tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54336674582768088622024-03-05T18:03:03.582-08:00A Look At Our WorldA SCIENCE BLOGKruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-37521803322114502742015-01-08T14:42:00.006-08:002015-01-08T14:46:51.123-08:00Science Says | The Dark Side of the UniverseA little bit outdated now, but have a look at my most recent post for Science Says, on the relationship between dark energy and dark matter, <a href="http://sciencesays.co.uk/2014/12/21/the-dark-side-of-the-universe/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_WRcophPIv7XZsLGYtiJDD7SjHZHgQ64lCVkiZ__58We36_OZlsa2nlIN15Q4q25IfpEZpZZ3priJFQqwIh0QpNuJvp44cQcEfLdzoBhkVdQweyfm96_fNRyjHTQ8HNP10v4Zwa9DrFA/s1600/5518988345_9ef6af4df9_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_WRcophPIv7XZsLGYtiJDD7SjHZHgQ64lCVkiZ__58We36_OZlsa2nlIN15Q4q25IfpEZpZZ3priJFQqwIh0QpNuJvp44cQcEfLdzoBhkVdQweyfm96_fNRyjHTQ8HNP10v4Zwa9DrFA/s1600/5518988345_9ef6af4df9_o.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Image: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/58782395@N03/5518988345" target="_blank">Space</a> by Sweetie178 under creative commons license</i></td></tr>
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-26378605989754567132014-12-08T08:31:00.000-08:002014-12-08T08:32:39.644-08:00Gender diversity in science: where are all the women?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Gender diversity is such a big issue today,
especially when it comes to STEM subjects. There is no doubt gender diversity
in STEM has improved over the last few decades but there is still a severe
imbalance: only 13% of all STEM jobs in the UK are taken up by women, and if
you disregard jobs in medicine, that figure drops to 9%. Academic careers in
STEM also suffer from a gender imbalance, and what is striking is how the
proportion of women at each level of increasing seniority drops: for example,
in the physical sciences, though women take up 42% of postgraduate places, they
only take up 10% of professor positions. The full set of statistics, put
together by Scienceogram UK, can be found <a href="http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidencePdf/4413" target="_blank">here</a> (and it’s definitely worth a
look).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So why is this the case? In February
earlier this year, the House of Commons published a report (<a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmsctech/701/70102.htm" target="_blank">here</a>) on this very
subject. They pick out two primary explanations for the lack of gender
diversity in STEM careers. Firstly, gender biases, which are largely
unconscious, both influence employers away from recruiting women and also
influence women themselves from pursuing STEM careers. Secondly, the nature of
the early academic career structure tends to deter women more than men from
pursuing academic careers: it is composed of short-term contracts, often not
more than a year or two, which often require international relocation. It seems
that women are more likely than men to give up an academic career in light of
the job insecurity and instability that results.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">How can we tackle these issues? It’s not
easy: unconscious gender biases are so ingrained in our society, and the fact
that we are not aware of them makes them so much harder to combat. The House of
Commons report has recommended providing STEM undergraduates and postgraduates
with equality and diversity training, also noting that such training should be
mandatory for all STEM recruiters and line managers, which is a start. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Tackling the barriers presented by the
academic career structure is equally difficult, but for different reasons: the
career structure is based on a complicated set of factors, constrained by the
way in which Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), research councils and other
funding institutions work. This makes changing the structure much more
difficult. And, as the government points out in their response to the House of
Commons report, published in May (<a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmsctech/1268/126802.htm" target="_blank">here</a>), the contract lengths of academic
positions is ultimately the choice of the HEIs, meaning the government have
limited say in the matter.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It’s not obvious how we can move forward.
