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This weeks brainteaser:
An iceberg is in the form of an upright regular pyrimid, of which 10m shows above the surface. Find the period of the small oscillations of the berg. (density of water 
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Hundreds of new marine species discovered down under!
Dozens of tiny crustaceans, 130 new species of soft corals and 100 small isopods are all new to science
Marine biologists have discovered hundreds of new and rare species while exploring the waters around two remote islands and a reef off the Australian coast.
Scientists conducted in-depth surveys of marine life around the Heron and Lizard islands on the Great Barrier Reef off the country’s northeastern coast, and in the waters around the 170-mile-long Ningaloo reef off the western coast.
Among their findings were an estimated 130 new species of soft corals, several undescribed shrimp-like species - some with claws larger than their bodies - and dozens of tiny crustaceans. They also collected around 100 small organisms called isopods that are believed to be new to science. Some isopods are parasites and burrow into fishes’ mouths and nibble their tongues away.
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Problems at the LHC
A log entry written by the current LHC co-ordinator at 11:27 am CET (10:27 am BST) states that there has been a “massive quench” in sector 3–4. Quenches occur when superfluid helium in the magnets rises above its operating temperature of 1.9 K, and can be caused, for example, when a proton beam veers off course.
According to the entry, firefighters were dispatched to that area of the tunnel. It also says that the vacuum in that part of the beam pipe was lost.
The latest thinking is that they will have to allow the LHC to warm up, repair it, and cool it down again. A delay of up to two months!
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Static electricity Podcast
A short podcast covering some of the basics about charges attracting and repelling.
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Gravity-mapping satellite will help predict climate change
Scientists are preparing to launch a new satellite to make more precise measurements of the Earth’s gravitational field and so help improve predictions about global warming.
The €330m (£265m) project aims to provide an extremely accurate map of the planet’s gravitational field. Its main mission is to help climate scientists improve their predictions by enabling them to produce a more precise picture of the ocean currents.
By comparing the surface shape of the oceans with the undulations in the gravitational field, scientists can arrive at a more accurate picture of the oceans’ currents - the flows that transport vast amounts of heat around the planet and so have a profound impact on the global climate.
The satellite will complete a map of the gravitational field once every 70 days and stay in operation for about 18 months.
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Astronomy lessons up and running!
Hello Astronomers!
Hopefully you’re charting the phases of the moon and getting ready to make some observations - here’s a couple of resources to help you out;
http://www.dacre.net/moon/moonframe.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aFGNGEcDOk
And there’s a really neat bit of the BBC website that deals with the solarsystem too;
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The LHC has begun…
At 10:31am (BST), Professor Brian Cox reports on the BBC Big bang day website that the ATLAS detector has detected it’s first beam.
This is what they saw:
ATLAS
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Podcast downloads…
A couple of you have reported download issues with the podcast. I’ve checked it out this end and on several other machines and I can’t find any problems - Perhaps you’ll have more luck subscribing through i-tunes using the link down on the left…
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No foundation for LHC based terror…
The LHC Safety Assessment Group have reviewed and updated a study first completed in 2003, which dispels fears of universe-gobbling black holes and of other possibly dangerous new forms of matter, and confirms that the switch-on will be completely safe.
The report, ‘Review of the Safety of LHC Collisions’, published in IOP Publishing’s Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, proves that if particle collisions at the LHC had the power to destroy the Earth, we would never have been given the chance to exist, because regular interactions with more energetic cosmic rays would already have destroyed the Earth or other astronomical bodies.
The group also writes, “Nature has already conducted the equivalent of about a hundred thousand LHC experimental programmes on Earth – and the planet still exists,” which is hardly a scientific reassurance!
The report concludes that, since cosmic-ray collisions are more energetic than those in the LHC, but are incapable of producing vacuum bubbles or dangerous magnetic monopoles, we should not fear their creation by the LHC.
LHC collisions will differ from cosmic-ray collisions in that any exotic particles created will have lower velocities, but the Safety Assessment Group shows that even fast-moving black holes produced by cosmic rays would have stopped inside the Earth or other astronomical bodies. Their existence proves that any such black holes could not gobble matter at a risky rate.
“Each collision of a pair of protons in the LHC will release an amount of energy comparable to that of two colliding mosquitoes, so any black hole produced would be much smaller than those known to astrophysicists.”