Spin Zone: Physicists Get 1st Look at Strange Quantum Magnetism

Using super-chilled atoms, physicists have for the first time observed a weird phenomenon called quantum magnetism, which describes the behavior of single atoms as they act like tiny bar magnets.

Quantum magnetism is a bit different from classical magnetism, the kind you see when you stick a magnet to a fridge, because individual atoms have a quality called spin, which is quantized, or in discrete states (usually called up or down). Seeing the behavior of individual atoms has been hard to do, though, because it required cooling atoms to extremely cold temperatures and finding a way to "trap" them.

The new finding, detailed in the May 24 issue of the journal Science, also opens the door to better understanding physical phenomena, such as superconductivity, which seems to be connected to the collective quantum properties of some materials. [Twisted Physics: 7 Mind-Blowing Findings]

Spin science

The research team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich focused on atoms' spin, because that's what makes magnets magnetic ? all the spins of the atoms in a bar magnet are pointed the same way.

To get a clear view of atoms' spin behaviors, the researchers had to cool potassium atoms to near absolute zero. That way, the random thermal "noise" ? basically background radiation and heat ? didn't spoil the view by jostling the potassium atoms around.

The scientists then created an "optical lattice" ? a crisscrossing set of laser beams. The beams interfere with each other and create regions of high and low potential energy. Neutral atoms with no charge will tend to sit in the lattice's "wells," which are regions of low energy.

Once the lattice is built, the atoms will sometimes randomly "tunnel" through the sides of the wells, because the quantum nature of particles allows them to be in multiple places at the same time, or to have varying amounts of energy. [Quantum Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature]

Another factor that determines where the atoms lie in the optical lattice is their up or down spin. Two atoms can't be in the same well if their spins are the same. That means atoms will have a tendency to tunnel into wells with others that have opposite spins. After a while, a line of atoms should spontaneously organize itself, with the spins in a non-random pattern. This kind of behavior is different from materials in the macroscopic world, whose orientations can have a wide range of in-between values; this behavior is also why most things aren't magnets ? the spins of the electrons in the atoms are oriented randomly and cancel each other out.

And that's exactly what the researchers found. The spins of atoms do organize, at least on the scale the experiment examined.

"The question is, what are the magnetic properties of these one-dimensional chains?" said Tilman Esslinger, a professor of physics at ETH whose lab did the experiments. "Do I have materials with these properties? How can these properties be useful?"

Quantum magnetism

This experiment opens up possibilities for increasing the number of atoms in a lattice, and even creating two-dimensional, gridlike arrangements of atoms, and possibly triangular lattices as well.

One debate among experts is whether at larger scales the spontaneous ordering of atoms would happen in the same way. A random pattern would mean that in a block of iron atoms, for instance, one is just as likely to see a spin up or down atom in any direction. The spin states are in what is called a "spin liquid" ? a mishmash of states. But it could be that atoms spontaneously arrange themselves at larger scales.

"They've put the foundation on various theoretical matters," said Jong Han, a professor of condensed matter physics theory at the State University of New York at Buffalo, who was not involved in the research. "They don't really establish the long-range order, rather they wanted to establish that they have observed a local magnetic order."

Whether the order the scientists found extends to larger scales is an important question, because magnetism itself arises from the spins of atoms when they all line up. Usually those spins are randomly aligned. But at very low temperatures and small scales, that changes, and such quantum magnets behave differently.

Han noted that such lattices, especially configurations where the potential wells connect to three others, rather than two or four, would be especially interesting. Esslinger's lab showed that atoms tend to jump to potential wells where the spins are opposite; but if the wells are arranged so that the atom can jump to two other atoms, it can't "choose" which well to go to because one of the two atoms will always be in the same spin state.

Esslinger said his lab wants to try building two-dimensional lattices and explore that very question. "What happens to magnetism if I change the geometry? It's no longer clear if spins should be up or down."

?Follow us @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spin-zone-physicists-1st-look-strange-quantum-magnetism-131203960.html

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Curiosity sated: Peter Molyneux reveals winner of gaming ...

Curiosity: well, it hasn't killed the cat, but has it impressed the internet?

