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ANTIPROTIONS AT SOLAR MAXIMUM. The solar wind is an electron-proton plasma blowing away from the Sun at 400 – 800 km/sec and can be thought of as a tenuous atmosphere (called the heliosphere) of the Sun extending over most of the solar system. The charged particles in this gust both envelope and are influenced by the Sun’s magnetic field. This field, because it rotates with the Sun, gets pretty tangled up. When now cosmic rays from outside the solar system venture in, they are buffeted by wind and field. During the present solar cycle of the 1990s, the configuration of the field is such that positively charged cosmic-ray protons drift into the inner heliosphere via solar polar regions and exit in equatorial regions. After the soon approaching peak period of solar activity (solar maximum), however, the Sun’s field will be reversed. Then the negatively charged cosmic-ray antiprotons preferentially follow the polar route and more easily enter the inner heliosphere to be detected by earthbound or satellite detectors. Thus in the period 2001-2010 we should see relatively more antiprotons than in the previous cycle, which is now ending. Physicists at the Bartol Research Institute at the University of Delaware have calculated when and by how much this antiproton surplus should manifest itself, telling us how well we understand the solar cycle. They have also sought ways of understanding the source of the antiprotons. Most antiprotons are made when commonplace protons strike interstellar dust, but some might have a more spectacular birth in the annihilation of dark matter or in the evaporation of primordial black holes.

WHY IS THE SAHARA A DESERT? Fossil pollen, rock art, and other hints indicate that the Sahara was much greener 6000 years ago in the mid-Holocene period. Neolithic peoples seemed to have hastened desertification at the northern and southern edges of the Sahara, but German geophysicists believe the main causes were natural. They point to the fact that precession (wobble) in the Earth’s orbit causes changes in the timing of perihelion (closest Earth-Sun approach) and our planet’s rotational tilt. These combined to promote a milder climate in most regions of the mid-Holocene Northern Hemisphere. Since then the climate has become cooler and more arid. The subtle alterations in Northern Hemisphere cooling, however, were amplified by a feedback between atmosphere and vegetation causing climate change in the Sahara region to be far more drastic than elsewhere. Indeed what occurred was “the largest change in land cover during the last 6000 years,” according to Martin Claussen. He and his colleagues have now confirmed this hypothesis with computer modeling.

THE MOST POWERFUL FREE ELECTRON LASER (FEL), as of this week, is the one at Jefferson Lab in Virginia. In an FEL amplified laser light comes from a beam of electrons passing through a cavity. The advantages of FEL’s are their tenability (with output from microwaves up into the ultraviolet), their high “duty cycle” (they deliver light continuously) and the fact that the light is produced in closely spaced picosecond bursts tied to the pulselike nature of the parent electron beam. This makes the light useful for doing fast things, such as melting metals and then watching as they refreeze into non-crystal solids, or roughening up sheets of polymer fabric so that they will accept glues or dyes. Jefferson’s FEL has an average power of 1.7 kilowatts; the best previous continuous FEL power was 11 watts.

INFLUENCE OF COSMIC RAYS ON EARTH’S CLIMATE. Do small changes in solar activity translate into climate change on our planet? One possible linkage is the sun’s influence over the local flux of galactic cosmic rays (GCR); as the solar magnetic field gets stronger, fewer cosmic rays are able to penetrate to the inner solar system and Earth. And because the GCR are the biggest ionizer of air molecules in the lower atmosphere, they might play a role in processes like cloud formation. Henrik Svensmark, a physicist now at the Danish Meteorological Institute ahs studied the connection between GCR flux, solar activity, and climate on Earth. He finds that during the past 11-year solar cycle. Earth’s cloud cover was more closely correlated with the GCR flux than with other solar activity parameters, such as solar radiance, the main energy emitted by the sun. Svensmark concludes that climate seems to be influenced by solar activity via the GCR-cloud connection. In other words, climate is partly affected by processes in deep space.

SUREFIRE QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT, the ability to inter link two quantum particles with practically 100% certainty, has been achieved by a NIST group advancing hopes for ultrapowerful quantum computers. Previously, physicists obtained entangled particles as a byproduct of some random or probabilistic process, such as the production of two correlated photons that occasionally occurs when a single photon passes through a special crystal. Receiving entangled pars in this way is fine for tests of quantum nonlocality, but entangling a large number of quantum particles – essential for building a practical quantum computer – becomes much less likely if it is dependent on a probabilistic process. In their “deterministic enryllium ions in a magnetic field. Using a predetermined sequence of laser pulses, they entangle one ion’s internal spin to its external motion, and then entangle the motion to the spin of the other atom. The group believes that it will be able to entangle multiple ions with this process.

