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Friday, July 30, 2010

Note from Away

[Perimeter Institute has a monthly newsletter (not online). It regularly features pieces from PI alumni, called “Note from Away.” During my last visit at PI, I was asked to write one. Originally meant to appear in the June edition, it will now probably appear next month. Supposed to summarize the changes due to move and new job, I thought it would fit well on my blog as well.]

After three years at PI, last September I moved to Stockholm to start my new position as assistant professor at NORDITA. I don't know why, but upon mentioning my new destination at least five Canadians independently replied with a friendly, “Oh, Switzerland, eh? How exciting.” So just we're on the same page: Stockholm is the capital of Sweden. Switzerland is the little piece of land just below Germany that doesn't want to join the EU because they believe they've invented democracy. Switzerland is cheese and mountains. Sweden is ABBA and the Nobel prize. It's very North and very European. It's as close to the North Pole and as close to socialism as I ever want to get.

NORDITA is “The Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics” and a very pleasant place to work. It is in many respects similar to PI. Like PI, it is a pure research institute, so there are no teaching duties. We have close ties to the nearby university, in this case the KTH (Royal Technical Highschool Royal Institute of Technology); the physics department is basically next door. NORDITA is also a very interdisciplinary place, so a lot of effort is put into facilitating communication between the different disciplines. The disciplines themselves, however, differ from those represented at PI. Besides particle physics and cosmology, we have astrophysics, condensed matter and biophysics, which makes for a very interesting mix. What I miss from PI, though, are the quantum gravity and the quantum foundation groups.

That's then where the similarities end. NORDITA is a much smaller place than PI. As such, it is more personal, and less burdened with administration and policies. Further, NORDITA doesn't sit on a few hundred million dollars, so our possibilities are much more constrained. Most notably, we don't have a public outreach program, something I have always especially appreciated at PI.

Besides my general interests in cosmology and complex systems, the focus of my research continues to be the exploration of possibilities to find experimental evidence for quantum gravity and to distinguish different models.

I was just organizing a workshop on this topic, the ESQG 2010. Check out the website for more details. The phenomenology of quantum gravity is still a young research field but promises to become even livelier in the future. It is an exciting area to work in, and I especially like that it combines many different areas of both theoretical and experimental physics.

As for Stockholm itself, it's clean, it's green, it's well-organized, interesting, and at least in the summer stunningly beautiful. Crown Princess Victoria just got married, and following “Midsommarafton” (midsummer's eve) the whole country is now on vacation. I think of you guys every time I hear ABBA's “Waterloo” on the radio, i.e. about once every hour.

As most of you know, you can follow me on my blog Backreaction, which I write together with my husband, Stefan.
Ha det så bra,

[A week after I wrote the above, the driver who brought me to the airport put my bags into the trunk and said: “You now live in Switzerland, eh?”]

Monday, July 26, 2010

Detection of Dark Energy on Earth? - Improbable

I recently came across this paper
    Exploring the possibility of detecting dark energy in a terrestrial experiment using atom interferometry
    By Martin L. Perl and Holger Mueller
    arXiv:1001.4061v1 [physics.ins-det]
The topic sounded interesting, so I read it, and here's my conclusions.

Dark energy is according to today's most widely accepted model for the evolution of the universe the main constituent filling space-time around us. It has the peculiar property that it accelerates the expansion of the universe, a feature that has been confirmed by an increasing number of experiments. In the simplest case, the dark energy component is just constant in time and space and is identical to the Cosmological Constant, commonly denoted Λ. There are however many alternative proposals for dark energy that are not just constant, but so far experimental tests for their specific behavior are lacking.

Due to its peculiar properties, as well as the specific value of its measured density, the existence of dark energy is one of the biggest puzzles in theoretical physics today. While it is easily possible to incorporate it into our models as a source for gravity, its microscopic origin is not understood. For more details, see my post on the Cosmological Constant.

The other puzzle that modern cosmology has given to us is that of dark matter. Dark matter is another constituent of the universe whose existence has been confirmed by many experiments, but it's microscopic origin is still unclear. In contrast to dark energy however, dark matter behaves pretty much like normal matter, the stuff that we are made of. Except that, well, it's dark, meaning it does not or hardly emit any detectable radiation. In other words, we can't see it like we see galaxies on our night sky. The most widely accepted explanation for our observations is that dark matter is made of particles that just happen to couple very weakly to those that we are made of. Many candidates for dark matter particles are presently discussed and experiments for direct detection are under way in different places, though results are inconclusive so far. For more details, see my post on Dark Matter.

Detecting Dark Energy with Atom Interferometry

The idea of Perl and Mueller's proposal is the following. Beams of atoms are brought to interfere after having traveled two different paths. These paths are of the same length, but differ in their location within the Earth's gravitational field such that one beam feels more, the other less, of the gravitational force. With the method of interferometry one can detect even tiny shifts in the phase of the wavelengths of the beam. The phase of the beam does depend on the force exerted on it, which means that the interferometry allows to measure the difference in the gravitational force that the atoms have been subject to on the two paths. These experiments have previously been successfully performed. Note that the experiment is sensitive not only to the gravitational force, but in fact to any force that would act on the particles. For a nice explanation of such experiments, see eg. arXiv:0905.1929v2 [gr-qc].

Perl and Mueller now suggest to use two interferometers, both with the same setup as above, and measure the difference in the phase shift between both. With this one would be able to measure even tiny changes in the gravitational force between the locations of the both interferometers, or any other unknown force acting on the atoms. They have estimated the precision that can be reached with this experiment to be about 10-17 of the gravitational force on the surface of the Earth. That I think is quite remarkable indeed.

What does this have to do with dark energy? In their paper, they suggest that this experiment would be able to detect fluctuations in the dark energy density.

Can this work?

Let us note that in case the dark energy was just a Cosmological Constant, it wouldn't have such fluctuations and thus not be detectable by this method. Nevertheless, if it was possible what Perl and Mueller claim, this would give us a grip on the microscopic origin of dark energy and be quite exciting indeed.

I was puzzled however by two things.

First, it is entirely unclear why the detection method proposed would be sensitive to dark energy in particular. It simply measures tiny fluctuations in the forces on the particles. On the timescales that the authors are interested in, one can pretty much exclude fluctuations due to motion of stellar objects or shifts in the Earth's matter. But it seems more plausible to me that such fluctuations, should they exist, would be caused by drifting clumps of dark matter rather than dark energy. In any case, one wouldn't actually know what the origin was.

Second, and more important, I was very suspicious that atom interferometry would suffice to measure something as dilute as the density of dark energy. Putting in some numbers, I estimated the gravitational force that a cubic meter of dark energy stuff would have at its surface. I was guessing that a cubic meter would be the typical size of the experiment and thus the scale that the density fluctuations should occur on. It turns out that this gravitational force of the dark energy clump would be be 38 orders of magnitude smaller than the gravitational force of the Earth. That's more than 20 orders of magnitude below the precision of the proposed experiment. If one takes clumps of dark matter instead one gains 5 orders of magnitude, but still way off. If one considers larger clumps or overdensities (possibly moving very quickly through the experiment), one can gain some more orders of magnitude, but it becomes increasingly implausible at this point.

So I wrote an email to the authors...

... asking for a clarification. I got a fast and very useful reply from Holger Mueller. He explains that Martin Perl is the creator of the idea, and Mueller is helping out on the experimental site. Mueller agreed on my reservations about the experiment's suitability to detect dark energy:
“You are right that the only way we can detect dark energy (or dark matter) is if it has a nongravitational interaction with ordinary matter that is much stronger than the gravitational one (and the dark energy or dark matter must be inhomogeneous).”
This is because, as previously mentioned, their proposed experiment does not distinguish between the sort of force acting on the atom beams. I do however not know of any sort of dark energy that would have this property needed for detection.

Mueller explained his point of view as follows:
“To me as an experimentalist, it is not my primary concern whether there is a theory suggesting that there should be a signal, but whether our experiment will probe some region of the parameter space wherein signals have not been ruled out by previous experiments.”
And I agree that it is a worthwhile experiment to be done. After all one never knows what one might find! However, and unfortunately as I want to add, it seems extremely implausible to me that this experiment would detect dark energy.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Physics or Philosophy?

In a recent comment Charles has drawn my attention to an interview with Sheldon Glashow, a "Viewpoint on String Theory." I'm not sure when this interview was conducted, I think it was 2003. In any case I thought it might be of interest for you and it fits well with the theme of our recent workshop on Experimental Search for Quantum Gravity, so I want to use it to discuss some questions about our search for quantum gravity.

Glashow is very critical of string theory and does not hesitate to say so:
"[S]uperstring theory ... is, so far as I can see, totally divorced from experiment or observation. If not totally divorced, pretty well divorced. They will deny that, these string theorists.

[T]here ain't no experiment that could be done nor is there any observation that could be made that would say, "You guys are wrong." The theory is safe, permanently safe. I ask you, is that a theory of physics or a philosophy?

There is today a disconnect in the world of physics. Let me put it bluntly. There are physicists, and there are string theorists."

