Does Time Exist as a Dimension?

Photo: Google Images

Intuition tells us time is a dimension and we use it that way in equations, but we may be wrong.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The concept of time as a way to measure the duration of events is not only deeply intuitive, it also plays an important role in our mathematical descriptions of physical systems. For instance, we define an object’s speed as its displacement per a given time. But some researchers theorize that this Newtonian idea of time as an absolute quantity that flows on its own, along with the idea that time is the fourth dimension of spacetime, are incorrect. They propose to replace these concepts of time with a view that corresponds more accurately to the physical world: time as a measure of the numerical order of change.

In two recent papers (one published and one to be published) in Physics Essays, Amrit Sorli, Davide Fiscaletti, and Dusan Klinar from the Scientific Research Centre Bistra in Ptuj, Slovenia, have described in more detail what this means.

No time dimension

They begin by explaining how we usually assume that time is an absolute physical quantity that plays the role of the independent variable (time, t, is often the x-axis on graphs that show the evolution of a physical system). But, as they note, we never really measure t. What we do measure is an object’s frequency, speed, etc. In other words, what experimentally exists are the motion of an object and the tick of a clock, and we compare the object’s motion to the tick of a clock to measure the object’s frequency, speed, etc. By itself, t has only a mathematical value, and no primary physical existence.

This view doesn’t mean that time does not exist, but that time has more to do with space than with the idea of an absolute time. So while 4D spacetime is usually considered to consist of three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, the researchers’ view suggests that it’s more correct to imagine spacetime as four dimensions of space. In other words, as they say, the universe is “timeless.”

Ancient Cave Paintings Found in China

 These cave paintings are over 12,000 years old.

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Video.

Look Out Interstellar Space. Here Come the Voyager Probes.

Credit : NASA

It is amazing the Voyager probes still work after 30 years in space.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2011) — More than 30 years after they left Earth, NASA's twin Voyager probes are now at the edge of the solar system. Not only that, they're still working. And with each passing day they are beaming back a message that, to scientists, is both unsettling and thrilling.

The message is, "Expect the unexpected."

"It's uncanny," says Ed Stone of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Voyager Project Scientist since 1972. "Voyager 1 and 2 have a knack for making discoveries." Today, April 28, 2011, NASA held a live briefing to reflect on what the Voyager mission has accomplished--and to preview what lies ahead as the probes prepare to enter the realm of interstellar space in our Milky Way galaxy.

The adventure began in the late 1970s when the probes took advantage of a rare alignment of outer planets for an unprecedented Grand Tour. Voyager 1 visited Jupiter and Saturn, while Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. (Voyager 2 is still the only probe to visit Uranus and Neptune.)

When pressed to name the top discoveries from those encounters, Stone pauses, not for lack of material, but rather an embarrassment of riches. "It's so hard to choose," he says.

Stone's partial list includes the discovery of volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io; evidence for an ocean beneath the icy surface of Europa; hints of methane rain on Saturn's moon Titan; the crazily-tipped magnetic poles of Uranus and Neptune; icy geysers on Neptune's moon Triton; planetary winds that blow faster and faster with increasing distance from the sun.

Amazing Tuscaloosa Tornado Video

Amazing Tuscaloosa Tornado Video

Can a star survive a nearby supernova?

Image courtesy of Chandra X-ray Center

Strong evidence indicates a star can survive a nearby supernova.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2011) — Astronomers may now know the cause of an historic supernova explosion that is an important type of object for investigating dark energy in the universe. The discovery, made using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, also provides strong evidence that a star can survive the explosive impact generated when a companion star goes supernova.

The new study examined the remnant of a supernova observed by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in 1572. The object, dubbed Tycho for short, was formed by a Type Ia supernova, a category of stellar explosion useful in measuring astronomical distances because of their reliable brightness. Type Ia supernovas have been used to determine that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, an effect attributed to the prevalence of an invisible, repulsive force throughout space called dark energy.

A team of researchers analyzed a deep Chandra observation of Tycho and found an arc of X-ray emission in the supernova remnant. Evidence supports the conclusion that a shock wave created the arc when a white dwarf exploded and blew material off the surface of a nearby companion star.

