Ongoing important Science news thread

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by photon

On one of the deeper science forums I frequent had a thread about this (though not with the more recent data) and a few actual cosmologists post there, and their thoughts were that the first go-round of this dark-flow wasn't an actual phenomenon but just bad statistics / analysis.

Now that they've got more data it'll be interesting to see the reaction once they read the published paper.

Would you mind my asking what some of the better science forums you frequent are? I'd be very interested to read and learn from something like that.

[photon]

http://www.bautforum.com is pretty good. And http://www.physicsforums.com I don't read consistently but if there's something specific I often search there and find good threads.

The science forum on JREF is great (http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=5), there's some actual cosmologists and climate scientists and such that post there, I find their threads on cosmology and climate change awesome, the discussions usually stay very focused and even when heated still have content.

[troutman]

www.planetarysociety.org

www.jpl.nasa.gov

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/

http://www.realclimate.org/

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php

http://www.quackwatch.org/

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/

[JohnnyB]

Thanks to you both for those.

[underGRADFlame]

Originally Posted by photon

The science forum on JREF is great (http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=5), there's some actual cosmologists and climate scientists and such that post there, I find their threads on cosmology and climate change awesome, the discussions usually stay very focused and even when heated still have content.

Wow I just read through one thread and it is so far above my head I can't see it anymore.

[photon]

I know eh! Once sol invictus or edd or ben_m or Ziggurat get involved in a physics thread things get hard fast. But it's great because if you ask good questions they will give very good answers.

I've asked questions that took me a long time to really understand or just appreciate the answer.

[ricosuave]

Originally Posted by Thor

Forgot to post this last week, but its a very provocative idea in astro physics.

http://news.discovery.com/space/dark-flow-universe.html

ugh! my brain!

[SebC]

Missing 90% of the universe FOUND!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...tant-universe/

[Knut]

http://technology.canoe.ca/2010/03/26/13366796-qmi.html

Man's $765 Dollar Camera/Balloon system takes amazing photos of space from the stratosphere. NASA interested.

[photon]

LOL at the label on the camera.. "If found please call..." "HARMLESS SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT".

Cause you know if this landed in almost anywhere they'd call the bomb squad.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Hesla

http://technology.canoe.ca/2010/03/26/13366796-qmi.html

Man's $765 Dollar Camera/Balloon system takes amazing photos of space from the stratosphere. NASA interested.

Haha, I almost knew it was going to be Cannon... I bet he's using CHDK (basically, powerful custom firmware for Cannon). I knew about people using it for kite aerial photography. This guy has obviously take it to the next level.

[onetwo_threefour]

NM... Found what I was asking for...

[yads]

Moral judgment can be affected by magnetic pulse

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...25304448&ps=rs

[Thor]

Our Universe at Home Within a Larger Universe? So Suggests Physicist's Wormhole Research

ScienceDaily (Apr. 7, 2010) — Could our universe be located within the interior of a wormhole which itself is part of a black hole that lies within a much larger universe?

Such a scenario in which the universe is born from inside a wormhole (also called an Einstein-Rosen Bridge) is suggested in a paper from Indiana University theoretical physicist Nikodem Poplawski in Physics Letters B. The final version of the paper was available online March 29 and will be published in the journal edition April 12.

Einstein-Rosen bridges like the one visualized above have never been observed in nature, but they provide theoretical physicists and cosmologists with solutions in general relativity by combining models of black holes and white holes. (Credit: Image courtesy of Indiana University)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0406172648.htm

[Jetsfan]

Originally Posted by Thor

Our Universe at Home Within a Larger Universe? So Suggests Physicist's Wormhole Research




Einstein-Rosen bridges like the one visualized above have never been observed in nature, but they provide theoretical physicists and cosmologists with solutions in general relativity by combining models of black holes and white holes. (Credit: Image courtesy of Indiana University)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0406172648.htm

This is really interesting.

If our universe really does exist at the centre of a black hole in another universe this may provide a clue to the fate of our universe.

Stephen Hawking proposed that black holes were not entirely black. They emit radiation. The energy that produces the radiation comes from the mass of the black hole. As the radiation is emitted, the black hole loses mass. The black hole emits more radiation the smaller it gets. In effect, a black hole evaporates more quickly as it shrinks.

http://www.universetoday.com/guide-t...ck-hole-facts/

If the black hole that our universe is located in evaporates that could explain why the expansion of our universe is speeding up.

