Left to right: Eisele, Schirra, Cunningham

I knew when I was in the first grade that I wanted to be an astronaut and that and I wanted to marry Julie Bentley. I never became an astronaut but that year, behind the school building during lunch recess, I married Julie. I remember many things from my first grade because of my teacher, Mrs. Jones - she was mean and this was surprising to me because her name was my name too. I remember getting out of music class and going down to the lunch room. Julie was not far away. This was my first experience with the space program - sitting on top of the lunch room tables watching Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission. That was October 11, 1968 - with Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Donn F. Eisele, and Walter Cunningham. It orbited the earth once.

Major Matt Mason (A doll...)

July 20, 1969
Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr. make the first manned soft landing on the Moon and the first moonwalk. What I remember the most about that “One small step for mankind” was the following January for my birthday, I received the bendable astronaut named Major Matt Mason. I bent his arms until they fell off and the flag was worn. I miss that toy. GI-Joe and his accessories were called dolls back then, but I wish my siblings had called them action figures instead. My interest in science and space travel was one of ridicule and teasing, but the GI Joe Henshin Cyborg Base Station was worth the ridicule.

Now that I think of it, most of my memories from the space program from 1969-1977 come from my toys and food - the Pillsbury Space Food Sticks at my grandmas (Chewy Chocolate was my favorite). Space sticks with Tang was a meal fit for any astronaut.



April 11, 1970
Although many events, both tragic and celebratory, happened during this time period, I don’t remember any excitement in school that compared with the - Apollo 13 launch which suffered an explosion in its SM oxygen tanks. Its Moon landing was aborted, and the crew, James A. Lovell, Jr., John L. Swigert, Jr. and Fred W. Haise, Jr., return safely. I remember that some thought it was a ploy to get American's attention on the fading interest in the space program. I was only 9 years old so I remember some things just in passing.

July 30, 1971
Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin drive the first moon rover. The next year, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt drives a similar rover. I do remember this and not for the science or interest in space exploration but more so because I wanted the GI-Joe Commander Space Lunar Moon Rover for Christmas. When I was about 15 I was less interested in becoming an astronaut and more concerned about the girls in the playground (my first grade marriage did not last).

January 28, 1986

The Challenger Explosion

The Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed and its crew of seven—Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka, Gregory B. Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe—was killed during its launch from the Kennedy Space Center. The explosion occurred 73 seconds into the flight as a result of a leak in one of two Solid Rocket Boosters that ignited the main liquid fuel tank. For me it happened at 9:40 AM and I was watching the news and getting ready for my trigonometry class. I can still recall walking on campus to my class, looking up at the clouds and trying to imagine the shock those bystanders must have felt with the realization of what had happened. For some the realization of what had just happened did not come until several minutes later. During the following weeks I learned that the cause of the explosion was the result of faulty “O” rings. They were manufactured not far from where I lived.

By 1977 I was less interested in GI Joe, but I do remember that GI Joe goes interplanetary in the form of a new 8-inch space-exploring super Joe. These action figures are smaller, cheaper and just not like they use to be. At this time I was 15, and my interest in the Voyager program was the jokes I could make about Voyager traveling to Uranus. I knew about Skylab, and around this time there were many firsts including an untethered spacewalk, a women walking in space, and other experiments that were being performed in space. I remember Reagan being the first president that I voted for, and again near my birthday January 25, 1984, President Ronald Reagan made an Apollo-like announcement to build a Space Station within a decade as part of the "State of the Union Address" before Congress. Reagan's decision came after a long internal discussion as to the viability of the station in the national space program.

It wasn't until recently that my curiosity of space exploration was once again sparked. On August 6th the Curiosity landed on Mars. The rover has traveled hundreds of feet over the Martian surface. In the process, it has left its mark on the surface leaving behind a trial in the sandy red planet and a tiny piece of itself behind. Unlike the Apollo astronauts' footprints on the moon, Curiosity's trails will probably be wiped away by the planet's frequent wind and sand storms. Though the physical traces won't last- for others its impact lives on in the images the rover is sending back to Earth. For me, it’s not the images or the trail that will leave lasting memories but the comments like this from my grandchild and child that fuel my interest:

"Dad, someday I'm going to walk on Mars!" To this day he talks on and on about Mars. We watched the video of the Curiosity rover landing and now he's excited to see the rover in person someday.

