1,048 research outputs found
The Freedom of Information Act Reimagined: Lawmaking, Transparency, and National Security In Twenty-First-Century America
When it was originally passed in the United States in 1966, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was the broadest and most comprehensive freedom of information law in the world. Based on the idea that the American people have a right to know about the inner workings of their government, FOIA allowed anyone in the country to request and obtain access to a wide variety of records held by federal agencies. Over the past half century, the law has been used by journalists and other concerned citizens to expose countless instances of waste, fraud, and mismanagement in government. However, half a century after it was originally created, FOIA no longer seems to be working as intended, as evidence suggests that the government is releasing less information to the public than ever before. This project examines FOIA’s development over the past 50 years, with a particular focus on three recent updates to the law that initially seemed to fix its problems but ultimately appear to have been ineffective. Why is a law that once worked so well to increase transparency no longer doing so? And what are the consequences of a more secretive government? Three explanations for the law’s recent shortcomings are discussed and analyzed
Biophysical Measurements of Cells, Microtubules, and DNA with an Atomic Force Microscope
Atomic force microscopes (AFMs) are ubiquitous in research laboratories and
have recently been priced for use in teaching laboratories. Here we review
several AFM platforms (Dimension 3000 by Digital Instruments, EasyScan2 by
Nanosurf, ezAFM by Nanomagnetics, and TKAFM by Thorlabs) and describe various
biophysical experiments that could be done in the teaching laboratory using
these instruments. In particular, we focus on experiments that image biological
materials and quantify biophysical parameters: 1) imaging cells to determine
membrane tension, 2) imaging microtubules to determine their persistence
length, 3) imaging the random walk of DNA molecules to determine their contour
length, and 4) imaging stretched DNA molecules to measure the tensional force.Comment: 29 page preprint, 7 figures, 1 tabl
Formate Over-Oxidation Limits Industrialization of Glycerol Oxidation Paired with Carbon Dioxide Reduction to Formate
Bounds on Lorentz and CPT Violation from the Earth-Ionosphere Cavity
Electromagnetic resonant cavities form the basis of many tests of Lorentz
invariance involving photons. The effects of some forms of Lorentz violation
scale with cavity size. We investigate possible signals of violations in the
naturally occurring resonances formed in the Earth-ionosphere cavity.
Comparison with observed resonances places the first terrestrial constraints on
coefficients associated with dimension-three Lorentz-violating operators at the
level of 10^{-20} GeV.Comment: 8 pages REVTe
Scanning X-ray Diffraction Microscopy for Diamond Quantum Sensing
Understanding nano- and micro-scale crystal strain in CVD diamond is crucial
to the advancement of diamond quantum technologies. In particular, the presence
of such strain and its characterization present a challenge to diamond-based
quantum sensing and information applications -- as well as for future dark
matter detectors where directional information of incoming particles is encoded
in crystal strain. Here, we exploit nanofocused scanning X-ray diffraction
microscopy to quantitatively measure crystal deformation from growth defects in
CVD diamond with high spatial and strain resolution. Combining information from
multiple Bragg angles allows stereoscopic three-dimensional reconstruction of
strained volumes; the diffraction results are validated via comparison to
optical measurements of the strain tensor based on spin-state-dependent
spectroscopy of ensembles of nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in the diamond. Our
results open a path towards directional detection of dark matter via X-ray
measurement of crystal strain, and provide a new tool for diamond growth
analysis and improvement of defect-based sensing.Comment: 15 pages, 17 figures (incl. Supplemental Material
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