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Friday, December 26, 2008

Laverbread and Cockles

Gower on Britain's Favourite View




Laver is highly nutritious because of its high proportions of protein, iron, and especially iodine. It also contains high levels of vitamins B2, A, D, C and contains significant amounts of taurine.
It is made from seaweed which is boiled for several hours. The gelatinous paste that results is then mined and rolled in oatmeal, fried and eaten with cockles for breakfast.


The source of the seaweed used to make laverbread was historically the Gower coastline. There are still small producers of Gower laverbread (Welsh: BARA LAWNR), but most commercial laverbread is now made from seaweed gathered from western Scotland. In addition to Wales, laverbread is eaten across the Bristol Channel in North Devon, especially around the Exmoor coast around Lynmouth and Combe Martin.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Phase Transitions in Graphene


Dreaming about graphene is a beautiful thing. The leptons become light and dark excitons. Suspending graphene makes the top and bottom surfaces indistinguishable. You can even invert its handedness. Time reversal symmetry makes single layer graphene almost perfect. But bilayer is great, too. A magnetic field can be applied to change the phase of the excitons in a bilayer, half-filled system to that of a Bose Einstein condensate. When current flows in opposite directions in the two layers, the resistance goes to zero. An oddly quantized vortex binding one zero mode per valley is present, though slightly split due to a mixing of the valleys in the graphene layers. You can also have a phase transition from this coherent excitonic phase to a pair of single-layer fractional Quantum Hall States as a function of layer spacing. There is always something new to read about graphene as one drifts off to sleep.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Listening to Good Music

Listening to good music is important to good nutrition, just like water, sunlight, etc. My favorite singer is Katherine Jenkins. If she is good, where are her fans I am asked.

Here is the answer: United Kingdom 58.53% (59.62%); United States 11.21% (10.95%); Australia 3.14% (3.18%); France 2.60% (2.79%); Netherlands 2.19% (2.07%); Japan 1.26% (1.35%); Germany 1.17% (1.18%); Ireland 1.07% (1.13%); New Zealand 1.00% (1.03%); Canada 0.97% (1.01%). The numbers in paratheses are the previous percentages. Her popularity will continue to rise in the U.S. and probably in France and the Netherlands. In New Zealand, she has to compete with Yulia MacLean, who brings everyone to tears.

Unlike other singers who are popular because of the songs they sing, the songs that Katherine and Yulia sing become popular because they sing them. Some people who think they are tone deaf and don't like music and religion can't help loving Hallelujah after Katherine sings it.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Fine Structure Constant from Graphene



Pi divided by the fraction of light transmitted through a single layer of graphene gives the reciprocal of the fine structure constant.


1. de Broglie wavelength of slow neutrons----------------137.03601082

2. AC Josephson effect in superconductor junction--------137.059770

3. Quantum Hall effect-----------------------------------137.0360037

4. Anomalous magnetic moment of electron---------------137.03599976

5. Anomalous magnetic moment of positron---------------137.03599976

6. Muonium atom----------------------------------------137.0359940

7. Helium spectrum--------------------------------------137.035853

8. Velocity of hydrogen 1s electron /velocity of light-------137.0388


(All values were obtained from book called "Hydrogen" published by Harvard University Press in 2002 by John S. Rigden)




Definition of the Meter


The latest in a long line of ways to determine the length of a meter is based on mode-locked femtosecond lasers and an optical frequency comb technique. A Nobel Prize was awarded in 2005 for this work.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Quantum Computers from Graphene

Researchers at the University of Leeds are looking for new ways to construct quantum computers using graphene.

The image below is an image of a magnetic field created by d-wave superconductivity.


There are various ways of creating the necessary double degeneracy for encoding a qubit.


D-wave superconductivity is being studied by IBM in thallium-copper-oxide high-temperature superconductors, as well as, in graphene. Below is a method of creating two Josephson junctions in single layer graphene. A gate voltage is used to tune either of the junctions to a pi phase. This pi phase regime implements the qubit.

