Happy Birthday, Internet
A QUANTUM OF SCIENCEForty years ago today, the first message was sent on what would become "the internet."The year was 1969. It was the years of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The average computer was the size of a Buick. The Department of Defense wanted a way to communicate in realtime across great distances with multiple sites simultaneously. And at the Advanced Research Projects Agency, someone decided they needed something called a "network."Major communications companies were invited to bid on the project. IBM and Bell both declined. They could see no future in the technology. Finally a small company called BBN Technol

All Hail the Robot Armada!
A QUANTUM OF SCIENCEIn the future, space exploration of distant worlds will be carried out not by humans, nor even by human-guided robots, but by robot-guided-robots. Wolfgang Fink, visiting professor at California Institute of Technology, predicts a day when small, expendable robot teams would make the trek to Mars or Titan and explore independently, using generalized instructions and flexible programming to search extraterrestrial landscape in much the same way that astronauts have explored the surface of the moon.All hall the Robot Armada!For more information:

Airport liquid screening
A QUANTUM OF SCIENCESoon you may be able to bring liquids on planes again thanks to a new spectroscopy techniqueSince 2006 air travelers have been unable to bring liquids on board with them. Now a group of physicists from Germany may have found a way to sort the explosive liquids that airport security can’t currently detect from your bottle of Evian.How does it work? Liquids are examined with a new form of spectroscopy known as Hilbert spectroscopy. Where previous methods used electromagnetic waves passing through a liquid to attempt to identify it – without success – Hilbert spectroscopy uses multiple wavelengths over a

FLU ATTACK!!!
This is quite possibly the best video ever made showing exactly how the flu virus gets into your body and makes a gajillion copies of itself at your expense. You thought the movie theatre scene in "Outbreak" was bad? This is three minutes and thirty-nine seconds of pure infectious delight.Recommended viewing times: while healthy, not in a crowded place, and *before* lunch.How A Virus Invades Your Body (NPR)© AQOS / P. Smalley (2009)Reproduction with attribution is appreciation

Gene therapy brings the light to human eyes
A QUANTUM OF SCIENCEGene therapy delivers on promise of better sight for congenital degenerative eye disorderA recent AQOS post described the landmark success of gene therapy in curing congenital color-blindness in monkeys – the first primate study to achieve that success. Now, researchers have concluded a two-year study following the effects of similar gene therapy treatments for a congenital degenerative eye condition... in humans.Twelve human volunteers with a condition known as Leber's congenital amaurosis agreed to be gi