My grandson (5 yrs old) has several girlfriends…and as of yet I have not received a wedding invitation. Maybe he won’t get married in the first grade like I did, but he may one day make it to Mars. Until then I will dream of space travel and all the excitement in store for future generations.


Want more thoughts from my Dad? Check them out here. Need more science? Follow us on or check out our .

Today's post is by David Zaslavsky, a physics graduate student who writes a blog called ellipsix informatics. It's a fairly advanced physics blog, but if you have the stomach for some math I highly recommend it.

About a week ago, a particle physics experiment called BaBar published a big discovery. Not as big as the Higgs boson, so it's probably not the kind of thing you would have heard of if you're not a physicist. But it's still pretty interesting, and it does have the exotic-sounding name of "time reversal asymmetry."

If you love science fiction as much as I do (and who doesn't?), you might think "Whoa, they figured out how to reverse time?" That would be awesome. But no, sadly, that's not what happened. Time reversal asymmetry just means that, if you could reverse time, certain particles would behave differently than you'd expect. Of course, the fact that you can't reverse time means that the scientists had to get pretty creative to figure out what would happen if you did. They were lucky enough to find two sequences of particle decays that are time-reversed versions of each other — that is, if you could reverse time, you'd turn each one into the other.

The special sequences start with an exotic particle called a "neutral B meson" and its antiparticle, linked together by quantum entanglement. Each one of the two particles can decay in one of two ways (that this experiment cares about): either "hadronically," into two lighter but still somewhat exotic particles, or "leptonically," into something like an electron and other stuff which we don't care about. Since the particles are entangled, if they were normal particles, both of them would always decay the same way, either both hadronically or both leptonically. So, for example, if you see the first B meson decay leptonically, then normally that tells you the other one will also decay leptonically.

However, B mesons (and their antiparticles) are not normal. They can oscillate, which means that they spontaneously flip back and forth between "wanting" to decay hadronically vs. leptonically. This oscillation is what the scientists at BaBar measured. They picked out the times when the first B meson in a pair decayed leptonically, thus forcing its partner into a leptonic decay state, but the partner oscillated back to decaying hadronically, and also the times when the first B meson in a pair decayed hadronically and the partner oscillated back to decaying leptonically, and they compared how many times each one happened. It turns out that the leptonic to hadronic oscillation occurs significantly more often than the hadronic to leptonic oscillation in the time before the B meson decays. Presto, time reversal asymmetry!

Although this didn't come as a surprise, not even a little, it's good to know that it works the way it does, because it helps confirm that the theory we use to understand how particles behave is correct, in a way that hasn't ever been directly tested before.

For a full-length explanation of this experiment and what it means for theoretical physics, check out the original post on my website!

Pharmaceutical companies are a constant target for conspiracy theorists who say that "Big Pharma" controls disease for profit. Some think that since these companies make money from people that are ill they must have some evil plot to keep people ill. In some cases this means that Big Pharma is responsible for creating diseases. In others it means they lie about the efficacy of things like homeopathy.

There are, of course,  flaws in the way we develop, test, and market prescription drugs,¹ but the real issues have nothing to do with the conspiracy theories. A recently released report - The Access to Medicine Index (2012) - brings us some good news about the pharmaceutical industry.

The Access to Medicine Index is an independent review that ranks 20 pharmaceutical countries on how they help developing countries. Each company is ranked by their performance in:

• General Access to Medicine Management
• Public Policy and Marketing Influence
• Research and Development
• Pricing, Manufacturing, and Distribution
• Patents and Licencing
• Capability Advancement
• Donations and Philanthropy

The highest ranked company in 2010 and 2012 was GlaxoSmithKline. Johnson & Johnson and the French company Sanofi, who ranked 9th and 5th in 2010, now rank at a very close second and third. Of course, these results are just comparative - they don't say anything about how "Big Pharma" as a whole is doing. What else can this report tell us?

Access
Access to medicine in developing countries has improved and this is largely attributed to better organization. GlaxoSmithKline, for example, established a Developing Countries and Market Access department. Five other companies in the index have similar departments.