"There has been a long-standing question about what causes Type Ia supernovas," said Fangjun Lu of the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. "Because they are used as steady beacons of light across vast distances, it is critical to understand what triggers them."

The Race to the Bottom of the Ocean

Richard Branson and U.S. company compete to be the first to reach the bottom of the sea


The Race to the Bottom of the Ocean

ET Gets Put On Hold

Budget cuts are putting a hold on SETI.

If ET is phoning home, we won't know about it. A key tool in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has been shuttered due to budget cuts.

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a set of 42 radio telescopes near Hat Creek, California, has been searching for alien signals and simultaneously conducting astronomical research since it began operating in 2007.

Now budget cuts have forced the array to suspend operations, halting both kinds of observations.

The array is a partnership between the SETI Institute, based in Mountainview, California, and the University of California, Berkeley. The SETI Institute paid for the array's construction using funds from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and others, while UC Berkeley has been covering the array's $2.5 million yearly operating costs using grants from the National Science Foundation and the state of California. Both sources have now cut back on those grants.

"Today's rough economic and budgetary times have created a temporary problem for the operations of the ATA," SETI Institute CEO Tom Pierson told New Scientist.

Drinking Water From Fog

Credit: Jon Sullivan

A scientist is working on a fog harvesting device to provide drinking water to poor countries.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2011) — In the arid Namib Desert on the west coast of Africa, one type of beetle has found a distinctive way of surviving. When the morning fog rolls in, the Stenocara gracilipes species, also known as the Namib Beetle, collects water droplets on its bumpy back, then lets the moisture roll down into its mouth, allowing it to drink in an area devoid of flowing water.

What nature has developed, Shreerang Chhatre wants to refine, to help the world's poor. Chhatre is an engineer and aspiring entrepreneur at MIT who works on fog harvesting, the deployment of devices that, like the beetle, attract water droplets and corral the runoff. This way, poor villagers could collect clean water near their homes, instead of spending hours carrying water from distant wells or streams. In pursuing the technical and financial sides of his project, Chhatre is simultaneously a doctoral candidate in chemical engineering at MIT; an MBA student at the MIT Sloan School of Management; and a fellow at MIT's Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship...

A fog-harvesting device consists of a fence-like mesh panel, which attracts droplets, connected to receptacles into which water drips. Chhatre has co-authored published papers on the materials used in these devices, and believes he has improved their efficacy. "The technical component of my research is done," Chhatre says. He is pursuing his work at MIT Sloan and the Legatum Center in order to develop a workable business plan for implementing fog-harvesting devices.

Fire Ants Assemble a Super Organism" and Make Raft (video)

 These fire ants are amazing. Here are a couple of videos where they assemble into a raft..

Arachnophobia on Steroids: Jurassic Spider from China

Credit: Image courtesy of University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute

Before arachnophobia sufferers start losing sleep, it is only a fossil.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 22, 2011) — With a leg span of more than five inches, a recently named Jurassic period spider from China is the largest fossil specimen discovered, and one that has modern relatives in tropical climates today.

A research team of KU and Capital Normal University (Beijing) researchers said the spider belongs to the living genus Nephila, or golden orb-weavers. An extremely long range for any animal genus, the nephilids are example of living fossils. Nephilids are the largest web-weaving spiders alive today (body length up to 5 cm, leg span 15 cm) and are common to the tropical and subtropical regions today. This suggests that the paleoclimate of Daohugou, China, where the specimen was found, was probably similarly warm and humid during the Jurassic.

Russian Video of Dead Alien

 This video of an allegedly dead alien found after an explosion in Russia has received over 6 million hits on YouTube since Apr 17, 2011.


video, alien, Russian, dead

Weird Easter Video: Creme That Egg!

 Happy Easter!

Are Anthropogenic Climate Change Believers "Greener" Than Skeptics

The short answer is no. The long answer is more complex.

(Science 2.0)- You might think that those who are skeptical (or downright intransigent) on a CO2 basis for global warming are bigger wasters of energy or greater polluters than those who accept climate science.

Not so.   Skeptics are just as green.   Their reasons may simply be different.