In another variant, a d-wave Josephson junction could be tuned to create the doubly degenerate ground states. Other variants have also been by proposed by Guido Burkard's team at the University of Konstanz and others.

Friday, October 31, 2008

DNA Sequencing using Graphene


Artist's impression of a DNA molecule (helix) moving through a tiny slit in a graphene sheet (shown in blue). (Courtesy: Henk Postma).
Henk Postma at California State University Northridge has proposed a way of sequencing an entire DNA strand without the need for blasting or computer processing (arXiv:0810.3035v1 ).

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Entangled Degrees of Freedom

Lepton pairs have degrees of freedom which are entangled or not.


Image copyright © Anton Zeilinger, Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Vienna.
Photon pairs are entangled in the illustration above.



Entangled particles fly apart in opposite directions.




Attempts are made to entangle the various degrees of freedom of various types of laser beams.


_____________________________________________________

The language seems sort of funny when you think of particles as brades. It seems natural they should get entangled. Nevertheless, it is really a degree of freedom that gets entangled between two entities like laser beams, allotropes, atoms, etc.








Saturday, September 27, 2008

Gravity

The search for gravity goes on. With the Hadron supercollider shutdown till spring, the Higgs mechanism is in hibernation. The graviton is even more elusive. Is it hiding in the Klein Gordon Propagator and Spin Connections in Tangled Qubits populating the valleys of Spacetime?







Monday, September 22, 2008

Spin and Valleys In Graphene


It seems like a fun puzzle how these diagrams fit into the spin network boundaries of graphene. Can you imagine leptons as being these changing weaves that transform through the topology of the phase transitions of the valleys and 2-branes. What do you think Archimedes, Gauss and Grothendieck would make of this?

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

The current issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society has handwritten diagrams by Archimedes and Alexander Grothendieck.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

My Joke for Today

If this is not your cup of tea, then go out and find your own picture. The important thing is that you laugh each day!

The Dream of Graphene


Graphene has a significance that transcends its field of application. It provides the promise of creating sensors that actually image the force fields that make up our environment, as well as, molecular and particle detectors. People see in graphene a dream. It is a possible way to transcend the blindness of our technology and our painful ignorance of our environment.

Today’s technology does allow the construction rudimentary electromagnetic sensors and associated signal processing capability. The “spin filters” in the disk drive of current day laptop computers are only ones that people are generally aware of. This is seen as the starting point of where technology could go. Graphene provides not only a variety of for constructing such spin filters, but allows the possibility of other types of sensors, such as electrostatic, thermodynamic, etc.

Spin filters are constructed out of more primitive devices that can be fabricated from graphene. These include nanodisks, quantum dots, functionalized subwavelength quantum dots, etc. Using valley filters provides a sensor in the electrostatic domain complementary to the electromagnetic ones. Similarly, the techniques of electron counting spectroscopy permit the construction of probes to explore thermodynamic properties, such as thermal gradients and other statistical properties leading to the construction of motors controllable on a subnanometer scale, etc. In summary, graphene provides the new types of devices needed to construct sensors, processors, and a radical new type of technology.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Definition of Graphene