That means that the 100 billion or so galaxies we can now see though our telescopes will zip out of range, one by one. Tens of billions of years from now, the Milky Way will be the only galaxy we're directly aware of (other nearby galaxies, including the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Andromeda galaxy, will have drifted into, and merged with, the Milky Way).

By then the sun will have shrunk to a white dwarf, giving little light and even less heat to whatever is left of Earth, and entered a long, lingering death that could last 100 trillion years—or a thousand times longer than the cosmos has existed to date. The same will happen to most other stars, although a few will end their lives as blazing supernovas. Finally, though, all that will be left in the cosmos will be black holes, the burnt-out cinders of stars and the dead husks of planets. The universe will be cold and black. But that's not the end, according to University of Michigan astrophysicist Fred Adams. An expert on the fate of the cosmos and co-author with Greg Laughlin of The Five Ages of the Universe (Touchstone Books; 2000), Adams predicts that all this dead matter will eventually collapse into black holes. By the time the universe is 1 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years old, the black holes themselves will disintegrate into stray particles, which will bind loosely to form individual "atoms" larger than the size of today's universe. Eventually, even these will decay, leaving a featureless, infinitely large void. And that will be that—unless, of course, whatever inconceivable event that launched the original Big Bang should recur, and the ultimate free lunch is served once more.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html


Our universe may end by ripping itself apart just like a drop of water evaporates on a hot surface.

[photon]

http://gizmodo.com/5513783/the-world...hed-this-video

[Thor]

I wish we still had Carl around, the man was a poet and a brilliant thinker.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Jetsfan

This is really interesting.

If our universe really does exist at the centre of a black hole in another universe this may provide a clue to the fate of our universe.

Stephen Hawking proposed that black holes were not entirely black. They emit radiation. The energy that produces the radiation comes from the mass of the black hole. As the radiation is emitted, the black hole loses mass. The black hole emits more radiation the smaller it gets. In effect, a black hole evaporates more quickly as it shrinks.

http://www.universetoday.com/guide-t...ck-hole-facts/

If the black hole that our universe is located in evaporates that could explain why the expansion of our universe is speeding up.

That means that the 100 billion or so galaxies we can now see though our telescopes will zip out of range, one by one. Tens of billions of years from now, the Milky Way will be the only galaxy we're directly aware of (other nearby galaxies, including the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Andromeda galaxy, will have drifted into, and merged with, the Milky Way).

By then the sun will have shrunk to a white dwarf, giving little light and even less heat to whatever is left of Earth, and entered a long, lingering death that could last 100 trillion years—or a thousand times longer than the cosmos has existed to date. The same will happen to most other stars, although a few will end their lives as blazing supernovas. Finally, though, all that will be left in the cosmos will be black holes, the burnt-out cinders of stars and the dead husks of planets. The universe will be cold and black. But that's not the end, according to University of Michigan astrophysicist Fred Adams. An expert on the fate of the cosmos and co-author with Greg Laughlin of The Five Ages of the Universe (Touchstone Books; 2000), Adams predicts that all this dead matter will eventually collapse into black holes. By the time the universe is 1 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years old, the black holes themselves will disintegrate into stray particles, which will bind loosely to form individual "atoms" larger than the size of today's universe. Eventually, even these will decay, leaving a featureless, infinitely large void. And that will be that—unless, of course, whatever inconceivable event that launched the original Big Bang should recur, and the ultimate free lunch is served once more.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html


Our universe may end by ripping itself apart just like a drop of water evaporates on a hot surface.

Hold me!

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Thor

I wish we still had Carl around, the man was a poet and a brilliant thinker.

Carl was also romantic (dedication to his wife):

For Ann Druyan:
In the vastness of space and the immensity of time,
it is my joy to share
a planet and an epoch with Annie.

Her thoughts after his death (this is humanism in a nut-shell):

When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. . . . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. . . . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. . . . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful. . . . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.
Copyright ©2003 Ann Druyan

[peter12]

I never saw the attachment so many have to Carl Sagan. He was a popular scientist, not someone I would look up to as a poetic hero.