According to the survey of more than 11,000 American adults and nearly 1,000 of their children, Democrats and Republicans differ only slightly when it comes to taking actions to protect the environment, despite great differences in their perceptions of danger related to global warming.

While Democrats were almost twice as likely as Republicans to believe that global warming is a serious problem and a threat to all life on the planet, on average they perform only about 15 percent more “green” actions than Republicans. For example, 65 percent of those surveyed who always vote Republican and 71 percent of those who always vote Democrat said they are actively reducing energy use in their homes.

President Obama is a strong advocate of belief in anthropogenic global warming. He celebrated Earth Day by burning 53,300 gallons of jet fuel.

Earth Deals With Rising CO2 Much Better Than Previously Thought

As CO2 rises, Earth increases its ability to pull carbon from the air.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2011) — Earth may be able to recover from rising carbon dioxide emissions faster than previously thought, according to evidence from a prehistoric event analyzed by a Purdue University-led team.

When faced with high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising temperatures 56 million years ago, Earth increased its ability to pull carbon from the air. This led to a recovery that was quicker than anticipated by many models of the carbon cycle -- though still on the order of tens of thousands of years, said Gabriel Bowen, the associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences who led the study.

"We found that more than half of the added carbon dioxide was pulled from the atmosphere within 30,000 to 40,000 years, which is one-third of the time span previously thought," said Bowen, who also is a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center. "We still don't know exactly where this carbon went, but the evidence suggests it was a much more dynamic response than traditional models represent."

Bowen worked with James Zachos, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to study the end of the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, an approximately 170,000-year-long period of global warming that has many features in common with the world's current situation, he said.

Video: A pod of rare right whales romp off Cape Cod

A pod of rare right whales romp off Cape Cod Friday. (uncut video)

Large deposit of ice found on Mars

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Sapienza University of Rome/Southwest Research Institute

A large deposit of frozen carbon dioxide has been found at Mars' south pole.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2011) — NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered the total amount of atmosphere on Mars changes dramatically as the tilt of the planet's axis varies. This process can affect the stability of liquid water, if it exists on the Martian surface, and increase the frequency and severity of Martian dust storms.

Researchers using the orbiter's ground-penetrating radar identified a large, buried deposit of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice, at the Red Planet's south pole. The scientists suspect that much of this carbon dioxide enters the planet's atmosphere and swells the atmosphere's mass when Mars' tilt increases. The findings are published in the journal Science.

The newly found deposit has a volume similar to Lake Superior's nearly 3,000 cubic miles (about 12,000 cubic kilometers). The deposit holds up to 80 percent as much carbon dioxide as today's Martian atmosphere. Collapse pits caused by dry ice sublimation and other clues suggest the deposit is in a dissipating phase, adding gas to the atmosphere each year. Mars' atmosphere is about 95 percent carbon dioxide, in contrast to Earth's much thicker atmosphere, which is less than .04 percent carbon dioxide.

Video: Fire on the water in Lake Washington

Hydro driver's boat catches fire and explodes. He bails.

Did the Early Universe Have Only One Dimension?

That strange concept is the theory that University at Buffalo physicist Dejan Stojkovic and colleagues proposed last year.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2011) — Did the early universe have just one spatial dimension?

That's the mind-boggling concept at the heart of a theory that University at Buffalo physicist Dejan Stojkovic and colleagues proposed in 2010.

They suggested that the early universe -- which exploded from a single point and was very, very small at first -- was one-dimensional (like a straight line) before expanding to include two dimensions (like a plane) and then three (like the world in which we live today).

The theory, if valid, would address important problems in particle physics.

Now, in a new paper in Physical Review Letters, Stojkovic and Loyola Marymount University physicist Jonas Mureika describe a test that could prove or disprove the "vanishing dimensions" hypothesis.

Because it takes time for light and other waves to travel to Earth, telescopes peering out into space can, essentially, look back into time as they probe the universe's outer reaches.

Gravitational waves can't exist in one- or two-dimensional space. So Stojkovic and Mureika have reasoned that the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a planned international gravitational observatory, should not detect any gravitational waves emanating from the lower-dimensional epochs of the early universe.

Stojkovic, an assistant professor of physics, says the theory of evolving dimensions represents a radical shift from the way we think about the cosmos -- about how our universe came to be.

