Zinio Reader: Bendy ‘plasmon’ beams focus better than light alone

Bendy 'plasmon' beams focus better than light alone

Light cannot squeeze down smaller than half its wavelength, but waves of electrons can – now these can be steered in real time

BENDY beams of light and matter can now be steered in real time, paving the way for devices with a focus sharper than anything possible using light alone.

From microscopes to optical circuits, tools that rely on beams of light are held back by a fundamental rule: light cannot be focused to a point smaller than half its wavelength. This diffraction limit affects how small an object can be imaged and makes super-fast optical computers – which would use light rather than electrons for processing – impractically large.

Waves of matter can be squeezed smaller, however. Light hitting a metal excites waves of electrons on its surface, called plasmons. These travel along the surface and have wavelengths that can be much smaller than the light's diffraction limit. But until now, rigid gratings have been needed to direct and steer plasmons to a given point so that they could image something there.

Waves of electrons on a metal's surface span a tiny fraction of the wavelength of light

Peng Zhang at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues can now bend beams of plasmons to their whim. They sent laser light through a screen on which a pattern was displayed. This pattern split the light into beams that interfered with each other to create what appeared to be a single beam that arced through space.

This so-called "Airy beam" then hit a gold film, where it excited surface plasmons and steered them along the surface according to the arc of the light (Optics Letters, DOI: 10.1364/OL.36.003191). The new set-up means it is possible to steer the plasmons to a focus simply by changing the pattern on the screen, allowing this focal point to range over an object rather than having to move the object itself.

"If we can focus light much smaller than a wavelength, then we can use it to fabricate much smaller integrated circuits, do much more accurate imaging, all those kinds of things," Zhang says. "That's our dream."

The new scheme is "quite an elegant way of generating 'Airy plasmons'", says Alexander Minovich at the Australian National University in Canberra. He says the set-up could also be used to grab and move nano-sized particles.

Twitter: @wuhlax

Gadhafi's troops killed nearly 150 prisoners, witness says - CNN.com

Not pleasant reading!

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/28/libya.massacre.report/index.html

Twitter: @wuhlax

Drug war sparks exodus of affluent Mexicans - The Washington Post

Sparking boom in USA?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drug-war-sparks-exodus-of-affluent-mexicans/2011/08/19/gIQA6OR1gJ_story.html

Twitter: @wuhlax

Syrian unrest raises fears about chemical arsenal - The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-unrest-raises-fears-about-chemical-arsenal/2011/08/26/gIQAFmfVlJ_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

Twitter: @wuhlax

Gaddafi's end … and Libya's new beginning | World news | The Observer

The end proves the point that the Libyan uprising was winnable!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/28/gaddafi-end-libya-new-beginning?CMP=twt_gu

Twitter: @wuhlax

hacob khodaverdian

http://ipad.hacob.com/#portfolio

Twitter: @wuhlax

Zinio Reader: Heal thyself: Self-hypnosis

Heal thyself: Self-hypnosis

Hypnosis may help pain management, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, obesity and asthma, not to mention some nasty skin conditions

Hypnotherapy has struggled for scientific acceptance ever since Franz Mesmer claimed in the 18th century that he could cure all manner of ills with what he termed "animal magnetism". "The whole field is plagued by people who don't feel research is necessary," says Peter Whorwell of the University of Manchester in the UK.

Whorwell has spent much of his professional life building a body of evidence for the use of hypnosis to treat just one condition: irritable bowel syndrome. IBS is considered a "functional" disorder – a rather derogatory term used when a patient suffers symptoms but doctors can't see anything wrong. Whorwell felt that his patients, some of whom had such severe symptoms they were suicidal, were being let down by the medical profession. "I got into hypnosis because the conventional treatment of these conditions is abysmal."

Whorwell gives patients a brief tutorial on how the gut functions, then gets them to use visual or tactile sensations – the feeling of warmth, for example – to imagine their bowel working normally. It seems to work – IBS is the only condition for which hypnosis is recommended by the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Despite this, Whorwell still has trouble convincing doctors to prescribe it. "We've produced a lot of incontrovertible research," he says. "Yet people are still loath to agree to it."

Part of the problem is that it isn't clear exactly how hypnosis works. What is clear is that when hypnotised, people can influence parts of their body in novel ways. Whorwell has shown that under hypnosis, some IBS patients can reduce the contractions of their bowel, something not normally under conscious control (Journal of Psychosomatic Research, vol 64, p 621). Their bowel lining also becomes less sensitive to pain.

Hypnosis probably taps into physiological pathways similar to those involved in the placebo effect, says Irving Kirsch of the University of Hull, UK. For one thing, the medical conditions that the two can benefit are similar, and both are underpinned by suggestion and expectation – believing in a particular outcome. The downside is that some people do not respond as strongly to hypnosis as others.

Most clinical trials involving hypnosis are small, largely because of a lack of funding, but they suggest that hypnosis may help pain management, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, obesity, asthma and skin conditions such as psoriasis and warts (Papeles des Psicólogo, vol 30, p 98). Finding a good hypnotherapist can be tricky as the profession is not regulated, but hypnotising yourself seems to work just as well. "Self-hypnosis is the most important part," says Whorwell.

