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Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Science Scientists Freeze a Beam of Light

Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 9:32 AM

(Science News) Forget about ziplock bags. A cloud of ultracold atoms can store a beam of yellow light for 1.5 seconds. That timescale isn’t impressive for frozen peas, but it’s enough time for light to circle the Earth 10 times under normal conditions, researchers led by Lene Hau of Harvard University report.

This ability to store light may lead to more efficient ways to communicate, as well as new ways to explore quantum mechanical properties such as entanglement.

It all brings to mind that famous passage in Antigone:

WONDERS are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy south-wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year.

But any student of ancient Greek literature knows that "deinon," the Greek word for wonderful, also has “horrible” or “frightening" in its meaning.

And so we learn about the fate of robins:

(The Guardian) As a favourite winter bird they appear on millions of Christmas cards every year, but robins face being illegally killed in enormous numbers this Christmas, conservationists warned today.

Many of the birds escape the freezing cold to spend the winter on Cyprus, only for hundreds of thousands to be illegally killed to provide a Cypriot delicacy — ambelopoulia — for local restaurants...

..."Sadly many of these birds will be travelling to their deaths, particularly in the trapping hotbeds of Famagusta, Larnaca and the British sovereign base area of Dhekelia."

Ambelopoulia, a dish of pickled or boiled songbirds, is illegal, but the law is being widely flouted by many restaurants.

These birds know for sure that man is wonderful.

...And the light-hearted race of birds, and the tribes of savage beasts, and the sea-brood of the deep, man snares in the meshes of his woven toils, he leads captive, man excellent in wit. And he masters by his arts the beast whose lair is in the wilds, who roams the hills; he tames the horse of shaggy mane, he puts the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless mountain bull...

Comments (17) RSS

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This post is totally Lindied.

Robins and photons, wtf. Are robins shooting lasers now?

Today's Forecast: Cloudy with a chance of LASER ROBINS

Posted by Baconcat on December 23, 2009 at 9:55 AM

You can't really call it "Lindied," BC, when Charles pretty much owns the patent on fucked-up posts that don't make sense.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on December 23, 2009 at 10:05 AM

another fun Ambelopoulia fact:
"Since the entrails of the birds are not removed, (as it is not cost effective to do so) the consumer is encouraged to swallow the bird whole"

Posted by pissy mcslogbot on December 23, 2009 at 10:06 AM

@1: All I want for Christmas is a flock of freakin' robins with freakin' lasers on their heads. Is that too much to ask!?!

Posted by Cracker Jack on December 23, 2009 at 10:09 AM

@2: It was a normal Charles post until he added a completely irrelevant comment about an animal of any sort a la Lindy.

The reverse would be Lindy posting a picture of a horse jumping over a fence, then discussing the ontology of horse-based religious sects then segueing into a discussion of Epona in popular culture like the Nintendo 64 game "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", finally posting a picture of Amanda Knox riding a horse and asking, "what if she lived in Enumclaw?"

Posted by Baconcat on December 23, 2009 at 10:12 AM

@5 Thank you for that deconstruction. As an aside, coffee really stings when one sprays it out one's nose.

Posted by Ackham on December 23, 2009 at 10:15 AM

Freezing light? Man plays god in so many ways, harmful and wondrous.

Posted by Vince on December 23, 2009 at 10:29 AM

Isn't there supposed to be black people involved somehow if it's a Charles post? Maybe I just haven't been here long enough.

Posted by Michael from Washington on December 23, 2009 at 10:30 AM

Charles, your hyper-pompous, overwrought, desperate attempts to gain recognition of the fact that you can use google to pretend that you are an intellectual have truly reached the beyond the level of ludicrous. Please, STFU.
Merry Christmas to everyone else.

Posted by Pol Pot