- What’s the holdup been, Large Hadron Collider? You’re a huge freaking hunk of very expensive machinery residing in beautiful Switzerland and for all of the hype, you haven’t exactly been banging out major scientific developments. That trend has begun to change in the past couple of weeks and if last week is any indication of what we can expect moving forward, big things are ahead. The scientists running the collider announced late last week the submission of a paper to Physics Letters that describes a test of some forms of string theory. They seem to have refuted one form of the theory, which would dictate that the LHC should have been able to produce small black holes that would instantly decay instead of, as some had feared, devouring the Earth. The data from tests run by the device instead found that a certain signature of the black holes’ decay is notably absent. Not that I need to explain a single aspect of string theory to any of my brilliant readers, but just for kicks, I’ll do it anyhow. String theory is an (often-futile) attempt to cope with the fact that the two major theories in physics, quantum mechanics and relativity, are fundamentally incompatible. The basic tenet of string theory is combining those two competing theories by positing a set of extra dimensions beyond the usual four. Why can’t we as humans see these additional dimensions? Well, because they’re tightly wrapped within a tiny radius that is inapproachable at normal energies. The most recent LHC tests targeted a specific form of string theory — the paper calls it the ADD model because Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Dvali proposed it — with consequences for gravity. Because gravity is relatively weak compared to the other forces, it could only become unified with the rest of them at energies many orders of magnitude higher than the LHC could reach. The long and short of it is that if this facet of string theory were true, particles that collided at energies above this cutoff could close to within a distance that’s smaller than the space occupied by the additional dimensions and they’d feel the full force of gravity, causing them immediately merge to form a tiny black hole. Because that didn’t happen here, scientists are now forced to reexamine the theory and figure out how to explain these new findings. However, all you string-theory haters out there need to simmer down because this study doesn’t necessarily mean the death of string theory, only the particular form that predicted black holes at these energies. As for me, I’m going to take a couple of aspirin because my head now hurts from trying to comprehend all of this string theory talk in such a short span………
- Life is not easy for polar bears these days. The amount of sea ice available to them is shrinking and that’s key because sea ice is a preferred habitat for them as well as ringed seals -- key polar bear prey -- and losing more of it could push polar bears further toward extinction. The big hope for polar bears at this point seems to be the decent quantity of sea ice remaining in northeastern Canada and northern Greenland. One hope is that ice from throughout the Arctic will bolster the supply in those areas. The more interconnected current state of the Arctic means that pollutants and nutrients from other regions could also affect the region. The prognosis for Arctic sea ice - which is projected to be all but gone by the end of the century - remains dire and recent research suggests that a final refuge of Arctic summer sea ice will persist along northern Canada and Greenland. That would make those areas quite possibly the last outpost for polar bears and the ringed seals of the Arctic that the bears feed on. Ordinarily, this amount of sea ice wouldn’t be a welcoming habitat, but the fact that it will likely be found in a more concentrated area as opposed to scattered throughout the Arctic makes it more likely to form a viable habitat. A new study on the topic was presented Sunday at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. For those looking to pick out the positive from this bit of news, be forewarned that the study’s authors also cautioned that as Arctic waters become more open and ice moves more freely, the area could be vulnerable to threats from increased shipping, oil exploration or other migrating pollution. Researchers based their predictions on model projections of sea ice through the end of the century and on sea ice measurements showing that the oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic occurs in the projected refuge area. That protected ice area is used by seals as a platform for molting and giving birth to their young, as well as utilizing deep snow drifts to build snow caves that insulate their pups from extreme cold in spring and protect them from predators. Conversely, polar bears target those areas as their prime hunting grounds. In a world where every new development seems to go against them, polar bears could definitely use some positive news about their prospects for survival. Unfortunately, even this bit of seemingly good news comes with a 50-50 blend of positivity and negativity……….