Curiosity is over. The bizarre multiplayer gaming experiment, which required players to tap away at billions of tiles on a vast online cube, finished on Sunday evening, six months after its much-hyped launch. And as promised by veteran game designer Peter Molyneux ? the brains behind this Willy Wonka-esque, endeavour ? the person who tapped the final tile was sent a video informing them of their 'life-changing' prize. They will become a god in Godus, the next game from Molyneux's company 22Cans, as well as taking a cut of the revenue.

For several minutes before the announcement, however, the gaming community was kept in considerable suspense, madly refreshing the Twitter hashtag, #whatsinsidethecube. Staff as 22Cans had to verify that the winner wasn't a bot, and that he or she was prepared to reveal what they had won. It was always an option for the final clicker to keep their prize a secret. However at 5pm, Molyneux tweeted, "He has said he will share!!!!!!!!!" and the victor was revealed as one Bryan Henderson From Edinburgh.

In the video sent to Henderson and later shared online, Molyeneux is seen in a cube-like interior, explaining the genesis of the Curiosity project before revealing the prize: "We are making a game named Godus, the whole game is about being a god to your followers, but YOU, the person who reached the centre, will be the god of all people who are playing Godus. You will decide on the rules that the game is played by. And you will share in the success of the product. Every time people spend money on Godus, you will get a small piece of that pie."

It is not yet clear how Henderson will take up his role, or what the ramifications will be for the design and development of the title. Godus is a strategy sim in the style of previous Molyneux games Dungeon Keeper, Populous and Black & White, with the player becoming a powerful deity, guiding a population of followers. The title was successfully crowd-funded on Kickstarter last year.

Reactions on Twitter ranged from grudging satisfaction to wry disappointment; and many claimed to have predicted the outcome. Journalist Matt Lees tweeted, "I actually called it. Winner of Curiosity gets to be the God in Godus. Actually called it, months ago!" Better still, game developer Dan Marshall linked to one of his own tweets, written on December 14: "Calling it now: middle of #Curiosity cube wins a leading role in #Godus."

Some reactions, though, were rather more downbeat. Games critic and academic Ian Bogost simply tweeted, "Turns out the thing inside the cube was Peter Molyneux's ego."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2013/may/26/curiosity-prize-revealed-peter-molyneux

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Affleck gets honorary doctorate from Brown

Ben Affleck speaks after receiving an honorary degree at Brown University's 245th commencement in Providence, R.I., Sunday, May 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Ben Affleck speaks after receiving an honorary degree at Brown University's 245th commencement in Providence, R.I., Sunday, May 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Actor and director Ben Affleck raises his fist after receiving an honorary degree at Brown University's commencement in Providence, R.I., Sunday, May 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Ben Affleck gestures before receiving an honorary degree at Brown University's 245th commencement in Providence, R.I., Sunday, May 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Ben Affleck reacts as he receives an honorary degree at Brown University's commencement in Providence, R.I., Sunday, May 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Actor and director Ben Affleck, lower left, receives an honorary degree at Brown University's commencement in Providence, R.I., Sunday, May 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) ? Academy Award-winning actor and director Ben Affleck has received one of six honorary doctorate degrees from Brown University.

Affleck was among artists, writers, scientists and educators to receive the degrees from the Ivy League school at commencement exercises Sunday. He received a doctor of fine arts degree. The Massachusetts native directed, produced and starred in "Argo," which won this year's Oscar for Best Picture.

Others getting honorary doctorates were author and MIT Professor Junot Diaz; retired Stanford University bacteriologist Stanley Falkow; Tougaloo College President Beverly Wade Hogan; medical doctor and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation President Risa Lavizzo-Mourey; and Miami Dade College President Eduardo Padron.

The university conferred more than 2,400 degrees Sunday.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-05-26-People-Ben%20Affleck-Brown/id-f55795c0ab674f7d98e861b945f2d0ca

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LEGAL CONCERNS: Try to Maintain a Reasonable Perspective on ...

LEGAL CONCERNS: Try to Maintain a Reasonable Perspective on Criminal?Assaults

Posted by Rick Wolff on May 26, 2013 ? Leave a Comment?

