Science

“N@C60 is quite a sexy, interesting, promising molecule”

Natural World, Science
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But in terms of holding onto quantum entanglement it’s beaten hollow by the humble Robin, according to Wired:

an European Robin from Wikipedia

European robins may maintain quantum entanglement in their eyes a full 20 microseconds longer than the best laboratory systems, say physicists investigating how birds may use quantum effects to “see” Earth’s magnetic field.

Quantum entanglement is a state where electrons are spatially separated, but able to affect one another. It’s been proposed that birds’ eyes contain entanglement-based compasses.

Conclusive proof doesn’t yet exist, but multiple lines of evidence suggest it. Findings like this one underscore just how sophisticated those compasses may be.

[…]

To put this in perspective, Benjamin introduced an exotic molecule called N@C60, a geometric cage of carbon with a nitrogen atom inside. This molecule is one of the best-known laboratory systems for maintaining entanglement. “The cage acts to shield the atom, which is storing the information, from the rest of the world,” Benjamin said. “It’s considered to be quite a sexy, interesting, promising molecule.”

But at room temperature, even N@C60 only holds entanglement for 80 microseconds, or four-fifths of what birds appear to be doing.

Very interesting, but watch out for the New Scientist effect, where the desire to showcase counterintuitive, sexy research comes into conflict with doing science right.

Challenger: it was twentyfive years ago today

history, Science
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I’m not sure where I was twentyfive years ago when the Challenger space shuttle exploded slightly more than sevnety seconds into its launch, but I do remember that I felt devastated when I first heard the news. Even at age eleven I was a science fiction reader and space fan and the shuttle was supposed to be how we were going to get a proper space programme and L5 O’Neill colonies and ultimately the stars. They were not supposed to blow up! It was only much, much later that I understood how much of a kludge the shuttle was and how it was possible for Challenger to blow up. The documentary above was made by NASA in 1986, after investigations into the explosion had concluded. It tells how the shuttle exploded, but not why, what the root causes were. That would take much more time.

Living in the Future

Pointless contrarianism, Science, science fiction
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map of all current Solar System space missions

Emily Lakdawalla has her monthly post on the state of space exploration up once again and as always it’s an useful reminder that despite appearances, we are living in the future. One clue being sentences like ” I’m enjoying following the relatively active Twitter feed of Voyager 2, which also mentions the position of Voyager 1 once a day”. Who would’ve guessed in the dying days of the twentieth century that a decade later we would get status updates from a robot space explorer at the edge of our Solar System, through a medium usually portrayed as only being good for shallow gossip or self promotion?

It makes silly little arguments that the future died in 1998 because that’s when Disneyland embraced steampunk seem even more facile than they already were.