What Is Fracking? (video)

Did you know the U.S. has the world's largest fossil fuel reserve? It is locked up in shale and we have the technology to retrieve it. There is a downside.

Extracting fossil fuels from shale reserves

Bizarre lizard-like marsupials

The lizard-like marsupials have been discovered by UNSW palaeontologists in Queensland, Australia.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Fossils of bizarre lizard-like, snail-eating marsupials have been discovered by UNSW palaeontologists in an ancient fossil field in the Riversleigh World Heritage area in Queensland. The fossils date back 10 to 17 million years ago.

This ferret-size mammal - now formally named Malleodectes, meaning "hammer-biter "- had an enormous blunt tooth in each side of its upper jaw, says Dr Rick Arena, lead author of the study published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"At first, the function of these teeth was a mystery because we were unaware of any other mammal that had hammer-teeth like this," says Dr Arena, of the UNSW Evolution of Earth & Life Systems Research Group.

That was until co-author Dr Scott Hocknull, of the Queensland Museum, noticed the striking similarities to a modern Australian lizard, the pink-tongued skink (Cyclodomorphus gerrardii).

Pop-Up Solar Charging Stations (video)

 This is an innovative idea to charge up electric vehicles.

What color would alien trees be?

They likely would look black to human eyes according to a paper presented by the University of St. Andrews' Jack O'Malley-James at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Wales.

(FOX Science)- Researchers suggest that vegetation on an alien planet like Tatooine in "Star Wars" might well look black or gray to human eyes. But they probably wouldn’t seem devoid of color to the eyes of the aliens — assuming they have eyes, that is.

The conjecture comes from a paper presented by the University of St. Andrews' Jack O'Malley-James at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Wales. O'Malley-James is working on a Ph.D. project to assess the potential for photosynthetic life in multiple-star systems with different combinations of sunlike stars and red dwarfs.

On Earth, the leaves of plants generally look green because two types of chlorophyll absorb the reddish and bluish wavelengths in the visible-light spectrum. Those red and blue wavelengths drive the photosynthetic process by which plants convert the sun's energy into chemical energy. In contrast, the green wavelengths are reflected into the RGB optical sensors known as our eyes.

Scientists surmise that the birds and bugs may see plants quite differently, with greater sensitivity to different shades of green and the ability to sense ultraviolet wavelengths as well.

O'Malley-James suggests that in different corners of our galaxy, plants could evolve to take advantage of different combinations of wavelengths, depending on the light coming from their parent sun ... or suns. The possibilities become particularly intriguing for a planet in a multiple-star system — like Tatooine, Luke Skywalker's fictional home planet in the "Star Wars" movie saga.

Could a simple injection mitigate the effects of heart attacks and strokes?

Could a simple injection mitigate the effects of heart attacks and strokes? The answer may be a surprising yes. Scientists are now developing it. A single injection of antibody in animals has been shown to be enough to disrupt the molecular process and greatly reduce tissue and organ destruction following ischaemic events.

(PhysOrg.com) -- This weeks Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) will publish a fascinating new milestone achievement in the search for novel clinical therapies to significantly reduce the loss of tissue and organ-functions following the loss of blood supply in widespread and serious human pathologies such as heart attacks (myocardial infarction) and strokes (cerebral ischemia). This new therapy was also shown to significantly improve the outcome of transplant surgery and of any surgical procedure that involves the temporary loss of blood supply.

Medical researchers today held out promise that a simple injection is being developed to limit the devastating consequences of heart attacks and strokes.

Described by the lead researcher as ‘a fascinating new achievement’, work has already begun to translate the research into novel clinical therapies.

The University of Leicester led an international team whose research has been published today in the Early Online Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Professor Wilhelm Schwaeble of the Department of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation at the University of Leicester, initiated and co-ordinated research collaborations with King’s College London, the Medical University of Fukushima, Japan and the State University of New York, to achieve the present breakthrough findings, which were published today in PNAS.

Professor Schwaeble and collaborators identified an enzyme, Mannan Binding Lectin-Associated Serine Protease-2 (MASP-2), that is found in blood and is a key component of the lectin pathway of complement activation, a component of the innate immune system.