THE PETAWATT is the name for what is currently the world’s most powerful laser, located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It can produce pulses of 1.3 quadrillion (peta) watts for half a trillionth of a second, more than 1300 times the entire electrical generating capacity of the US, if only for a short time. At the upcoming American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics meeting, Steve Hatchett of Livermore will describe how the laser can produce highly improved, sub-millimeter resolution images of objects through almost 6 inches of lead. Shining the laser on a gold target, Tom Cowan of Livermore and his colleagues have ejected electrons coming from a solid (K6F.02). When these electrons were made to decelerate rapidly and release high-energy photons as a result, the researchers observed the photons to induce nuclear fission of uranium-238. Although such “photofission” has been seen before, the Petawatt may allow scientists to do newly detailed studies of nuclear processes.

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Princess of Wales, Prince of Camelot by Ian Cooper

As the flowers piled up on North Moore St. in TriBeCa, an occasional motif of the past couple of weeks has been the casual comparison of Dianna, Princess of Wales, and John F. Kennedy Jr., both in their lives and the public reactions to their untimely deaths.

Indeed, there are striking parallels. But there are striking differences too, which give some insight into the contrast between the political cultures of Britain and the United States. For those readers who are weary of the already excessive coverage of JFK Jr.’s death (having reached a point of Grief Fatigue, “closure”, or both) I beg your indulgence while we engage in a bit of pop hagiography.

First, their lives. The similarities are obvious: they were both beautiful, enormously privileged, pursued by paparazzi, and from famous families (though Diana had married into hers). They both had an admirable devotion to charitable causes. They were both in their late thirties, and had seemed to arrive at a time in their lives where they had come into their own (for JFK Jr. this coincided with marriage; for Diana, it came after divorce).

Moreover, they were, and are, both “iconic” in that their images took on a life of their own, upon which their admirers could impose their own meaning and interpretation. And of course, their deaths inspired high public reactions, partly but not wholly media-generated, which were vastly disproportionate to their actual significance as historical figures. But despite these similarities, Diana’s appeal in Britain was very different from JFK Jr.’s appeal in the United States.

In life, Diana was a divisive figure. After her divorce, she came to represent the “modern” values of empathy, glamour, and female independence over the traditional values of self-discipline (the proverbial stiff upper lip), deference, and duty. She was loved by those in the broad middle of British opinion, including celebrity-worshippers, moderate feminists, and monarchy-reformers; but she was disliked by those on the extremes, both on the right (old-line monarchists) and the left (hard-core republicans and feminists).

JFK Jr., by contrast was Apple Pie – a universally liked, non-polarizing figure. This is because, despite all the talk about his “promise” or “potential”, his appeal was grounded in nostalgia – a yearning for the era of his father’s presidency, perceived by Americans (for reasons many non-Americans do not fully understand) to be something of a lost Golden Age. If JFK Jr. had lived to go into politics, he no doubt would have had supporters and detractors; but in his prepolitical state, still basking in the glow of his father, he was disliked by no one.

What made Diana contentious in life made her contentious in death. When Britons laid flowers en masse for Diana, it was in fact a political act; they were insisting not only that Diana was an important public figure, but that she should be mourned in the “modern” – that is, spontaneous and demonstrative – style she embodied. This spilled over into the question of whether she was worthy of official symbols of public mourning (flying the flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace, the trappings of a state funeral) and – most bizarrely – the demand that the royal family mourn more conspicuously (one tabloid headline exhorted the reserved Queen, “Show Us You Care, Ma’am”).

During that hysterical week between the death and the funeral, most Britons participated in the public mood, while a minority fumed quietly about the “grief police” who had enforced that mood; in that charged atmosphere, apathy was not an option. There was a performative aspect to the public grief; people felt genuine sorrow, but they also seemed to need to prove themselves capable of an emotional outburst.

The reaction in America to JFK Jr.’s death was reserved by comparison, without the complex emotional turmoil of the Diana aftermath. The makeshift shrine on the TriBeCa sidewalk was positively tiny in comparison to the remarkable cellophane sea that had covered the grounds of Kensington Palace. Whereas hundreds turned out for JFK Jr.’s public and private memorial services, tens of thousands had crowded into Hyde Park and lined the funeral route for Diana. Depending on their temperament, Americans no doubt felt a range of personal feelings, varying from apathy to great sorrow, but they had nothing to prove through a collective expression of grief.

However, there was one disturbing aspect of the mourning for JFK Jr.: it was the tendency to refer to him as America’s version of a “crown prince” (which, to his credit, JFK Jr. Did not cultivate). The U.S., which most of the time is profoundly democratic country, for some reason turns to mush when it comes to the Kennedys, expressing a romantic longing for a dashing leader to sweep them off their feet. This notion, which would be offensive if it were not ridiculous, implies not only a hereditary regal entitlement – that the Presidency would have been his for the asking – but the even more pernicious idea that the nation does not govern itself but requires an anointed leader.