Pricing Tiers and Product Needs
Twelve of the twenty companies have a tier pricing program. These programs are designed to bring low cost drugs to developing countries. One problem with these programs is that while drug companies may provide a low cost, third party companies often sell the drugs at the standard retail price. This means that companies, not patients, benefit from these tier programs.

Contract Research Organisations
Pharmaceutical companies have come under fire recently for their transparency (or lack thereof) in clinical trials. This report is no different. Contract Research Organisations (CROs) are third party companies used to oversee clinical trials, drug recalls, and research. The Access to Medicine Index points out that Big Pharma needs to improve transparency regarding their collaborations and obligations to CROs.


Overall I think the Access to Medicine Index is good news. Out of the 20 drug companies, 17 companies scored higher in 2012 than in 2010. Although clinical trial practices remains an area that needs improvement, it's promising that the index brings the issue to the forefront once again.


Notes

[1] For a more in-depth analysis of what Big Pharma actually does wrong (instead of wild conspiracy theories) I suggest  by Ben Goldacre.

This is primarily a science blog, but I'd like to change the topic for today. I'm probably justified writing about this topic, though, since it involves critical thinking (that and it's my blog I can do what I want, thank you very much).

In the past few days an old hoax has been making the rounds on Facebook. The idea is that since Facebook is now a privately traded company your pictures, status updates, and any other personal information is now freely available unless you post the following status update:

In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, graphics, comics, paintings, photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times! 

(Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their FacebookWall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws. By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook’s direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-103(a) and the Rome Statute). 

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates…

 Every time someone posts this status I can't help but think of this similar declaration:

I just finished watching the latest MythBusters episode: Explosions A to Z. Even though this was pretty much just a "clip show", it was MythBusters clip show so of course I watched it. It was a great episode with a fun look inside the MythBusters process, and it got me thinking.

I've been critical of the MythBusters in the past. They rarely use a true, scientifically valid control group, their method development is almost always fundamentally flawed in one way or another, and I don't think many things they do would pass any diligent peer review. But does that even matter? I have 3 reasons why science, the MythBusters way, is an important and necessary innovation.

1. They're entertainers.
The MythBusters team isn't just the well known Adam, Jamie, Kari, Tory, and Grant. Their team includes cameramen, writers, producers, directors, stuntmen, and departments for art, costume, animation, and lots more. Why do I point this out? Because the MythBusters are first and foremost entertainers. They have a huge supporting cast that works hard to put together a television show - not a science textbook. They do make an entertaining television show about science, and they know a lot about what they're doing. In the end, though, they are entertainers. This means that they may occasionally take some creative liberties with the scientific method, and that's okay. They're not promoting pseduoscience like many celebrities or others in the entertainment industry. They're never misleading about what they're doing. In fact their methods, while often flawed, are available for public scrutiny. In other words, their approach to the scientific method is readily accessible to be over analyzed by just about any pretentious internet troll.¹

2. They know their audience.
Because they're entertainers they are distinctly aware of their audience. That audience (as a generalization) doesn't work in a lab. They don't design experiments that will be submitted to peer reviewed journals, and they may not have even heard of a control group before watching the show. If the show's approach were to rigorously describe the details of every experiment needed to correctly proclaim a myth as Busted they would lose that audience very quickly. I know I wouldn't be as interested in watching, would you?
Instead, the MythBusters approach is to quickly explain the science behind what they are doing and (between explosions) the basics of the tests they are using. Instead of faulting them for using an incomplete control group we should be applauding them for showing millions of viewers that a control group is necessary. Instead of pointing out the flaws in their method development we should be pointing out that for some of their viewers the idea of experimental design is completely new. While other entertainers promote the newest fad diet the MythBusters are introducing viewers to the basics of the scientific method.


3. Science advocacy starts with a BOOM!
Science is AWESOME. No really, everything in the universe that you could ever call awesome can be explained by - or is a direct result of - science. However, sometimes you have to look pretty deep to see just how awesome it is. The great thing about the MythBusters approach to science is that they bring the awesome of science to the forefront. They're very clear about how awesome science really is. I'm talking of course about explosions, but that's not all. The experimental methods that the MythBusters use may be flawed but those experiments allow them, as entertainers, to show that an experiment can be designed to answer a question. This combination of science and entertainment is an important innovation in science advocacy. An explosion may look cool, but if it gets someone to start asking real questions about the world around them that is truly awesome.

