My name is Sergey Zubkov, and it is my web page that you’re now viewing. I’ve been a writer, a teacher, a chemist, a biochemist, and a software engineer. I live in the USA and I love the Internet and the endless possibilities of communication that it offers. The role of this website is dual: it is my blog (accessible via categories above) and my little philosophical web page Cardinal Knowledge (accessible via pages on the left).
Another bit of science fiction became reality last month as the first solar sail was unfurled on june 3rd, 2010, by the japanese spacecraft on its way to Venus.
Also in really impressive news, artificial nanoparticle antibody, made of plastic, was tested in vivo, and worked. It was imprinted with sensitivity to bee venom, injected into bloodstream of mice who were given lethal injections of the venom, and it saved them. I have to admit, nanoscience is getting exciting.
Speaking of hot topics, graphene was in several publications, one of which showed how to make 30-inch sheets of it, big enough for LCDs and touchscreens. (It is better than the common indium tin oxide, especially in terms of flexibility and price)
Physics had a lot of interesting stuff going on: tau-neutrino oscillated from mu-neutrinos shot from CERN was directly observed.
Photoemission was shown to be not instant: it takes an extra 21 attoseconds to kick an electron off a 2p orbital compared to the 2s orbital of a neon atom. Which is also the new record for the shortest directly measured time interval.
The australians who already stopped light for a second, are further improving their quantum memory for light, promising hours soon.
A curious student earned himself a first-name article in Nature and a PhD by building a theory of bubble bursting, which explains how surface bubble break-up happens and why is there sometimes a ring of smaller daughter bubbles created.
Another experiment you can do yourself: stretch a dribble of spit between two fingers and little beads on a string will form. A theory to explain them was just published in Nature as well (it’s not as useless as you’d think, it explains similar beads in inkjet printers, in the industrial processes involving polymer solutions, etc)
Yet another curious student created a brownian motion motor, imagined in 1912 and proved impossible (in equilibrium gas) by Feynman in 1963.
In more bizarre physics, a “dark pulse laser” was built, a quantum dot laser producing impulses of.. dark.
Not as much jumped at me in biology news, but the antibiotic property of honey, known for thousands of years, was finally identified – it’s a protein called defensin-1, a part of the honey bee immune system (aided by sugar, hydrogen peroxide, and methylglyoxal). And the four-leaf clover gene was identified so we can genetically engineer luck.
In unfortunate news, The AIDS denialists rejoice as the investigation into misconduct of their crazy leader Peter Duesberg concluded with “insufficient evidence”. (After over 330,000 deaths were attributed to his health policies in South Africa, he responded with the now withdrawn article in 2009 which was so bad it prompted the investigation, but Berkley closed it last month saying “The university relies on the scholarly peer-review process, rather than disciplinary procedures, for evaluating the value of scientific work”)
In an astronomical disappointment, the rings around Saturn’s moon Rhea, announced in 2008 were ruled out.
And, just for the sake of the cool title, I have to quote the video recordings of sprites and elves.
Crossposted fromLiveJournal
Continuation-passing style (wiki) is a theoretical concept from functional programming that Scheme came up with in 1975. Well now that it’s 2010 and functions are first-class citizens of the C++ universe, too, along with closures. So I figured.. can I write CPS in C++? Yes, I can! We can have functional programming now!
Here’s Scheme example from the wiki:
(define (factorial n k)
(cps= n 0 (lambda (b)
(cps-if b
(k 1)
(cps- n 1 (lambda (nm1)
(factorial nm1 (lambda (f)
(cps* n f k)))))))))
And here’s what I made with C++
void factorial(int n, function<void (int)> k) {
cps2(equal_to<int>(), 0, n,
[&](bool b){cps_ifthen(b,
[&](){k(1);},
[&](){cps2(minus<int>(), n, 1,
[&](int nm1){factorial(nm1,
[&](int f){cps2(multiplies<int>(), n, f, k);});});});});
}
To compile the function above, I had to define a couple CPS primitives, of course, just like in Scheme:
#include <iostream>
#include <functional>
#include <cmath>
using namespace std;
template<typename F, typename A, typename K>
void cps1(F f, A a, K k) { k(f(a)); }
template<typename F, typename A1, typename A2, typename K>
void cps2(F f, A1 a1, A2 a2, K k) { k(f(a1, a2)); }
template<typename F1, typename F2>
void cps_ifthen(bool x, F1 k1, F2 k2) {x ? k1() : k2();}
void factorial(int n, function<void (int)> k)
{
cps2(equal_to<int>(), 0, n,
[&](bool b){cps_ifthen(b,
[&](){k(1);},
[&](){cps2(minus<int>(), n, 1,
[&](int nm1){factorial(nm1,
[&](int f){cps2(multiplies<int>(), n, f, k);});});});});
}
int main()
{
for(int i=0; i<10; ++i) {
cout << "F("<<i<<"): " << tgamma(i+1) << " or ";
factorial(i, [](int a) {cout << a << '\n';});
}
}
test run:
cubbi@gummadoon ~ $ g++ -std=c++0x -pedantic -Wall -Wextra -o cps cps.cc cubbi@gummadoon ~ $ ./cps F(0): 1 or 1 F(1): 1 or 1 F(2): 2 or 2 F(3): 6 or 6 F(4): 24 or 24 F(5): 120 or 120 F(6): 720 or 720 F(7): 5040 or 5040 F(8): 40320 or 40320 F(9): 362880 or 362880
I could simplify cps1 and cps2 into a variadic version
template<typename K, typename F, typename... A>
void cps(K k, F f, A... a) { k(f(a...)); }
but then the order of arguments would make it look too different for neat juxtaposition, since variadic parameter pack must be in the end of the argument list.