So if I had to draw a conclusion about the public reactions to these deaths, it would be this. The whole collective psychodrama after Diana’s death revealed that Britons could be, as a people, emotionally dysfunctional in mourning a beloved public figure. Americans, by contrast, reacted to JFK.

Jr.’s death with sorrow but not hysteria, showing themselves to be more well-adjusted emotionally. On the other hand, because Britain long ago had the sense to separate princes (and princesses) from politics, the effect of Diana’s death was played out solely on a mass emotional level, with nothing important – either politically or constitutionally – ultimately at stake. The American experience of the last two weeks was more politically revealing; it showed that even a nation which was rejected monarchy might still yearn for a prince.

In short, Britons are at times emotionally dysfunctional but have a well-adjusted relationship with their political leaders, whereas Americans are emotionally well-adjusted but at times have a dysfunctional relationship with their political leaders.

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35 Fun Things to do When Driving

1. Have a friend ride in the back seat. Gagged.

2. Roll down your windows and blast talk radio. Headbang.

3. Wear snorkel gear and hang fish around from the ceiling.

4. Two words: Chicken suit.

5. Write the words “Help me” on your back window in red paint. The more it looks like blood, the better.

6. Pay the toll for the car behind you. Watch in rearview mirror as toll collector tries to explain to next driver.

7. Laugh. Laugh a lot. A whooooole lot.

8. Stop at the green lights.

9. Go at the red ones.

10. Occasionally wave a stuffed animal/troll doll/ Barbie out your window or sunroof. Feel free to make it dance.

11. Eat food that requires silverware.

12. Put your arms down the legs of an extra pair of trousers, put sneakers on your hands, and lean the seat back as you drive.

13. At stoplights, eye the person in the next car suspiciously. With a look of fear, suddenly lock your doors.

14. Honk frequently without motivation.

15. Wave at people often. If they wave back, offer an offended and angry look as if they gave you an obscene gesture.

16. At stoplights, ask people if they have any Grey Poupon.

17. Let pedestrians know who’s boss.

18. Look behind you frequently, with a very paranoid look.

19. Restart your car at every stoplight.

20. Hang numerous car-fresheners in the rear-view mirror. Talk to them, stroking them lovingly.

21. Lob burning things in the windows of smokers who throw their butts out the window.

22. Keep at least five cats in the car.

23. Squeegee your windshield at every stop.

24. If an firetruck comes up behind you, pull over, get on the roof of your car, and do a cheer for them as they pass!

25. Compliment other drivers on their skill and finesse.

26. Have conversations, looking periodically at the passenger seat, when driving alone.

27. Stop and collect roadkill.

28. Stop and pray for roadkill.

29. Stop and cook roadkill. (If in Tennessee.)

30. Throw Spam. Tape signs on windows protesting email abuse.

31. Get in the fast lane and gradually… slow… down… to… a stop. Then get out and watch the cars.

32. Vary your vehicle’s speed inversely with the speed limit.

33. Drive off an exit ramp, ask for directions to the town you’re in. When they tell you you’re there, look confused, glance at your map, laugh, and exclaim, “Oh! Wrong state!”

34. Sing without having the radio on.

35. At stoplights, run out of your car, place pylons around you, then gather them back up as the light changes and drive off…

A Case For The FBI

The phone rings at FBI headquarters.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this FBI?”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“I’m calling to report my neighbor Tom. He is hiding marijuana in his firewood.”

“This will be noted.”

Next day, the FBI comes over to Tom’s house. They search the shed where the firewood is kept, break every piece of wood, find no marijuana, swear at Tom and leave.

The phone rings at Tom’s house.

“Hey, Tom! Did the FBI come?”

“Yeah!”

“Did they chop your firewood?”

“Yeah they did.”

“Okay, now it’s your turn to call. I need my garden plowed.”

The Great Astrological Light Bulb Joke

How many members of your sign does it take to change a light bulb?

ARIES:

Just one. You want to make something of it?

TAURUS:

One, but just try to convince them that the burned-out bulb is useless and should be thrown away.

GEMINI:

Two, but the job never gets done-they just keep discussing who is supposed to do it and how it’s supposed to be done!

CANCER:

Just one. But it takes a therapist three years to help them though the grieving process.

LEO:

Leos don’t change light bulbs, although sometimes their agent will get a Virgo in to do the job for them while they’re out.

VIRGO:

Approximately 1.000000 with an error of +/- 1 millionth.

LIBRA:

Er, two. Or maybe one. No, on second thought, make that two.

Is that OK with you?

SCORPIO:

That information is strictly secret and shared only with the Enlightened Ones in the Star Chamber of the Ancient Hierarchical Order.

SAGITTARIUS:

The sun is shining, the day is young, we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, and you’re inside worrying about a stupid burned-out light bulb?

CARRICORN:

I don’t waste my time these childish jokes.

AQUARIUS:

Well, you have to remember that everything is energy, so…

PISCES:

Light bulb? What light bulb?