New Shocking Japan Tsunaml Video

People literally running for their lives ahead of the Tsunami. The interesting part of the video starts at about the 2:00 mark. Be sure to watch the end.

Japan, tsunami, new video,

Stunning Tornado Video

Massive multi-vortex wedge from Oklahoma - April 14, 2011


Destructive Tornado near Jackson, MS!_April 15, 2011


Leakesville, MS tornado (night) - April 15, 2011

tornado, video,

UFO Video Shot in Shalimar, Florida

Anyone have an idea what is shown on this UFO video?

UFO sighted in Shalimar (VIDEO)

Quantum Teleportation Achieved

Scientists can only teleport quantum information. The Star Trek version is some distance in the future.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have achieved a breakthrough in quantum communications and computing using a teleporter and a paradoxical cat.

The breakthrough is the first-ever transfer, or teleportation, of a particular complex set of quantum information from one point to another, opening the way for high-speed, high-fidelity transmission of large volumes of information, such as quantum encryption keys, via quantum communications networks.

The research was published in the April edition of the journal Science.

Teleportation – the transfer of quantum information from one location to another using normal, "classical" communications - is one of the fundamental quantum communication techniques.

The cat in the equation was not a living, breathing feline but rather "wave packets" of light representing the famous "thought experiment" known as Schrodinger’s Cat. Read more here.

Video: Nanotechnology changing health care from appetite control to cancer

You are going to be hearing more about Nanotechnology in the near future.

 

Modern Medical Marvels

Nanotechnology changing health care from appetite control to cancer video

Did Humans First Learn To Speak In Africa?

A new study provides strong evidence Africa is the birthplace of language.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2011) — Psychologists from The University of Auckland have just published two major studies on the diversity of the world's languages in the journals Science and Nature.

The first study, published in Science by Dr Quentin Atkinson, provides strong evidence for Africa as the birthplace of human language.

An analysis of languages from around the world suggests that, like our genes, human speech originated -- just once -- in sub-Saharan Africa. Atkinson studied the phonemes, or the perceptually distinct units of sound that differentiate words, used in 504 human languages today and found that the number of phonemes is highest in Africa and decreases with increasing distance from Africa.

Railgun Blasts an Aerodynamic Round Seven Kilometers Through A Steel Plate (video)

Wow!

Video: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) - Trailer (HD)

If you enjoyed any of the Planet of the Apes movies, you might find this trailer interesting. It is a prequel where apes rise up after medical experiments make them smarter.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) - Trailer (HD)

China's Ghost Cities (video)

This is very strange.

Is antimatter pushing the universe apart?

The universe is expanding at an accelerating pace. This is very hard for astrophysicists to explain. Gravity should be slowing things down. One possible explanation is antimatter. Matter and antimatter are mutually repulsive; kind of like anti-gravity. There could be antimatter in between the galaxies.

(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1998, scientists discovered that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Currently, the most widely accepted explanation for this observation is the presence of an unidentified dark energy, although several other possibilities have been proposed. One of these alternatives is that some kind of repulsive gravity – or antigravity – is pushing the Universe apart. As a new study shows, general relativity predicts that the gravitational interaction between matter and antimatter is mutually repulsive, and could potentially explain the observed expansion of the Universe without the need for dark energy.

Ever since antimatter was discovered in 1932, scientists have been investigating whether its gravitational behavior is attractive – like normal matter – or repulsive. Although antimatter particles have the opposite electric charge as their associated matter particles, the masses of antimatter and matter particles are exactly equal. Most importantly, the masses are always positive. For this reason, most physicists think that the gravitational behavior of antimatter should always be attractive, as it is for matter. However, the question of whether the gravitational interaction between matter and antimatter is attractive or repulsive so far has no clear answer.

Mars is cooling by 30-40°C every billion years

Credit: JPL/NASA

This is being determined by satellite observations of the composition of the planet's volcanic rocks.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 13, 2011) — The mantle of Mars is possibly cooling by 30-40°C every billion years. Based on satellite observations of the composition of the planet's volcanic rocks, researchers from CNRS and the Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse reached this conclusion after reconstructing for the first time the thermal evolution of the planet over the past 4 billion years. These values indicate that cooling is slower than on Earth (70-100°C per billion years) and highlight the specific nature of our planet, where thermal evolution is affected by plate tectonics. These findings were recently published in the journal Nature.

