Biochemist Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori (1896-1957) and her husband Carl Ferdinand Cori (1896-1984) were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1947 for their work on how the human body metabolizes sugar.
(via xanthocomically)
Google and NASA Launch Quantum Computing AI Lab
Quantum computing took a giant leap forward on the world stage today as NASA and Google, in partnership with a consortium of universities, launched an initiative to investigate how the technology might lead to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.
The new Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab will employ what may be the most advanced commercially available quantum computer, the D-Wave Two, which a recent study confirmed was much faster than conventional machines at defeating specific problems. The machine will be installed at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility at the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley and is expected to be available for government, industrial, and university research later this year.
Google believes quantum computing might help it improve its web search and speech recognition technology. University researchers might use it to devise better models of disease and climate, among many other possibilities. As for NASA, “computers play a much bigger role within NASA missions than most people realize,” says quantum computing expert Colin Williams, director of business development and strategic partnerships at D-Wave.
(via turing-machine)
I had to finish up my thesis and defend it (succeed, too!)
And then take finals, the last of which was today.
So, as of Saturday (assuming I pass my classes), I will have my Master’s.
I also have 2 job interviews for Friday and a third for Monday.
Is this what heaven feels like?
You are very much forgiven. Good luck on all your endeavors!
“ The girl in the mirror wasn’t who I wanted to be and her life wasn’t the one I wanted to have. ”
I always find alluring to solve chess problems with more than one thousand years
Here is a chess position from Al Adli dating back to the ninth century. Al Adli is known for his Arabic text on chess – ‘Kitab ash-shatranj (‘Book of chess’). Al-Adli was the strongest player during the rule of Caliph al-Wathiq.
White to play and win in 3 moves : 1.Nh5+ Rxh5 2.Rxg6+ Kxg6 3.Re6#
(via imagineatoms)
I believe tattoos should have meaning.
In order to ensure that I don’t waste any more time in front of the mirror wishing I had a flat stomach, I decided to get a little reminder not to worry about shallow judgments from people that essentially do not matter. I know how far I’ve come and that I am much more than a number on a scale.
Learn to love yourself and all of your beautiful flaws :)
This is the first time in my life that I have ever seen a tattoo and thought, “I would put that on my body in a heartbeat and never, ever regret it.”
A gentle lead-in to the subject, Feynman starts by discussing photons and their properties.
Feynman’s lectures were originally given as the Sir Douglas Robb lectures at the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 1979. Videotapes of these lectures were made publicly available on a not-for-profit basis in 1996.Learn more about QED here (Courtesy of Indiana University).
This is adorable! On top it says, “Za’alaneen :( ?” Which means “Are you sad :( ?”
(Source: mohanaad, via dubaifashionista)
X-ray vision tracks lightning bursts
Blink and you’ve missed it. Researchers in the US have captured the world’s first X-ray images of lightning, by creating a special camera that can capture radiation at 10 million frames per second. They presented their new findings at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco and they say that this new view of lightning could help to solve some of the mysteries of this spectacular natural phenomenon.
The research was carried out at the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing, located in Florida. It is one of the few sites in world where lightning is initiated and studied under controlled conditions. By firing rockets with trailing wires into thunder clouds, scientists are able to generate electric fields that are large enough to trigger bolts of lightning, which then propagate back down towards the rocket launch tower.
Joseph Dwyer and colleagues at the Florida Institute of Technology became interested in the fact that lightning emits X-rays as it propagates through the air, a phenomenon that was only noted in the past decade. But given that X-ray sources in lightning travel through the Earth’s atmosphere at velocities approaching the speed of light, it is difficult to catch them on camera before they disappear. In addition, they cannot be imaged with standard mirrors and lenses because huge amounts of material are required to prevent X-rays and gamma rays from entering through the sides of a camera.
Dwyer’s team has created a customized camera that has 30 detectors made from a combination of sodium iodide and photomultiplier tubes, each measuring 3 × 3 inch. The device, which is approximately the size of a standard refrigerator, is also equipped with a 3 inch pinhole aperture, and can record X-rays at 10 million frames per second. “This is actually a very old technique for making images, like that seen in a camera obscura,” Dwyer says.
During July and August this year, Dwyer’s team studied four rocket-triggered lightning flashes at the Florida test site. Each flash lasted for approximately two seconds and the resulting sequences of images revealed that X-rays emerged primarily from the vicinity of the lightning tip as it propagated towards the Earth. As the lightning crashed into the control tower it also triggered large bursts of gamma radiation, which were also captured by the camera.
“For the first time we’re catching a glimpse of lightning in the X-ray emission,” says Dwyer. “We’re seeing lightning as Superman would see it with his X-ray vision”.
Credit: James Dacey/physicsworld.com
(via thecraftychemist)
Ugh, turbulence in regular hydrodynamics is bad enough, but having to consider Maxwell’s equations at the same time really makes this a nightmare.
A new proof brings mathematicians a step closer to solving one of number theory’s most famously intractable problems
An article on recent progress towards the Twin Primes conjecture (arxiv paper) and Goldbach’s conjecture (arxiv paper—it’s long! I haven’t read it yet) in number theory.