Perhaps the way to changing the academic career structure is to target the HEIs
themselves, or to put pressure on the funding institutions to offer longer-term
contracts. Certainly, one way to improve unconscious gender bias is to talk about
it, to make us aware of the biases that we may not even realize we have,
because this at least gives us a chance of tackling them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-50560959867982907522014-10-02T11:42:00.002-07:002015-01-08T14:45:08.977-08:00Science Says | Bacteria Wars: the scientist strikes backSome of the latest advancements being made in the fight against bacterial resistance <a href="http://sciencesays.co.uk/2014/10/02/bacteria-wars-the-scientist-strikes-back/" target="_blank">here</a>:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjduSXt1UboStgDXAQk1GaAG0kbCaD3V9rhz9HOVq6LJWO4W83OjX70Dc4JOI-tTGTEW_Rumcmpw_UuvtntdJxBDkGkl0YkxptYqP-KSK8iSEVAaAhZ_y1PoMK3yJFilB8ODblVUtFkNe0/s1600/5613657007_ac068f92bb_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjduSXt1UboStgDXAQk1GaAG0kbCaD3V9rhz9HOVq6LJWO4W83OjX70Dc4JOI-tTGTEW_Rumcmpw_UuvtntdJxBDkGkl0YkxptYqP-KSK8iSEVAaAhZ_y1PoMK3yJFilB8ODblVUtFkNe0/s1600/5613657007_ac068f92bb_o.jpg" height="400" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Image: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/niaid/5613657007/in/photolist-97dMAf-427kJ-a2Ltvs-8QYufp-a4RLq5-9y4sDM-j4vREz-9y7kCs-cMVemo-a2HASi-axXXBt-7KS5yk-aUqzZR-fNdewm-bpCfQR-dRtGwW-j4uLGn-fCTgWB-f5pMom-fyXRic-j4MspC-6gRjWS-bra1QM-bra28z-dQorNR-dQjFSx-6g9xTZ-6gLWAK-6gLWAP-p2NgtV-eZs6Fr-dmHDAS-9hccVD-oexg4Q-oeQamJ-ovULgB-nwgBRT-oeFrRp-4bAWxg-brTWRK-8XzGVW-6xqpgW-nwytWo-ntSeSW-nbqp3m-nvRHfQ-nwk2oB-nbozdV-ntX97h-nPoeXi/" target="_blank">Methicillin Resistance Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Bacteria </a></i><br />
<i>by NIAID under creative commons license</i></td></tr>
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-3658657526763837592014-09-18T03:56:00.000-07:002014-09-18T03:56:16.274-07:00A Look at Our World: Leidenfrost EffectIf a pan on a stove gets hot enough, you can see something quite strange. Normally, pouring a few drops of water onto a hot pan results in the water fizzling into steam, disappearing within seconds. But on a pan that is very hot, the water in fact coalesces in to shapes of smooth marbles, which skitter across the pan like they are dancing. Try it!<br />
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This surprising phenomenon is called the Leidenfrost effect and has a simple explanation. If a surface is hot enough, the lower part of the liquid that touches it vaporises so quickly that it forms a layer between the pan and the rest of the liquid. This layer actually acts as an insulator, across which the water can skitter without immediately evaporating, protected from the heat of the pan. The exact temperature at which this phenomenon starts to take place depends on many factors, but for water on a pan, the pan's surface temperature is likely to be at around 200 degrees celsius.<br />
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-26807375019436880982014-08-06T07:51:00.000-07:002014-09-18T03:59:33.102-07:00Trying to Understand Climate Change (II)<b>James Lovelock has said that he expects about <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange" target="_blank">80% of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100</a>.</b><br />
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<b>Lovelock is surely one the most influential scientists today. His extreme views on the impacts of climate change has brought all-important publicity to the issue, and his Gaia hypothesis, first ignored by almost all, then ridiculed by some, has been gradually accumulating support over the years.</b><br />
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Lovelock believes that by 2020 extreme weather will be frequent, and that by 2040, much of Europe will have become a part of the Saharan desert and parts of London will be underwater. Though they sound dramatic, his claims aren't too different from the claims in the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (<a href="http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WG2AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank">see part II</a>), and indeed have the added benefit of making the severity of our situation inescapably clear.<br />
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Lovelock's book 'The Revenge of Gaia' does a good job at explaining his view on climate change, and how we should act in light of it. Firstly, what is 'Gaia'? Gaia is the Earth, its atmosphere and all living organisms on it. The Gaia hypothesis proposes that Gaia forms a single complex system that self-regulates its environment to optimise it for life sustenance, much as our bodies self-regulate themselves to maintain the internal conditions that best enable us to thrive.<br />
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The self-regulation mechanisms take the form of <i>negative</i> feedback loops. Take, for example, the following feedback loop that may regulate the Earth's surface temperature: let us say that temperatures increase for whatever reason, warming the ocean surface waters. It is thought that <a href="http://www.jameslovelock.org/page35.html" target="_blank">ocean algae produce a chemical substance, called dimethyl sulphide (DMS)</a>, that contributes to cloud formation. When the ocean surface waters warm, production of DMS increases, and thus cloud coverage increases. However, since clouds cool the Earth by reflecting incident sunlight back into space, the increased cloud coverage works to reduce temperatures back down again. Thus, temperature can be regulated.<br />
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However, a number of <i>positive</i> feedback loops also exist. For example, if the ocean surface water temperatures surpass a certain threshold (and a few degrees can make all the difference), its surface waters become devoid of nutrients. Algae die, and DMS production reduces, decreasing cloud coverage. The decreased cloud coverage allows more sunlight onto Earth, thus increasing temperatures further, exacerbating the problem.<br />
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Self-regulation means that temperatures would not normally surpass this threshold, but human carbon dioxide emissions, for example, are leading to a hotter Earth, causing the positive feedback loop to kick in. There are many such positive feedback loops now in play, and it is this that makes Lovelock so concerned about our fate: the Earth is going to get increasingly hot, and the world as we know it is going to undergo some serious changes as a result.<br />
