The Bohr-Einstein Debates, With Puppets from Chad Orzel on Vimeo.

Quantum mechanics professor Chad Orzel made a curious and funny  version of a very famous debate of twentieth century: the debate between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. This debate regards the uncertainty in quantum mechanics. The video has almost 20 minutes and is a must.

I am really proud to be part of special family called Open Source Software. All my computers run Linux, and only Linux, since 1999 and I do not miss any bug feature available only in closed source operating system (OS) like Windows. Recently Microsoft released the newest 'beta' OS called Windows 7 and promoted a Windows funeral Party. Open source is more than stop paying expensive Bills (US$ 200 for a Windows7), is a life philosophy. And it also comes with something more: sarcasm. Above you see a Linus Torvalds picture in front of a kiosk in Japan selling Windows7 and bellow are some pretty nice geeky phrases:

"One World, One web, One program" - Microsoft Promo ad.
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer" - Adolf Hitler

"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect." --Linus Torvalds

Linux: be root
Windows: reboot

"Microsoft gives you Windows ... Linux gives you the whole house."

Lichtenberg figures are tree-like structures created in light acrylic plastic when a dielectric breakdown happens. In fact it happens in all types of dielectric materials but are only appreciated in light ones. It can be created by high voltage transformers or electron beams such as delivered by medical linear accelerators (Linacs) but do not try to do it at home (it is dangerous) or even in a hospital production machine because it will damage several components through the beam path. But if you have a Linac that is about to be decommissioned you might want to do it. Bellow it is a link where you will find more information about Lichtenberg figures. And here is a link for a video showing some dielectric breakdowns.
using a medical Linac: http://www.sgsmp.ch/lichtenberg.htm
and more here info here: http://205.243.100.155/frames/lichtenbergs.html

Since 2009 is the year of astronomy nothing better than see amazing pictures of nebulae, planets, etc. The Royal Observatory Greenwich sponsored a competition and just published the winners sometime ago. Check them out at the link below. Above we have the winner in the category deep space.

Deep Space : Winners : Astronomy Photographer of the Year : Exhibitions : Visit the museum : NMM

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Science can give us some fantastic images. From biology to astronomy we find plenty of  astonishing images. We may not forget mathematics and its beautiful fractals. Every year Nikon makes a competition of micro photography with amazing results. Check at Nikon Small World web site the 2009 winners. Above is the 4th place. Enjoy them!

Long time without posting, several things happening including another Nobel prize for a physicist who went through applied physics to biology like Watson and Crick long time ago. But I will leave this talk to other opportunity, ribosomes are very interesting and complex as well.
Cancer is one career where many biologists, physicians, computer scientists and, of course, physicists have a lot of work to do. From time to time we see some innovations in such field and this one came from Havard Medical School. Dr. Gil Alterovitz created a way to associate gene expression to musical notes patterns. The notes have been chosen carefully in a way that it sounds harmonic and pleasant when everything is OK nad  weird when something is wrong. This has been applied to colon cancer study and hopefully it will work with other cancers too. Listen to the comparison between both 'symphonies' below.

Source: The Scientist