Veterinarians Try To Make Injured Bald Eagle Fly Again (video)

This is a magnificent bird and it is getting better medical care than I do.


bald eagle, video

Is time travel impossible?

New research points in that direction.

(PhysOrg.com) -- By observing the way that light moves inside a metamaterial, researchers have reconstructed how spacetime has expanded since the Big Bang. The results provide a better understanding of why time moves in only one direction, and also suggest that time travel is impossible.

In their study, electrical engineers Igor Smolyaninov and Yu-Ju Hung from the University of Maryland have built a metamaterial by patterning plastic strips on a gold substrate, which they then illuminated with a laser. Because the mathematics of electromagnetic spaces (which describe the metamaterial) is similar to the mathematics of general relativity (which describe spacetime), the way light moves in the metamaterial is exactly analogous to the path - or “world line” - of a massive particle in (2+1)-dimensional Minkowski spacetime...

The significance of these observations is that the cosmological and the thermodynamic arrows of time coincide, with both of them pointing “forward” (just as we perceive them).

Final resting places for the retiring shuttle fleet are announced by NASA

Final resting places for the retiring shuttle fleet are announced by NASA. Americans will be able to gaze upon them and remember when we had a manned lift program like the Russians and Chinese.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA unveiled the final flight plans for its three retiring space shuttles on Tuesday, assigning two to museums in Washington, DC and California, and keeping the third at its launch and landing site in Florida. A fourth, prototype orbiter will also go to a new home in New York.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the long-awaited news during an employee event held at Kennedy commemorating the 30th anniversary of the space shuttle program. STS-1, the maiden flight for the winged reusable spaceship fleet, lifted off on April 12, 1981.

The announcement means that NASA space shuttles will eventually go on display on both coasts of the U.S., with three along the East Coast. [The Most Memorable Shuttle Missions]

Space shuttle Discovery, NASA’s oldest remaining orbiter and the world’s most flown spacecraft, will be displayed by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum at its Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport.
The shuttle Endeavour, which will launch on its own final mission later this month, will be given to the California Science Center, a department of the State of California, in Los Angeles.
Shuttle Atlantis will remain in Florida to be exhibited at the spaceport’s official visitor complex after launching on the 135th and last mission of NASA’s shuttle program in late June.

Read more here.

Is this the greenest car ever?

It is the Honda Civic GX 4DR and it is powered by natural gas.

(PHYSORG)- The greenest car you've likely never heard of will soon be hitting Honda showrooms across the United States as the Japanese automaker expands sales of its compressed natural gas powered Civic.

Honda has been quietly winning green car awards for more than a decade as it cautiously introduced the Civic GX first to government and business fleet owners and then retail customers in a handful of test markets.

The nationwide retail launch set for this fall comes as US President Barack Obama pushes for wider adoption of fuel-efficient vehicles -- including mandating that all federal cars will need to run on alternative, hybrid or electric power by 2015.

Dolphin stampede! (video)

 This video isn't new, but it is new to me. Enjoy!

Dolphin stampede!

New World Record For Towering Legos (video)

Someone has way too much time on their hands.

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Scientists Turn Blood Cells Into 'Beating' Heart Cells

Unfortunately, the cells are not yet ready for human testing.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2011) — Johns Hopkins scientists have developed a simplified, cheaper, all-purpose method they say can be used by scientists around the globe to more safely turn blood cells into heart cells. The method is virus-free and produces heart cells that beat with nearly 100 percent efficiency, they claim.

"We took the recipe for this process from a complex minestrone to a simple miso soup," says Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and the Kimmel Cancer Center.

Zambidis says, "many scientists previously thought that a nonviral method of inducing blood cells to turn into highly functioning cardiac cells was not within reach, but "we've found a way to do it very efficiently and we want other scientists to test the method in their own labs." However, he cautions that the cells are not yet ready for human testing.

The Tiger Man of Africa

Conservationist risks his life to live with wild tigers.

New Force of Nature Discovered?

Fermilab.jpg

Data from a major US atom smasher lab points in that direction.

