Science is clever like that. The rest of us go about our daily lives, screaming about prezelect HOOSSEIN and lamenting the loss of J-Lo from the public spotlight. And then we turn around and, what have we here? There's been so much cool SCIENCES lately. Where to begin?
Ground Control to Major Taj
Somehow we didn't notice, but India announced it's gettin' primed to kick the US out of our beloved superpower role. How? By sending a probe to the moon. Pfffffft. Not impressed. Call me when you're shooting puppies and monkeys to their icy stratospheric death and I'll offer you a congratulatory gelato coupon.
Plan Et From Outer Space
Who else is sick of this world with its pollution and infomercials? Not to worry, for there's other planets shockingly close by. Just twenty five light years. Say hello to your new home:
Ain't much to look at, but the rent's real cheap. No? No takers? That's fine. Why don't we look about 130 light years away... where we've got two hot planets.
See 'em? Hint... they're labeled.
Who else thinks that poor exiled Pluto is going to pack its bag and journey onwards to join one of these new system of planets? Our solar system is a cruel and unforgiving place.
F-U, F-BAG!
This doesn't belong in a post about science, but it's always wonderful to hear other people call Malcolm Gladwell on his horse leavings. YOU SUCK!
Still, he's a very talented writer, and I'm sure I'll buy several copies of his new book.
Fuzzy Time
Unfortunately, I can't read this because peehole scientists insist on hiding their work from the commoners. But it sounds fascinating. Basically, some of you might remember from your high schools that certain things with wavelike properties start to look like particles up close (and vice versa). Planck's constant is a major player in this quantum arena, as it defines the values at which our universe tends to get quantized. That is... when things like energy or momentum get very small, they tend to get rounded up or down to the nearest mulitple of Planck's constant.
Right now, it seems, scientists are having to grapple with the possible quantization of time. As they try to measure the effects of gravity super-closely, it seems that time itself is rupturing. So at very short intervals, between 1 shzillosecond and 2 shzilloseconds, time is meaningless.
Cool. Or at least, I think it is. But I can't read the danged article, so who knows.
Magnetic Dipoles in Quantum Electrodynamics
Sike. Here's some undressed ladies for the nerds who made it this far. Shh... don't tell anybody.
Women in Science
Why, aside from magnetic dipoles discussed above, are there not many women who choose to go into science? Harvard presidents like to say it's because ladies are dumb. The real reason seems to be it's because dames are smart. Science is a horribly paying and godawful profession, and gals tend to look at it and say "Thanks but no thanks."
Multiverse
A large debate that's going to be going on for a while longer. Is there one universe, or lots of the universes? Looking more and more like we're part of a multiverse. Does that freak you out, man? Here's a cool picture for the stoners out there:
