Intute blog

Three new hot topic articles have been published on Intute.

Tubes in space

Carbon nanotubes form in space but use a metal-free chemistry until now unavailable to chemists on Earth. The discovery is a surprising outcome of laboratory experiments designed by Joseph Nuth at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, and his colleagues. They were hoping to understand how carbon atoms are recycled in stellar nurseries, the regions of space where stars and planets are born, but the finding could have applications in nanotechnology, as well as help explain some characteristics of supernovae.

http://www.intute.ac.uk/hottopics/2010/03/tubes-in-space/

A radical approach to understanding polymers

Polymerization is used to make a whole range of materials but understanding exactly what happens during synthesis when it involves free radicals is difficult. Now, New Zealand chemists have uncovered important clues by following the rates of reaction and the termination steps involved.

http://www.intute.ac.uk/hottopics/2010/03/a-radical-approach-to-understanding-polymers/

Atomic circuitry and quantum computing

Conventional supercomputers have limitations: they are logical and fast, certainly, can be run in parallel grids across the globe, but when it comes down to solving problems with no logical answer, such as cracking sophisticated encryption, working out the travelling sales-rep problem of logistics and deliveries, or modelling the climate, they have serious limitations.

http://www.intute.ac.uk/hottopics/2010/03/atomic-circuitry-and-quantum-computing/

The mission of i-Society 2010 conference is to provide opportunities for collaboration of professionals and researchers to share existing and generate new knowledge in the field of information society. The conference encapsulates the concept of interdisciplinary science that studies the societal and technological dimensions of knowledge evolution in digital society. The i-Society bridges the gap between academia and industry with regards to research collaboration and awareness of current development in secure information management in the digital society.

For more information visit the conference website.

The WorldCIS-2011 is an international forum dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practical implementation of security on the Internet and Computer Networks. The WorldCIS-2011 invites speakers and researchers to submit papers that encompass conceptual analysis, design implementation and performance evaluation.

For more information visit the conference website.

The 5th International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST-2010) an international refereed conference dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practical implementation of secured Internet transactions and to fostering discussions on information technology evolution.

All the accepted papers will appear in the proceedings published by IEEE and fully indexed by IEEE Xplore. All the ICITST papers are indexed by DBLP.

For more information visit the conference website.

Fabrice Bellard has calculated the value of pi to a record 2.7 trillion digits. Perhaps even more mind-boggling is that far from using the latest supercomputer, Mr Bellard performed the calculation using a simple desktop PC over a 131 day period. The previous record was 2.6 trillion digits, a value calculated in less than 30 hours on a typical high-specification supercomputer in Japan.

Such “arbitrary-precision arithmetic” is a branch of the science which focuses less on the end product (who, after all, really needs to know the value of pi beyond a few figures?), and more on the techniques and algorithms employed in the calculations.

The story is covered in this BBC article.

Why not explore more online resources from the Intute: Mathematics gateway.

The Internet is being used by applied psychologists as a research tool, surveying people’s belief in ghosts, reports today’s online Advent Calendar.

‘Tis the season for sceptics and believers.

In the Middle Ages, people expected to see ghosts through Advent.

Marley's ghost, by John Leech, from Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol, 1843

With The Christmas Carol (1843) and other Christmas Books running up to The Haunted Man (1848), Charles Dickens used ghosts at this time of year to reflect the troubles of the human heart and the ills of society. His ghosts of lost loved ones and spirits of past transgressions proved redemptive through their hauntings. Dylan Thomas, writing just over a century later, reincarnated the Wales of his childhood, evoking the power of memory against the passage of time. Most recently, the low-budget independent American film, Paranormal Activity already broke box office records on limited release before opening in the UK at the end of November.

This year, UK scholars tapped into the enormous popularity of ghosts to conduct experiments online, confirming the Internet’s power as a research tool in this field.

“Cyberspace has become part of the geography of haunting. The Internet has created new communities of ghost believers, allowing people to share their investigations and sightings, enabling them to post evidential images and seek instant feedback.” (Dr. Owen Davies of the University of Hertfordshire, a social historian who specializes in English folk customs as well as witchcraft, ghosts and magic, confirms an ongoing virtual congregation around these interests)

Dr. Caroline Watt of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit, University of Edinburgh runs an online course to introduce interested members of the public to her discipline. She points to interactive experiments, using blogs, embedded YouTube videos and Twitter, which enable assessments of psychological experiences.  She helped set up the Science of Ghosts blog for the 2009 Edinburgh Science Festival, a project which won particular notice and publicity.

Even for critics and sceptics, this blog stands, if nothing else, as a landmark Internet research project because of its radical interactivity.  Richard Wiseman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, ran the blog and asked people to submit photographs of ghosts.  His team received some 250 photographs from all over the world.  Wiseman posted the best of these online and asked people to vote and comment on whether or not they thought the pictures were of real ghosts.  None of the photographs proved the existence of ghosts, but the blog received thousands of comments and over a quarter of a million votes.

Tantallon Castle 2008 ghost picture, presented to members of the public on 16 March 2009 on Richard Wiseman's blog.

One of the most compelling examples was the Tantallon Castle ghost picture.  It received over 220 explanations and was circulated in the global press.  This image has thus become a strange witness of the knowledge to be gained at the crossroads of history, psychology, communications and computing, where reason and belief meet.

Intute offers reviews of several resources relevant to this topic, including:

Image credits:

• Tantallon ghost, reproduced with the kind permission of Richard Wiseman
• Marley’s Ghost-John Leech, 1843, from Wikimedia Commons

Alan Turing was a British computer scientist famous for his code breaking work at Bletchley Park, his contributions to the field of artificial intelligence and the Turing test.

There is currently a Downing Street petition being run asking the Prime Minister to apologise for the prosecution of Alan Turing that led to his untimely death.

Related websites:
BBC news article
Alan Turing Home Page

UK broadband ‘notspots’ revealed (BBC)
“The government has promised to provide all homes in the UK with speeds of at least 2Mbps by 2012.”

Fibre optic broadband systems are not subject to electrical interference, unlike those which use traditional copper wiring. It provides increased speeds, but is expensive to install.
Satellite broadband systems, which require a receiver dish similar to those used for Sky TV systems, can be used in areas where other types of broadband access are not available.

see also:
The face of future broadband (BBC)
Fibre Optics – tutorial
How does Broadband work?
How does Broadband work?

The April issue of the Spotlight science magazine is now available. Written for Intute by science writer David Bradley, Spotlight contains topical science articles and news features.

This issue has articles on the synthesis of a new material with a complicated pore structure, the potential use of graphene in computer chips, and the possible relationship between certain volcanoes and global warming.

The ICITST is an international refereed conference dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practical implementation of secured Internet transactions and to fostering discussions on information technology evolution. The ICITST-2009 invites research papers that encompass conceptual analysis, design implementation and performance evaluation.

All the accepted papers will appear in the proceedings published by IEEE and fully indexed by IEEE Xplore. All the ICITST papers are indexed by DBLP.

For more information visit the conference website.