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More Thoughts About the Role of Criminal Prosecutions in Preventing Assaults on Youth Sports Officials

By Doug Abrams

?After the recent fatal assault on youth soccer referee Ricardo Portillo in suburban Salt Lake City, last week?s column explained why legislation to criminalize assaults on sports officials remains unnecessary and potentially counter-productive. In every state, a wide array of general-application statutes already criminalizes assaults on any victim, including a sports official. The most effective approach is to enforce these general-application statutes in appropriate cases, and not to enact new statutes whose provisions would tend to duplicate existing law.

To help explain this conclusion, two themes mentioned in last week?s column deserve greater amplification here. First, I wrote that assaults on sports officials sometimes go unprosecuted because law enforcement authorities too often exercise discretion not to arrest, indict or prosecute an assailant.? Second, I suggested that more robust enforcement of criminal laws would likely deter some future assaults on officials. Here I discuss not only the likely reasons for this exercise of discretion, but also the criminal law?s potential for deterrence.?

To maintain proper perspective about antidotes to violence in youth sports, this column concludes with a timely reminder that criminal prosecution should be the last resort, not the first.? The most promising strategy for managing sporadic violence should be education and instruction conducted by youth leagues and interscholastic sports programs, prevention efforts that continue to show much success.??

Reluctance to Enforce

The April 27 assault on Mr. Portillo was unusual because the perpetrator was a player, and not an adult such as a parent or coach. Media reports suggest that nearly all assaults on referees and other officials are committed by adults.?

Prosecutors may resist indicting offending parents or coaches, or may negotiate plea bargains, because winning a conviction can be difficult. ?Except in rare instances when violence is caught on video, the parent or coach need only claim ?self-defense? (?The ref pushed me first?) or provocation (?The ref cussed at me first?) and the case may collapse. The offending adult may have eyewitness friends and allies willing to lie to law enforcement and, if necessary, commit perjury on the witness stand. The case can end as a stalemated ?he said-she said.?

Busy prosecutors also sense that adults charged with youth sports violence tend to make sympathetic defendants because they are usually first-time offenders who hold regular employment.? Aside from their inability sometimes to control themselves in games, they are the kind of people we would be pleased to have as next-door neighbors. Except perhaps where the injury is particularly serious, juries can be sympathetic to adults with clean records who appear contrite for an assault committed in the heat of the moment to defend the perceived interests of their children. And juries often respond to pleas that if the parent or coach lands in prison even briefly, the real loser would be the innocent child at home.

Even when prosecutors do secure a conviction or guilty plea, judges may impose only probation, community service, or some similar sentence that appears like a slap on the wrists. Without a prior criminal record, the defendant may present little likelihood of being a future threat to the community, and not the kind of violent criminal we tend to worry about most.

None of these reasons offers a suitable excuse for under-enforcement or leniency because prosecutors can prevail, and judges can impose meaningful sentences. When prosecutors believe in good faith that proof would support a conviction, they signal social disapproval as much by the charge as by the outcome.

Deterrence

Publicity about prosecutions for assaults on sports officials would likely deter some parents and coaches ? and perhaps many ? from similar behavior. ?In general, the likelihood of deterrence depends on two factors, the nature of the offense and the nature of the offender.

The nature of the offense, by itself, does not hold particular promise in youth leagues because publicized prosecutions are more likely to deter future premeditated crimes than future impulsive crimes of passion. Most assaults on sports officials fall into the second category because I have never heard of a parent or coach who woke up in the morning plotting to attack an official later that day. (Indeed, this lack of premeditation is reportedly what led the Salt Lake City prosecutor to charge Mr. Portillo?s assailant with homicide by assault rather than with murder or manslaughter.)? We cannot count on publicity about criminal prosecutions to deter the sort of unplanned, impulsive behavior that tends to characterize youth sports assaults.

The nature of the offender, however, holds more promise in youth leagues because prosecutions are more likely to deter people who think rationally than people who chronically lack self-control. Despite the usually impulsive nature of attacks on youth sports officials, I suspect that in places where prosecution is a real possibility, publicity does indeed encourage greater self-control in some parents and coaches.?

In youth sports, assaultive adults are normally family people who are trying to earn a living and raise their children, who make good neighbors until the game starts, and who value their jobs and their places in the community. They are not career criminals, and the youth league assault is typically their first brush with the law. Most of all, parents and coaches sense the embarrassment that indictment, prosecution and sentencing would cause them and their families. Word gets around.