He is careful to then point out that string theory is not entirely useless, just that its use is unclear:
"[String theory] leads to many interesting ideas... It has had an impact on modern mathematics. They may even have a practical impact some day, these things that string theorists do. One never knows, just as number theory, the most useless of the mathematical sciences, has given us cryptography and has given us a secure way to encode information. The string theorist may also produce something equally useful. May. So it is science, it is physics, it is mathematics. It does stimulate ideas in related fields."
Glashow could, at the time the interview was conducted, not know of the more recent applications of string theory to heavy ion physics or condensed matter systems. Arguably, this is exactly the practical impact that he asks for. He ends on a conciliatory note, speaking of his string theory friends:
"[A]lthough I occasionally pick on the work string theorists do, I describe them as physicists. They are interested in the same problems that I am. They're approaching those problems in different ways, ways that they regard as somewhat more productive than I do. But they're not searching for a theory of everything. They're just trying to create better theories."
Indeed, I would agree that physicists will find different approaches promising, but in the end we're all - more or less - interested in finding solutions to the same problems. The reason why I work on the phenomenology of quantum gravity is not that I think it's the one and only right way to progress, but that it's one of the necessary contributions and one that presently not enough people work on.

In any case, the question that I would like to draw from this interview and pose to you is whether there's a balance between phenomenology and pure theory that is ideal for progress and if so, how that balance can be reached?

To add my two cents: During the last decade or so, maybe starting with string-theory-inspired extra-dimensional models, in the area of physics beyond the standard model one could clearly notice phenomenology come into more fashion. I certainly welcome this trend. The problem is however that many of the phenomenological models we've seen are little more than ad-hoc proposed parameterizations of not-yet-observed effects (and lets not forget that adding parameters typically allows a better fit of the data). It thus seems to me one of the essential factors needed is a healthy interaction between theory, phenomenology, and experiment. A hundred years or so ago, it would have been hard to imagine these areas being disconnected, but the increase of our communities has resulted in a specialization that brings the risk of negatively affecting these vital connections. In the beginning of his interview, Glashow also wonders what happened to this interaction.

It is very easy today to focus on ones' own community and not look right or left. To make matters worse, it might even be career-wise beneficial. One of the side-effects is then that people outside that community may wonder if it's physics or philosophy. This incidentally is nothing specific to string theory, it's just that there's so many string theorists that other people talk about it. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens in other fields than physics as well. (Neuroeconomics - Science or Philosophy?) I'm having one of my more optimistic days today. Thus, I think the trend we've seen in the last years is a good one, and one that will eventually lead to the connection between quantum gravity theory and experiment that we are lacking so far.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Recent Distractions

Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three
And Another Thing
By Eoin Colfer

This book will probably be totally incomprehensible if you haven't read the other parts of the trilogy. But if you're familiar with Douglas Adam's super-galactic fantasies, you'll meet well-known friends and gain some insights into the Vogonic psychology. The plot is somewhat of a stretch and serves mostly to accommodate the Hitchhiker Guide's explanations of other species and their bizarre habits, but you can be sure to have one or the other good laugh. It makes a nice and entertaining read, but is mostly for fans.

The Secret History
By Donna Tartt

An extremely well written book with carefully worked out characters. Unfortunately, it takes like 150 pages for anything to happen. Then when finally something happens, you already know what will happen. And the second half of the book everybody is walking around, drinking too much, with a bad consciousness about what happened. Since I have no particular interest in Greek grammar or mythology I found some parts of the book quite cumbersome to read. Taken together, I'm all willing to recognize it as a masterfully composed book, but the plot didn't enthrall me.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By Stieg Larsson

Is an excellent crime story set in Sweden, so I felt it was a must-read for me. The plot has many unexpected twists, new evidence showing up, never gets too obvious, and never gets too implausible. The characters are interesting though they remain a bit flat. The book was converted to a movie (which I didn't see) and has two sequels (which I haven't read). Totally recommendable as a holiday read.

Merde Happens
By Stephen Clarke

Is the kind of book you buy in an airport shop and that's exactly where I bought it. An amusing story about a British guy with a French girlfriend who has to go on a road trip through the USA promoting tourism to his home country. Plays nicely with clichees. Not a particularly deep story and not a plot that makes a lot of sense, but entertaining.

Elchtest: Ein Jahr in Bullerbü
By Gunnar Herrmann

Is the story of a German moving to Stockholm with his wife. The plot can be exhaustively described as they buy a house. I guess you have to be a German who lives or has lived in Sweden to appreciate the book. It's very on spot with the German-Swedish differences. I don't think it comes in an English translation though.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Non-Gaussianities in the CMB

"Non-Gaussianities in the temperature fluctuations of the Cosmic Microwave Background" sounds like a perfect conversation topic to put your date to sleep, but if you have an interest in Cosmology or Quantum Gravity, it's definitely something you should have heard about.

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is radiation we receive today from a time when the universe was about 300,000 years young. At that time, radiation decoupled from matter and since then, photons could travel almost undisturbed. The CMB shows the temperature, or the inverse wavelength, of the microwaves that we receive on Earth from these early times.

The mean temperature of the CMB is approximately 2.7 Kelvin, and is a blackbody spectrum to truly amazing accuracy. What we will be concerned with here however is not the mean temperature, but tiny fluctuations around this temperature. These carry a lot of information about the conditions in the early universe which can help us understand the origin of the structures that we see today, and the processes that were important in the early universe. These fluctuations are of the order micro-Kelvin, and have been measured by NASA's WMAP mission. You probably have all seen their skymap of the temperature fluctuations:

We have discussed the features and usefulness of the CMB temperature fluctuations a few times already, see e.g. my earlier posts The CMB Power Spectrum and Anomalous Alignments in the CMB.

One way to extract information from the data is to look at correlation functions. These come in integer orders like the two-point function, the three-point function, the four-point function etc. There also is a one-point function but ‒ assuming a homogeneous probability distribution ‒ you already know it: it's just the expectation value. In our case, it would be the mean temperature. The two-point function tells you something about the correlation length in the distribution.

The relevant quantity we are concerned with here is the three-point function. (Confusingly enough the three-point function is also known as bi-spectrum.) To compute it, you roughly take three different points of your distribution, multiply the value of the function (here the temperature), and integrate over combinations of three points. Even from this rough description you can notice two things. First, it's several ugly integrals that are hard to compute, especially with loads of data. Second, multiplying small numbers makes even smaller numbers, thus the result is in risk of dropping below the uncertainties in your measurements. Therefore it's hard to come by this observable, yet it's what one wants to extract from the data because it contains information beyond the simplest (single-field, slow-roll) inflation scenario. This simplest scenario predicts the temperature fluctuations to be to very good precision a Gaussian distribution. If they were exactly Gaussian, the three-point function would vanish, and all higher-order correlations would follow from the two-point function. A non-vanishing three-point function would thus be, here it comes, an indication for the non-Gaussianity of the temperature fluctuations, and an indication for new physics.

There had indeed previously been rumors that non-Gaussianities had been found in an analysis of the CMB data, see e.g. this post on Non-Gaussian CMB over at Resonaances. At that time I heard like half a dozen talks on the topic, yet was reasonably sure the "signal" would vanish back into noise as indeed it did. To our present knowledge, the data with the uncertainty we have is still compatible with a Gaussian spectrum. (One has to be somewhat careful when one reads about these bounds since there's several different ones. That's because the full three-point function is pretty much impossible to calculate. What people have done instead is to take samples of specific threesomes of points, e.g. those forming equilateral triangles, or obtuse angled ones, thus there's different bounds depending on the triangles chosen.)

However, the important thing to note is that the uncertainty in these observations will go down in the soon future, with the WMAP 8 years mission results one expects a 20% improvement on the bounds, while Planck can yield a factor of 4. Now if there was an indication for non-Gaussianity this would be very exciting. Then the question is of course, what is the physics behind that? What I guess is going to happen is that anybody with their model will predict non-Gaussianities. I wouldn't be surprised if suddenly it will be a signature for cosmic strings, evidence for the multiverse and also a prediction of Loop Quantum Cosmology. It will certainly take some while to sort out these things. In any case however, I am sure it is a topic you will hear more about in the coming years.

Friday, July 16, 2010

ESQG 2010 Conference Photo

We just wrapped up our workshop on Experimental Search for Quantum Gravity. It was a tremendously interesting meeting, and well worth the effort of the organization. Though plagued by several problems and technical glitches (beamer not working, speaker sick, wireless not working, building company deciding to replace the windows in the guest apartments) I think we managed it reasonably gracefully and people had fun. The discussions in particular I thought went very well and stimulated a lot of vivid exchange. It will take a week or so for the talks and slides to be uploaded, and at that point I'll write a short summary of my impressions, so stay tuned. For now, here's the conference photo, taken yesterday evening before the BBQ. As you can see, we had brilliant weather, and lots of bright people ;-)

I wish you all a nice weekend!

Monday, July 12, 2010

ESQG 2010 - Finally here!

After almost a year of preparation, today is first day of our workshop on Experimental Search for Quantum Gravity that I've been organizing together with Lee Smolin and Greg Landsberg. I'm looking forward to an exciting week. As you can guess, I'll be quite busy during the workshop and I'm going on vacation the following week, so you might not hear much from me for a while. We'll have all talks and discussions recorded, so they should appear on the website once we've sorted out the upload. I hope it doesn't rain on our BBQ on Thursday!

Friday, July 09, 2010

This and That

  • You might have heard that according to the result of a new measurement the proton is some percent smaller than previously thought. Chad Orzel has an excellent post explaining what this means and doesn't mean.