(PHYSORG)- Data from a major US atom smasher lab may have revealed a new elementary particle, or potentially a new force of nature that could expand our knowledge of the properties of matter, physicists say.
The science world was abuzz with excitement Wednesday over the findings, which could offer clues to the persistent riddle of mass and how objects obtain it -- one of the most sought-after answers in all of physics.
But experts cautioned that more analysis was needed over the next several months to uncover the true nature of the observation, which comes as part of an ongoing experiment with proton and antiproton collisions to understand the workings of the universe.

"There could be some new force beyond the force that we know," said Giovanni Punzi, a physicist with the international research team that is analyzing the data from the US Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

"If it is confirmed, it could point to a whole new world of interactions," he told AFP

One of the biggest aurora borealis shows in recent years captured on video

This video of the aurora borealis was reportedly hot in and around Kirkenes and Pas National Park bordering Russia. Enjoy!


The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Merged Black Holes Hungrily Devour Surrounding Stars

Credit: NASA / CXC / A. Hobart

Merged black holes Hungrily devour surrounding stars.

(PHYSORG)- A galaxy's core is a busy place, crowded with stars swarming around an enormous black hole. When galaxies collide, it gets even messier as the two black holes spiral toward each other, merging to make an even bigger gravitational monster.

Once it is created, the monster goes on a rampage. The merger kicks the black hole into surrounding stars. There it finds a hearty meal, shredding and swallowing stars at a rapid clip. According to new research by Nick Stone and Avi Loeb (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), upcoming sky surveys might offer astronomers a way to catch a gorging black hole "in the act."

Before the merger, as the two black holes whirl around each other, they stir the galactic center like the blade of a blender. Their strong gravity warps space, sending out ripples known as gravitational waves. When the black holes merge, they emit gravitational waves more strongly in one direction. That inequality kicks the black hole in the opposite direction like a rocket engine.

"That kick is very important. It can shove the black hole toward stars that otherwise would have been at a safe distance," said Stone.

Video: Navy Tests Destructive New Laser Weapon

It works!

Navy, laser, weapon, gun, video,

Study: Premium gas may be a waste of money

If you think you are getting better mileage from premium gas, you may need to reconsider. The mileage boost is much less than the cost increase.

(The Sun)- But an extensive study found premium fuels costing an average of five per cent more than standard fuel delivered just ONE per cent extra performance.

In tests by motoring mag What Car? high-octane premium fuels — including BP Ultimate, Esso Supreme, Tesco Momentum and Total Excellium — performed little or no better than their cheaper equivalents. Read more here.

Richard Branson plans deep sea adventure

The British billionaire announces plans to travel 28,000 feet under the sea.

Researcher Unravels Secret of Ancient Greek Calculating Device

It was designed to calculate the positions of celestial bodies.

(PhysOrg.com) -- It's known as the Antikythera mechanism, a metal gear driven device found over a century ago on a sunken Roman ship, near the island of Antikythera, that for just as many years has had scientists analyzing, scratching their heads and offering suggestions as to its purpose.

Some have called the device the first analog computer; other’s the first mechanical computing device. Either way, the device very clearly demonstrates that the Greeks of 150 to 100 BCE knew far more about gears and calculating machines than had been thought possible just a decade or so ago.

After careful analysis with an x-ray tomography machine which allowed the device to be seen as a series of slices that could then be used to see all the way through the mechanism slice by slice (as is done with the same machine when analyzing organs inside a living human being) researchers, particularly Michael Wright, now of Imperial College, London, have come to believe they have almost a full understanding of what the machines was built to do; and that, was to calculate the position of celestial bodies.

National Geographic brings back gladiators from dead (video)

National Geographic Uncovers Lives of Gladiators

Researchers find "Wassonite" in meteorite

Credit: NASA

What is "Wassonite"? It is a newly discovered mineral formed from only two elements, sulfur and titanium.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 5, 2011) — NASA and co-researchers from the United States, South Korea and Japan have found a new mineral named "Wassonite" in one of the most historically significant meteorites recovered in Antarctica in December 1969.

