# n-soc: a fading dream

<< the probability for children to attain a higher income than their parents has dropped dramatically -- from more than 90 percent for children born in 1940 to 50 percent for children born in the 1980s >>

Upward mobility has fallen sharply in US: study. Apr.  24,  2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-04-upward-mobility-fallen-sharply.html

Raj Chetty, David Grusky, et al. The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940. Science  28 Apr. 2017:
Vol. 356, Issue 6336, pp. 398-406
DOI: 10.1126/science.aal4617.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6336/398.full

# n-soc: what differentiates human from machine (at least for now)

<< Growth in the first industrial revolution was driven by engineering, the second through electricity and production lines, and the third by technology and information >>

<< As robots increasingly take on manual labor, we will need to foster what differentiates human from machine (at least for now): creativity >>

Itai Palti. Creativity will be the source of our next industrial revolution, not machines. Apr 11, 2017.

https://qz.com/954338/creativity-will-be-the-source-of-our-next-industrial-revolution-not-machines/

# s-percept: dark perceptions inspired by (quasi-stochastic) clouds

<< "The Scream" is globally famous but there are several different hypotheses as to its inspiration >>

<< The first version of "The Scream" was released in 1893. It depicts a dark humanlike figure clutching its head in apparent horror against the backdrop of a swirling, red-orange sky >>

<< In 2004, American astronomers theorised that Munch had painted a sky brightly coloured by particle pollution from the 1883 Krakatoa volcanic eruption >>

<< But the new paper, presented at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, [Helene Muri, a researcher at the University of Oslo] said he more likely depicted a rare sighting of "mother-of-pearl" clouds over Oslo >>

Mariette  Le  Roux. Weird clouds may have inspired 'The Scream':  scientists. Apr. 24,  2017.

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-04-weird-clouds-haveinspired-scientists.html

also:

quasi-stochastic poetry

http://inkpi.blogspot.it/

# s-ecol: living in hypoxic conditions (among Heterocephalus glaber)

<< Naked mole-rats live in large colonies deep underground in hypoxic conditions >>

AA << found that these animals fuel anaerobic glycolysis with fructose by a rewired pathway that avoids tissue damage >>

Thomas J. Park, Jane Reznick, et al. Fructose-driven glycolysis supports anoxia resistance in the naked mole-rat. Science.  21 Apr. 2017 Vol. 356  Issue 6335 pp.307-311 DOI: 10.1126/science.aab3896

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6335/307

<< Ignore the whiskers and teeth - these are plants >>

Thomas Park. Naked mole-rats 'turn into plants' when oxygen is low. Apr. 20, 2017

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170420141844.htm

# s-gst: concerning a FPUT problem

<< In physics, the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou (FPUT) problem—which found that certain nonlinear systems do not disperse their energy, but rather return to their initial excited states—has been a challenge that scientists have tackled repeatedly since 1955. >>

Grove  Potter. Study unravels  long-held Fermi puzzle tied to nonlinear  systems. Apr. 14,  2017.

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-04-unravels-long-held-fermi-puzzle-tied.html

<< As  a  by-product,  we  show how  fluctuations  of  system  quantities,  and  thus  the  distribution  functions,  are influenced  by  the  Hertz  potential.  In  particular,  the  variance  of  the  system's  kinetic energy  probability  density  function  is  reduced  by  a  factor  related  to  the  contact potential >>

Michelle Przedborski, Surajit Sen, and Thad A. Harroun. Fluctuations in Hertz chains at equilibrium. Phys. Rev. E 95, 032903 doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.95.032903  Publ. 6 March 2017

https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.95.032903

# s-phys: hinting at the bizarreness to come ...

<< "That's what most things that we're used to do," said Forbes [Michael McNeil Forbes], hinting at the bizarreness to come. "With negative mass, if you push something, it accelerates toward you." >>

Eric Sorensen. Physicists create 'negative mass'. Apr. 17, 2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-04-physicists-negative-mass.html

<< The experimental findings (..) demonstrating that the emerging features — shock waves, soliton trains, self-trapping, etc. — originate from a modified dispersion >>

M. A. Khamehchi, Khalid Hossain, et al. Negative-Mass Hydrodynamics in a Spin-Orbit–Coupled Bose-Einstein Condensate. Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 155301 – Publ. 10 Apr. 2017. doi 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.155301

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.155301

# s-evol: chaotic self-assembly to evolve prebiotic systems

<< chaotic thermal convection may play a previously unappreciated role in mediating surface-catalyzed synthesis in the prebiotic milieu >>

Aashish Priye, Yuncheng Yu, et al. Synchronized chaotic targeting and acceleration of surface chemistry in prebiotic hydrothermal microenvironments. PNAS vol. 114 no. 6, pp:1275–1280 doi:10.1073/pnas.1612924114

http://m.pnas.org/content/114/6/1275

Drew Thompson. Chaotic flows and the origin of life. April 14, 2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-04-chaotic-life.html