  • Spiegel Online has an interesting article on Norway's experience with compulsory women quotas on company boards. My experience with compulsory women quotas as been very unconvincing. What happened is exactly what you can read in the article what Norwegians were afraid would happen before the law was introduced in 2004: you were forced to take women who were either unqualified or incompetent or both. Amazingly enough it seems the Norwegian's experience has been mostly positive and, despite the outcries before the introduction of the law, after it became a matter of fact there haven't been complaints about it. I think the relevant difference to the cases I have witnessed is the availability of qualified women in the pool. In the situations I saw, there were simply way to many (we're talking a factor 10 below the quota that had to be achieved). As it seems from the article, Norwegian companies however had no problems finding qualified female board members. In any case, this outcome was unexpected to me and gave me something to think about.

  • The Globe and Mail reports on a forum banning anonymity and forcing users to use real names instead. That in itself isn't so interesting, more interesting is that they dubbed it "the latest sign that online anonymity is falling out of favour with many companies." I'm not at all sure it's really necessary to force people to use their real names, I think pseudonymes will do as well as long as they have a value for the user, but I am happy to hear that the anonymity disease on the internet seems to have been recognized for what it is: sickening. I'm thus wondering what change we'll see coming in the soon future.

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

In Praise of Black Holes

First time I came to work on black holes was a funny story. I went to one of the senior profs at the institute asking for a topic for my master's thesis. The focus area of the institute was heavy ion and nuclear physics, so the prof suggested two topics from this field. Since I wasn't too excited about that, he added a third that was to show that black holes can't exist by working out an argument that he briefly sketched. Faced with that selection, I went away with the task of showing black holes can't exist.

I was an undergraduate at that time, I had a bachelor's degree in math, not physics, and knew next to nothing about black holes and quantum effects in their vicinity. Still, it didn't take me more than 3 weeks to figure out that his idea wouldn't work for what I thought were quite obvious reasons. I went to some other prof asking for advice, upon which I learned that the topic had previously been given to two other students who, unfortunate for the prof, came to the same conclusion as I. I was then luckily handed over to a very bright postdoc who worked in astrophysics with whom I deviated the topic to one in which we could arrive at results and not start with the result.

Knowing what we know today, the topic suggested might seem odd to you. However, one has to see this in historical context. This anecdote happened in the mid 90s and by then it had been discussed for decades whether black holes are merely mathematically possible solutions of Einstein's theory of General Relativity, or if they are physical reality. It was only in the mid to late 90s that observational evidence became accurate enough to convince most scientists of the existence of black holes. At this time, evidence meant that a black hole is the most straightforward and most plausible, minimalistic, and generally accepted explanation of the data. As I recall one seminar speaker saying: If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a black hole. Though I might have garbled that up. The senior prof's argument against their existence was that god would not disconnect himself from part of his universe. Can't make that stuff up.

In any case, for some while there have been more or less artificial alternative explanations around for super-compact objects that resemble black holes but have no horizon. These alternative solutions typically are very implausible on the theoretical side. In addition, since a few years we also have experimental evidence that allows us to distinguish a solid surface from a horizon, see earlier post on Evidence for the Black Hole Horizon. So that duck clearly is a black hole. If you need any more evidence for the existence of black holes: they've made it into pop music. Muse, Supermassive Black Hole. Love that song, sorry, urgent need to embed:

Oohm, back to the physics, let me be very clear here: a black hole is characterized by its horizon, not by its quack. The full solution of Einstein's field equations does not only have a horizon, it also has a singularity at the center of the black hole. First thing to note is that we can't see the singularity because it's surrounded by the horizon and thus hidden from all observational efforts. (That's known as Cosmic Censorship.) Maybe more important, close by the singularity we come into a regime of very strong curvature and it is doubtful that General Relativity is still the correct theory to apply. Close by the singularity, quantum effects of gravity should become important. We do not yet know what the right theory is, but the correct solution in this regime looks probably nothing like the classical solution.

If a singularity appears in your theory, it usually means you've used your theory out of its range of applicability. A nice example for that are singularities that appear in hydrodynamics. Stefan wrote about this in his post Singularities in your Kitchen. Needless to say, these singularities are an artifact of still using a theory on scales where instead a more precise theory of the microscopic structure of the fluid would have become relevant. Most people working on quantum gravity believe that the singularity in the black hole solution is a similar artifact of applying a theory out of its range of applicability.

What is so fascinating about black holes is how many different areas of physics they combine. There is, first of all, of course the astrophysical aspects, both in experiment and theory. These differ greatly between supermassive black holes (like at the center of galaxies) and stellar black holes (formed from collapse of stars). An interesting topic is also the transition from the latter to the former. There's further so-called 'primordial black holes,' that might have been formed from density fluctuations in the early universe. These are usually thought to be of much smaller mass than stellar black holes. These primordial black holes come back every now and then as dark matter candidates or as explanation for gamma ray sources etc, but so far none of the models, both for their formation and signature, has been really convincing. And then there's the quantum black holes that might be possible to produce in colliders in scenarios where the Planck scale is lowered; for more details see my post on Micro Black Holes.

Since black holes inevitably imply the existence of regimes where quantum gravitational effects are relevant, it is not surprising that they have received a lot of attention in the quantum gravity community. The study of black holes has thus lead us to discover and explore the relation between General Relativity and thermodynamics, a topic that's been going strong since almost 30 years now and most recently resulted in Erik Verlinde's claim that General Relativity actually is thermodynamics. Black hole physics has given rise to 't Hooft's conjecture of the Holographic Principle, probably one of the most surprising and also intriguing thoughts that physics has heard of since Einstein, and a thought that has spurred a rather dramatic amount of research. A lot of this research has been dedicated to find a solution to the Black Hole Information Loss Problem. The need to connect black hole physics (both emission and accretion) to the standard model further brings in particle physics and there are also interesting analogies between black holes and some condensed matter systems. You can find a nice review of the latter in Ralf Schützhold's recent paper Emergent Horizons in the Laboratory.

The workshop on black holes that I was attending 2 weeks ago in Bonn covered a good part of these topics, though the astrophysics was clearly dominant and other aspects like holography were entirely missing. In any case, it reminded me of my initial fascination with the topic. If you are a student, I can warmly recommend to work on a topic related to black hole physics because it gives you the opportunity to learn about a broad range of interesting concepts.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Blogger Bug

Hi All,

There's something seriously wrong with Blogger's comment feature. The problem is not restricted to this blog and has already been reported by many others on the help pages. As you will notice, the recent comments features doesn't work, and in fact new comments don't appear - including my own. There is nothing I can do about it. I do receive your submitted comments by email, but I don't know when they will appear. I'll let you know when the problem has been resolved.

PS: Here is the forum thread where you can report your problem.

Update, July 6, 6:20 pm CET: Comments seem to be working again... At least partly. The comment count still doesn't work.

Update, July 7, 7:00 am CET: All is working again.

Sunday, July 04, 2010

When I was a teenager, in the library I once came across a book on curses, spells and magical potions. Since I was just in a phase of reading fantasy literature, I could not resist having a look. It was full with recipes and rituals for all sorts of purposes. Most of them were love spells. I didn't really have a lot of use for that then. The one I recall best was against migraine. The cure was to press a raw egg against your forehead and mumble a few magical words that would make the pain go into the egg. The pain would then be passed on to whoever was unlucky enough to eat the egg.

I was fascinated by the amount of detail that was paid to these magical procedures, like at which time of the day and which moon phase herbs were supposed to be cut, and I liked to imagine what the world would be like if these spells actually worked. I didn't try any of them. My reasoning was if they would actually work, certainly nobody on this planet would still suffer from a broken heart or headache. Today I would probably give a different reason. The one offering a miracle cure is the one who should come up with a scientific documentation for the efficiency of their treatment. Needless to say, the spell book didn't bother with evidence that the rituals had any effect whatsoever.

I was thinking about the little book with the spells recently when I coincidentally came across a website selling spells. Sure, I know the internet is cluttered with nonsense, but for whatever reason this made me think. It's not only that the site offered "love spells, magic spells, reunion love spells, lover return spells, magical things, attraction love spells" and so on, they actually want money for it. "I have made magic spells, charms, genies, talismans and amulets available to you as a world renowned GURU and not as an amateur player in this field." Beware those capitals. The "lover return spells" seem to be particularly widespread. For what I am concerned, the sudden return of my past lovers would probably rapidly turn into a nightmare. So, maybe better, you might want to get a grip on a genie:
"The Conjuration or Invocation of genies are now possible bye following precisely the genie invocation spells and certian powerful invocation rituals prepared by me[...] A few examples of the things that these powerful genie spirits can do for you [...] If you desire to travel to another country, you don't need any documents or aircraft. You just order your genie and it will hold your hands and in a fraction of a minute, you will be in the land of your dreams."

Maybe he's just selling sleeping pills? But no, the genie can also "give you the correct winning numbers for LOTTO, POOLS, BINGO etc." Makes one wonder why the GURU hasn't won the lottery yet.

Okay, I admit, I didn't come across the website coincidentally. I read some forum where a woman insisted a spell she recently bought for only $200 had helped her (with a health problem). It was not an advert (no link, no name attached). I actually didn't know what she was talking about at first. After I figured she spent $200 on somebody sending her an email with some probably random generated "magical words" I could not but be stunned. It raised two questions for me: First, why do people waste money on entirely useless crap? Second, doesn't standard economical theory tells us that the value of a product reflects all the information about it? So why then doesn't the miracle of the free market accurately price useless spells at zero? (To be fair, they probably have some slight entertainment value and a psychological effect. But that's like saying you'd spend $200 on an iPod, and if it doesn't work the money was still well spent on making you feel better for helping the economy.)