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So what does Lovelock suggest we do? According to him, it's far too late to try and save the planet: temperatures <i>will </i>increase, deserts <i>will</i> spread and cities <i>will</i> become submerged by water. According to Lovelock, what we have to do is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2014/apr/14/science-weekly-podcast-james-lovelock-rough-ride-future" target="_blank">give up trying to save the planet</a>, and use technology to make the world one in which we can live in: we need to synthesise our own food, air-condition our cities, and, crucially, use nuclear power for energy because renewables just won't cut it.<br />
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Lovelock's prognosis may seem dark, but the more I read about what he has to say, the more I can't help but agree that we, as a human race, are in serious danger.<br />
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<!--EndFragment-->Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-69441359350003997892014-07-22T13:59:00.001-07:002015-01-08T14:44:47.291-08:00Science Says | Missing: Titan's Waves. If found report to NASAA post exploring the mysterious and exotic world of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Find it <a href="http://sciencesays.co.uk/2014/07/22/missing-titans-waves-if-found-report-to-nasa/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhad0hFDPm5978OsFm05srQzv4H-peKWTn4ovFFhizNwdHHpSw2TKCt1Tv-IhPHEx03Oeox6GsYoGOaN-M0SNzsLBbRSuEQQYliwSH9LwOO9-NDftqkLWxdYKlU-mLcHM7_I_nZ0IlFPTY/s1600/Titan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhad0hFDPm5978OsFm05srQzv4H-peKWTn4ovFFhizNwdHHpSw2TKCt1Tv-IhPHEx03Oeox6GsYoGOaN-M0SNzsLBbRSuEQQYliwSH9LwOO9-NDftqkLWxdYKlU-mLcHM7_I_nZ0IlFPTY/s1600/Titan.jpg" height="466" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/10463744825/sizes/o/in/photostream/" target="_blank">NASA's Cassini Spacecraf</a>t under creative commons license</span></i></td></tr>
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-62958246150939899162014-06-30T15:19:00.002-07:002014-08-06T08:21:07.279-07:00The Politics of the Longitude Prize<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b>As a global society, we face a number of issues that need to be addressed urgently. The Longitude Committee chose six of these, and formed six scientific challenges that, if answered, would help solve these issues. Just last week, the public decided that the most worthy challenge was the one that addresses the rise in bacterial resistance to antibiotics.</b><br />
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The challenge involves developing a cost-effective, reliable and swift means for testing for bacterial infections, which health professionals can use to prescribe the right antibiotics at the right time. This would reduce the frequency with which antibiotics are unnecessarily prescribed, and will thus help slow the growth of bacterial resistance. The Longitude Committee have promised to award a prize of £10 million to the candidate who best answers the challenge.<br />
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What I like about the Longitude Prize is that it emphasises the role that science has to play in addressing our greatest global challenges. It thus publically re-affirms the important status of science in society, something that can be often undermined. It also inspires people to use science to address these global challenges, people from both our current workforce and from the next generation’s. As such, I have no doubt that the Prize will drive some important positive results.<br />
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However, in emphasising the role that science has to play in addressing these challenges, critics are concerned that it does too little to highlight the pivotal role of politics. Indeed, even if a practical means of testing for bacterial infections were found, political action would be absolutely necessary to ensure that the equipment was actually distributed and used. As Jonathan Mendel puts it, writing on the Guardian, the Longitude Prize leaves us “seduced by hopes that science will solve our social and political problems” although, single-handedly, it most certainly can’t. The worry is that the Longitude Prize thereby fosters political inaction.<br />
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In my view, the Longitude Prize may well “seduce our hopes that science will solve our social and political problems”. However, I think it is very important to realise that this is not due to any fault in the Prize itself. Rather, it is a lack of sufficient political action and awareness that makes us vulnerable to becoming “seduced”.<br />
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It is extremely important to promote scientific action, and the Longitude Prize does this well. What we need alongside this is political action, because without them in tandem, we haven’t a hope of solving our greatest global challenges.</div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-39774424691936054412014-06-30T15:15:00.000-07:002015-01-08T14:44:59.866-08:00Science Says | A Little Matter of LightMy first blog post for Science Says explores how scientists will soon be turning pure light into matter. Take a look, <a href="http://sciencesays.co.uk/2014/06/24/a-little-matter-of-light/" target="_blank">here</a>!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://openphoto.net/volumes/vvti03/20061016/openphotonet_DSC01420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://openphoto.net/volumes/vvti03/20061016/openphotonet_DSC01420.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Image: <a href="http://openphoto.net/gallery/image/view/15318" target="_blank">Pretty Lights</a> under creative commons license</span></i></td></tr>
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Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-2231492602661100022014-05-29T14:01:00.001-07:002014-08-06T08:16:56.471-07:00Trying to understand Climate Change (I)<b>There is no doubt that climate change is becoming one of the most important issues on the news agenda, and rightly so: if there's one thing we can be sure about, it's that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. But, beyond that, I find it very hard to understand what's going on. What exactly is causing climate change? How exactly is our climate changing? And what should we, as individuals and as a global society, do about it?</b><br />