Crossposted from Livejournal
The biggest news was of course “Scientists Create Life!!!” — the group that has been tediously working on Mycoplasma which, back when they began, was known as the bacterium with the smallest genome (now we know about Pelagibacter ubique, which is so much more awesome in many ways) finally did it, they fully synthesized its entire genome from scratch, with some modifications, and “booted” it in a different bacteria which then died to produce their new cell.
In a do-over after their 2006 failure, Neanderthal genome was finally sequenced (60% of it) and confirmed that it wasn’t all war when modern humans left Africa, there was some interbreeding going on too, which made us all 1% – 4% Neanderthal. Although the important implications were the identification of the 78 genes that separate us – most of them already known as genes that deal with human brain because mutations in them cause everything from Down’s (DYRK1A) to Autism disorders (CADPS2 and AUTS2). Too bad we’re not allowed to mod a human germ cell and grow up a Neanderthal child in a test tube.
In another example of prehistoric genetics, a wooly mammoth gene was inserted in E.coli to express mammoth hemoglobin and to study how does it work at low temperatures. I just love how the first sentence of the article’s abstract says “We have successfully resurrected …”
To the joy of quacks everywhere, acupuncture was meticulously studied and proven to relieve pain in mice (as long as the mice don’t have the mutation that removes their adenosine receptors). Of course you don’t have to know anything about magical energies, it’s the tissue damage that releases the pain-killing chemical.
Speaking of researching the antiscientific, a three year long study showed that both lab and wild birds prefer conventionally-grown grain to “organic” grain because of its higher nutritional content (but it takes them a while to learn the difference). Not a surprise to me, I never buy “organic” food myself anyway, but the authors just had to say they are overturning a “dogma”.
Oh and while I’m on quakery subject, Wakefield’s old papers about his made-up vaccination-autism connection were retracted from public record by The Lancet and American Journal of Gastroenterology — about time!
Since it’s all about biology today, a couple biologists from New Hampshire played God Nature by changing whole-island populations of predators and lizards on six tiny Caribbean islands and evolved some tough anole lizards in a field experiment on natural selection.
Also, apparently we can now reprogram the poor abused E.coli to seek and destroy specific chemicals, in this case, a herbicide.
And for a quick round-up of the bizarre, Monkeys pay for porn, 2-toed sloths hide in outhouses to eat our poop, and there’s a new gaping hole in the middle of Guatemala city.
That’s it for May. Enjoy the World’s Best Visual Illusion of 2010!
So what happened besides the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, the oil spill, and the return of the deadly virulent fungus from Vancouver Island?
Element 117 was created, 8 years after the heavier 118. It took a year to scrape up 22 mg of Bk in Oak Ridge and 5 months of bombarding it with Ca in Dubna to generate 6 atoms. The cool thing is that it confirms that neutron-rich superheavy elements are more stable, and Island of Stability may not be stuff of fiction after all.
Speaking of fiction, some guys showed off their ability to solve the inverse problem of electromagnetism by designing, fabricating, and characterizing a 3D invisibility-cloaking device (no, it’s not big enough for a human.. yet?).
Another stuff of fiction turning real: a self-healing organic molecular monolayer was made that worked like a massively parallel computer, solving a variety of computational tasks. This is kinda exciting.
In astronomy, the origin of zodiacal light, long taught to be dust from colliding asteroids, was shown to have come from disintegrating comets instead (much to rejoicing of Bill Napier).
Also, water and organic molecules are not just present, but *prevalent* on the surface of one asteroid, 24 Thermis.
Oh, and LRO found the first Soviet Moon rover, Lunokhod-1, with perfectly functioning reflector, to everybody’s surprise.