Magical thinking

Wikipedia offers the following definition for magical thinking:
"[T]he term magical thinking is used to describe causal reasoning that looks for correlation between acts or utterances and certain events."

However, just looking for correlations could as well be scientific thinking. It is more helpful if one adds that the anthropologist E. Tylor characterized such thinking as "pre-logical." Basically, pretty much by definition, magic is non-scientific. Magical thinking believes in causal relations or correlations where there are none. You believe in magic if you really think pressing a raw egg against your head sucks up the pain. But of course the boundary between magic and science becomes blurry when one reaches the front of research. A relation might after all exist, just that science hasn't yet looked at it. In fact, the smarter sellers of useless crap don't just insist on nonscientific products which amounts to declaring there's no known use of them. They add pseudoscientific explanations in the hope one or the other reader will be impressed.

An example of such unashamed pseudoscience are "Takionic products," that "with their aligned atomic polarities, enhance the body's natural ability to draw from the Tachyon Field for its energy needs." We can read for example on this website that
"Since existence of a Tachyon Universe cannot be proven by instrumentation currently available, Tachyon theory is constructed by examining observable effects and drawing conclusions. Since Tachyon theory blurs the distinction between metaphysics (which deals with non-physical realities) and physics (which deals with physical realities), it has not been well-received by some main-stream physicists [...] Though discredited by some physicists today, Tachyon theory persists, an artifact of theoretical physics that has yet to be replaced by a fully coherent and integrated alternative [...]

We experience the Tachyon Field with our senses, mind and spirit as a warm, pleasurable, energizing and healing sensation. Healers have learned to access the Tachyon Field's resources for its healing powers more successfully than the average person has. Belief in a "Higher Power" enables them to draw upon the Tachyon Field. The more they draw upon it, the more effective as healers they become."

It almost hurts my brain to read this (hand me the egg please). The statement that the "theory" has not been well received by "main-stream physicists" and is "discredited" should be an immediate warning for the reader. It means in plain text no credible scientist believes in this nonsense. Tachyons have been looked for and not been found. There's zero evidence they exist. And even if, they certainly would not do any energizing of your senses by means of a "takionic headband". Needless to say, the website doesn't offer any documentation of the alleged examination of observable effects.

In one of my first years at the Institute for theoretical Physics in Frankfurt, my office mate came across a very similar website selling tachyonic water. They had a service hotline, so he called them. We actually wanted to ask how they believe they can capture tachyons in water. A woman picked up and after a friendly opening, my officemate asked her what a tachyon is. She said she'd have to connect him to the technical service hotline, punched a button and then the line was dead. So much about the scientific details.

Just dumb?

It is easy to dismiss people who fall for pseudoscience like spells, plain water with a fancy name, or genies as dumb. Yet I don't think that's a good explanation.

One of my relatives, when she reached her mid 80s, became quite suspicious of all modern technology. One instance that I recall particularly well is that she had heard or read somewhere that the suddenly omnipresent cellphones' signals are basically radiation that's around us all the time. She then went on to blame it on these electromagnetic waves if a towel dropped off the hook, or something rolled off the table, or she just wasn't able to find it anymore. A perfect example of making up a correlation. I made one or the other attempt to explain that no way the low power in the radiation used could move macroscopic objects, but I had to notice my explanation was pretty much pointless.

It was not that my relative was stupid. In fact, she was even in her high age far from stupid. The problem was that she had no clue how modern technology works and all the basics were missing. The gap had gotten too large. I would have had to start all the way back with Maxwell's equations over a transistor to electromagnetic waves and antennas, microwaves, maybe moving on to the laser that's now a standard ingredient to so many household products. And if you were 86, would you listen to a twenty-something telling you how the world works?

Arthur Clarke's Third Law

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

This quotation makes its point very well, though it's a little bit careless. I would want to add that technology can always be distinguished from magic, it's just that the technology might not be possible to understand with the knowledge or means at your disposal. But consider you came across an alien technology for cancer treatment. You might not be able to figure out how it works, but you'd be able to demonstrate that it works. I wouldn't call it magic if you can demonstrate, though maybe not explain, an effect. Indeed, the working of a lot of medications that are in common use today is not well understood. What we do is simply demonstrate that they work to the patients' benefits. Nothing magic about that.

Taken together, I've come to think there's two reasons people fall for magic (non-science) or pseudoscience (wrong science): One is that they have no idea how science works. Making up praises from satisfied customers on a website doesn't amount to evidence. ("Athletes have written letters which claim pain from sport injuries was lessened or eliminated, and rapid recovery obtained, from using Takionic products." Okay, fine. Double blind clinical trial? Just asking.) Second is that they don't have enough information, to be able to tell whether a product has any sensible reason to actually work at the present status of scientific knowledge. See, I have a lot of fantasy, and I can imagine that some thousand years into the future you can download a cure for migraine that consists of a software that lets some device in your computer emit targeted electromagnetic stimuli for affected brain regions that demonstrably alleviate the pain. Not so much different from buying a spell online. Except that that today's scientific knowledge isn't remotely close to making this possible. But to be able to tell, you need to have some rough idea of what the status of science is.

In the end, what it comes down to is lacking eduction. Education both about how science works, and what established scientific knowledge is.

I still haven't figured out though how the non-zero value of useless products fits into general equilibrium theory.

PS: If you get migraine after your breakfast egg, don't blame your wife ;-)

Saturday, July 03, 2010

I've won a vuvuzela! During the Soccer World Cup, our local grocery chain is running a lottery where one gets scratchcards for shopping. On one of the cards, I've scratched off exactly four vuvuzela icons, meaning I now own this wonderful plastic horn, just in time for this afternoon's quarter finals of Germany vs. Argentina.

It neatly comes in the German colours, and with all necessary assembly and safety instructions (120 dB or so in front of the horn can be dangerous...)

As this is a physics blog, you may expect me to say something about the physics of the vuvuzela, but it is too hot today, and I have to prepare for the match.

Besides, there are already great blog posts on the vuvuzela, for example at
Science 2.0, where it is explained that all horns work the same way. You blow into them and that creates a vibrating column of air but the construction of the horn means certain resonant frequencies will occur, or at A quantum of knowledge. And the New Scientist has a nice interview with Trevor Cox, president of the UK Institute of Acoustics, on the sound of the vuvuzela.

And if you'd like to dig really deeply into the science of the instrument, you may try to find a copy of Fletcher and Rossing's Physics of Mucsical Instruments and have a look at the chapters on Pipes, Horns and Cavities, Sound Generation by Reed and Lip Vibrations, and Lip-Drive Brass Instruments.

Have a great weekend!


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Home > Vendors > United States of America /Wilkerson Mill Gardens

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Welcome to Plant Buddy the Plant Finder
Our goal is to assist you in finding a plant. Enclosed is a list of online plants with links to 1450 Nurseries World wide. We offer this service for free and hope others will want to participate. To find the plant quicker, you will need to use the search feature below.

If you're a Nursery, submitting your plants is open to any nursery in the World.  All we require is botanical list of names. Why is this important to you? Its search engine algorithm visibility

Read more if you want your plants listed.

NOTE: Use the Search feature to find a plant. You'll be surprised!

Plants - 661,234 plants
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Viburnum plicatum

Viburnum plicatum 'Summer Snowflake'

Wisteria frutescens

Wisteria frutescens 'Amethyst Falls'

Wisteria frutescens 'Nivea'