Jo Marchant is a freelance writer based in London

Twitter: @wuhlax

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Obama Seeks Holy Grail of Housing, Proverbial Free Lunch, Gain With No Pain; It's Another Bank Bailout in Disguise

Mish is, of course, absolutely right as usual. There is nothing more dangerous than fantasy world programs for stimulating housing. If refinancing is to be accomplished it needs to be accompanied by debt forgiveness by the banks, say 50 percent refinancing and 50 percent debt forgiveness, plus alteration of the mortgage to secure the loan on the person rather than the property!

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/08/obama-seeks-holy-grail-of-housing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29

Twitter: @wuhlax

GDP Is a Lie – It’s Time for a New Measure of Economic Growth - Money Morning

This is another claim that statistics lie. Money Morning in my view needs to go back to economics class.

I have a hard time keeping a straight face when reading the rubbish that money morning includes in this blog piece. It sounds convincing, but is really very far off the mark.

The author in money morning wrongly claims that GDP as measured wrongly values growth. By choosing another measure, he claims to remove or reduce a bias. The logic is very short term, but even then is silly!

The problem is associated with the valuation of the government sector at cost rather than a market value. Putting a market value on government spending would certainly alter the growth numbers, but the valuation if long term might be excessively high given that government spending often begins growth. Should the private sector spend during this gestation and invention research period, it would lose money heavily so the private sector, eg pharmaceuticals, who rely on university and government subsidized research, does nothing but wait around for the basic research and the unprofitable costs to be covered by government. For example, if the private sector spent money on welfare it would loose profit or income, but the poor person would continue living and add to a country's costs. Eventually the poor person who is educated might contribute to society and part of the income would need to be ascribed to the welfare provided by the private sector. Since firms don't do welfare much, nor even sustain pensions, the market valuation of growth by the private sector is markedly exaggerated. This is only the tip of the ice berg for the lack of growth that would follow a shut down of government. There would be so little shared research that few firms would compete and negative grow might actually follow. Th Marxist prediction of zero profit would most certainly follow because without invention and sharing of information nothing new would happen. The autos would be like Russian Soviet era cars without design. Since the government supports the R and D of the military sector, the leadership of hat sector would be lost and the private sector would get even less of spin offs such as new materials and things like lasers. We would not see iPads.

But, there is no ideal method for valuing growth. The present GDP exaggerates the contribution of the private sector while understating that of the government sector. The system of measurement proposed by the writer for Money Morning below would exaggerate the growth contribution of the private sector beyond belief!

Read, and then give your view!

http://moneymorning.com/2011/08/23/gdp-lie-time-for-new-measure-of-economic-g...

Twitter: @wuhlax

GDP Is a Lie – It’s Time for a New Measure of Economic Growth - Money Morning

This is another claim that statistics lie. Money Morning in my view needs to go back to economics class.

I have a hard time keeping a straight face when reading the rubbish that money morning includes in this blog piece. It sounds convincing, but is really very far off the mark.

The author in money morning wrongly claims that GDP as measured wrongly values growth. By choosing another measure, he claims to remove or reduce a bias. The logic is very short term, but even then is silly!

The problem is associated with the valuation of the government sector at cost rather than a market value. Putting a market value on government spending would certainly alter the growth numbers, but the valuation if long term might be excessively high given that government spending often begins growth.

Should the private sector spend during this gestation and invention research period, it would lose money heavily so the private sector, eg pharmaceuticals, who rely on university and government subsidized research, does nothing but wait around for the basic research and the unprofitable costs to be covered by government.

For example, if the private sector spent money on welfare it would loose profit or income, but the poor person would continue living and add to a country's costs. Eventually the poor person who is educated might contribute to society and part of the income would need to be ascribed to the welfare provided by the private sector. Since firms don't do welfare much, nor even sustain pensions, the market valuation of growth by the private sector is markedly exaggerated.

This is only the tip of the ice berg for the lack of growth that would follow a shut down of government. There would be so little shared research that few firms would compete and negative grow might actually follow. Th Marxist prediction of zero profit would most certainly follow because without invention and sharing of information nothing new would happen. The autos would be like Russian Soviet era cars without design. Since the government supports the R and D of the military sector, the leadership of hat sector would be lost and the private sector would get even less of spin offs such as new materials and things like lasers. We would not see iPads.

But, there is no ideal method for valuing growth. The present GDP exaggerates the contribution of the private sector while understating that of the government sector. The system of measurement proposed by the writer for Money Morning below would exaggerate the growth contribution of the private sector beyond belief!

Read, and then give your view!

http://moneymorning.com/2011/08/23/gdp-lie-time-for-new-measure-of-economic-growth/

Twitter: @wuhlax

No bread, no beer, let’s eat: students with celiac disease get creative at meal times (w/video) | The Red and Black

Excessive wind may be your clue. As to why so many are developing wheat or gluten sensitivity, that is a mystery yet to be explained by science, which is pretty clueless so far!

http://redandblack.com/2011/08/28/no-bread-no-beer-lets-eat-students-with-celiac-disease-get-creative-at-meal-times/

Twitter: @wuhlax