Plan A: Adult Education in Youth Sports

As we discuss the criminal process after the Utah homicide, we should not lose perspective.? In youth sports as in other areas of American life, prevention efforts should be the primary anti-violence strategy. Criminal prosecution should be the last resort, reserved for the relatively few persons whose sporadic violence resists efforts to maintain basic standards of civility before anyone strikes a blow. Even with its potential to deter some future acts of violence, prosecution demonstrates breakdown and failure. Someone has already been victimized, and the families of the victim and the perpetrator may suffer life-changing dislocation from legal proceedings. ?

With pre-season parents meetings and generally effective printed materials, youth sports governing bodies and interscholastic sports leagues seek to prevent violence by emphasizing sportsmanship and mutual respect among competitors and their families.? From my years of coaching, I sense that these constructive educational initiatives can create local sports cultures that help insure that outbursts of violence against officials and others remain the exception rather than the rule. Most youth sports parents know right from wrong, and most tend toward civility when leagues, teams, and other parents and coaches lead the way.

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Source: http://askcoachwolff.com/2013/05/26/legal-concerns-try-to-maintain-a-reasonable-perspective-on-criminal-assaults/

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Deaths at Atlanta VA hospital prompt scrutiny

ATLANTA (AP) ? One patient with a history of substance abuse and suicidal thoughts was left alone in a waiting room inside the Atlanta VA Medical Center, where he obtained drugs from a hospital visitor and later died of an overdose.

Another patient wandered the 26-acre campus for hours, picking up his prescriptions from an outpatient pharmacy and injecting himself with testosterone before returning voluntarily to his room.

The cases at the Atlanta VA Medical Center are the latest in a string of problems at Veterans Affairs facilities nationwide, prompting outrage from elected officials and congressional scrutiny of what is the largest integrated health care system in the country with nearly 300,000 employees.

"There are some that say the VA has just gotten too big and it is unmanageable at any level," said Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, who has drafted legislation to reform VA operations nationwide

In recent years, there have been inquiries into the Pittsburgh VA system after five people died of Legionnaire's disease and the Buffalo, N.Y., VA hospital where at least 18 veterans have tested positive for hepatitis. There have also been whistleblower complaints ranging from improper sterilization procedures to radiology tests left unread at a VA facility in Jackson, Miss. Meanwhile, the need continues to grow: In just the area of mental health, an estimated 13 percent to 20 percent of the 2.6 million service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. In fiscal year 2011, the VA served nearly 6.1 million patients at its 152 medical centers.

At the Atlanta VA Medical Center, two reports issued in mid-April by the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Inspector General detailed allegations of mismanagement and poor patient care linked to three deaths. The case of a fourth veteran was a turning point for Miller: A man in a wheelchair came to the Atlanta VA emergency room complaining of hearing voices but was not admitted and later found in a locked hospital bathroom dead of an apparent suicide.

Officials at the Atlanta VA Medical Center said they had already taken steps to address the issues cited in the reports, which included requiring visitors to be supervised and closer patient monitoring. The facility serves some 87,000 veterans with an operating budget of more $500 million.

The interim director has been replaced, and a former deputy assistant secretary, Leslie B. Wiggins, has been brought in to take over. Wiggins, during a May 20 news conference, promised to reach out to staff and local veterans groups and "offer a way forward."

Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat whose district is served by the center, met with Wiggins and said he was impressed with her experience and hopeful changes would be made.

"This is your own inspector general coming out and clearly pointing out these things. We have four soldiers, veterans who are dead because of actions taken by or lack of actions taken by the management at that hospital," Scott said.

In one report, investigators found the Atlanta facility did not sufficiently address patient care safety, failed to monitor patients and did not have adequate policies for dealing with contraband, visitation and drug tests. In the case of the man who overdosed on drugs from a hospital visitor, the report said the man was searched when he returned to his room and given a drug test. However, it was later determined another patient had provided the urine. Investigators said the facility had not provided staff with a policy for collecting urine, which should include securing the bathroom or direct observation. Investigators also noted the unit had no written policy on patient visitors.