Zenobia pulverulenta

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Title IX

Federal Legislation

State Legislation

Citing this page

Landmark Title IX cases in history
1972 Congress enacts Title IX of The Educational Amendments of 1972
20 U.S.C. ß 1681 et seq.
Signed into law by President Richard Nixon, June 23, 1972. Prohibits sex discrimination in any education program or activity, within an institution receiving any type of Federal financial assistance.
1974 “Tower Amendment” proposed and rejected. May 20, 1974, Senator Tower introduced an amendment to exempt revenue-producing sports from being tabulated when determining Title IX compliance. The amendment was rejected.
1974 “Javits Amendment” enacted & included in the Education Amendments July 1974, Senator Javits proposed, in lieu of proposed Tower Amendment, a proposal stating HEW must issue Title IX regulation including “with respect to intercollegiate athletic activities, reasonable provisions considering the nature of particular sports.” (e.g., event-management needs, etc.)
1975 & 1977 Two bills attempt to alter Title IX coverage in athletics; both die in committees before reaching House or Senate floors. • June 1975, Rep. O’Hara introduced House Bill (H.R. 8394), proposing to use sports revenues first to offset cost of that sport, then to support other sports.
• July 15, 1977, Senators Tower, Bartlett, & Hruska introduced Senate Bill (S. 2106), proposing to exclude revenue-producing sports from Title IX coverage.
1975 HEW issues final Title IX regulation
34 C.F.R. Part 106
Signed into law by President Gerald Ford, effective July 21, 1975. Includes provisions prohibiting sex discrimination in athletics and establishes a three-year window for educational institutions to comply.
1975 Congress reviews and approves Title IX regulations and rejects resolutions disapproving them. • June 4,1975:The present Title IX regulation was transmitted to Congress.
• June 5, 1975, Senator Helms (S. Con. Res. 46), and June 17, 1975, Rep. Martin (H. Con. Res. 310): disapproving entire Title IX legislation
• June 17, 1975, Rep. Martin (H. Con. Res. 311), disapproving Title IX legislation only as it has to do with intercollegiate athletics
• July 16, 1975, Senators Laxalt, Curtis & Fannin (S. Con. Res. 52), disapproving application of Title IX to intercollegiate athletics
1975 & 1977 Senate refuses to act on bills to curtail Title IX enforcement. • July 21, 1975, Senator Helms introduced S. 2146 in an attempt to prohibit the application of Title IX regulations to athletics where participation in those athletic activities are not a required part of the educational institution’s curriculum.
• January 31, 1977, Senator Helms re-introduced S. 2146 as S. 535..
1978 HEW issues proposed policy “Title IX and Intercollegiate Athletics” for notice and comment Presumption of compliance based on substantially equal average per capita expenditures for men and women athletes and future expansion of opportunity and participation for women.
1979 HEW issues final policy interpretation on “Title IX and Intercollegiate Athletics”
44 Fed. Reg. 71413 et seq.
December 11, 1979: Rather than relying exclusively on presumption of compliance standard, final policy focuses on institution’s obligation to provide equal opportunity and details the factors to be considered in assessing actual compliance. (Currently referred to as the 3-Prong-Test)
1980 Department of Education is established. DOE was given oversight of Title IX through the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
1984 Grove City vs. Bell Decision Removed the applicability of Title IX in athletics programs by stating that only those programs or activities which receive direct Federal financial assistance be held under the umbrella of Title IX.
1988 Civil Rights Restoration Act Becomes law on 3/22/88 after overriding a Presidential veto by President Ronald Reagan. Overrides Grove City vs. Bell, and mandates that all educational institutions which receive any type of Federal financial assistance, whether it be direct or indirect, be bound by Title IX legislation.
1990 Title IX Investigation Manual April 2, 1990: OCR, of the U.S. Dept. of Education, publishes manual. Authored by Valerie M. Bonnette and Lamar Daniel.
1992 Franklin vs. Gwinnett County Public Schools February 2, 1992: Supreme Court rules unanimously that plaintiff’s filing Title IX lawsuits are entitled to receive punitive damages when intentional action to avoid Title IX compliance is established.
1992 NCAA Gender Equity Study Shortly after Franklin decision, NCAA completes and publishes a landmark Gender-Equity study of its member institutions.
1994 Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA)
Section 360B of Publ.L. 103-382
34 CFR Part 668.41-668-48
Fed. Reg. 11/29/95 p. 61424
• September 1993: Sponsored by Senator Mosley-Braun (S. 1468) and Rep. Collins (H.R. 921)
• States that any coeducational institution of higher education that participates in any Federal student financial aid program and has an intercollegiate athletics program must disclose certain information concerning that intercollegiate athletics program.
• Annual reports required; first disclosure report is to be available no later than October 1, 1996.
1996 Policy Clarification January 16, 1996: OCR issues clarifications of three-part “Effective Accommodation Test”
1996 First EADA report due October 1, 1996: All institutions must have available to all who inquire, specific information on their intercollegiate athletics department as required by the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act

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Tag Archives: gifts

6 Great Gift Subscription Ideas for Food Lovers

Food Subscription Ideas for Food Lovers

Everyone loves to get something in the mail – particularly when that something is a big, tempting package to open and not just another bill. This is why gift subscriptions make fantastic presents: your giftee will get a new surprise every month when the next package arrives. There are some great services out there – both classic and creative – offering monthly subscription services that ... Read More »

Measuring Cups and Spoons for Owl-Lovers

Owl Spoon Set

Owls seem to be a hot design element right now, and I’ve seen everything from owl prints and accent pillows in stores to owl cookie jars. Most of the designs are cute enough to make you say “aww” and wish that you had some spare room in your kitchen to fit something in, but a big cookie jar can be difficult to find counter space ... Read More »

Baking Bites 2011 Holiday Gift Guide

It always helps to get a few more gift ideas as the holidays approach. Inspiration just might help you to pick out that perfect gift for the cook or baker or foodie in your lift – and might even inspire you to add something to your wish list, too. Kitchen Gifts for Bakers and Cooks A stand mixer is and will always be one of ... Read More »

Baking Bites’ Best Gifts for Bakers

Stand mixers for bakers!

The holidays are a time of good spirits, great food and wonderful gifts. The gifts aren’t a requirement, of course, but there is a lot of satisfaction in seeing the look on the face of a loved one when they open up that package and smile with joy. And the shopping itself can be fun, too. Since we’re baking oriented at Baking Bites, here are ... Read More »

The Baking Bites Cookbook for the holidays

It’s not always fun to stand in lines and debate over which sweater your great aunt, who never fails to send you a lovely gift, would prefer to get, but it is fun to exchange gifts with friends and family and enjoy the looks on their faces when they open something you know they’ll love. And if your loved ones are into cooking and baking, ... Read More »

Foodie Survival Kit

Foodie Survival Kit

When you’re traveling, whether it’s international or to a distant family member’s home over the holidays, you never know what you’re going to find food-wise. Sometimes it will be great but other times… let’s just say that the food might be less than perfect, with problems like to little seasoning, too much seasoning or really strange seasoning. A few spices of your own can go ... Read More »

How to pack up homemade food gifts

Homemade treats are one of the best gifts you can give during the holidays. Not only are they usually very budget-friendly, but they also show your giftee that you put time and a personal touch into their gift. You can’t beat that for holiday spirit, whether you’re taking a platter of goodies to a family party or bringing a simple box of snacks to a ... Read More »

Tips for shipping holiday baked goods

ready to ship!

Baked goods are fantastic gifts during the holidays. They’re always well-received at parties and gatherings and while they’re fun and often easy to make, they don’t quite offer the convenience of a store bought gift – especially if you want to ship off your present to friends or family that don’t live locally. To do this, not only do you need an idea of what treat you want to make, ... Read More »

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Will RIM Once Again Stand in the Land of Tech Giants?

Everyone loves an underdog, and Research In Motion — maker of the BlackBerry — is as underdog as it gets. Much of the media, both Canadian and international, have already dismissed the Waterloo, Ontario, tech company as another has-been crushed by the almighty iPhone. On January 30, however, the corporation that once sat on top of the world will make one final gasp at relevancy with the following question: Will the BlackBerry 10 make consumers fall in love again?

In 1984, Mike Lazaridis founded Research In Motion (RIM) with his colleague, Douglas Fregin. Like many of the storied titans of Silicon Valley, Lazaridis dropped out of his engineering studies at the University of Waterloo to begin the company whose first product allowed wireless texting to electronic signs. It wasn’t until 1992 that Jim Balsillie was hired as co-CEO to focus on the marketing and sales, so that Lazaridis could spend time on his passion: product design. The yin-and-yang dynamic of the consummate engineer and the business-minded marketing guy formed a powerful unit — a unit that would eventually dominate the industry.

In 1996, RIM released the Inter@ctive Pager, the first two-way pager and a precursor to what would become the focus of the company just a few years later. In 1999, during the height of the tech boom, the company launched its iconic product: the RIM 850 Wireless Handheld. It wasn’t until 2001 that RIM asked Lexicon branding to come up with a new name for their flagship device. Quickly, it was decided that the term “email” should be avoided, as it could be a stress trigger. Someone eventually pointed out that the keys on the device looked like seeds. This viewpoint led to a discussion of different kinds of fruits. Ultimately, blackberries emerged on top.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry quickly became a must-have device in corporate boardrooms. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. Congress invested millions in the device, undoubtedly crystallizing its image as the newest status symbol of the up-and-comer. For several years after, BlackBerry devices had no real competition in the commercial realm. They allowed continuous multitasking, and their reputation for security was unmatched. These qualities held an obvious appeal to the political and corporate elite.

Fast forward to June 2007. BlackBerry’s steady improvements led to a $70 a share price and seemingly bright future. At the same time, Apple, which had been resuscitated from irrelevancy with the launch of the iPod, launched a new product called the iPhone.

While the technology and marketing behind the launch were dazzling, many early observers — RIM included — assumed it would be a fad product, more toy than practical device. The iPhone garnered a lot of buzz for its slick appearance and touch screen interface, and for a while it seemed as though there was enough room in the market for both Apple and RIM to thrive. Blackberry devices continued to sell more briskly over the next year, leading to an all-time high of Research In Motion stock at $148 a share on June 20th, 2008 — just under a year after the iPhone launched. At the time, no one could have imagined that over the next three years the stock would fall 80% and the company would be battling for its life.

So, what went so catastrophically wrong? It would take much more than a single article to touch on all the elements that contributed to RIM’s fall from grace, but I would argue the following three were the most detrimental:

1) RIM’s success blinded it to the rapidly changing landscape in consumer tastes. Rather than embrace a complete redesign of their flagship product, RIM concentrated on incremental change and tweaks in each successive generation of model. RIM stuck with its iconic physical keyboard long after Apple and other competitors had moved on to touchscreens. When RIM finally released its first touchscreen phone, the Storm, in 2008, it seemed to be more an afterthought than a fully conceived product.

2) RIM, like many around it, was hit hard by a swift and brutal recession that disproportionately impacted large corporate firms, which were much of its customer base. The immediate cutting of technology budgets, coupled with no major product changes to stimulate sales, led to increasingly delayed upgrades from consumers while more and more executives began to envy the ease of use provided by Apple’s miraculous line of phones.

