Chad's News

A new strain of swine flu has broken out in Mexico and Texas, leading to concerns about a pandemic. The linked article has more information, as well as answers to common questions.

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…

This article is one of the more readable explanations that I’ve seen of how universes are created. It’s short and concise, yet manages to cover topics from quantum multiverses to what may exist outside of our universe.

Link: http://www.time.com/…
(via digg)

DNA can be used to make a one-way process suitable for encryption. I don’t completely understand the details, but the concept is interesting. I’m also thinking that DNA cryptography might be easier to implement than quantum cryptography.

Link: http://it.slashdot.org/…

Is Gattaca the future? It will be if insurance companies have their way. I’ve read about pending legislation making it illegal to discriminate based on genetic predispositions. I’m not sure, however, if anything’s been made into law yet.

Link: http://www.smh.com.au/…
(via digg)

So you think your encrypted data is safe? Here’s what would really happen.

Link: http://xkcd.com/…

This theory contends that the interior of the universe is simply a replication of the information on its outer surface. And since the three-dimensional (okay, four-dimensional but let’s keep this simple) interior can hold much more data than the two-dimensional surface, the internal information has a granularity, sort of like what happens when you expand a bitmap image. It sounds pretty bizarre, but there are mathematical and experimental results that may back it up. The “blurring” threshold is believed to be about 10^-16 meters, which is measurable by existing equipment.

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…
(via NAACAL)

Update: The New Scientist has gone to a paywall. Ars Technica has an article that explains this concept.

Professor Richard Wiseman decided to research luck. He found that “lucky” people have attitudes/habits that actually create their luck, without their realizing it. He also determined it’s possible to increase a person’s luck by having him/her perform exercises to strengthen those attitudes and habits. I was astounded by the fake newspaper advertisement that went unnoticed by the “unlucky” group.

Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/…
(via Neatorama)

At the level of quantum vacuum (or quantum foam), elementary particles just pop into and out of existence from nothing. But it turns out that these “virtual” particles comprise the majority of what we know as matter. Note also that some theorists believe the Big Bang, and the existence of space and time, came from a similar sort of quantum fluctuation.

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…
(via naacal)

The sad history of lobotomies in the US.

Link: http://health.howstuffworks.com/…
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The new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been making the news over concerns it will spawn a black hole and destroy the world. Some enterprising individuals have even created websites to let us know whether or not Earth has been destroyed. But this is all tangential stuff. For those interested, the linked video contains a concise and clear explanation of how the LHC works.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/…
(via digg)

The random number generators you find on computer systems are actually “pseudo” random number generators. The values appear to be random but are created from a deterministic algorithm. Random.org, however, has a truly random generator which uses atmospheric noise as the randomizer. And you can automatically retrieve numbers via the web using HTTP GET requests like this one.

Another such effort, the Quantum Random Bit Generator Service, uses quantum effects to achieve randomness. They don’t currently have a web service interface, however, and to access the random data you’d need to include their libraries in your code.

Thanks to Josh for this topic.

Researchers have discovered that people who put bumper stickers on their cars, regardless of topic, tend to drive more aggressively and use their vehicles to express rage. This also applies to decals and personalized license plates

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
(via digg)