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There are a few reasons I think that make this such a complex topic. Firstly, there are numerous components to our climate system, and the components are notoriously 'chaotic' (i.e. if the model used to make predictions is just slightly inaccurate, the resulting predictions may be wildly inaccurate). As such, the exact details of the issue at hand tend to be vague and uncertain. Secondly, because the issue is not exactly clear, it's hard to know how to address it: should we attempt to resolve it, or is mitigation the most we can hope for? How much do we need to reduce our CO2 emissions by to be safe? And some questions are made even more complex by the political agendas surrounding them: Should we invest in renewables or is nuclear a better alternative? How much responsibility should lie with developing nations compared to developed nations?<br />
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What I'd like to do is start looking into these issues more, to gain a better understanding of what our best science tells us is going on. So I've started by looking at the papers from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), who aim to provide a rigorous and balanced scientific view on climate change and its impacts. In particular, I've taken a look at their most up-to-date report, the Fifth Assessment report, in order to help me get a better understanding of the scientific consensus.<br />
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I've picked out a few claims from the report that I think set the landscape for how our best science views climate change. You'll see that claims have been usefully qualified by confidence and probabilistic measures:<br />
<ul>
<li>"Warning of the climate system is <i>unequivocal</i>...The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentration of greenhouse gases have increased."</li>
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<li>"It is <i>extremely likely</i> that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century."</li>
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<li>"Continued emissions of greenhouse gases <i>will</i> cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change <i>will</i> require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions."</li>
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<li>As a result of the changes in climate in the recent decades, <i>with high confidence</i>:<i> </i>a large fraction of terrestrial and freshwater species face increased extinction; and low-lying areas will increasingly experience adverse impacts such as submergence, coastal flooding, and coastal erosion. </li>
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<li>In addition, also with <i>high confidence</i>, all aspects of food security are potentially affected by climate change; and climate change is expected to lead to increases in ill-health in many regions and especially in developing countries with low income, as compared to a baseline without climate change.</li>
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I'm sure none of this is a surprise to you, and it wasn't much of a surprise to me either. But, for me, seeing these claims in a well-reputed scientific report, rather than as second-hand claims in an article (or blog-post!) certainly helped give these claims more grounding.<br />
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And that comment, I think, touches upon another reason that makes climate change such a complex topic: it's so hard to know whether what you read and hear is true, or whether it has in some way been corrupted, either intentionally or inadvertently. Indeed, as suggested by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/apr/24/james-lovelocks-book-genius-defence">Ge<span id="goog_62602144"></span><span id="goog_62602145"></span>orge Monbiot's recent criticism of James Lovelock's latest book</a>, even the most highly-respected sources may get their facts wrong.<br />
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So on that note, here are the links to the original documents of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report - or at least their Summary for Policy Makers - for you to take a look at yourself:<br />
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Part 1: <a href="http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf">The Physical Science Basis</a><br />
Part 2: <a href="http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/IPCC_WG2AR5_SPM_Approved.pdf">Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability</a><br />
Part 3: <a href="http://report.mitigation2014.org/spm/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers_approved.pdf">Mitigation of Climate Change</a><br />
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And here is the link to the website: <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/">https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5</a>/.<br />
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Next time, I'll be looking at the ideas of the fascinating and sparky James Lovelock so keep a look out.<br />
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-11204494734311259472014-04-21T15:49:00.002-07:002014-08-06T08:21:01.113-07:00A Look At Our World: Tree BarkThe bark of a tree has some wonderful textures to it: smooth, scaled, cracked, ridged, or some combination of these. There are generally two layers of bark, the outer layer and inner layer. Inside of these are the notable rings of wood that increase in number each season as the trunk grows to expand its girth. It is this growth that tends to cause the outer layer of bark to crack and peel away, giving it some of its distinct textures. Interestingly, it is not uncommon for the inner layer of bark to have the ability to photosynthesise, and if you scratch at the surface of a twig with your nail, you may expose a surface with a greenish tinge, indicative of the presence of chlorophyll, a requisite for photosynthesis.<br />
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In this very close-up photo of tree bark, you can see the top layer of outer bark peeling away to expose the inner bark. You can also see a greenish tinge, though whether this is the chlorophyll in the tree or perhaps some common tree lichen, I am not quite sure!<br />
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-51146018881416041042014-03-08T10:20:00.000-08:002014-08-06T08:14:49.132-07:00The Power of Nuclear Fusion<b>Our world is in something of a environmental crisis. It seems that our unquestioning use of the Earth's resources, combined with an exploding population, has resulted in changes that could be detrimental to our civilisation: water levels are increasing, natural food resources are running out and our main energy sources won't last a great deal longer.</b><br />
