a dingo stole my baby

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About Me

Me and my profession

As a qualified educator, and educator of the educators, I am a communications expert; understanding how and why information delivery works and doesn't work. I have experience with technology and consider myself an information-futurist. I am a dreamer!

Now, enough of that wank and onto some more...I have been a teacher of modern English and literature, taught people the skills of learning, teaching and communicating. A can look at big and little pictures and advise on getting from point A to point B. I can read maps!

I am an excellent facilitator, negotiator and have, on many occasions in the past, presented to small and large groups alike. I am a talker!

My experience in commercial enterprise has helped me take a leap from the structure and politic of government back into the real world. I am a thinker!

But I am a teacher; was a teacher of skills and knowledge, and now, like most of us, just a teacher.

Specialties:

Information and communication developer, reviewer and planner, advice on learning, elearning and services online. I see the past and dream the future. I can use smart and dumb tools. A sharer and a listener. A strategist and a dreamer. I can negotiate with people from all walks. I know where I am at and where you want to be. I can read maps!

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Stem cell expert confident of diabetes cure - ABC News

Stem cell expert confident of diabetes cure

Posted 3 hours 16 minutes ago

The head of the world's richest stem cell research fund says he expects to see a cure for diabetes in little more than a decade.

Professor Alan Trounson has highlighted research that has transformed human embryonic stem cells into insulin-producing cells to treat diabetes in mice.

He says the technique could work equally with humans.

"I do think we'll get a cure to diabetes," he said.

"We've got a lot of work to do because diabetes itself is a complex disease.

"Its got an auto-immunity component, its got a cell replacement.

"I think it will happen. We'll use stem cells to do that. Im sure of that."

Tags: diabetes, research, stem-cells, australia

via abc.net.au

Just another reason why stem-cell research is so important in this day and age. Diabetes is just one. So many scientific opportunities that cannot be ignored.

Surely it is vital to continue these sorts of investigations to help people rather than debate about silly issues like 'state imposed censorship'!

I would rather a cure to diseases like diabetes well ahead of a state built broadband network! Sometimes I think Government has their head in the wrong pile of sand.

Sylvestor

Filed under  //  ABC   Cures   Diabetes   Disease   News   Research   Science  
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Posted 19 days ago

Technology Review: arXiv blog: Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy

Physicist Discovers How to Teleport Energy

First, they teleported photons, then atoms and ions. Now one physicist has worked out how to do it with energy, a technique that has profound implications for the future of physics.

Today, building on a number of papers published in the last year, Hotta outlines his idea and its implications. The process of teleportation involves making a measurement on each one an entangled pair of particles. He points out that the measurement on the first particle injects quantum energy into the system. He then shows that by carefully choosing the measurement to do on the second particle, it is possible to extract the original energy.

All this is possible because there are always quantum fluctuations in the energy of any particle. The teleportation process allows you to inject quantum energy at one point in the universe and then exploit quantum energy fluctuations to extract it from another point. Of course, the energy of the system as whole is unchanged.

He gives the example of a string of entangled ions oscillating back and forth in an electric field trap, a bit like Newton's balls. Measuring the state of the first ion injects energy into the system in the form of a phonon, a quantum of oscillation. Hotta says that performing the right kind of measurement on the last ion extracts this energy. Since this can be done at the speed of light (in principle), the phonon doesn't travel across the intermediate ions so there is no heating of these ions. The energy has been transmitted without traveling across the intervening space. That's teleportation.

There is a growing sense that the properties of the universe are best described not by the laws that govern matter but by the laws that govern information. This appears to be true for the quantum world, is certainly true for special relativity, and is currently being explored for general relativity. Having a way to handle energy on the same footing may help to draw these diverse strands together.

Interesting stuff. There's no telling where this kind of thinking might lead.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1002.0200: Energy-Entanglement Relation for Quantum Energy Teleportation

It is very interesting stuff. And apart from the black-and-white views of some physicists and science-commentators, the imagination that surrounds this sort of research is quite incredible. Can you imagine the multitude of applications such technology could take on. 

Harnessing this "power" may not necessarily occur in a commercial/true application sense in my lifetime, but it still gets the mind racing about how it could be used. 

Oh and check out some of the comments from the original article (http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24759/) - I did get a laugh!

