China's Xinjiang

Apple will investigate the cause of a Chinese woman's death, the company confirmed to Reuters on Monday.

Last week, Ma Ailun, a 23-year-old woman from China's Xinjiang region, was allegedly electrocuted when she answered a call on her iPhone 5 while it was charging, according to the China-based Xinhua news agency.

In an e-mailed statement to Reuters on Monday, an Apple spokesperson said the company is "deeply saddened to learn of this tragic incident and offer our condolences to the Ma family." Apple "will fully investigate and cooperate with authorities in this matter," the company told Reuters.

Reports of malfunctioning smartphones have cropped up from time to time. Occasionally, people will post pictures of a burnt smartphone or burns they got when handling a device. In some cases, however, the reason for the problem is not the device itself.

It's not clear yet exactly what may have caused Ma's death.

Sleep Technology

Laser Bloom
“The latest device to fascinate the technical community is the optical maser, or, as it is now often called, the laser. By conservative estimate about 500 research groups are engaged in laser development and exploitation in the U.S. alone. Much of this effort is directed toward the use of laser beams in communication systems. The amount of information that can be carried by a communication channel is proportional to its frequency, and in principle the visible region of the spectrum between the wavelengths of 4,000 and 7,000 angstrom units could accommodate 80 million television channels. —Arthur L. Schawlow”

The author shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics.

True or False?
“A warning against the increasing and largely unrestricted application of lie-detector techniques in business and industry has been issued by a psychiatrist and a psychologist at the University of Virginia. The polygraph merely measures involuntary responses. It cannot determine whether the response was stimulated by conscious deception or by a factor which might be unconsciously motivated. Yet an examiner usually seeks to impress the subject with the idea that the machine ‘can't be beat’ and so to encourage confessions, he ‘uses deception in his effort to detect deception.’ The authors conclude that lie-detector tests ‘should be carefully and continually scrutinized, lest we find that George Orwell's 1984 is upon us.’”

July 1913

Eve of War
“Germany has devoted most time, money, and skilled research to the development of the various types of the dirigible; France, to that of the aeroplane, or avion, in all its forms. A similar comparison as to aeroplanes and trained pilots shows France to be much superior to Germany; and it is also stated that though the French machines are frailer looking, they are much better constructed than the German ones, which are still too heavy. Obviously, then, in case of war there would be a contest between German dirigibles and French aeroplanes—like battleships and torpedo boats.”

For a slide show on weapons and warfare from our archives of 1913, see www.ScientificAmerican.com/jul2013/warfare

July 1863

Salt Mine
“It appears from scientific investigation that the salt deposit at New Iberia, Louisiana, is of the most extensive and wonderful description. For vastness and purity it is unequaled on the globe. One account says: ‘Imagine, if you can, the granite quarry of Massachusetts or the marble quarry of Vermont to be solid deposits of pure rock salt, clean and transparent as so much clear white ice, in one solid, inexhaustible mass, underlying the earth.’”

The rock salt mine on Avery Island, Louisiana, yielded more than 10,000 tons of salt for the Confederacy.

Sleep Technology
“The engraving represents an improved mode of constructing spring beds; Letters Patent have been granted. In point of economy, ease, and durability these beds are unsurpassed. It is confidently asserted that they will last fifty years.”

Letter from Mr. Fix-It
“Messrs. Editors: All machinery requires attention, and occasional ‘fixing’; and the women are not good at such work. Every now and then it is: ‘John, I wish you would look at that sewing machine’; or ‘John, that wringer has something wrong about it’; and so on. Well, the only way to meet that is to buy the very best machinery; you will then have little trouble. Some churls may say: ‘I won't buy so-and-so; what else have the women got to do? Let them work!’ All I have to say to such is that I hate to see the women of the family borne down with the fatigue of severe labor; and if it is a little troublesome to fix machinery for them, I for one am content to endure that trouble. —John Gray”

 

You are good, Why are you not a physicist

Nobel Laureate Steven Chu with young researcher Bettina Keller. Photo by Kathleen Raven

On the last day of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, the prize winners, young researchers and journalists mingled together on a boat ride to Mainau Island. During this two-hour ride, I witnessed a conversation take place between young researcher Bettina Keller and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1997). The brief conversation covered everything from a mini-history of the famous E=mc2 equation to quantum physics. After the Lindau meeting ended on July 5, I emailed Dr. Keller to ask her about the experience.

On Friday’s boat trip to Mainau Island, you approached Nobel Laureate Steven Chu to talk with him. Why?

I had no particular question in mind. During the meeting, Prof. Chu struck me as a person who argues in a very clear fashion without ever losing a sense of irony and humor. Also he has a very fascinating career. He developed laser-cooling of atoms which — although based on a easy-to-understand principle — still seems like a magic trick to me. Later he turned to biophysics which is close to my field of research. And, of course, he was the U.S. Secretary of Energy. There is hardly a way that a conversation with him could turn out to be boring.

What main idea / feeling / inspiration did you take away from your talk with Chu?

I really liked what he explained to me about the electron radius (or rather its absence) and how theoreticians deal with this. This showed to me how incomplete and to some extent contradictory the physical understanding of our world still is. I think these puzzles might very well be gateways to a new and different conception of the world.

At one point, Chu turned to you and said something along the lines of: “Hey, you are good — why are you not a physicist?”  And what is your answer?

I replied that I am currently a postdoc in the mathematics department. You see, there is this not entirely serious notion that there is a hierarchy among the sciences. For a cartoon illustration see http://xkcd.com/435/.

What was the highlight of your trip to the Lindau meeting?

The highlights definitely were the personal interactions and discussions with the Nobel Laureates. To see their enthusiasm for science, their fascination with their field of research, and (sometimes) their surprise that the discoveries they made were actually useful was very inspiring. During the talks and during the discussion, the history of natural sciences from about shortly after the second world war until today unfolded. I only realized during the Lindau meeting how much the Nobel prizes are based on each other and refer to each other.

How did this trip change your research path or did it change anything?

The trip is only a week ago — it’s hard to tell what influence it will have in the long run. It definitely motivated me (and also many other participants) to go on with science.

Related:

Behind the Greatest Experiments: Basic Research
Chemistry and diversity
Unity and diversity
Videos with a personality, flow and message
Cataloging the impact of Lindau meetings
Chemistry and physics: one needs the other
A receding horizon, now within reach
The GPCR symphony
The Blurry Line Between Small and Quantum Small
Supramolecular chemistry – Moving away from synthesis and toward design
Imaging the near invisible with TEM: a master class
Steven Chu talks innovation, energy, climate change and awareness
Avram Hershko’s lessons for doing good science
Energy storage, rare metals and the next ice age
All our hopes and fears: Why we need psychologists at Lindau
Ada Yonath and the Female Question

And see our In-Depth Report and the 30 Under 30 series on the main site.

This blog post originates from the Lindau Nobel Online Community, the interactive forum of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. The 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, dedicated to chemistry, is held in Lindau, Germany, from 30 June to 5 July 2013. 35 Nobel Laureates will congregate to meet more than 600 young researchers from approximately 80 countries.

Kathleen Raven is part of the official blog team. Please find all of her postings on the Community blog.