Too cool.
Technorati Tags: physics, monopole, inflation theory, Higgs field, new universe, baby universe

Posted in Note to self, Science 1 Comment »

But some of us have been doing it for a real long time, and have gotten really good at it…
Scientists have found a 136 million-year-old piece of amber encasing pieces of web and trapped insects. The finding helps fill in the gaps of the origin of orb webs, and also indicates predatory spiders likely played […]

Posted in Science 3 Comments »

…of a kind. Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is falling apart (as it has been since ‘95, when its nucleus split in four). Check out this one-minute video, an animation created from Hubble Space Telescope stills, as the comet sheds some more of its interior on its inward swing toward the sun. (Its period is about five […]

Posted in Astronomy, Science 1 Comment »

The Venus Express has successfully gone into orbit. Yay ESA!
After the end of the main engine burn, Venus Express still had to perform a few automatic operations. These included re-orienting the solar panels towards the Sun and one of its high gain antennas (the smaller High Gain Antenna 2) towards Earth.
It is through this antenna […]

Posted in Astronomy, Science No Comments »

Wowie!

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has uncovered new evidence that planets might rise from a dead star’s ashes.The infrared telescope surveyed the scene around a pulsar, the remnant of an exploded star, and found a surrounding disk made up of debris shot out during the star’s death throes. The dusty rubble in this disk might […]

Posted in Astronomy, Science No Comments »

Yet another cool “missing link”:
Fossils of a species of fish in the act of adapting to life on land have been found by scientists, shedding new light on one of the most momentous events in evolution.
The well-preserved remains of creatures with a crocodile-like head and flattened body neatly fill a gap between fish and the […]

Posted in Science No Comments »

Makes perfect sense to me:
Infants as young as 18 months show altruistic behaviour, suggesting humans have a natural tendency to be helpful, German researchers have discovered….
…Many scientists have argued that altruism is a uniquely human function, hard-wired into our brains. The latest study suggests it is a strong human trait, perhaps present more than six […]

Posted in Medicine, nursing, health, Psychology / psychiatry, Science No Comments »

We’ve already had several days of truly gorgeous weather — temperatures in the 80’s Fahrenheit, not too humid, blazing sun — and at least a couple more are expected. For Ireland, this is most welcome: too often summer here is mostly gray and in the 60’s. …Down at the pub, I heard one […]

Posted in Ireland, Science No Comments »