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Because of this, green, sustainable energy is imperative: green, so as to minimise our production of atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels, which is already well above 'safe' levels, according to climatologist Dr James Hansen; and sustainable so that it can meet the demands of an increasing population and their rising standards of living.<br />
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For me, all this makes the ITER project of immense interest. Involving 35 nations and costing 13 billion Euros, this large scale experiment aims to demonstrate the potential of nuclear fusion as a source for future commercial energy.<br />
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Nuclear fusion is the process that powers our Sun, enabling it to emit the light and heat energy that lights and warms our Earth. Current commercial nuclear power plants generate energy by a process called nuclear fission, which works by splitting a heavy atomic nucleus into two lighter ones. Nuclear fusion, on the other hand, combines two light atomic nuclei into a heavier one. If these processes are carried out with the right types of atoms, they can generate a huge amount of energy.<br />
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The fusion process can be carried out by fusing hydrogen nuclei into a helium nucleus. Hydrogen, found in seawater, is abundant on Earth, and, as such, we'd have enough fusion fuel to last millions of years. Furthermore, it produces no carbon dioxide during operation and no radioactive waste that puts so many off nuclear fission.<br />
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So why aren't we currently using fusion to generate commercial energy? Unlike fission, fusion requires extremely high temperatures. Creating these conditions and managing them safely is a challenge. Furthermore, producing these high temperatures requires a lot of energy, and although experimental groups have generated energy using fusion before, no experiment has been able to generate an overall surplus of energy.<br />
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The ITER machine, currently being built in France, aims to be the first experiment to achieve this. Designed to fuse hydrogen atoms in conditions ten times hotter than the core of the Sun, ITER hopes to generate ten times as much energy as is put in. The construction, which began in 2010, is scheduled to be completed in 2020, with fusion operation beginning in 2027. But, the technological challenges presented by this ambitious project are already resulting in delays, and even if ITER does achieve its goal, there is much more testing to be done before fusion energy can be generated for commercial use. Experts think it unlikely to be available for another 40, 50 or even 60 years.<br />
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There is a long way to go before this solution to our energy needs can become a reality, but the ITER project is paving the way.<br />
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-44422740424364196852014-01-29T14:36:00.002-08:002014-08-06T08:14:29.561-07:00Green Goodness. And a lot of sugar<b>Whilst deciding what to have for lunch in a local Pret a Manger a few weeks ago, I came across their 'Green Goodness Juice'. Packed with with Goodness, its only ingredients are Apple, Cucumber, Celery, Spinach, Lime, Ginger.</b><br />
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It definitely sounds good, but eyeing up the nutritional breakdown on the back gave me a bit of a shock. Each bottle contains an impressive 42.8 grams of sugar. To put this in perspective, this is the equivalent of more than ten teaspoons of sugar, between 50%-80% of an adult's guideline daily amount (depending on what recommendations you look at); and even their carrot cake slice, the item with the highest sugar content I could find on the menu, has less sugar at 36.2 grams.<br />
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I should point out a few caveats: clearly, the Green Goodness Juice has additional nutritional content that the Carrot Cake Slice does not; and the Carrot Cake Slice is a reasonably small portion (112g), whereas the Juice is reasonably large (400g). Nevertheless, these statistics do make me wonder how 'good' the 'Goodness Juice' really is, and whether the 'naturalness' of the sugars make its high sugar content admissible.<br />
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There are different types of sugars, the main categories being 'glucose', 'fructose' and 'sucrose'. Sucrose is commonly known as table sugar, and is made up of both glucose and fructose in equal parts. Since sucrose is immediately broken down into its component parts on ingestion, the body only really distinguishes between glucose and fructose.<br />
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Glucose can be used for energy by all the cells in our bodies, and is circulated around the body to this end. Any glucose that is not needed by the body is stored for later use, eventually as fat. However, fructose can only be used for energy by a few types of cells, liver cells being the most significant. Fructose is also stored as fat, if not used. There are numerous ongoing debates as to which of these sugars is better or worse. Many arguments point towards fructose as being the worse of the two, due to the by-products created in liver upon metabolism, and its inability to dull our feeling of hunger. However, these accusations have not been shown conclusively, and there are various other arguments in favour of fructose.<br />
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So back to the natural sugars in out Green Goodness Juice. Natural sugars are made of both glucose and fructose, though proportions vary depending on the product. Apples and pears have a particularly high fructose content, but many other fruit and vegetables, for example, pineapple, peaches and carrots have an approximately equal ratio. As mentioned, table sugar is also made up of glucose and fructose in equal ratio. So, it seems, there is often little difference between natural and added sugars.<br />
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It should be emphasised that this is not to say that there is little difference between eating fruit and eating cake. Not only does fruit offer nutrients that the cake will not, but whole fruit will most likely have a lot less sugar per serving, and the fibre in whole fruit will slow the body's absorption of the sugar, reducing the negative impact it might have on you. Fruit <i>juice</i>, on the other hand, may be packed full of nutrients, but will contain more sugar per serving and less fibre.<br />