The report recommended the VA establish national policies addressing contraband, visitation, urine testing and escorts for inpatients of mental health units. The VA agreed and plans to implement those policies by Sept. 30.

A separate report linked two additional deaths to the facility and its referral program to outside mental health providers. Investigators noted the Atlanta VA Medical Center had referred more than 4,000 patients since 2010 but did not know the status of those patients.

"There is no case management or follow-up," said one unidentified staff member quoted in the April 17 report.

One patient who died had a long history of mental health issues including suicidal behavior. He was evaluated and prescribed medicine for depression. A follow-up appointment was scheduled for four weeks later, and the patient committed suicide during that time, according to the report.

Rep. Miller's draft legislation would address mental health care within the VA system. It would require the VA to contract with civilian contractors for mental health care while also requiring the VA to keep closer tabs on patients after receiving care.

Veterans interviewed at the Atlanta facility on a recent afternoon said the problems hadn't impacted them.

"I've had good treatment here and good care," said Lester Paulus, a 73-year-old retired Navy veteran from Canton, Ga., who received eye surgery and successful cancer treatment.

___

Follow Christina Almeida Cassidy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Christina.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/deaths-atlanta-va-hospital-prompt-scrutiny-144406043.html

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New analysis yields improvements in a classic 3-D imaging technique

May 25, 2013 ? Research conducted at Curtin University in Perth has enabled significant increases in image quality in a widely used 3D printing technique that is more than 100 years old.

Anaglyph printing -- think of the red-and-blue 3D glasses used to transform 2D images to 3D images in comics, magazines, books, and newspapers -- came into being when the continuous-tone printed anaglyph was invented by French physicist Louis Ducos du Hauron in 1891.

The technique works by combining the left and right images of a stereoscopic image pair into the red and blue color channels of the output anaglyph image. With the red/blue 3D glasses, the left eye sees only the red channel of the anaglyph image, and the right sees only the blue. If the anaglyph 3D image has been constructed correctly, the viewer sees a pleasing 3D image on the printed page.

The project team, led by Curtin research engineer Andrew Woods, targeted crosstalk problems which are visible as ghost-like shadows. Their paper published recently in the SPIE journal Optical Engineering details seven recommendations for overcoming crosstalk.

"The largest reduction in crosstalk is likely be achieved by using inks which have a better spectral purity than current process inks used in color printers," Woods said. "We found that an 80% reduction in crosstalk was potentially achievable just by changing the cyan ink."

The anaglyph technique is easy to implement and the anaglyph 3D glasses are relatively cheap, so the technique is used very widely, Woods said.

However, printed anaglyph images often suffer from a number of image quality limitations. When the 3D image is viewed through the colored glasses, there is often a significant amount of crosstalk (or ghosting), an undesirable property of some 3D techniques whereby the left eye sees some of the image intended for only the right eye, and vice-versa. Crosstalk is usually visible as ghost-like shadows throughout the image. If crosstalk levels are too high, the quality of the 3D experience can be significantly reduced.

"The printed anaglyph is 121 years old, but this appears to be the first time that a detailed technical simulation of crosstalk in printed anaglyphs has been developed," Woods said. "We started by measuring the spectral characteristics of various printing inks, 3D glasses, light sources, and papers. From there we developed a simulation which models the viewing of an anaglyph 3D image, and subsequently performed an experiment to validate the accuracy of the model. We hope this work will help provide a 21st-century improvement to the 19th-century invention."

In addition to changing the cyan ink, recommendations include using high-quality anaglyph glasses, an optimized light source, and improved image processing algorithms.

The full paper is available via open access in the SPIE Digital Library: "Characterizing and reducing crosstalk in printed anaglyph stereoscopic 3D images."

The work was originally presented in the Stereoscopic Displays and Applications conference during the 2013 IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging symposium in Burlingame, California, USA. The call for papers has been released for Electronic Imaging 2014 which will be held 2-6 February in downtown San Francisco.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/electronics/~3/m7-nMTfnDOw/130525144032.htm

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The Xbox One Misses the Perfect Set-Top Box Target

The Xbox One could have been the true center of your TV universe that let you throw all those other boxes away.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/05/xbox-one-tv/

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