Science Simplified!

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 24, 2014 at 9:33am

IIT-M Joins CERN to Explore The Secrets of The Universe
Led by an expert who was part of the ATLAS experiment that helped find the Higgs Boson by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras has become a full member of a collaboration with the Geneva-based organisation in search of the structure of the universe.

While reputed institutions including TIFR, BARC and a few others have been partnering with CERN, IIT-M is the first IIT to come on board of the prestigious LHC experiment.

According to Prafulla Kumar Behera, an associate professor with the department of physics, this initiative will help the institute strengthen its capabilities in fundamental research. "CERN is home to a lot of innovations, including the world wide web. This collaboration is like a bridge that would connect us to the highest level of scientific research while offering them our talent and expertise," Behera told The New Indian Express.

Besides him, another faculty, James Libby, and two PhD scholars have come on board on the CMS collaboration.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 22, 2014 at 7:20am

To be a swift runner you need strong muscles, a powerful heart, determination and — symmetrical knees? That’s what scientists learned when they studied some of the world’s top sprinters.
Among the very best sprinters in the world, knee symmetry predicts who’s going to be the best of the best.
- Plos One

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 22, 2014 at 7:12am

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 22, 2014 at 7:06am

Banking culture primes people to cheat

Individual bankers behave honestly — except when they think about their jobs.
http://www.nature.com/news/banking-culture-primes-people-to-cheat-1...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 22, 2014 at 7:04am

Shaping the oral microbiota through intimate kissing
http://www.microbiomejournal.com/content/2/1/41
. A single 10-second smooch can transfer tens of millions of bacteria from one partner to the other. That’s the finding from a study.
More than 700 different bacteria are estimated to live in the human mouth. To find out how macking mixes microbes, Dutch scientists asked 21 couples to French kiss.
Similarity indices of microbial communities show that average partners have a more similar oral microbiota composition compared to unrelated individuals, with by far most pronounced similarity for communities associated with the tongue surface. An intimate kiss did not lead to a significant additional increase of the average similarity of the oral microbiota between partners. However, clear correlations were observed between the similarity indices of the salivary microbiota of couples and self-reported kiss frequencies, and the reported time passed after the latest kiss. In control experiments for bacterial transfer, we identified the probiotic Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium marker bacteria in most kiss receivers, corresponding to an average total bacterial transfer of 80 million bacteria per intimate kiss of 10 s.

This study indicates that a shared salivary microbiota requires a frequent and recent bacterial exchange and is therefore most pronounced in couples with relatively high intimate kiss frequencies. The microbiota on the dorsal surface of the tongue is more similar among partners than unrelated individuals, but its similarity does not clearly correlate to kissing behavior, suggesting an important role for specific selection mechanisms resulting from a shared lifestyle, environment, or genetic factors from the host. Furthermore, our findings imply that some of the collective bacteria among partners are only transiently present, while others have found a true niche on the tongue’s surface allowing long-term colonization.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2014 at 8:44am

Two new subatomic particles whose existence was predicted by Canadian particle physicists have been detected at the world's largest particle collider.

The discovery of the particles, known as Xi_b'- and Xi_b*-, were announced by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research today and published online on the physics preprint server Arxiv.They have been submitted to the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.
The new particles are baryons – a type of particle each made up of three elemental subatomic particles called quarks. The protons and neutrons that make up atoms are also baryons, but the new particles are about six times more massive than a proton.

That's because they contain a very heavy kind of quark called a b quark – also known as a beauty or bottom quark. The two other quarks in the particles are the d or down quark – a very light type of quark that is also found in protons and neutrons – and a middleweight strange quark.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2014 at 8:38am

Were Neanderthals a Separate Species? Scientists Say Yes, By a Nose

Our genes suggest that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals, and that's led some anthropologists to claim Homo neanderthalensis should be considered a subspecies of Homo sapiens rather than a separate species. But other researchers disagree, and one team of specialists says the Neanderthals' nasal anatomy proves they were a species of their own. The comparisons of 3-D coordinates from CT scans of ancient fossils are published in the November issue of The Anatomical Record. "By looking at the complete morphological pattern, we can conclude that Neanderthals are our close relatives, but they are not us," Jeffrey Laitman, an anatomist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in a news release.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2014 at 6:59am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2014 at 6:57am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2014 at 6:14am

Science and magic:

The magician deals out six cards and asks the spectator to reveal only the color of each card. The spectator then chooses one of them and the Phoney app miraculously predicts his or her card.

A lot of science in this illusion. Part of it was a matter of probability. “Think of it as a sequence of six, where each card can be a 1 or a 0, black or red,” Williams says. “That’s 26, or 64 different combinations. There are only 52 cards in a deck, so we have enough information.”

There was also a cognitive element. people studied card preferences, and found that subjects had a strong inclination toward high-ranking cards, red cards and hearts. They programmed this app to recognize these preferences when predicting which card the spectator had chosen.

During the actual performance, several illusions happen at once. First, a fresh deck of cards is cut but never actually shuffled. Then, as the spectator calls out each card’s color, the magician uses a fake lock screen—Watch the video again, carefully!—to enter that information into the system. Finally, the app combines preprogrammed preferences with probability calculations to choose the most likely card. Magicians have a lot of experience, and a lot of that depends on the human component—[they] use the fact that human beings are what they are. Of course, that’s all based on mathematical principles.

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