3) A spectacular series of mishaps, delays, and disappointments over the last couple years, largely attributable to poor management decisions, led to a loss of trust in the company by both investors and consumers. Balsillie seemed more occupied with bringing an NHL team to Hamilton than rescuing his flailing company. Rapidly decreasing sales, service outages and missed deadlines (especially of the much vaunted BlackBerry 10) led some to believe that the company would be more valuable if sold for parts than as a whole.

However, at the start of 2012, Research In Motion made a major change. The co-CEO structure that had served the company for many years was finally abandoned, as Thorsten Heins, former COO, took over as CEO. Over the next year, a series of painful layoffs and further delays notwithstanding, it appeared that the company was getting back on its feet, much like Apple did after the return of Steve Jobs.

Buzz around the new BlackBerry 10 from those who have seen the product firsthand, as well as several recent information leaks, have created anticipation. In the last couple of months, RIM’s stock has started to rise as excitement grows over the January 30 launch — a launch that comes amid recent reports that Apple’s meteoric rise may at last be running into some difficulties.

So, will Research In Motion once more become king of the mobile market? Will they be able to make an unlikely comeback? The odds certainly seem long. While Apple has been the frontrunner for the last few years, the increasing prevalence and sophistication of Android, Google’s open-source and widely used mobile operating system, has led to the recent success of companies such as Samsung and HTC. Furthermore, with the increasing importance of applications, both Apple and Google’s momentum and ecosystems outside of the mobile space make them formidable adversaries. And, of course, no one knows what startup company might launch a totally new technology that will force everyone to adapt yet again.

As we draw closer to the latest BlackBerry launch date, I find myself full of cautious optimism. I’ve been disappointed before. But perhaps one of Canada’s great companies can once again make the world stop and take notice.

CORRECTION: The article originally stated that RIM’s first touchscreen phone was the Torch in 2010. RIM’s first touchscreen phone was 2008′s Storm, and the article has been altered accordingly.

* * *

Ben Wagler has a BA in English Literature and an MA in Financial Management. He currently lives in Calgary, where he works in the banking industry. He enjoys current events — particularly politics and economics — and periodically writing for his blog, Occasional Ideas.


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Family Of Md. State Trooper Hit By Car While Assisting With Traffic Stop Speaks Out

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BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A promising young state trooper is fighting for her life. Jacqueline Kline was hit by a car while trying to help another trooper with a traffic stop.

Now her family is speaking out.

Meghan McCorkell has more on the case and her recovery.

The state trooper is still in critical condition at Shock Trauma with a brain injury. Her family says it will be a long road to recovery.

Fighting to survive. State Trooper Jacqueline Kline remains in a hospital bed surrounded by her family.

“She’s becoming more awake. They’re taking away the sedation,” her mother, Amy Reed, said.

Kline was assisting on a traffic stop on Route 100 early Sunday morning when she was hit by a car. Her body was thrown through the back windshield of a cruiser and into a ditch.

Kline suffered a brain injury, but her mother says she’s slowly making progress.

“At first, it was just when she would wiggle her toes or put her thumbs up,” said Reed.

Investigators say the driver who hit Kline was in violation of Maryland’s “Move Over” law, requiring cars to switch lanes away from emergency workers on the side of the road.

The “Move Over” law was enacted in 2010 to provide an extra safety barrier for officers.

“That’s certainly a tragic example of what can happen when vehicles gets too close to our officers out there,” said Greg Shipley, Maryland State Police.

A superstar in her barracks, in February, Trooper Kline chased a stabbing suspect for 14 miles. When he crashed and jumped out of the car, she chased him down on foot.

Next week, she’ll be named “Anne Arundel County Top Cop” for her heroism.

“Hopefully, this is going to be one of the things that we’re going to be showing her when she wakes up,” her mother said.

Motivation for her recovery so she can get back on the job she loves.

Charges are pending against the driver that hit Kline, as the state police investigation continues.

A violation of the “Move Over” law that results in serious injury can lead to a $750 fine and three points on your license.

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The Masquerade Players Kit

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No More Dress Rehearsals...

Enter the world of the vampire: dark, chilling and erotic. Who are these creatures? Why does the tragedy of their existence fascinate us so much? Take a look at their politics and their secrets.

Lights, Camera, Action...

The Masquerade Players Kit is the first supplement for Mind's Eye Theatre: The Masquerade. However, the Player's Kit is also suitable for use with Vampire: The Masquerade. The Player's Kit includes information entirely new to Vampire, with sections on rules conversions, new props and new costuming options. No journey into the World of Darkness is complete without this guide.
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January 7th, 2008
A pretty good expansion to Masquerade. Wile I don't LARP, I do use the LARP rules for some light table-top RPGing. This product adds some notable complexity to the Masquerade system, by including the merits and flaws system. The additional clans do not [...]
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I believe the epidemiologists: Boise restaurant linked to Salmonella cases

Last week I spent some time with an old friend who owns a funeral home. Fifteen years ago we spent our time and extra money in the local pub drinking pints and talking trash. As we’ve gotten older our taste has changed; we discussed our chosen professions over a bottle of wine.

As we chatted food safety and death he wanted to know how the disease detectives connected the dots in an outbreak. I gave him a rudimentary explanation of PFGE, genome sequencing, Pulsenet and told him about Bill Keene’s contribution to foodborne epidemiology. He was genuinely interested in learning about how epi folks do their magic, or it may have been the wine.101821776

Here’s today’s example of a cluster of illnesses linked to a restaurant, without a smoking gun, that is garnering further investigation (via the Idaho Statesman).

Five people have reported getting sick from Salmonella poisoning since late February after eating at a Boise restaurant, according to the Central District Health Department.

The agency did not publicly name the eatery Monday, but the owner of Pho Tam on North Orchard Street confirmed to the Idaho Statesman that her Vietnamese restaurant is the one in question.

“I don’t know what happened,” owner Long Doan said. “We try to be careful.”

The most recent sickness took place in mid-March, but wasn’t reported to health officials until Thursday, Health Department spokeswoman Christine Myron said.

Health inspectors last week tested food at the restaurant and did not find any traces of Salmonella or other harmful bacteria, Myron said.

“The cultures that they grew did not come back with any Salmonella, so they’ve not determined a definite source for the Salmonella,” Myron said. “We don’t know exactly how it may have gotten into the food at this point.”

I trust the epi folks.

Problems public health investigators face: It’s a tough job (but we love ya for it)

In Ontario, Canada (that’s in Canada), enteric case investigators perform a number of functions when conducting telephone interviews including providing health education, collecting data for regulatory purposes ultimately to prevent further illness, enforcement, illness source attribution and outbreak detection. Information collected must be of high quality as it may be used to inform decisions about public health actions that could have significant consequences such as excluding a person from work, recalling a food item that is deemed to be a health hazard, and/or litigations. The purpose of this study was to describe, from the perspectives of expert investigators, barriers experienced and the techniques used to overcome these barriers during investigation of enteric disease cases (that’s Sider, right, exactly as shown).

Twenty eight expert enteric investigators participated in one of four focus groups via teleconference. Expert investigators were identified based on their ability to 1) consistently obtain high quality data from cases 2) achieve a high rate of completion of case investigation questionnaires, 3) identify the most likely source of the disease-causing agent, and 4) identify any possible links between cases. Qualitative data analysis was used to identify themes pertaining to successful techniques used and barriers experienced in interviewing enteric cases.

Numerous barriers and strategies were identified under the following categories: case investigation preparation and case communication, establishing rapport, source identification, education to prevent disease transmission, exclusion, and linking cases. Unique challenges experienced by interviewers were how to collect accurate exposure data and educate cases in the face of misconceptions about enteric illness, as well as how to address tensions created by their enforcement role. Various strategies were used by interviewers to build rapport and to enhance the quality of data collected.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the perspectives of expert enteric disease case investigators on successful interview techniques and barriers experienced during enteric case investigation. A number of recommendations could improve the process of enteric case investigation in the Ontario context which include formal training and development of resource materials pertaining to interviewing, standardized interviewing tools, strategies to address cultural and language barriers, and the implementation of the single interviewer approach.

A focus group study of enteric disease case investigation: successful techniques utilized and barriers experienced from the perspective of expert disease investigators

BMC Public Health, Disease epidemiology- infectious, Volume 14, doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-1302

Stanley Ing, Christina Lee, Dean Middleton, Rachel D Savage, Stephen Moore and Doug Sider

To the importer who says there’s no proven link, I say, epidemiology still works: 18 confirmed sick with hep A from frozen Chinese berries

As the number of confirmed hepatitis A cases in Australia from frozen berries grown in China rose to 18 over the weekend, as political rhetoric about imports and local food reached staggering new heights, the company continued to insist there’s no firm link between a national hepatitis A outbreak and its recalled berries.

epidemiology.WATER PUMP3_Page_4The company says its imported Chinese berries were recalled on health department advice despite a lack of proof from accredited laboratories of a link to the hepatitis A virus (HAV).

“At this point, we have not been provided any remaining consumer product to test from the 13 confirmed HAV cases to clinically verify there is indeed a link with the Nanna’s Mixed Berries,” managing director and chief executive Stephen Chaur said in a statement on Friday.

Mr Chaur said the company had rigorous testing that went beyond the Australian standards requirement that five per cent of imported fruit containers be tested.