- With two big-name movies set to duke it out at the box office this weekend, the question everyone was asking was who would win out: sci-fi or cartoon bears? Neither newcomer crushed the field, but it was Tron Legacy that won the battle with a haul of $43.6 million, besting Yogi Bear by a sizeable margin even though the revival of the popular cartoon was shown in more theaters. Tron still has a long way to go before it can earn back the $170 million spent to make it, but at least the film has a win under its belt. As for Yogi Bear, it made $16.7 million in its debut weekend, less than expected and far enough from the break-even mark to make one wonder if it has any shot of getting there. Last weekend’s top film, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, slipped to third this time around after a 48-percent decline that left it with a $12.4 million haul. That elevated the film’s cumulative total to $42.8 million, also below expectations. Fourth place went to Mark Wahlberg’s boxing drama The Fighter, which has received rave reviews as it has gradually expanded to a wider release and made $12.2 million on the weekend after opening in just a few select markets last weekend. Last among the top five was Sony’s The Tourist, which dropped off 47 percent from its opening weekend and made $8.7 million this time around for a running tally of $31 million. Comprising the rest of the top 10 was: Tangled (No. 6 with $8.6 million and a four-week total of $127.8 million and counting), Black Swan (No. 7 in its third weekend of release with $8.4 million as it added 869 theaters and saw its earnings rise 151 percent), How Do You Know (No. 8 in a horribly disappointing opening weekend with $7.6 million, a total that looks even worse against the backdrop of a $120 million budget), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (free-falling from fourth last weekend to No. 9 thanks to a bargain-basement $4,845,000 total to raise its cumulative take to $265.6 million) and Unstoppable (No. 10 and almost certainly headed out of the top 10 next weekend for the first time in its six-week run after declining 51 percent and making only $1.8 million for this frame). Two of last weekend’s top 10 occupants, Burlesque and Due Date, dropped out this weekend and finished 11th and 12th, respectively………
- Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe has had a big year even if his team’s season has completely derailed and Kluwe owes a large chunk of his success to Twitter. After the league began its crackdown on violent hits and sent out an instructional video designed to educate players on what constituted an illegal hit, Kluwe tweeted pictures of crude stick-figure drawings depicting the exact same hit twice, with the first penalized because it was on a high-priced, skill position player such as a quarterback or receiver, and the second hit not penalized because it was on a non-star player. Kluwe clearly knows how to use social media to create a brand and image for himself and you knew he would have something to say with his team slated to play outdoors at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium instead of their normal home at the Metrodome because of the dome’s collapsed roof from the ginormous snowstorm that rolled through Minnesota last week. The story this week has been the Vikings pleading with fans to come out and help them shovel the snow from TCF Bank Stadium so the game can be played. But while the team was requesting help from the fans, Kluwe was not impressed with the conditions at the stadium and let his frustrations be known on his Twitter page. He called the playing surface at TCF Bank Stadium "as hard as concrete" and "unplayable" in tweets posted Sunday afternoon after a brief practice at the facility. Other Vikings players have expressed skepticism about the quality of the playing surface but, team and University of Minnesota officials have expressed confidence that the field would be in acceptable condition for Monday night's game. Kluwe most definitely does not share those sentiments and tweeted that the game would be a "trainwreck." He went on to declare, "The field is as hard as concrete an hour and a half after they took the tarp off, and anyone that hits their head is getting a concussion. ... I find it interesting that the NFL can claim an emphasis on player safety, and then tell us the field is fine. It's beyond hypocritical. ... I can only hope, however unlikely, that no one gets catastrophically injured at the trainwreck that's about to take place tomorrow night." Ironically, those tweets were chased by a subsequent post admitting that he had been asked to stop tweeting about the playing conditions. Vikings coach Leslie Frazier attempted to balance out Kluwe’s negativity by praising the work done to get the field ready for Monday night's game. "A great job by the people that have worked on it all week long," Frazier said via the team's website. "It really seems to me that there are going to be safe conditions. It's not something that our players have to be concerned about. We can just go out and play football, so it should be good for both teams." Either that or it’s going to be a train wreck, but either one should be entertaining……….
- What good is being in the room when a gun-toting madman terrorizes a group of people before ultimately killing himself if you can't profit from it after the fact? Big ups to Bay District School Board member Ginger Littleton, who tried to use her purse to knock a gun out of the hands of the man who held her colleagues hostage at a meeting in Panama City, Florida, on Tuesday, then immediately looked to pawn the purse on eBay before the auction was shut down. Littleton became a quasi-celebrity after attempting to stop 56-year-old Clay Duke using her purse after he ordered the room cleared except for the six board members and said he was upset that the district had fired his wife. Littleton was allowed to leave the room but later returned, snuck up from behind Duke and swung her purse at his hand. It was a noble attempt to be a hero, even if it failed when Duke kept control of the gun. He mysteriously did not pull the trigger and instead allowed Littleton to leave a second time. It took less than 72 hours for her to decide that putting the faux crocodile leather purse up for sale on eBay and she even bragged that it was an easy decision after she was contacted about the idea by a local TV station on Thursday. She attempted to defend her decision by saying that the auction was supposed to benefit Salvage Santa, a program run by Mike Jones -- the security officer who, police said, shot Duke before Duke killed himself. "The hero of the day was Mike Jones, who is our safety officer who took the shooter down," Littleton said. "He takes old toys and bikes and fixes them up and gives them to children who need them at Christmas." Great, but you could have supported the charity by using your newfound notoriety to stump for it during every interview you gave rather than attempting to capitalize on a sad and tragic situation in which a mentally troubled man ended his life. Local TV anchor Joe Moore said he came up with the idea to auction off the purse and said Littleton agreed. "I thought, wow, what closure for everyone," Littleton said. "This was a way to tie everything up." It was Moore who supposedly pulled the plug on the auction because “legal requirements weren't met.” He refused to specify which requirements those might be, but he also explained that Jones’ charity might not meet eBay's charity guidelines. Littleton pleaded ignorance about the auction being stopped and said that she was unsure of whether it would resume. Here’s hoping not………
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