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So where does all this leave our Green Goodness Juice? Well, it certainly has nutrients aplenty, unlike the Carrot Cake slice. But it also has a whole lot of sugar, which is not redeemed in virtue of it being natural, and nor does it boast the fibre that absolves whole fruit. I guess whether it is 'good' or not really depends on how much other sugar you'll be eating throughout your day: as my grandmother quips, 'Everything in moderation'.<br />
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-11209484019982383652013-12-30T15:40:00.001-08:002014-08-06T08:13:38.432-07:00How I'll be spending New Year's Day<b>New Year's Eve is here, and for many of us, that means a night of heavy alcohol consumption, leaving behind a torturous headache by which to make the most of the first day of the new year. So, in festive spirit, I'm taking a quick look at why we get some of the symptoms that constitute a hangover at all.</b><br />
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Like many ailments, the hangover certainly has its own set of characteristic symptoms: headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue and thirst are amongst the most common. Whereas the causes for the first three are less clear, the last two of these symptoms have the fairly straightforward explanations.<br />
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We feel thirsty simply because we are dehydrated. Alcohol is a diuretic, making us need the toilet more. In fact, for every standard unit (UK) of alcohol drunk, urine excretion increases by around 80ml. Note that this means that if I drink a pint of beer, I will not only lose the amount of liquid that I would if I were to drink the equivalent of water, but I would lose <i>more</i>, thanks to the alcohol - so the water content in the beer does not replace the water that is lost due to the alcohol content in the beer.<br />
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Similarly, we feel fatigue simply because we lack proper sleep. Though alcohol can put us quickly into a deep sleep once we hit the pillow, it significantly disrupts sleep later in the night. Moreover, it cuts the amount of time we spend in REM sleep, important for the proper functioning of our brains. Also, heavy drinking is likely to mean you'll need to wake up a couple of times in the night needing the loo, which certainly doesn't facilitate effective sleep. All this leaves us rather tired.<br />
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So what about the headaches, dizziness and nausea? These symptoms are in part due to dehydration and lack of sleep, but beyond this, explanations become much more hazy. These other symptoms may also be due the side effects our bodies experience in clearing up the mess we've made: our bodies break alcohol down into acetate, so that it can be removed from the body; but it is thought that the alcohol may be broken down into the chemical 'acetaldehyde' first, a chemical that is much more toxic than alcohol, thus worsening hangover symptoms. More commonly quoted hangover culprits are 'congeners', since they tend to be found in those darker alcoholic drinks that reportedly lead to worse hangovers. These are just a few of the speculations amongst researchers and the media, but, overall, there seem to be no conclusive explanations here.<br />
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So we have some clear answers and some other vague speculations. What we do know is that I, along with many others around the world, shall be facing a splitting headache, a nauseous disposition and the acrid taste of wine at the back of my throat on New Year's Day. Lovely.<br />
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Happy New Year!<br />
<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-56875396816654300002013-11-27T14:43:00.000-08:002014-08-06T08:12:56.989-07:00The lives of honey bees<b>Ever since a bee-enthusiast told me a few facts about the lives of honey bees, I've wanted to write about them. If it made sense to describe the behaviour of the honey bee using terms from human sociology, I think something along the lines of 'fascist matriarchy' might be suitable: the queen bee seems to yield a rather authoritarian power, and the males seem to get a rather rough deal.</b><br />
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There are three 'castes' of honey bees in a hive: the queen bee, the worker bee and the drone.<br />
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The queen bee: there is only one queen bee in a hive. When she hatches, she will go and kill off all other unhatched or hatched queens, so assuming her right to the throne. Soon after birth, she goes on her one and only ever mating flight, mating with multiple male bees. Her primary purpose in the hive is the lay eggs.<br />
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The worker bee: worker bees are all female. They lack the ability to reproduce themselves, and devote their lives to foraging and storing nectar and pollen, cleaning the hive, feeding the male bees and the unhatched eggs, and servicing the queen with all her needs.<br />
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The drone: drone bees are the male bees. Their primary purpose is to mate with the queen bee. However, those that are successful unluckily die in the very act. Male bees are the first to be expelled from the hive when winters are harsh and honey reserves are low, left to starve without food.<br />
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So why have honey bees evolved to behave in this way that I rather ridiculously call 'fascist matriarchy'? Thanks to evolution, this behaviour must be to their benefit, but I found hard at first to see how.<br />
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In the animal kingdom, this type of behaviour is known as 'eusociality'. Eusociality is different to other social systems in the animal kingdom because, in eusocial animals, different castes of the animal perform functions that other castes of the animal cannot perform. Because of this, a single honey bee, whether it be a queen, worker or drone, cannot survive for very long by itself; it needs the rest of its hive to live. Because it is the hive rather than individual that is self-sufficient, such eusocial groups are often referred to as 'super-organisms'.<br />
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When considered as a super-organism, the behaviour of the honey bee makes much more sense. Just like organs in a self-sufficient organism, the bees each have different functions in the running of their self-sufficient hive; so, for example, only one female in the whole hive need have reproductive organs, because she reproduces on behalf of the whole hive. Furthermore, since bees do not mate in winter, the drones are of no use to the hive at this time, and are thus expelled in favour of the workers and the queen, needed to care for the hive and produce its next generation.<br />