“Patties Foods’ documented test regime is among the highest, testing 20 per cent of all the containers when they arrive in Australia,” he said.

But Mr Chaur said sample testing for microbial and viral markers had been increased to 100 per cent of imported frozen berries from all countries.

The company has checked quality control testing documents back to June 2014 and says they’re satisfied no biological indicators outside Australian guidelines have been detected.

Great. Prove it and make the data public.

Importance of epi: Outbreak of diarrheal illness caused by Shigella flexneri — American Samoa, May–June 2014

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that on May 9, 2014, a physician at hospital A in American Samoa noticed an abnormally high number of children presenting to the emergency department with bloody diarrhea.

American Samoa.schoolBased on preliminary testing of stool specimens, Entamoeba histolytica infection was suspected as a possible cause. Shigella was also suspected in a subset of samples. On May 22, the American Samoa Department of Health requested assistance from CDC with the outbreak investigation. The goals of the investigation were to establish the presence of an outbreak, characterize its epidemiology and etiology, and recommend control measures. The CDC field team reviewed the emergency department log book for cases of diarrheal illness during April 15–June 13, 2014. During this period, 280 cases of diarrheal illness were recorded, with a peak occurring on May 10. Twice as many cases occurred during this period in 2014 compared with the same period in 2011, the most recent year for which comparable surveillance data were available. Cases were widely distributed across the island. The highest number of cases occurred in children aged 0–9 years. Across age groups, cases were similarly distributed among males and females. These patterns are not consistent with the epidemiology of disease caused by E. histolytica, which tends to cause more cases in males of all ages.

Hypothesis-generating interviews with families of 13 patients did not reveal any common water, food, sewage, or event exposures. Eight participants reported having ill household contacts, with family contacts often becoming ill within 1–3 days after the participant’s illness onset. Six stool specimens were sent to CDC. All were negative for ameba, including E. histolytica, by multiple laboratory methods. All six specimens were also negative for Cryptosporidium and Giardia by a polymerase chain reaction test. However, an invasion plasmid antigen H (ipaH) gene sequence, a genetic marker of Shigella, was identified in four specimens. Additionally, seven Shigella isolates sent to the Hawaii Department of Health and CDC were identified as Shigella flexneri serotype 7 (proposed; also referred to as provisional 88-893 or 1c), and five shared an indistinguishable pulsed-field gel electrophoresis pattern.

american.samoa.peopleShigella causes an estimated 500,000 cases of shigellosis per year in the United States (1). Most persons infected with Shigella develop diarrhea (sometimes bloody), fever, and stomach cramps 1–2 days after they are exposed to the bacteria. The illness usually resolves in 5–7 days. Careful and frequent hand washing and strict adherence to standard food and water safety precautions are the best defense against shigellosis (2).

Together, epidemiologic and laboratory data suggest this was a shigellosis outbreak with person-to-person transmission. This investigation highlights the importance of building epidemiologic and laboratory capacity for enteric illnesses and enhancing basic hand hygiene and prevention strategies in U.S. territories.

Lesson in epidemiology (not): Wisconsin farmer says raw milk may not have made Durand football team ill

Now that the Reed ranch has been named and shamed as the source of the raw milk linked to at least 38 illnesses of Campylobacter jejuni related to players and staff of the Durand High School football team, the owner is speaking out.

raw.milk.death.1917Diana Reed, whose farm provided the milk said, “Some people got sick who did not drink the milk,” she said Saturday.

State health officials also tested manure of the cows at the Reed ranch and concluded some of the cows contained the strain of Campylobacter that sickened the students.

On Friday, state health officials identified the Reed farm as the source of the milk following an open records inquiry by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

But Reed said there could have been other sources of the bug.

“I discussed it with the epidemiologist in Madison. He gave me some statistics — 56 people ate chicken, 38 got sick; 43 people chose to drink milk and 33 got sick,” she said. “They interviewed everyone who was there.”

That leaves five people who did not drink milk, but who still had Campylobacter.

Epidemiology, just trying to do this jigsaw puzzle: Outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 associated with lettuce served at fast food chains in the Maritimes and Ontario, Canada, Dec 2012

Background: Identification and control of multi-jurisdictional foodborne illness outbreaks can be complex because of their multidisciplinary nature and the number of investigative partners involved.

spongebob.oil.colbert.may3.10Objective: To describe the multi-jurisdictional outbreak response to an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in Canada that highlights the importance of early notification and collaboration and the value of centralized interviewing.

Methods: Investigators from local, provincial and federal jurisdictions, using a national outbreak response protocol to clarify roles and responsibilities and facilitate collaboration, conducted a rapid investigation that included centralized re-interview of cases, descriptive methods, binomial probability, and traceback findings to identify the source of the outbreak.

Results: There were 31 laboratory confirmed cases identified in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario. Thirteen cases (42%) were hospitalized and one case (3%) developed hemolytic uremic syndrome; there were no deaths. Due to early notification a coordinated investigation was initiated before laboratory subtyping was available. Re-interview of cases identified 10 cases who had not initially reported exposure to the source of the outbreak. Less than one week after the Outbreak Investigation Coordinating Committee was formed, consumption of shredded lettuce from a fast food chain was identified as the likely source of the illnesses and the implicated importer/processor initiated a precautionary recall the same day.

Conclusion: This outbreak investigation highlights the importance of early notification, prompt re-interviewing and collaboration to rapidly identify the source of an outbreak.

Canada Communicable Disease Report CCDR

Tataryn J, Morton V, Cutler J, McDonald L, Whitfield Y, Billard B, Gad RR and Hexemer A

Use of social media to identify foodborne illness — Chicago, Illinois, 2013–2014

An estimated 55 million to 105 million persons in the United States experience acute gastroenteritis caused by foodborne illness each year, resulting in costs of $2–$4 billion annually (1).

social.media.likeMany persons do not seek treatment, resulting in underreporting of the actual number of cases and cost of the illnesses (2). To prevent foodborne illness, local health departments nationwide license and inspect restaurants (3) and track and respond to foodborne illness complaints. New technology might allow health departments to engage with the public to improve foodborne illness surveillance (4). For example, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene examined restaurant reviews from an online review website to identify foodborne illness complaints (5). On March 23, 2013, the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) and its civic partners launched FoodBorne Chicago (6), a website (https://www.foodbornechicago.orgExternal Web Site Icon) aimed at improving food safety in Chicago by identifying and responding to complaints on Twitter about possible foodborne illnesses. In 10 months, project staff members responded to 270 Twitter messages (tweets) and provided links to the FoodBorne Chicago complaint form.

A total of 193 complaints of possible foodborne illness were submitted through FoodBorne Chicago, and 133 restaurants in the city were inspected. Inspection reports indicated 21 (15.8%) restaurants failed inspection, and 33 (24.8%) passed with conditions indicating critical or serious violations. Eight tweets and 19 complaint forms to FoodBorne Chicago described seeking medical treatment. Collaboration between public health professionals and the public via social media might improve foodborne illness surveillance and response. CDPH is working to disseminate FoodBorne Chicago via freely available open source software

FoodBorne Chicago tracked Twitter messages using a supervised learning algorithm (7). The algorithm parsed tweets originating from Chicago that included “food poisoning” to identify specific instances of persons with complaints of foodborne illness. The geographic boundaries used by the algorithm also included some neighboring Chicago suburbs. However, follow-up inspections were conducted only at restaurant locations within the city limits. Tweets identified by the algorithm were reviewed by project staff members for indications of foodborne illness (e.g., stomach cramps, diarrhea, or vomiting) from food prepared outside the home. Project staff members provided feedback on whether each tweet fit the criteria, enabling the tweet identification algorithm to learn and become more effective over time.

communication.context.13For tweets meeting the criteria, project staff members used Twitter to reply. For example, Tweet: “Guess who’s got food poisoning? This girl!” Reply: “That doesn’t sound good. Help us prevent this and report where you ate here (link to Foodborne Chicago and a web form to report the illness).” The information in submitted forms went directly into the Chicago 311 system that handles all requests for nonemergency city services. Descriptive statistics were used to evaluate FoodBorne Chicago over its first 10 months of use and to compare the results of complaint-based health inspections of food establishments resulting from FoodBorne Chicago use with health inspections of food establishments based on complaints not submitted through FoodBorne Chicago. The comparisons did not include reinspections or routine inspections not based on a complaint.

During March 2013–January 2014, FoodBorne Chicago identified 2,241 “food poisoning” tweets originating from Chicago and neighboring suburbs. From these, project staff members identified 270 tweets describing specific instances of persons with complaints of foodborne illness. Eight of the 270 tweets (3.0%) mentioned a visit to a doctor or an emergency department. A total of 193 complaints of food poisoning were submitted through the FoodBorne Chicago web form. However, project staff members were not able to track how many of the 193 came from persons led to the form via Twitter and how many came from persons who visited the FoodBorne Chicago site on their own.

Of the 193 FoodBorne Chicago complaints, 19 (9.8%) persons indicated they sought medical care. The complaints identified 179 Chicago restaurant locations; at 133 (74.3%) locations, CDPH inspectors conducted unannounced health inspections. These 133 inspections amounted to 6.9% of the 1,941 health inspections of food establishments prompted by complaints during the study period. Of the 133 FoodBorne Chicago–prompted health inspections, 122 (91.7%) inspection reports identified at least one health violation, compared with 91.8% of inspection reports following complaints filed outside of FoodBorne Chicago during the same period.