Notes

[1] Fun story, I got my first piece of hate mail over Thanksgiving weekend. Some of the last sentence is a direct quote from that soul-crushing feedback. Thanks , you'll always have a special place in my heart.

Have any thoughts on this article? Want more science? Check out our  or follow on for more!

by Angela Calchera

Wow, Saturday ended sooner than I'm used to. Here are the links for this week...

• Researchers have found a "white" smell, a smell that can be created using very different combinations (similar to white noise or the color white).
• Check out these Heroes of Science action figures!
• Prime number extravaganza! See a visual representation of what it means for a number to be prime.
• Is it possible to build a Jetpack using downward firing machine guns? This is probably the best "What-if?" I've ever seen.
• Stem cells used to make bacon. Breaking news: Congress unanimously approves massive funding for stem cell research.
• Buying a private trip to the moon may be closer than you think.
• A very big step towards transparency in drug trials.
• A link to my blog being linked to on Discover Magazine's "Not Exactly Rocket Science". After you've linked to the link and then linked back to my blog go ahead and Google "Recursion". 

I can proudly say I own one of these.

Hey! So Thanksgiving is upon us, and I wanted to answer the question: Does eating Turkey make you sleepy?



Partial transcripts
Happy Thanksgiving!

Today families across America will gather with relatives they dislike to eat food they love. What's on the menu? Turkey, of course! After feasting on the bird, most of us want a long nap. It's a common belief, then, that turkey makes you sleepy - but is that true?

The chemical in turkey that supposedly makes you sleepy is tryptophan, an amino acid. Remember that amino acids are the building block for protein, and therefore, life. But does the tryptophan in turkey make you sleepy?

The answer that most chemists would give you right now is NO! Of course not! They will point out that turkey has just about the same amount of tryptophan as chicken, salmon, lamb, and beef. There's nothing special, they'll tell you, about the tryptophan in turkey that makes you sleepy. The real explanation, they'll tell you, is that you eat lots of carbohydrates with your turkey. Those carbs take more to digest and your body shuts down to get busy digesting.

That's a fair point, most chemists, but the truth is the tryptophan in your turkey is responsible for your sleep coma. It's just responsible in an indirect, and much more interesting way.

In a recent press release John Grotzinger, chief scientist for the Mars Curiosity rover has said they have made a discovery. Not just any discovery, though, this discovery is "one for the history books".

We don't know yet what that discovery is and that may upset some people (if you know something why don't you just tell us!!?!!), but that's how science works. Discoveries should be verified and peer-reviewed before an announcement is made. Otherwise we end up with a Pons/Fleischmann cold fusion debacle.

However, this isn't a peer-reviewed blog, so I can speculate all I want. I have a couple ideas of what could be announced and what I think that could mean - in order from least likely to most likely.

SAM (Sample Analysis on Mars) instrument

1. Evidence of current microbial/bacterial life
Ok, this would be awesome. From what I know of the rover's capabilities the evidence they would find of current microbial or bacterial life would things like large peptide and protein fragments. The Mars rover has lots of fancy instruments, but Grotzinger has said that the discovery was found using SAM, or Sample Analysis on Mars, which has a mass spectrometer. If some form of life is on Mars right now the mass spectrometer would most likely respond with peaks for all sorts of amino acids, peptides (several amino acids bound together), and proteins (lots of amino acids bound together). To be honest, this isn't looking very likely. If bacterial life was currently on Mars I think we would have seen evidence already.

2. Amino acids
Another possibility is that Curiosity has found individual amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of life. Finding them would be interesting because it would say something about how prolific life in the universe really is. The basic building blocks of life being found on two separate planets in the same solar system would be huge. I don't think this one is very likely either, though.

3. Methane
We know that Mars has an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide with some water, carbon monoxide, and oxygen. Finding methane would be a big deal as well. You may wonder why I'm just glossing over the fact that there is water in the martian atmosphere and focusing on methane. The reason that methane would be such an important find is that methane is the product of many carbon decomposition reactions. If life once existed on Mars, we should see methane. Living organisms would be broken down to their component parts, proteins would be broken down to peptides, peptides to amino acids, and amino acids to methane and other products. Finding methane would be a big deal, and if I were a betting man I'd put my money on methane.

