Physicists know that anti-matter is the electrical opposite of the elements we know and use; but they don't know why there is more matter than anti-matter.

 

Dr. Helen Quinn is a researcher and professor of physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, where her studies have focused in particle interations and the behaviors of quarks.

 

Even though we may tend to think of the universe as being mostly vast expanses of empty space, Quinn says that's not really true, so there's no place any extra antimatter could be hiding.

 

Looping eruptions on the Sun, like this one (right)  on July 24, 1999, create antimatter. Earth is shown for size comparison.

 

Science fiction has long speculated about the possibility of using some kind of matter-antimatter reactor as a means of propulsion for spacecraft. Quinn says for that to become a reality, there is one huge problem that would have to be overcome first.

Researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center developed the sketch (below) of a hypothetical antimatter rocket of the future. 

 

Profanity on the airwaves is outlawed, and subject to steep fines, at least some of the time. But why do these forbidden words carry such an emotional charge?

  

Steven Pinker is author of seven books, including The Blank Slate. He is a professor at Harvard University. His new book, The Stuff of Thought, tackles the wide world of semantics, and how they can reveal the truth about human nature.

 

Pinker says he wrote his latest book to explore and explain the links between the ways we speak and the thoughts and feelings that shape that speech.

No matter what language or culture one examines, says Pinker, the same general types of linguistic taboos can be found.

 

California's 18^th century railroad barons originated the corporate culture that dominates the modern business landscape today.

 

On Friday, November 7^th, Santa Rosa Junior College will present Stanford University history professor Richard White speaking on "The Men in the Octopus Suit: Corporations and the Creation of California."  The event will take place in the Newman Auditorium with a reception following in the Doyle Library. For more information, click here.

 Professor White is widely regarded as one of the nation's leading scholars in three related fields: the American West, Native American history and environmental history. In addition to his forthcoming work on California's railroad barons, he  is the author of five books, including The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republic in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, which was named a finalist for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize. Among other honors, he is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.

White has been on the faculty  at Stanford University since 1998, but he says the school's namesake was not highly regarded by his contemporaries, despite Stanford's grand political ambitions.

 

 

The emerging lesson of the war in Iraq, says critic Michael Schwartz, is that foreign policy and energy policy cannot be separated.

In this analysis, commentator Michael Schwartz demolishes the myths used to sell the U.S. public the idea of an endless "war on terror" centered in Iraq, and shows how the real U.S. interests in Iraq have been rooted in the geopolitics of oil and the expansion of a neoliberal economic model in the Middle East.

Michael Schwartz, Professor of Sociology and Faculty Director of the Undergraduate College of Global Studies at Stony Brook University has written extensively on the war in Iraq at sites including TomDispatch, ZNet; Asia Times and Mother Jones, and in many print outlets, including Contexts, Against the Current, and Z Magazine.   

 

The dynamics of the debate  and speculation over the war in Iraq changed during the past year, as defenders of the administration pointed to what they called the success of the "surge," the boost in troop levels in 2007, in damping down the levels of violence there. Schwartz says that comparative quiet was a byproduct of widespread factional cleansing that was actually enabled by the military surge.

The election of Barack Obama as America's next president has boosted hope that he will take actions to expediently wind down the Iraq war. Schwartz cautions, however, that  as a candidate, Obama's position papers did not show a marked break from the polices that got us into the war.

 

 

While the presidential election yesterday was a sweeping victory for Democrats from the top of the ticket on down, many local races in the north bay were much more narrowly decided.

 

 

 

To view the complete list of Sonoma County's unofficial election results, click here.

 For the statewide California election results, click here.