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At the level of the individual, their lives seem starkly different to ours, but at the level of the super-organism, this difference is less stark. I think they're a great example of how varied the workings of the natural world can be, yet how life ultimately works in very similar ways.</div>
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-65428089876474816992013-11-12T13:09:00.001-08:002014-08-06T08:09:42.287-07:00How we might make physics lessons a bit more exciting<b>A lot of people are put off by physics - it can come across as dry and tedious, where the content is too abstract to be interesting and the calculations involve too many numbers. I am somewhat of a physics-lover, and even I found physics at school quite a chore.</b><br />
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From the little I know about what it is to teach, I have no doubt that the national curriculum is very stringent, allowing little space in which teachers might inject excitement. Even if there was the space, teachers tend to be so over-worked that it's hard to see where they could find the time. However, there is something I think that could make a difference; something that teachers could do that would attract students' interest, creating a foundation upon which learning physics could be more engaging.<br />
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Students listen when they see things they don't expect, whether it be their teachers put on a ridiculous Christmas pantomine or something less excusable such as their peers creating class mayhem. Physics has the advantage of lending itself to demonstrations with impressive, and often unexpected, results. So perhaps physics lessons could involve a few more things like that.<br />
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I was watching a QI repeat quite recently and Stephen Fry was describing a rather fantastic demonstration he was privy to in one of his school science lessons. His teacher brought into his class a single, red rose. Rather dramatically, the teacher whipped the rose into a bucket of liquid nitrogen and then flung it against the wooden desk, causing it to shatter, like glass, into a hundred pieces. Watching a rose shatter on impact is definitely something you wouldn't expect to see, and would have definitely got my attention in a lesson. After a short discussion on the exciting properties of liquid nitrogen (nitrogen - liquid? etc.), perhaps this demonstration could be an introduction to a GCSE lesson in cooling and heating.<br />
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I know that there are so many reasons why this, in general, couldn't be a solution to the lack of interest in physics lessons. Obstacles show up in their plenty, from the limits of technical support available to teachers to having a class disciplined enough to perform demonstrations of this kind. But the point here is that physics lends itself to eye-widening phenomena, and enabling students to realise this might make them a bit more excited about it.<br />
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-50082092979224330732013-10-31T14:11:00.002-07:002014-08-06T08:00:38.230-07:00Explaining the weird world of quantum mechanics<b>Quantum mechanics tells us things about the world that are impossible to make sense of. For example, it seems to tell us that a particle can be in more than one place at once. In fact, so the maths suggests, it can be in infinitely many. But then, putting aside the fact that this sounds ludicrous in itself, why is it that we only ever measure a particle to be in one place?</b><br />
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Human kind has always wanted to make sense of the world around us. When the ancient Egyptians saw the sun move through the sky, they understood it to be their god "Ra" travelling across the sky with the sun on his head. Thousands of years later, the Greeks, and later Copernicus, made sense of it by proposing that the Earth revolves around the sun. Of course, these two theories are very different from each other, with the latter justified by a lot more evidence than the former. But they both try to <i>explain</i>.<br />
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Similarly, physicists and philosophers of physics are trying to explain quantum mechanics, but it is proving impossible to do so conclusively. According to the most widely accepted theory, a particle is in infinitely many places at once only until the moment it is observed or measured. At this point, it instantaneously and unpredictably takes up one position. A less conventional but increasingly popular theory proposes that when the particle is measured, our universe actually branches off into infinitely many others universes, with the particle assuming a different position in each of the universes. Thus, we only ever measure the particle to be in one place.<br />
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Neither of these theories seem very intuitive; rather, they both seem utterly fantastical. But when Copernicus proposed that the Earth revolved around the sun, that didn't seem very intuitive to his contemporaries either. What I think is really exciting is that something has to be right, and whatever it is, I feel quite sure, is going to be weird.<br />
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-24120918994221462862013-10-25T08:23:00.004-07:002014-08-06T08:06:21.678-07:00The reasons behind our fundamental constants<b>I've just watched an <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/gian_giudice_why_our_universe_might_exist_on_a_knife_edge.html" target="_blank">interesting talk</a> by Gian Giudice. In this talk, Giudice presents his hypothesis that the value of the Higgs boson mass, which is approximately 126 GeV, is special: it is special because it falls within the small range of critical values that mean that <i>the structure of our universe is on the brink of collapse</i>. Luckily, the probability of such a collapse happening is so small, that this is only likely to happen inconceivably far into the future (phew!).</b><br />
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Of all the values the Higgs boson mass could take, why is it this one, one that puts the fate of our universe on knife-edge? Giudice believes that there could be a reason, using an effective analogy to explain why. Consider the much less mysterious phenomenon of sand dunes: the slope of sand dunes generally take a value between thirty and thirty five degrees, because the effects of the wind and the effects of gravity upon the sand mean that the slope is simply statistically likely to be within this range. And so the same can be said for the Higgs boson mass: there is a high statistical probability that its mass takes a value within the range that it does, due to two competing effects. What these effects might be caused by pose further questions to be explored.<br />