Definition of Graphene: Graphene is a 2-brane which anchors a triangular lattice of quarks whose vertices represent virtual locations or density of states characteristic of carbon atoms. Superimposed on this 2-brane is its chiral complement in which the triangles are rotated 180 degrees and moved, so that, each overlapping pair of triangles forms a Star of David. Sigma orbitals link the 2-branes together in a honeycomb arrangement. Pi orbitals with two valleys form like spouting mushrooms above and below the 2-brane. This permits Cooper pairs since they are time reversed electron states. The characteristic rippled shape of graphene means that the Fourier transform looks like a hexagon with light cones at the vertices rather than the cylinders it would have, if you could populate it in completely flat form. The properties of graphene are highly variable depending on how the 2-brane is populated internally and on the boundaries.
The total magnetic moment of graphene is zero when there are equal numbers of carbon atoms in its 2-brane and chiral complement. In the general case the total magnetic moment is half the difference between the numbers of atom populating the 2-branes. The magnetization in a zigzag edge has ferromagnetic ordering on each edge, but anti-ferromagnetic coupling between the edges. A single layer of graphene under low magnetic field oscillations has a Berry phase of pi while two layer systems display a Berry phase of 2pi. Similarly, a single layer has almost negligible magnetoresistance, while more than one layer has more conventional properties. Two layer graphene is most notable with respect to its noise cancelling properties.
Internal and external migration of carbon atoms forming pentagons and heptagons can warp the shape of the 2-brane without affecting the threefold coordination of the carbon atoms.
When a single carbon atom is missing from an internal hexagon, the resulting pentagon has “weak” and “gravitational” effects:
1. It exchanges the amplitudes of the two lattices.
2. It exchanges the two Fermi points.
3. It induces a phase coupling proportional to the deficit angle.
4. It induces local (4nm) “gravitational” curvature in spacetime and thus in the sheet. Spin connections provide a generalization of gauge fields used to model spacetime.
The resulting heptagon is paired with a pentagon. The pair acts as a diplole. The pentagon attracts charge and the heptagon repels charge. The heptagon induces negative “gravitational” curvature.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Single Hydrogen Atoms are Visible on Graphene


One can see individual hydrogen atoms on a graphene substrate using a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM). Graphene is a sheet of carbon one atom thick. This is reason enough to dream of hydrogen atoms tonight!

Healthy Dreams

I prefer to fall asleep dreaming about diagrams like the ones above, rather than the disorganized behaviour of others. Mental pictures allow one to use their innate geometrical intuition to reason about abstract ideas.

Can you imagine two different time orderings giving rise to the same physical observable event as in the Feynman - Stuckelberg interpretation?

How do you visualize entanglement?

Is a hydrogen atom entangled with anti-particles a more tractible problem?



Does soaking the hydrogen atom in a sea of electrons make it easier to peal back the layers, like soaking a nut in water?

Hydrogen atom:

Z(1-118) Dirac Theory
Z(119-136) (relativistic effects, Dirac Theory plus free parameter ?)
Z(137) first diagram above.
Z(138-169) second diagram above
Z(>169) Level diving one by one into Dirac-Fermi sea.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Mango Days

The 6th Annual Mango Days race will be coming up soon. I had to read the book, Mango Days by Patty Smith, to decide whether to run in the race. The books makes you feel you have found a new friend. It reminded me of La Clef des Songes. How can I not run after reading this touching book?

La Clef des Songes

Watch more Dailymotion videos on AOL Video



Grothendieck


My favorite quotes from the world's greatest living mathematician:

Vous soulignez, a juste titre, la difficulte psychique de la creation solitaire...C’est la la situation qui a ete la mienne plus ou moins pendant toute ma vie, depuis mon enfance, tant sur le plan de la creation mathematique, que dans mon itineraire spirituel... Et sans cela, rien de grand ne s'accomplit, ni dans l’aventure individuelle, ni dans l’aventure collective – que ce soit au plan intellectuel, ou au plan spirituel... Au niveau spirituel, la plus grande ouevre (a mes yeux) qu’un homme ait accomplie, etait la Passion du Christ et sa mort sur la croix... Cette oeuvre etait et ne pouvait etre que solitaire. Et meme c’etait la solitude supreme, car Dieu Lui-meme s’est retire, pour que l’Oeuvre s’accomplisse sans le secours d’une consolation.

Les lois mathematiques peuvent etre d´ecouvertes par l’homme, mais elles ne sont crees ni par l’homme ni meme par Dieu. Que deux plus deux egale quatre n’est pas un d´ecret de Dieu, qu’Il aurait ete libre de changer en deux plus deux egale trois, ou cinq. Je sens les lois mathematiques comme faisant partie de la nature meme de Dieu – une partie infime, certes, la plus superficielle en quelque sorte, et la seule qui soit accesible a la seule raison.