After those physics news, chemistry looks dull with its aromatic carbon-lead compound and triple bond between boron and oxygen (or maybe I didn’t have the time to read more journals)
Biology had more cool news, though, the first multicellular organism was found that lives entirely without oxygen. They have hydrogenosomes instead of mitochondria. (oh, hey, it is on wikipedia already)
Also the first animal to produce carotenoids was found, a red aphid, which picked up necessary genes from some fungus a long time ago.
Speaking of picking up genes, blood-sucking parasites exchange DNA (namely, transposons) with mammals. One bug, triatomine, has DNA of opossums and monkeys, and another of another bunch of mammals. Talk about lateral gene transfer!
Wasn’t even so much bizarre in biology news.. maybe those caterpillars that talk with their butts, or these male spiders, who are usually eaten by their partners after mating, but when
one realizes he’s mating his own sister, he pulls out before finishing.
Crossposted from LiveJournal
Wow I am two weeks late, between business trips and FCN (which was awesome, despite the long drive to the chilly Detroit)
Still no time to page through JACS or PNAS, so just the big news items and a couple oddities:
The 4th natural mechanism of oxygen production was discovered (did you think photosynthesis was the only one?).
The pungent smell of wasabi, mustard, garlic, or acrolein is the oldest sense we have, our common ancestor with insects had it, 500 million years ago.
We finally know why do people die from SIRS after severe trauma (SIRS is just like sepsis, but without infection) – apparently our own mitochondria still look enough like dangerous bacteria when they enter blood stream en masse from the damaged tissue, and our immune system goes into overdrive. So now doctors can treat it, as long as they are really sure there is no infection.
Sex differentiation for birds (namely, chicken) was found to be cell-autonomous. Meaning, unlike humans, where embrios are sexless until 7 weeks old and tissues can change under hormone therapy, every cell of a chicken is male or female from the start (or from about 18 hours after fertilization). And to study that, they had to find three bizarre hermaphroditic chickens where half of the body was male and half was female.
DNA analysis of a 40k year old finger from Siberia found the fourth line of ancient humans, besides modern, neanderthal, and the “hobbits” from Flores, who all lived only that recently, having diverged over a million years ago.
Male pipefish (a kind of seahorse), who become pregnant from their female partners, can, it turns out, selectively abort the embryos from unattractive mothers, talk about pro choice!
The sixth taste was probably discovered in humans – in addition to sweet, salt, sour, bitter, and umami, some humans were shown to taste fat, and those who can taste it really well, eat less of it, too.
For non-biological news, the “Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything” based on the awesome 248-dimensional Exceptionally Simple Lie group E8, was conclusively dismantled.
Good old General Relativity was confirmed to hold true for at least as far as 3.5 billion light years from Earth by a survey of 70,000 galaxies, which also disproved one of the alternative theories, TeVeS, and left another competing theory, f(R), without a distinct ruling. They want to survey a million galaxies when BOSS is done in 5 years to narrow down the expirimental errors.
And, finally, to the amusement of astronomers, thermal map of one of Saturn’s moons looks like a giant Pac-Man eating the Death Star.
Crossposted from LiveJournal
Herbert Draper, The Gates of Dawn (1990)
I think dawn is a much nicer thing to think about in the spring, compared to dead people or painted eggs.. although multiplying bunnies are fun too! And here’s a Draper painting from 1900 to illustrate the idea.
Crossposted from LiveJournal
I was randomly linked to an awesome blog of an organic chemist who wrote, among other things, several posts titled “Things I won’t work with”. Here: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/
Even if you’re a non-chemist, you will appreciate the compounds that can force evacuation of a village when their scent wafts over from an open flask in a nearby college, compounds that set concrete, sand, bricks, water, and people on fire as they happily burn through them, or compounds that just blow up while standing undisturbed in the dark at cryogenic temperatures.
Fun stuff.. And no, I didn’t work with any of the title compounds either 
Crossposted from Livejournal
So, this is what february 2010 added to the collective knowledge of humankind:
Chemistry
A 1 GHz NMR spectrometer (that’s 23.5 Tesla) was brought online in Lyon, the new long-awaited record after Bruker 950 MHz spectrometers appeared in 2006. It costed over 11 million euros, so don’t expect your college getting one soon. Speaking of NMR, the largest ever distance between two nuclei, 14.4 A, was measured with tritium-labeled MAS NMR (normally, your regular biochemical 1H liquid state NOE NMR measures only up to 6 A).
Also in chemistry, where dozens of new reactions are developed every month, two remarkably simple ones were made in February: a zinc-catalized reduction of amides to amines which tolerates alkyl, aryl, heterocyclic, esters, ethers, nitro, cyano, azo, and keto substituents, touching nothing but amides. The other one is a one-pot synthesis of 1,3-disubstituted allenes from a 1-alkyne and an aldehyde.