The new mineral was discovered within the meteorite officially designated Yamato 691 enstatite chondrite. The meteorite was discovered the same year as other landmark meteorites Allende and Murchison and the return of the first Apollo lunar samples. The study of meteorites helps define our understanding of the formation and history of the solar system.

The meteorite likely may have originated from an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Wassonite is among the tiniest, yet most important, minerals identified in the 4.5-billion-year-old sample. The research team, headed by NASA space scientist Keiko Nakamura-Messenger, added the mineral to the list of 4,500 officially approved by the International Mineralogical Association.

Air France Flight 447 plane crash wreckage found deep in Atlantic (video)

 The wreckage is 2.5 miles deep.

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Flight 447 plane crash wreckage

New way to kill off cancer cells

Scientists are developing a drug that will prevent the growth of new blood vessels in tumors. Clinical trials should start next year.

(PHYSORG)- Scientists from the School of Pharmacy at Queen's University Belfast and Almac Discovery Ltd have developed a new treatment for cancer which rather than attacking tumours directly, prevents the growth of new blood vessels in tumours, starving them of oxygen and nutrients, thereby preventing their growth.

Targeting tumour blood vessels is not a new concept, however, this drug attacks the blood vessels using an entirely different pathway and therefore could be useful for treating tumours which don't respond to or which are resistant to current therapies of this type.

Professor Tracy Robson and her research team at Queen's, in collaboration with researchers at Almac Discovery, developed a new drug to disrupt the tumour blood supply. They have demonstrated that this leads to highly effective inhibition of tumour growth in a number of models as reported this month in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Modern Day Investigation Helps Identify Jack the Ripper

New findings in infamous serial murder case.

Cool Astronomy Picture: Stellar Nursery

(Credit: ESO/Manu Mejias)

Via ScienceDaily:

This picture of the star cluster and surrounding nebula NGC 371 was taken using the FORS1 instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.

Saving Bats Could Save Billions

Brown Bat in WV with White-Nose Syndrome

Bats eat huge numbers of insects and prevent agricultural damage.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2011) — Bats in North America are under a two-pronged attack but they are not the only victim -- so is the U.S. economy. Gary McCracken, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, analyzed the economic impact of the loss of bats in North America in agriculture and found it to be in the $3.7 to $53 billion a year range.

McCracken's findings are published in the April edition of Science. McCracken conducted his study with Justin Boyles of the University of Pretoria in South Africa, Paul Cryan of the U.S. Geological Survey and Thomas Kunz of Boston University.

Since 2006, more than a million bats have died due to a fungal disease called White-Nose Syndrome (WNS). At the same time, several migratory tree-dwelling species are being killed in unprecedented numbers by wind turbines. This hurts the economy because bats' diet of pest insects reduces the damage the insects cause to crops and decreases the need for pesticides.

In fact, the researchers estimate the value of bats to the agricultural industry is roughly $22.9 billion a year... Read more here.

Amazing Story: Dog Stranded by Tsunami Rescued At Sea In Japan (video)

 A dog stranded at sea on floating debris has been rescued three weeks after the Japan earthquake and Tsunami.

dog, rescue, Japan, Tsunami, video

Cool Video: Cruise Ship Time Lapse

Enjoy!

Cool Video: Cruise Ship Time Lapse

3D Gaming Without Glasses

Nintendo's new handheld gaming device does 3-D without the glasses.

Could dark matter heat planets outside the habitable zone?

A new paper suggests this possibility and dark matter is believed to make up about 83 percent of the universe.

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a resent paper posted at arXiv.org and submitted to Astrophysical Journal, Dan Hooper and Jason Steffen, physicists at Fermilab in Illinois, present the theory that cold and dark planets, not heated by a star, could be heated by dark matter. In theory, this dark matter could produce habitable planets outside of what is known as a habitable zone.

While no one knows exactly what dark matter is, it is believed to make up about 83 percent of the universe. The most accepted theory is this dark matter is made up of what are called WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles.

These WIMPs interact with regular matter by a weak nuclear force and gravity, but they are also antiparticles. When two WIMPs come together, they work to annihilate each other and cause a burst of energy.

Finally, a station wagon that does 190 MPH (video)

Strap the kids in tight. The Cadillac CTS-V Wagon has a top speed over 190 MPH.