Scripps Ranch Fire

Scripps Ranch, San Diego, California, is an upscale neighborhood within the City of San Diego. The October 2003 Cedar Fire destroyed the southern part burning over 300 homes. The photograph shows the tremendous force of wildfires. These fires required substantial amounts of manpower, a large and varied equipment inventory, and quick-response air support to successfully contain and extinguish.

In this photograph of the Scripps Ranch fire you can see the Grim Reaper smiling within the smoke and flames.

 

Credit: Michael Campbell
Scripps Ranch,Cedar Fire,wildfire,fire,Grimm Reaper

The Large Hadron Collider/ATLAS at CERN

ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) is one of the six particle detector experiments (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, TOTEM, LHCb, and LHCf) currently being constructed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is a particle accelerator and collider located at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland (46°14_N, 6°03_E). Currently under construction, the LHC is scheduled to begin operation in May 2008 and ATLAS in mid-2008. When completed, ATLAS will be 46 metres long and 25 metres in diameter, and will weigh about 7,000 tonnes.

The LHC is expected to become the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator. The LHC is being funded and built in collaboration with over 2,000 scientists and engineers at 165 universities and laboratories in 35 countries.

When activated, it is hoped that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson — often dubbed the God Particle — the observation of which could confirm the predictions and ‘missing links’ in the Standard Model of physics, and explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory which seeks to unify three of the four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why the remaining force, gravitation, is so weak compared to the other three forces.

 

Credit: CERN.

SciTechLab’s QuickGuide Series: Using Pingbacks and Trackbacks

	Pingbacks and Trackbacks By Robert Reuss December 3, 2007
	Pingbacks     To use pingbacks:       1)   Turn your blog-entry’s pingback feature on.       2)   Include an ordinary link on the blog-entry back to the other site.       3)   Publish your blog-entry.   Trackbacks     To use trackbacks:       1)   Find and copy the special Trackback URL on the other site.       2)   Paste the Trackback URL into the Trackback Box on the blog-entry composing form.       3)   Publish your blog-entry.
	Pingbacks and trackbacks are simply methods for one blogger to give another blogger credit and let them know their blog has been useful. As a whole, they are called linkbacks. Linkbacks are a way to get your blog a wider audience.
	Lets say I’m reading Today’s Stem Cell Research (TSCR) blog (left) and I use information from the entry “Boston University Successfully Treats Amyloidosis Patients Using A Stem Cell Procedure.” If I write on my, blog SciTechLab (below), about how five of 17 amyloidosis patients who received a second round of treatment had a complete remission from their initial treatment and I want to let the TSCR blog’s author know I used some information from TSCR, I would use either a trackback or a pingback.
	Pingbacks Pingbacks are the easiest to use. The title of my entry “Amyloidosis patients benefits from a second round of treatment” has a standard hyperlink, "http://www.stemnews.com/archives/ stem-cell-research.html," to TSCR’s blog entry: . When I posted the entry, I checked the enable pingback box on my entry. To use a pingback, I do not have to do anything else! The blogging software automatically sends the pingback-signal to TSCR. Kool!
	On SSCR’s end the software will automatically check for the existence of a live link back to SSCR’s site on my SciTechLab blog. If a live link is found and TSCR has pings activated, then TSCR will adds a link back to my SciTechLab blog beneath its blog-entry. I have successfully pinged TSCR.
	Trackbacks If you want to use trackbacks, you would need to search for a special link called a trackback link or trackback URL and copy the link’s URL address.
	These links are usually located just below a blog-entry. You’ll find two forms of trackbacks. Shown above is the hyperlink style. This looks like a regular link. To copy the URL address, just right-click it. Below is a trackback link that is written in plain text style. Copy the URL address (https://scitechlab.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/scitechlabs-quickguide-series-using pingbacks-and-trackbacks/trackback/) just as you would any text.
	Once you have copied the trackback URL, the URL needs to be pasted into the trackback box that is on your bloging site’s "Write Post Panel."
	Now post the blog-entry. After the entry has been posted, your blog server software will send the trackback-signal to my SciTechLab blog site which will then add a link back to your blog beneath the SciTechLab blog entry. Note: Many sites disabled trackbacks (but not pingbacks) because of their susceptibility to spam because unlike pingbacks, a live link isn’t needed.
	Some Useful Links: WordPress Trackback Tutorial All About Trackbacks and Pingbacks with WordPress
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