this (which we don’t have, thank God…) works to be about $30 per hour per doctor. That’s gross revenue… not salary, not profit, and this is for one of “America’s most exclusive communities” (gag)… At 160 hours of work per month, that’s $4800 per month in sales, which is just barely enough to make minimum payments and rent.
Let me tell you what happens now:
Either:
1) I debit this patient’s payment card for the remaining unsettled balance ($250). Unfortunately, more and more people provide to us completely maxed payment accounts. Either this charge will clear and ruin this patient’s monthly financies, or this patient will be denied due to abject poverty, or because this is Greenwich, Connecticut, this patient is on Trust Fund Welfare, whomever is the “poppa/mamma bear” of this family will try to confront the medical doctor directly and complain. If bear already (unfortunately) knows me by name, they will demand that I am disciplined.
I assure you 100% that this patient is completely convinced that he “saves money” by buying medical insurance and would simply not believe that not only is all insurance —especially medical insurance— an almost guaranteed financial loss in all expected circumstances, but also, that his “fiscal responsibility” doesn’t protect him from being billed twice —once for “insurance,” and again because insurance refused to pay.
Aside: isn’t it funny how much money we spend trying to “save money?”
2) I don’t debit this patient. I inform the patient that he may apply for financial assistance, the patient has a private freak out about how “everything is circling the drain,” and I never hear from the patient again. Meanwhile, the office itself either:
a) goes bankrupt (“acquired”) and nobody gets any medical care outside of the hospital meatgrinder (and hospital collections are far more ruthless and expensive)
b) increasingly charges fewer patients with some financial support for the poor while people in the middle —enough to pay something but not enough to qualify for financial assistance— …get no service whatsoever.
Healthcare is diverging: either you get Private Flight service, or you get the DMV factory line. If you are somewhere in the middle: I have news for you, you better pick a side now, because it’s not so much that flight is impossibly expensive… it’s that it’s not for sale… to you.
Note: there is little correlation between quality of insurance and socioeconomic status —unless you are an informatic or organized labor.