Of the 133 FoodBorne Chicago–prompted health inspections 27 (20.3%) identified at least one critical violation, compared with 16.4% of the 1,808 inspections not prompted by FoodBorne Chicago. Critical violations indicate an “immediate health hazard” resulting in a high risk for foodborne illness. Critical violations must be fixed while the inspector is present or the restaurant fails inspection, has its license suspended, and is closed.* Twenty-nine restaurants (21.8%) reported via FoodBorne Chicago had at least one serious violation compared with 27.8% of restaurants not reported via FoodBorne Chicago. Serious violations indicate a “potential health hazard” that must be corrected within a timeframe determined by the health inspector, typically 5 days. If the serious violation is not fixed on re-inspection, the license is suspended, and the business is closed. Overall, at least one critical or serious violation was found in 37.6% of inspections prompted by FoodBorne Chicago and 37.2% of inspections from other complaints during the same period.

Some differences were noted in the distribution of specific violations between FoodBorne Chicago inspections and other complaint inspections. For example, 13.5% of FoodBorne Chicago inspections resulted in (critical) violation 3 (i.e., food not stored at appropriate temperatures), compared with 8.2% of other complaint inspections (Table). In addition, 14.3% of other complaint inspections reported (serious) violation 18 (i.e., food not protected from contamination), compared with 6% of FoodBorne inspections.

A total of 21 (15.8%) of the 133 restaurants reported through FoodBorne Chicago failed inspection and were closed; an additional 33 restaurants (24.8%) passed with conditions, indicating that serious or critical violations were identified and corrected during inspection or within a specified timeframe. Of the inspected restaurants with complaints not reported through FoodBorne Chicago, 25.8% failed and 14.2% passed with conditions. During the study period, among all restaurants inspected, FoodBorne Chicago–prompted inspections accounted for 4.3% of failed inspections and 11.4% of pass with conditions inspections.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jenine K. Harris, PhD, Raed Mansour, MS, Bechara Choucair, MD, Joe Olson, Cory Nissen, MS, Jay Bhatt, DO

Smartphones lead to smarter outbreak investigations: Clostridium perfringens, London, March 2013

On 22 March 2013, 150 of 1,255 students (13–17 years) and staff at a school in London reported gastrointestinal symptoms; onset peaked 8 to 12 hours after a lunch served in the school on 21 March. We performed a retrospective cohort study of all students and staff. We defined cases as school attenders on 20 and 21 March with onset of gastrointestinal symptoms between 20 and 23 March.

carpet-vomit-stainsWe tested food, environmental and stool samples of cases for common pathogens and bacterial toxins. We administered an online questionnaire via email, encouraging the use of smartphones to respond, to measure risk of illness for food items eaten at school on 20 and 21 March. Survey response was 45%. Adjusted risk ratios were generated in a multivariable analysis. Those who ate chicken balti on 21 March were 19.3 times more likely to become ill (95% confidence interval: 7.3–50.9). Clostridium perfringens was detected in all 19 stool samples collected. Within eight school hours of its launch, 412 of 561 (73%) responders had completed the survey. Hygienic standards in the kitchen were satisfactory. The investigation was done rapidly due to smartphone technology and we recommend considering this technology in future outbreaks.

Euro Surveill. 2014;19(19)

Simone B, Atchison C, Ruiz B, Greenop P, Dave J, Ready D, Maguire H, Walsh B, Anderson S.

Food Safety Talk episode 52: A Keene epidemiologist

Food Safety Talk, a bi-weekly podcast for food safety nerds, by food safety nerds.  The podcast is hosted by Ben Chapman and barfblog contributor Don Schaffner, Extension Specialist in Food Science and Professor at Rutgers University.  Every two weeks or so, Ben and Don get together virtually and talk for about an hour.  They talk about what’s on their minds or in the news regarding food safety, and popular culture. They strive to be relevant, funny and informative — sometimes they succeed. You can download the audio recordings right from the website, or subscribe using iTunes.bill.keene_.portland

The guys started the show dreaming about a Red Mac Pro. They then turned to the passing of Bill Keene. Bill has been mentioned in various FST episodes and was a well respected epidemiologist as seen in the articles by the Oregonian and Doug Powell. The guys then turned to their beverages, Coffee Club, Napoleon Dynamite, Homeland, and Car Talk. Ben shared his preference for Aussie Rule football and Arcade Fire’s album Reflektor. The conversation then turned to Don’s limited iPhone music library, Privateering and Dire Straights, which reminded Ben of Money for Nothing and WWE Wrestling (not WWF Wrestling). To finish they talked about Christmas music, Bad Religion’s Christmas Songs, Coulton and Roderick’s One Christmas at a Time and Horrible Christmas songs.

Ben confused IAFP’s History with Bug Trivia and shared Julian Cox’s information about the 1960’s, and this evolved into a broader discussion about the IAFP and its membership.

The discussion then turned back to Bill Keene and some of the outbreaks he had been involved in. This included a Salmonella Panama outbreak (not to be confused with Van Halen’s Panama), which was the first outbreak that was solved through the innovative use of supermarket loyalty cards and that Bill and others were sued for (the lawsuit was eventually dropped.. The guys then discussed outbreak investigation in some detail and that public health officials are damned if they do and damned if they don’t name commodities and suppliers. There is of course always a risk of getting the epidemiology wrong, as was the case with Salmonella Saintpaul in peppers. Finally, Bill’s investigation of a Norovirus outbreak reminded Ben of a recent Norovirus outbreak in Las Vegas.

Then Ben commented on an exchange with Chris Gunter, who was presenting on traceability for small producers at the 2013 Strawberry Expo. Chris’ presentation is based on the investigation of an E. coli O157 outbreak related to strawberries, in which Bill Keene played a part.

In the after dark, the guys reflected on mortality and that we should all Enjoy Every Sandwich. And because they love him,  Rob Ford got a mention again and again.

Deadly outbreaks: How medical detectives save lives threatened by killer pandemics, exotic viruses, and drug-resistant parasites

Atif Kukaswadia writes in this review on Public Health Perspectives blog: Anyone who follows my writing knows that I’m a big proponent of using stories to talk about science. We’ve discussed how you can use science fiction teach science, zombies to talk about disease outbreaks, and my TEDx talk discussed using principles of storytelling in how we discuss science. So when I was asked to review (see disclaimer below) Dr sandwichAlexandra Levitt’s new book “Deadly Outbreaks: How Medical Detectives Save Lives Threatened by Killer Pandemics, Exotic Viruses and Drug-Resistant Parasites,” I jumped on the opportunity.

The CDC has a program known as the Epidemiologic Intelligence Services, where individuals trained in fields such as epidemiology, medicine, statistics and veterinary sciences come together to identify causes of diseases. For an overview of the EIS, check out this review of “Inside the Outbreaks” by Travis Saunders over at Obesity Panacea. The EIS was set up Alexander Langmuir, who has been profiled on the blog, and their work has been instrumental in learning about, and thus containing, disease outbreaks all over the world. Dr Levitt is well positioned to speak on these issues, having worked at the CDC since 1995, although it should be noted that this was written in her free time, not as part of her position at the CDC.

The book is comprised of 7 distinct chapters, each one covering a unique disease outbreak. In an almost “House-ian” style, the EIS agent will hear about an outbreak, go into an area, and then have to uncover what it is that is causing people to get sick, often with very little information to go on. I’m going to keep the details deliberately vague, as part of the joy of reading the book is guessing what is causing the outbreak, and following the train of thought of the investigators.

Another thing I really enjoyed about the book was how Dr Levitt deals with all important stakeholders, and talks about their history. One chapter deals with a Native American population that has undergone a disease outbreak, and does a great job explaining the history of these people. This is very pertinent information, as the problems of going into this community are a direct result of how these communities have been treated historically, and everything from the equipment you bring in, to the name of the disease, has to be cleared by elders and community leaders. The history of a group is something public health practitioners need to be aware of and sensitive to in order to work with these people to identify causes of disease, and this was illustrated well in this book.

Finally, at a more stylistic level, a conscious decision the author makes is to provide context for the characters. For example, in Chapter 1 the “protagonist” is eagerly anticipating her wedding, and at one point goes for dinner and discusses this with a colleague while talking about the case at hand. In a later chapter, the author describes Dr Stacy Holzbauer, a veterinarian, as someone whose “plan was to become a Sopranos_season3_episode01large-animal veterianian, marry a cowboy, live on a ranch on the Great Plains, and raise cowboys,” a vivid and charming description. While she did become a veterinarian, she then pursued a MPH and now does brilliant public health work. This makes the characters that much more fleshed out and human, rather than being 2-dimensional and alien, a welcome respite from the socially awkward, comically inept, and often evil, scientist of television and film. At points I found this transition jarring, but it adds to the overall feel of the book, and I think helps the book connect with the general public.

And the general public, especially those with an interest in public health, is the target audience. I would recommend this book to those interested in learning more about public health, both from an infectious disease epidemiology.WATER PUMP3_Page_4standpoint, as well as from a practical, i.e. how do we actually investigate disease outbreaks, standpoint. It’s written for a lay audience, and avoids jargon and delving too far into statistics or biology, which makes it easy and straightforward to follow. If you’re considering pursuing an MPH and want to do “shoe leather epidemiology,” it’s a must read.