The person who voiced the original iPhone Siri has revealed herself as Susan Bennett, although Apple won’t confirm it. But what interested me in the story was how the system was created. [Read more…]

Carl Zimmer has an interesting article on the biology of smell. It is truly remarkable how our noses can detect the presence of a tiny amount of one type of molecule in the vast expanse of other molecules.

He first describes the process by which we register the presence of a smelly molecule. [Read more…]

Major science journals issue science journalists with press releases about papers that they think will make a splash and give them embargoed advance copies of the articles so that journalists can research them and write their articles with the understanding that the articles won’t be published until the journal is released. [Read more…]

A new paper has looked into the question of whether the masses of particles change with time. That this may be an issue may have not occurred to people (at least it had not occurred to me) but when you think about it, it is a valid concern: Are the masses of particles the same now as they were at the beginning of the universe? [Read more…]

Scientist Ed Stone of CalTech and formerly of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains the significance of the Voyager mission that was blasted off in 1977 for what was hoped to be at least a four year mission that would be able to photograph two out the outer planets (Jupiter and Saturn) but is still going strong nearly four decades later, passing Neptune and Uranus and has just almost left the solar system and entered interstellar space, and is still sending back information. [Read more…]

Physics tends to be highly under-represented when it comes to women, with them comprising only 13% of faculty in degree-granting institutions. There are many suggested reasons for this but one heartening sign is that physics department faculty and professional organizations have recognized that this deficit does not reflect well on us and have made concerted efforts to increase interest in physics among young girls and to encourage more women to major in the subject and to pursue it as a career. [Read more…]

When I think of the Antarctic at all, I just think of it as this huge inert unpopulated continent that is permanently covered with ice. What I had not realized is that in places the ice covering is as much as two miles thick and that the continent contains about 50% of the world’s supply of fresh water. The ice sheet is also not static but dynamic, with complex flow patterns. [Read more…]

One of the perennial problems that men face is that of back splash when using urinals. A group of physicists have tackled this problem and studied how to do it so that there is minimal splashing. Using high-speed cameras and nozzles to mimic various angles and speeds, they have found the optimum method. They have now presented their results. [Read more…]

I hate traveling by plane for many reasons, mainly because of the cramped seats, the security theater one has to go through, and so on, though the convenience of getting to one’s destination so much more quickly usually outweighs the negative elements. I have a rule of thumb that says that if traveling by car to a destination takes six hours or less, or if there is no time constraint for even longer journeys, I prefer to drive. [Read more…]

I feel that I have obtained a huge benefit from having studied physics, especially quantum physics. On the one hand, it has given me a sense of wonder and awe at how the laws of nature work to produce the universe we occupy. The theories are really quite beautiful, the experimental methods used to study them incredibly ingenious, and the implications quite profound. [Read more…]