-A. Grothendieck

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Using Quantum Dots to Explore the Genome


In a world where energy is becoming increasing expensive, it it tempting to think of quantum dots as merely a way to get a flashlight or imaging light source with low energy drain. However, this phenomena has current applications in epigenetics and possible future physical realizations of quantum computing and theoretical condensed matter applications. Silencing certain genes and observing the consequences is one experimental method use to explore the genome. This is one way quantum dots are used.


Genes can be silenced indirectly by blocking messenger RNA. This can be done by introducing "small interfering RNA" (SiRNA). Quantum dots are a highly effect method of delivering the siRNA. Each quantum dot was surrounded by a proton sponge that carried a positive charge. Without any quantum dots attached, the siRNA's negative charge would prevent it from penetrating a cell's wall. With the quantum-dot chaperone, the more weakly charged siRNA complex crosses the cellular wall, escapes from the endosome (a fatty bubble that surrounds incoming material) and accumulates in the cellular fluid, where it can do its work disrupting protein manufacture.
The technique is described in "Proton-Sponge Coated Quantum Dots for siRNA Delivery and Intracellular Imaging" by Maksym V. Yezhelyev, Lifeng Qi, Ruth M. O’Regan, Shuming Nie, and Xiaohu Gao.





Thursday, July 3, 2008

Epigenetic Effects in Early Nutrition

The epigenetic effects of breast feeding and maternal care giving are discussed in a video called "Epigenetic Effects in Early Nutrition" at the URL: http://epresence.tv/Presentation/127. Transgenerational effects are not explored. Transposable elements (SINEs, LINEs, etc.) comprise more that 40% of the human genome supporting the hypothesis that there may well be epigenetic effects in the early nutrition of humans as well. Possible reasons for the present of creatine and nucleotides in human breast milk are described.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Relationship between Arsenic and Folate in Nutrition

See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18522624 for information.
The panel discussion at the 2005: Environmental Epigenomics, Imprinting and Disease Susceptibility Conference available on video touched on this. Note that some of the remarks by the panel are merely intended to be humorous. The videos of all conference presentations as well as links to those for six other conferences are at http://www.geneimprint.com/site/meetings/2005-durham.
Food is now grown in areas in the U.S. like cotton fields, etc., that were formerly treated with arsenic. Water supplies contaminated with arsenic are a problem in many areas of the world.

A Breakfast Fit for Running

On days that I plan do endurance running, here is what I consume. One glass of pomegranate juice with my usual supplements, namely, the Herbalife Vitamin, Cell Activator, Cell-U-Loss, Total Control, Gardin-7, Triple Berry, Joint Support, Xtra-Cal and Core Complex. Also, I drink One Dutch Chocolate Healthy Meal Shake, one serving of Nite-Works and two servings of the H30 trehalose based, sports drink. I am trying to imitate what the nutritional researchers actually do, not just what they say, since obviously they understand a lot more than the rest of us. The directions with the shake just say to eat any fruit with it, but the researchers tend to actually drink pomegranate juice. Pomegranate juice is reportedly healthier than pomegranate extract because of the sugar-containing polyphenolic anthocyanins. Likewise, the instructions with Nite-Works are to use it at bedtime, but they take it before and after and an athletic event. They also do squats pulling on a rubber cord stretched under their feet. Apparently, this is to strengthen certain muscles needed in running.

Preventing Skin Cancers

There are lots of theories about preventing skin cancer, but little evidence based on human trials. Higher levels of vitamin D are needed to prevent some cancers. So, regular, moderate exposure to sunlight may yield some protection. A diet conducive to protecting healthy cells and destroying damaged cells is theorized to be beneficial. Healthy cells are protected by a diet rich in the pigments from the whole spectrum of cartenoids, esp. astaxanthin, beta-carotene, etc., together with the fern, polypodium leucotomos, along with foods that increase levels of catalase, glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dimutase enzymes. Based on animal studies, it is conjectured that caffeine consumption before endurance running may help in destroying damaged cells. This, of course, could be combined with the topical application of noni juice to prevent basal cell growth. No proof that any of this works, but I am personally not will to take the chance involved in not trying.

