Science: Photogenic atoms and addicted doctors

Howard Markel has written a book, An Anatomy of Addiction, tracing the story of how two famous 19th century physicians, Sigmund Freud and William Halstad, both got themselves addicted to cocaine. This may have initially been done as a noble gesture of willingness to experiment on themselves, in the name of science. But once they became addicted, it did the opposite of furthering science. The properties of cocaine were not well understood in their day, nor was there a general grasp of biological addiction to a substance. In fact, the word "addiction" as we use it came into being in their day, derived from an ancient term for slave or slavery. Source: Science Friday online, accessed August 18, 2012 Science Item #2: Eric Streed and his colleagues in the Kielpinski group in Brisbane have used a photon-absorption technique to take a picture of a single atom, and they tell us this is a first (Nature Communications, July 2012) The atom, ytterbium in ionic form, was suspended by itself in a vacuum. For anyone who might say, "So what?" the researchers write, "The absorption of photons by single atoms is of immediate interest for quantum information processing." So there. We can only say that there may be times when a science reporter doesn't actually grasp the subject being reported well enough to spell out how you can use this breakthrough in your basement at home. (the tip for this also came from Science Friday)