Sylvestor

Filed under  //  Physics   Science   Teleportation  
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Posted 1 month ago

I am NOT a God Particle - and did you know? The Large Hadron Collider is 'being sabotaged from the future'

Large Hadron Collider
The world's biggest atom-smasher could be jinxed by a future force to protect the world, scientists say / AP

In a bizarre sci-fi theory, Danish physicist Dr Holger Bech Nielsen and Dr Masao Ninomiya from Japan claim the LHC startup has been delayed due to nature trying to prevent it from finding the elusive Higgs boson, or "God particle".

Last year, Professor Brian Cox of Manchester University told the UK Telegraph that LHC scientists had received threatening emails and phone calls demanding that the experiment be halted.

But Prof Cox, ex-keyboardist for 1990's pop group D:REAM, dismissed the hysteria in rock-star style.

"Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a tw--," he said.

The LHC is set to start up again next month.

via news.com.au

 

Now was it the Mayan calendar that when converted ended in 2012? Of course we all should know that 2012 will see the end of our known world and time. And of course, this would be the ideal time for the LHC to be successful in its attempts to recreate the conditions that created the "God Particle".

Do I believe? Oh why the hell not. If nothing else, 'doomsdayers' and other such kooks get their moment so I figure, lets join in the fun!

Do I really think the LHC will cause a black hole and suck the living daylights (literally) from our dimension? Sure, why not, I am yet to hear why it wouldn't! Not really. Its just one sciencey-dude (oh I have a PHD and played keyboards in D:Ream! So you should believe me!) saying "no, nooo, nothing to worry about, don't be a twat about it..." (I am paraphrasing here!)...and other sciencey-dudes with equal qualification it seems warning of armageddon!

So do you believe? Bring it on CERN, get that big hadron wheel spinning, it can only be a better show than the Perth Wheel, the London Eye and all those other silly wheels that have popped up all over the place!

Its a sign you know?! It is, truly...now worship the wheel and hold on to your seats we're in for a bumpy ride!

Sylvestor
www.twitter.com/Sylvestor

p.s. I am NOT a God Particle...but secretly, I wish I was ;)

Filed under  //  Big Bang   Black hole   CERN   God particle   Large Hadron Collector   LHC   News.com.au   Physics   Science   Time Travel  
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Posted 4 months ago

Jupiter has a "big gash" - apparently!

An image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 shows the sharpest visible-light picture taken of the impact feature (dark spot) and
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An image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 shows the sharpest visible-light picture taken of the impact feature (dark spot) and "backsplash" of material from anl object that plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere. Photo: NASA

An image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 shows the sharpest visible-light picture taken of the impact feature (dark spot) and This image, released by NASA, shows the large impact on Jupiter's south polar region spotted by Anthony Wesley, inset.Image captured by Anthony Wesley on July 19, 2009 at 1554UTC from Murrumbateman Australia. Preliminary image showing a black mark in Jupiters South Polar Region which is almost certainly the result of a large impact - either an asteroid or comet.Image released by NASA showing large impact on Jupiter's south polar region captured on Monday, July 20, 2009.A large impact on the left on Jupiter's south polar region captured on July 20, 2009, by NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in Mauna Kea, Hawaii.An amateur Australian astronomer Anthony Wesley.Visible light image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope taken May 11, 2007, shows turbulent pattern generated by two plumes on the upper left part of Jupiter.Spectacular NASA Hubble Space Telescope close up view of an electric blue aurora that is eerily glowing one half billion miles away on the giant planet Jupiter.This infrared image shows two bright plume eruptions on Jupiter obtained by the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on April 5, 2007.A montage of New Horizons images of Jupiter and its volcanic moon Io, taken during the spacecraft's Jupiter flyby in early 2007.Three moons cast shadows on Jupiter.New red spot appears on Jupiter in May 2008.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has recorded the most detailed images yet of the plume of atmospheric debris caused by an object that plunged into Jupiter in a rare collision with the planet.

via watoday.com.au

Honestly, who could resist a headline like "Jupiter's big gash" - but seriously, the recent upgrade to Hubble (HST) has provided new insights into, not only Jupiter, but the amazing extent of our universe.

But get a load of Jupter's gash! LOL

Sylvestor,
www.twitter.com/Sylvestor

Filed under  //  Astronomy   Hubble   Jupiter   Science   WAToday  
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Posted 5 months ago

"Bizarre new fish found" - Video

via watoday.com.au

Bizarre new fish species found

A group of researchers discovered a fish species believed to be the first of its kind ever spotted by human beings. (00:45)

Filed under  //  Fish   Marine   Research   Science   Video   WAToday.com  
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Posted 5 months ago