4. Minerals
Minerals may sound like a boring thing to find, right? So what, you found a few rocks, what's the big deal?

I've been waiting to make a Breaking Bad reference. I just didn't think it would be this one...

Minerals have already been seen on Mars. We found hematite, the mineral form of iron (III) oxide. The presence of minerals on Mars would suggest that at one point there were large bodies of water on Mars. This wouldn't necessarily mean that life existed, but water is obviously one of the things needed for life.

In this TED Talk, Kevin Slavin talks about algorithms and how they are used.
   

The most common response I get when I tell people I'm a graduate student studying chemistry is "Wow, you must be really smart!"

Pictured: Me as a child

I really hate that response. 

There are two main reasons I hate that response:

1. No, I'm really not that smart! 

I don't say this as a point of humility. I'm really not that smart. I found a subject that interests me so I was willing to put the time needed into studying. I never finished an advanced placement class in high school (I dropped out of AP calculus).¹ I've written before about my slacker, no direction lifestyle in my post high school years, but it's worth repeating. I missed 85 days of school my senior year. I had no plans for a career, and I definitely had no interest in science or math.

I'm a little embarrassed about my first math class when I finally decided to go to college. I took the placement test and was put in the correct class for my math abilities. On the first day of that class we were given an assessment to make sure we had the math knowledge needed to succeed in the class. Questions for the assessment were things like:

What is 107+24? 

What is 25+81?

To this day, I still use a calculator for simple arithmetic like 8+5 ( is just much cooler now). So no, I'm not really smart. I'm not too far from average and I definitely don't have any special or magical ability for math and science. I had an excellent chemistry professor that showed me how amazing science is and a few really great mentors. Once I saw how amazing the universe is it was an easy decision to learn more.

2. Science isn't difficult!

I also hate that response because it gives the idea that somehow science is difficult or unclear. That's far from the case, and I'm not just saying that because I have a "brain built that way" (see point #1). Yes, to become an expert in some area of science it does take years and years of studying, but isn't that true for anything? I don't think most people would be taken aback by how incredibly smart their plumber is, but it took him years to learn his trade. In the same way, it has taken me years to understand quantum mechanics (and I'm probably not much closer to understanding it than your plumber is).

This Saturday I only have two links, but they're the coolest I've posted in a while. Enjoy.

• Students at MIT have created a game to model what would happen if you started to move close to the speed of light. The game works by collecting orbs. Each orb you collect lowers the speed of light until you are able to run close to the speed of light. Very cool stuff. Download it now, it's free!

• Some very unexpected science advocates. A very cool video.

If something is moving towards you very fast it will be "blue shifted". If you were moving close to the speed of light the Doppler effect would make this red bumper sticker appear blue.

Reason #1 - Because it's there
 President Kennedy once said "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…"
The same attitude is applicable to an unmanned mission to Mars. A lot of hard work went into getting a robot on Mars. Was that time and money wasted? It is human nature to climb high mountains, run long distances, and explore the unknown. We push ourselves to the limit just to find it. Mars is a perfect example. In the night sky, Mars is barely visible to the naked eye. It is, on average, 125 million miles away from us. We look up at the night sky and it becomes a challenge. And so we go to Mars, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. 

Reason #2 - Improve our knowledge of the universe
We've already learned some pretty cool things about the universe. The Curiosity rover will tell us even more about the universe. Yes, we're sending it to find evidence of life on Mars, and that would be really cool to find, but we've also sent it with a wide range of analytical tools to tell us all about Mars. Many people see science working in a question/answer process. That is:

1. Ask a question
2. Design a test
3. Get an answer
4. Ask another question

Reason #3 - Technologic advances
This is somewhat related to Reason #2. When we get really weird results we have to design new ways to study those results. Science in general, and NASA specifically, has asked some really interesting questions in the last 50 years. To answer those questions we've had to develop new technology. That new technology then becomes available to benefit the rest of humanity. Some notable advances that have come out of NASA are:

