VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Cosmology

The Cause of a Teapot: Can Physics Explain Design?
June 8, 2005
George F. R. Ellis (U. of Cape Town) wrote a Concepts piece in Nature1 this week that asks fundamental questions about ordinary things, particularly, can we get from fundamental physics to complex hierarchical structures through a chain of cause and effect? A simple statement of fact: there is no physics theory that explains the nature […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Mars Radiation Dosage Makes Life Improbable, Even with Global Flooding
May 18, 2005
An upcoming (June) paper in Icarus1 states, “ The biologically damaging solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation (quantified by the DNA-weighted dose) reaches the martian surface in extremely high levels.”  Earth has an ozone layer and global magnetic field to shield out the damaging rays, but Mars has no known atmospheric filter.  “Therefore, the existence of life […]
CONTINUE READING
Cosmology

Variable Constants Dept.
April 11, 2005
Is nothing sacred?  EurekAlert reported that the fine structure constant alpha may have changed from its once-thought invariable value, based on new observations from the Keck telescope.  “Sacred constant might be changing,” it says.     Another study, by contrast, shows no change in the fine structure constant, according to a press release from UC […]
CONTINUE READING
Physical Science

Water Can Get Hotter than the Sun
March 9, 2005
When vacuum bubbles form in turbulent water, they can collapse violently in a process called cavitation.  Scientists reporting in Nature1,2 March 3 showed that the energy of cavitation can heat the plasma in the bubble to 15,000 degrees Kelvin – hotter than the surface of the brightest stars.  The resulting flash can sometimes be seen […]
CONTINUE READING
Cosmology

State of the Cosmos Address Offered
February 21, 2005
On the occasion of the centennial of Einstein’s theory of relativity, Alan Guth, the father of inflationary cosmology, with colleague David I. Kaiser of MIT, took stock of cosmological theories in the Feb. 11 issue of Science.1 How has inflation fared since its controversial but hopeful proposal in 1981? “Inflation was invented a quarter of […]
CONTINUE READING
Physics

Watch for Falling Ants
February 9, 2005
Did you know some ants are gliders?  When Stephen Yanoviak (U. of Texas) was studying insects in the rain forest canopy in Peru, he was struck by the fact that ants kept landing on his arm.  This launched his team’s investigation into gliding ants.  They took video cameras into the jungle and documented their unique […]
CONTINUE READING
Physics

Octopus Arms Have Optimal Design
February 9, 2005
The tentacles of an octopus are soft and flexible, whereas bony creatures like us have joints that, while good for moving objects around, limit our freedom of movement.  Wouldn’t it be cool to have both?  An international team of neurobiologists, publishing in Nature,1 watched an octopus snare its food, using the flexibility of its tentacles, […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Astrobiology: Follow the Money
January 7, 2005
To date, astrobiology remains, as George Gaylord Simpson once quipped, “an area of study without a known subject.” Yet it is one of the hottest research areas within NASA. A renowned origin-of-life researcher from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Dr. Jeffrey Bada, found out why when he read the new book The Living Universe: NASA and […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Did Life Begin as “Failed Mineralogy” on the Seafloor?
December 3, 2004
A geologist with a lot of bluff and bluster makes the origin of life sound easy, but gets nailed by direct questions.
CONTINUE READING
Physical Science

How Are Radioactive Dates Determined?
October 6, 2004
To most of us, the practice of radioactive dating seems like a highly-technical, incomprehensible skill that nevertheless (we are told) yields absolute ages of things.  We don’t know exactly how they arrive at the results, but are led to trust them because very smart people get their answers using hard science with extremely accurate equipment.  […]
CONTINUE READING
Physical Science

Solar Wind Erodes Mars’ Atmosphere
September 28, 2004
Physics Web has a summary of a report that appeared in Science Sept. 24.1  First results from an experiment on ESA’s Mars Express called Analyzer of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms (ASPERA-3) are in.  They show that the solar wind penetrates deep into Mars’ atmosphere, as far as 270 km above the Martian surface.  Since […]
CONTINUE READING
Physical Science

Editorial
August 3, 2004
Rodney Stark (Baylor University) has written an article very critical of Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley and the other early promoters of evolution, and their modern counterparts, in American Enterprise Online.  Stark claims that Darwin never proved his central thesis, the origin of species, and was well aware of the problems in his thesis even while […]
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Your Brain Learned Physics and Calculus Before You Did
July 29, 2004
Tilt your head to the right while moving to the left.  The neurons in your brain just solved Newton’s equations of motion, and performed complex vector calculus equations almost instantaneously.  That’s what four neurologists Washington University of Medicine (St. Louis, MO) essentially claimed in Nature July 29,1 describing how your brain interprets the information coming […]
CONTINUE READING
Awards

Modern Cosmology Goes Schizophrenic
July 27, 2004
According to Charles Seife writing in Science,1 more cosmologists are taking parallel universes seriously.  This is a consequence of the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, one possible mathematical solution to the effects of quantum “weirdness.”  If you think our headline is too harsh, read Seife’s opening in a Rod Serling voice while playing the […]
CONTINUE READING
Physical Science

Is Earth’s Magnetic Field Reversing?
July 13, 2004
The New York Times and World Net Daily have stories about Earth’s magnetic field.  The strength of the field has declined 10-15% over the past 150 years.  If undergoing a reversal, which some physicists say is overdue, it could have profound effects on migratory animals like birds and turtles, and allow more dangerous radiation to […]
CONTINUE READING
All Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly" cat_id="19"]