Organophosphate and Mercury Contamination

Low level organophosphate or mercury contamination deactivates the DPP4 enzyme. This means that one should consume foods that are subject to low level of this contamination separately from foods that contain casein or gluten. Otherwise, the casein or gluten may not be properly digested. Casein can complex with catechins. So, when casein in not broken down, the catechins consumed with it may not be properly digested either. This is why some people, like me, prefer to eat wild Alaskan salmon in a separate meal from one one with milk and whole grain bread.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Lead Content Scam

The toxicity of lead is well known, as are the ways of ameliorating its effects in the human body. Lead is everywhere in the environment. Over 300 million tons were mined and used to contaminate our planet in the last century. Healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, etc. are high in lead, while the junk foods which one should not be consuming are low in lead. Infamous scam artists use people’s fear of the toxic effects of lead and their lack of knowledge of how lead is processed by the human body in various scams.

It is not the lead content of your food that is paramount. It is the amount that absorbed and used in toxic ways by the body. Listen to the advice on cleaning up the environment and proper nutrition from the researchers. Complain to the authorities about the convicted felons running the scams to defraud the public.

The rate at which the human body absorbs and removes lead depends on the state of nutrition. Adequate calcium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin C, D and various trace minerals are needed by the body to minimize the adsorption of lead and to remove it from the body. The body has numerous mechanisms for removing lead. These range from the various forms of excrement and the normal replacement of cells to the not so obvious ones like the breakdown of hemoglobin by the gall bladder and natural chelating processes. The important thing to remember is the body can deal with most environmental factors providing it has an adequate supply of the critical nutrients. The best defense is to help clean up or neutralize the contamination and to make sure each meal is balanced in the proper manner for human nutrition.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Monitoring your Nutrition

The USDA has a website you can use to monitor your nutrition. It is good as far as it goes. It lacks most of the foods I consume, as well as, my favorite exercise, but I find it useful anyway. I hope they willl continue to improve it. The URL is http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov/.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Help Us Save Lives

I am raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as a participant in their Team In Training and I'm asking you to help by making a contribution. Each donation helps accelerate cures for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma and brings hope to the patients and families who are on the front lines of the battle against these diseases.

Please use the link in this email to donate online quickly and securely. You will receive a confirmation by email of your donation and I will be notified as soon as you make your donation.

On behalf of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, thank you very much for your support. I really appreciate your generosity!

You can learn more about my efforts and make a donation by visiting my Web site:

http://www.active.com/donate/tntsdh/tntsdhJCamery

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

My New Year's Resolutions

1. Make the world healthy through good nutrition. I am asking everyone to sign up as an Independent Herbalife Distributor to improve their health. You can sign up online as a Herbalife Distributor at http://myherbalife.com or https://hlc.myherbalife.com/onlinecontract/SponsorValidation.aspx. All you need is a sponsor and $87.95 plus tax and shipping to purchase the International Business Pack. Included is the Quickstart Program (normally, $85.60). So, you are getting enough product to offset the cost of signing up. It also contains samples, your application form, DVD, and training materials. Everything you need to get started is included. When you apply, enter the following: Sponsors’s Herbalife ID Number: 100829632 First 3 Letters of Sponsor’s Last Name: CAM. It takes 5-10 minutes and you will have your own ID number.
2. Make the world wealthy. I am asking everyone to sign up to start earning residual income to secure their financial future. You can sign up for free at http://www.mypowermall.com/Biz/Home/98284.
3. Make the world one community. I am asking everyone to join religious groups and professional societies in order to work together. Most of the professional societies like IEEE and ACM that I belong to, offer online courses that more than offset the cost of membership. Almost no one attends the chapter meetings and dinners. So please join and attend. I invite anyone to join me at Sunset Beach Christian Church in Hawaii for worship and fellowship. Please pray for us to find a pastor to guide us in setting a good example and making a real difference in the world. Give everyone a smile, a friendly gesture with the love and real communication everyone deserves.