•  Improved computer software
• Enriched baby food
• Portable cordless vacuums 
• Solar energy
• Water purification
• Carbon Monoxide detection
• Wireless headsets
• Flame retardant materials
• LEDs
• Diamond coating
• Artificial hips/limbs
• Food safety
• Electronic advancements

Reason #4 - Pave the way for human visitors
About a year ago my son and I were at a used bookstore looking through old books. My son found a large, space themed picture book. He looked through with wonder (remember, his favorite book before then was Cosmos by Carl Sagan), until he came to a picture of Mars. He asked a few questions about Mars and then exclaimed, "Dad, some day I'm going to walk on Mars!" To this day he talks on and on about Mars. We watched the video of the Curiosity rover landing and now he's excited to see the rover in person some day.¹
My son's excitement to someday walk on Mars isn't necessarily overanxious. I believe that he may in fact walk on the surface of Mars some day. That's pretty amazing. Sure the first trip to Mars may be a one way trip - it's much easier. That may seem crazy, but explorers throughout history have always left their homes without a guarantee of returning. Many knew they wouldn't return. I would take the opportunity without hesitation, and I know I'm not the only one. I'm excited to see the spirit of exploration is alive.

Notes

[1] My son is excited to see the rover, but he has told me that he hopes "that robot is dead by then. I don't want it to shoot me with its laser". Maybe I shouldn't have shown him this picture.

In this TED talk, Bobby McFerrin plays...the audience. The pentatonic scale is very interestingly ingrained in our minds.


Ok, so it's not specifically a TED Talk, but I did find it on the TED website, and it is pretty cool.

I've been accused of treating this blog like a soapbox. I've gone on and on about certain pseudosciences, I know, but I don't really think I've stood on a soapbox.

Until today.

In the past I've written on the importance of science education. I feel strongly that one of the most important things we can do for our country is cultivate science learning. That doesn't just mean we need more scientists, it means we need a scientifically literate citizenry. Science literacy doesn't mean knowing basic science facts. Sure, it's alarming that 33% of Americans don't believe the earth goes around the sun, 14% think that sound travels faster than light, and 49% think that only genetically modified organisms contain genes. But those are just facts. Facts can be corrected. I don't think anyone is stupid if they don't know something. After all, for everything you know today there was once a day that you didn't know that. It's perfectly okay to not know something.

"Saying 'what kind of an idiot doesn't know about the Yellowstone supervolcano' is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time."

So, not knowing facts is okay. What's not okay is a targeted disinterest or even disdain for learning something new. Scientific literacy is not a working knowledge of facts, it's a way to approach learning. A scientifically literate person doesn't need a science degree, they need to know the process of analyzing evidence.

A frightening outcome of scientific illiteracy is that the scientifically illiterate will elect the scientifically illiterate. In the US the House Science Committee makes important science related policy decisions. Many of those members are far from scientifically literate. Consider the following examples:

• Paul Broun - Current Member: House Science Committee. Paul Broun has said that evolution, embryology, and the big bang theory are "".
• Todd Akin - Former Member: House Science Committee. Todd Akin famously made the comment that in cases of "legitimate rape" the female body shuts pregnancy down.
• Roscoe Bartlett - Current Member: House Science Committee. Bartlett has made comments very similar to Akin's. 
• James Sensenbrenner - Current Member: House Science Committee. Not only a current member, Sensenbrenner announced on November 7th, 2012 that he is seeking the position of Chairman. He has stated that global warming is an international conspiracy. He has said that "CO₂ is a natural gas. Should we all put catalytic converters on our noses?"
• Ralph M. Hall - Chariman: House Science Committee. Ralph M. Hall is the chairman of the house science committee. In 2010 Hall introduced a motion to recommit, which calls a bill back from being voted on to add some last minute additions. The bill would add billions in science and math funding at a time when this funding was much needed. What addition did Hall need to make to the bill? A provision that would allow federal employees to watch pornography while they work. Does Ralph Hall fervently believe that federal employees shouldn't limit their lunchtime activities? No. Hall knew that after the addition it would be political suicide vote yes on the bill. Hall has also said of global warming: "I'm really more fearful of freezing. And I don't have any science to prove that"

Only four links today, but they're good ones!

