"A Snapshot of the Inside of an Atom" at ScienceNOW

My first story for ScienceNOW in quite a long time, and it's a fun one. Scientists at FOM Institute AMOLF took a picture of the quantum wave function of electrons as they emerged from hydrogen atoms.

Wave function? AMOLF? Google the latter. As for the former, the wave function is the fundamental piece of quantum weirdness, something that physicists have tried to wrap their heads around for eighty or ninety years — and failed. For more, read the story.

Seeing the Forest for the Splotchy Green Blob

Lesson for today: statistics is hard. Specifically, it's hard to sort out real patterns from random noise, especially when you don't have a lot of data. Nonetheless, people sure do their darndest.

Coffee Science with Four Barrel's Alex Powar

We're talking chemistry. Sort of. "Chlorogenic acid, for instance, esterizes into quinic and caffeic acid. Quinic acid...so that produces a lot of bitterness. That's why you never want to reheat coffee. It catalyzes that reaction."

These are a few of my favorite sciences.

What's your favorite thing about the natural world? There are lots of things to choose from. The profound tension between natural selection and biological diversity. The fact that no matter how fast you're going, you'll never catch up with a beam of light. The way snowflakes form.

Nathan Explains Science Just Voted, and You Can Too.

I just voted. You should too. Well, if you're 18 or older, anyway.

Errol Morris usually says it better.

Nathan Explains Science has spent a fair amount of resources to convince you that politics doesn't work quite the way that pundits would like you to believe. Among the topics: the many reasons — sometimes arguably legitimate — not to vote. Among them, your vote is unlikely to count, and even if it counted  toward deciding your state's electoral college votes in a presidential election, your state's choice might not ultimately matter. Who gets elected might not matter — though Nathan Explains Science emphatically denies that assertion as it applies to recent presidential elections.

On the other hand, if no one votes, then anybody who does makes the decision for everyone. Thus, in an incremental sort of way, the fact that you vote makes democracy just a little bit safer.

I'm bringing this up because Errol Morris, innovative director of the documentaries The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War, just shot a short film on the subject of why we don't vote. You can view it here:  11 Excellent Reasons Not to Vote. It's about seven and a half minutes, and Morris does not disappoint.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Nathan Explains Science Was Going To Blog About The Debates, But....

Dear Readers,

Nathan (of Nathan Explains Science fame) really wanted to explain why he (and many others) won't be watching any of the (vice-)presidential debates, but he's been working hard all day, he's tired, it's the bottom of the 7th and the O's are tied with the Yankees in the ALDS, he's already decided whom he's voting for, the election isn't all that exciting this year, and he should probably make some dinner.

Catch all that? Good. Anthony Downs and I are proud we've taught you something. More next time.

Cheers,
Nathan Explains Science

LA Cars and Santa Fe Bars: Carmageddon 2 and the El Farol Problem

Think fast: what do the freeways of Los Angeles have in common with a bar in far-away Santa Fe, New Mexico? This weekend, it turns out, quite a lot.

Nathan Explains Romney...Maybe...

By now you've likely heard all about the Super Secret Awful Romney Video, uncovered by Mother Jones and covered by basically everyone from the Washington Post to Drudge.*

Politics, Decline, & Stress Balls

In my last post, I wrote about how important it was to pursue seemingly odd social and political science, and I cited as an example a study that showed squeezing a stress ball can make you more likely to believe random strangers were Democrats.