By the way, someone finally made a fullerenium salt, C60(AsF6)2, and it turned out to be a regular semiconductor instead of the speculated high-temperature superconductor.
Also someone ambitiously claims to redefine the textbook definition of H3O+ in water, based on IR, but I don’t see how this agrees with the 2005 fast scale study and a host of others.
A superheavy isotope of carbon, carbon-22, was found to be more stable than expected, and very hard to analyze with current theory. And finally, the element 112, produced back in 1996, was finally given the official name Copernicium, and chemical symbol Cn by IUPAC. Update your periodic tables!
Physics
While LHC’s full run is getting delayed until 2013, RHIC (our own, Long Island based black hole generating doomsday device) is proving it can still do cool stuff — analysis of 200 GeV quark-gluon plasma gave new hypotheses for barionic asymmetry and the large magnetic fields of the galaxies.
Also in the world of physics, a saser (a laser analog emitting sound waves) was finally made, in two different ways, by two groups simultaneously: in California and UK. Very cool things, hopefuly they’ll find use for them.
Another hardcore physics study, the crossover from BCS superfluid (weakly interacting pairs of fermions) to BEC supefluid (tightly bound bosonic molecules made of fermions) was studied with anticipation of something new and cool but was found to be boring fermi fluid.
And more physics: the 100 year old Abraham-Minkowski dilemma about the momentum of light was finally solved: both are correct.
Biology
A new oldest life form on Earth was found and dated to 3.2 billion years ago.
Yet another psychology research in the origin of religion shows that moral judgments are not related to religious background. At the same time, neuroscientists noticed that when they remove a chunk of rt. inf. parietal cortex (normally providing spatial awareness), patients gain self-transcendence.
Speaking of neurophysiology, although the “facilitated communication” for that belgian in persistent vegetative state turned out to be a hoax (as anyone familiar with the idea should have known), a group of researchers who used fMRI in 2006 to get answers from a vegetative patient scanned 53 more and found that four of them also have distinct brain activity patterns in response to questions.
And, for something weird, bees can recognize human faces.
Crossposted from Livejournal
Oh, hey, temper tantrums, Restless Leg, binge eating, and cybersex addiction and other excessive sexual activity, are gonna be mental disorder in the USA now. Good thing Internet addiction didn’t make the cut due to insufficient evidence
Crossposted from LiveJournal
Running a little late here because I spent this week in the humid warmth of McAllen, TX, and I probably miss a few cool things.. but anyway:
in chemistry news, An isomer of
in physics, the 80-year old bizarre prediction of Dirac’s relativistic QM theory called “Zitterbewegung” was tentatively confirmed by a no less bizarre technique called ‘quantum simulation’, where hitting trapped ions with fine-tuned lasers makes them behave as free particles moving at fast speeds or as other types of quantum systems that are being simulated.
Speaking of the bizarre, biology was rich in that last month (when isn’t it?). Researchers attempted to tag some tree frogs with radio transmitters and learned something really weird: Tree frogs are apparently able to move into the bladder and urinate anything that was lodged in their body cavities: thorns, insects, radio transmitters. Also, a parasite was found, appropriately named Endaphis fugitiva, which jumps out of the banana aphid in which it lives when it realizes the aphid is in the jaws of a predator.
In promiscuous (but not in monogamous) mouse species, sperm cells can recognize and team up with sperm cells of the same male or, in a lesser extent, sperm of a brother. They form packs that swim faster than a single sperm cell. Also a couple researchers from Cincinnati decided to circumsize fruit fly males with lasers to see if their penis ornaments help them in mating.. Obviously, they do.
Speaking of sex, early last month a group from London made CNN news when they claimed that there is no G-spot in human females, simply by asking a whole lot of twins if they think they have any, arguing against an earlier italian study where G-spot was actually located with ultrasound.
And of course as everyone knows, paleontology had two major discoveries to hit the news: A polish group found well tetrapod tracks in Middle Devonian, showing that tetrapods coexisted with elpistostegids (such as Tiktaalik) for over 10 million years in different niches. Some chinese paleontologists found melanosomes in fossil dinosaur feathers, suggesting that dino’s plumage was striped russet-orange and white, overturning the idea that the color of prehistoric animals would never be known. How if they could find fossilized voice…
Something cool about humans: Ever seen movies where cowboys duel, the bad guy draws and the good guy reacts and draws faster? There’s truth to that: human brain reacts faster than acts (by a small margin, and with more mistakes, but faster). Another curous find about us: barefoot running subjects humans to four times less stress than shod running. Shoes make it easy to pick up the bad habit of landing on the heel.
And finally the poor little Mars explorer Spirit, stuck in a sand pit with two broken wheels since November, was finally declared a “stationary research station” (also covered by xkcd).
Crossposted from Livejournal