• Have you ever wanted to see the International Space Station? NASA will send you a text or e-mail anytime it is about to fly over your house!

• Discovery of a nearly complete Mammoth skeleton, that's great, but there's one serious problem with the science reporting in this article. Can you find it? Leave your answer in the comments. 

• What do you do when a runs unopposed? You write in Charles Darwin, of course. Around 4,000 votes were cast for Darwin in the town of Athens, Georgia. An interesting story, but not only is this guy a member of the house of representatives - he's on the house science committee! This man is not qualified to make scientific decisions!

A guest post by Angela Calchera

Lasers have been used by scientists, surgeons, evil villains, the Jedi, and by non-technical non-evil non-Jedi people, but what are they really, and how do they work?  The first thing you must understand is that the word "laser" is really just an acronym for what a laser does.  It stands for:


So a laser amplifies light in much the same way that an amplifier at a rock concert might amplify the sound of the guitars on stage, and it does this by a process called Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

It's kind of a mouthful, which is why they packaged it all up in an acronym.  And actually, a lot of those concepts could use some further explanation.  You need four things to make a laser:

• Light Source
• Gain Medium
• Cavity
• Output Coupler

Figure 1. Generalized laser diagram

Gain Medium
The gain medium is where the "magic" happens.  At room temperature nearly the entire population of electrons in a given material are in the lowest possible energy level, also known as the ground state.  In order for the laser to operate, it must achieve a population inversion, meaning that more electrons need to be in an upper level than in a lower level.  In some materials, this is impossible.  For example, if a material only has two energy levels, the best we can do is to put half of the electrons in the upper level and half of the electrons in the lower level; the population of the upper level can never exceed that of the lower level as we need it to in a laser gain medium.  It turns out, three levels is the minimum to make population inversion possible.

In a titanium sapphire laser, the gain medium is sapphire with (intentional) titanium impurities.  In this material, there are four levels the electrons can occupy.

Figure 2: Energy Diagram of Ti:Sapphire

Step 1. First, light comes in from the light source, and that promotes some electrons from the lowest energy level into the upper-most energy level.

Step 2.  Electrons don't stay in that level for long at all, and very quickly move down into the second-highest state.  The electrons lose this energy without any light being produced.  Because this step is very fast, and the next step is very slow, many more electrons end up in this level than in the level below it, which is the population inversion we needed.

Step 3.  This step is the one that gives the laser its name.  Photons (packets of light energy) of the right energy cause (stimulate) the electrons in that level to go down to the lower level.  As those electrons "fall," they release (emit) light energy.  The photons coming in did not get absorbed, their only purpose was to stimulate the emission of more photons, so the emitted photons add to the total number of photons coming out of the gain medium.  So, you see this is the amplification step because the total number of photons is amplified here.  Also, this amplification came by the stimulated emission (as opposed to spontaneous emission, which would occur without the photons coming in to get it started) of radiation (light waves/ photons are a form of radiation).

Step 4.  Electrons very quickly return to the lowest energy state without emitting any light.

The name of a laser pretty much always comes from the type of gain medium used.  In a titanium sapphire laser the gain medium is a nice pink crystal.  You may find it odd that the sapphire is pink and not blue.  Sapphire without impurities are actually completely colorless - the colors come from impurities in the crystal structure by changing the energy levels that electrons can occupy, but that's for another post.

Figure 3. Ti:Sapphire gain medium

Cavity and Output Coupler
A mirror is placed on each side of the gain medium so that the light passes through the crystal multiple times, and with every pass that light is amplified.  The two mirrors make up the ends of the cavity.  If both mirrors reflected all the light, the amplified light would be useless because it couldn't escape the cavity, and so one of the mirrors in the cavity, also called the output coupler, is not as reflective and allows some light to be transmitted out of the cavity.

The invention of lasers and their improvement have led to many advances in physics, chemistry, materials science, environmental science, manufacturing, medicine, and media storage, among other areas.  However, it is interesting to note that when they were first invented, they were considered a novelty that had no practical applications.  For this reason, lasers are a great example of why it is important that we invest in fundamental research, even if it doesn't have an apparent practical application.  You never know what lab project will turn out to be yet another versatile tool to enhance your life.

Also, no, I can't make you a light saber.