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This got me thinking about the other fundamental constants of the universe: Planck's constant, a fundamental constant of quantum mechanics; the speed of light in a vacuum, the constancy of which is the insight of Einstein's theory of Special Relativity; and the fine structure constant, which, if it were just four percent larger, would prohibit the formation of carbon and life as we know it. Do the values of these constants have reasons? Or are some of them simply what they are by pure chance?<br />
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My intuition has been that they have reasons. Our world is so intricate that I can't imagine that, when the universe was born, light simply took on a value of 3x10^8 m/s for its speed <i>by chance</i>. But until now, I couldn't understand what a reason might look like; what would possibly cause any fundamental constant to take on the value it does? I liked Giudice's talk because it helped me to understand how there could indeed be reasons behind such things.<br />
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Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-5470862650049512892013-10-15T15:25:00.004-07:002014-08-06T08:04:05.761-07:00Two theories of almost everything<b>The standard model of particle physics constitutes a huge development for modern physics, going a long way to fulfilling the physicist's ultimate dream, a 'Theory of Everything'. It describes all of the fundamental building blocks of matter known to exist, three of the four known forces that determine how they interact, and it even tells us how matter has mass at all. This last feat, of course, is achieved by the Higgs Boson.</b><br />
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The force that the standard model notoriously finds too challenging to describe is the very first force we learn about at school, gravity. Our best theory of gravity is Einstein's general relativity. Unifying the current standard model with general relativity would successfully create a Theory of Everything.<br />
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It seem rather simple then, doesn't it, to fulfil the physicist's dream? However, the current standard model and general relativity have proven horrendously difficult to unify, with attempts resulting in '<a href="http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/multimedia/2013/may/09/what-is-quantum-gravity" target="_blank">complete nonsense</a>'. Physicists have turned their hopes onto other theories (including the commonly cited string theory), in the hope that these new routes will be more fruitful.<br />
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There, for now, the standard model remains: alongside Einstein's general relativity as one of two theories <i>almost</i> everything.<br />
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<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-47335636342501180052013-10-08T14:57:00.000-07:002014-08-06T08:05:00.333-07:00The Higgs boson and the Nobel prize<div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b>Congratulations
to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs for their Nobel Prize achievement, and
congratulations too to Robert Brout (post-humously), Tom Kibble, Gerald
Guralnik, Richard Hagen, Philip Anderson, Jeffrey Goldstone and the
thousands of technicians and experimentalists who have been part of the
multi-decade long project to find the Higgs Boson at the LHC, CERN. </b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> As in
almost any discovery, a lot of people have played a part in the discovery of
the Higgs Boson. I've found it very satisfying to read about the story of the
theoretical discovery that happened almost fifty years ago, the planning and
construction of LHC and the very recent and momentous experimental
confirmation; how lovely it is to recognise the small but hugely
significant step that the human race has made in search of truth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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I wrote an article back in February, when the nominations for the 2013 Nobel prize winners came in; it talks a little about the history of the Higgs boson discovery and speculates upon who the winners might be. Read it <a href="http://www.epigram.org.uk/science/item/1187-73the-nobel-prize-winner-takes-it-all" target="_blank">here</a>, if you're interested.<br />
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Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5433667458276808862.post-38262636772522765572013-10-03T14:38:00.000-07:002014-08-06T08:01:32.496-07:00It's a fascinating world<br />
<b>The world is a strange place, and the more I learn about it, the stranger I think it is. </b><br />
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I've just finished a degree in Physics and Philosophy, and unfortunately have forgotten a great deal of the content I learnt (I'm not entirely sure what a capacitor is at this moment in time). However, I spent a lot of time studying the the bizarre behaviour of the world at the quantum level, and at the very least my enchantment with this has remained. The theory of quantum mechanics is both beautiful and mind-boggling: beautiful because it falls out so perfectly from the mathematics, and mind-boggling because it seems near to impossible to build a conclusive picture of what is actually going on. The maths simply does not fit our intuitions about the way things work.<br />
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As such, it was this particular area of science that captivated me during my degree. But of course there are many fascinating things to learn about in this world, from the physics of our universe at the smallest and the largest scales to the science behind man's inventions and the biology of the living world around us. Now that I'm no longer consigned to physics alone, I hope to read and learn about the vast number of fascinating things in this world, and, as I do, I will try to write about them here in a simple and accessible way, yet keeping true to the science.<br />
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Do comment and send me feedback!<br />
<br />Kruti Shrotrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063104812902609698noreply@blogger.com0