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For over thousands of years man has been trying to predict his future. He has always failed-and his failures are buried in the dust of history. Legendary fortune tellers, prophets, oracles, medicine men, astrologers, numerologists, mystics, charlatans, and seers, all claimed possession of supernatural and occult powers that enabled them to see into the future. Wars were fought, kingdoms fell, and civilizations were altered as a result of their pronouncements and predictions.
We are not without their counterparts today. They invade our homes through the media of television, radio, internet, smartphones, and the press, claiming hidden and mysterious powers that enable them to solve murders, foretell earthquakes, and blueprint our days in advance. They play on latent superstitions within all of us, piously predicting the next political assassination, the next airline tragedy, the next Hollywood divorce.
But, working quietly behind the scenes, thousands of scientists in fields as unrelated as history, botany, anthropology, mammalogy, terrestrial magnetism, sociology, and economics, to name only a few, are accumulating facts and figures that promise to make this age-old dream of foretelling the future at least a partia !!
OUR MISSION: FIND UNIVERSAL CYCLES AND THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT TRIGGER EVENTS ON FINANCIAL MARKETS
( Knowledge is wonderful; Science is amazing. But wisdom is power )
We are not without their counterparts today. They invade our homes through the media of television, radio, internet, smartphones, and the press, claiming hidden and mysterious powers that enable them to solve murders, foretell earthquakes, and blueprint our days in advance. They play on latent superstitions within all of us, piously predicting the next political assassination, the next airline tragedy, the next Hollywood divorce.
But, working quietly behind the scenes, thousands of scientists in fields as unrelated as history, botany, anthropology, mammalogy, terrestrial magnetism, sociology, and economics, to name only a few, are accumulating facts and figures that promise to make this age-old dream of foretelling the future at least a partia !!
OUR MISSION: FIND UNIVERSAL CYCLES AND THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT TRIGGER EVENTS ON FINANCIAL MARKETS
( Knowledge is wonderful; Science is amazing. But wisdom is power )
Sebastiaan de Boorder
Heavy snowfall this April that came as a surprise for many may soon become a grim annual routine. Of course, meteorologists-old-timers will remember frosts in June and blizzards in August, but one thing remains indisputable: the Earth's climate has changed significantly over the past years, and not for the better. Why is this happening and who benefits from it? There are different opinions in this regard.
Three years ago, the largest environmental catastrophe of modern history occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. On April 20th, 2010 after an explosion at the Deepwater platform owned by British Petroleum, there was a tremendous release of oil into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The company could not shut the well for six months, and as a result, up to one hundred thousand barrels of oil were released into the ocean every day. The exact amount is still unknown because it would determines the amount of fines that, naturally, BP does not want to pay. However, indirect estimates indicate that nearly 480 million barrels of raw oil was released. We will not discuss why, while chasing the high prices of oil markets, the transnational corporation launched a technically unprepared platform. The impact of the disaster could be far more tragic than the financial losses of individual corporations and large-scale killing of all living things in the area of the Gulf of Mexico.
In August of 2010, the famous Italian physicist Dr. Gianluigi Zangari by examining available by the time materials and information on the disaster made a stunning conclusion. Due to the release of vast amounts of oil and chemicals into the ocean, the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico has stalled. Translated into plain language, the circulation of cold and warm water in the Gulf of Mexico has stopped, leading to deterioration "of the ocean river" - the Gulf Stream that determines the weather in the northern hemisphere. Cold current Kurosivo whose impact was offset by the Gulf Stream will begin to freeze Europe. The results of such transformations, as claimed by the Italian scholar, will be very grim. Europe will experience scorching heat in summer, and cold winters will push the permafrost zone to the latitude of Paris and Rome.
The outflow of Siberian rivers into the Arctic Ocean will touch the ice zone, and within two or three years will flood the Siberian plains, turning them into huge swamps. Sahara and African desert zone will be reborn, turning into, as in the days of ancient Greece and Egypt, blooming tropical forest-steppes. This will happen in the shortest historical period, by 2025.
Later other well-known researchers, including Russian geologist Polevanov, independently of each other came to similar conclusions. There are more radical forecasts. In particular, the Russian scientists, physicist and biologist Bashkin and Galiullin predict the onset of the Little Ice Age in 2014. However, they link it with cyclical nature of solar activity. They believe that Europe will face the so-called Maunder minimum, a sharp decline in the functioning of the Sun, which has already happened in Europe during over the seventy-year period from 1645 to 1715.
Have the apocalyptic predictions been confirmed today, three years after the disaster? Experts believe so. The massive drought and floods in Asia and Europe, the unprecedented cold weather in Russia, shifted dates of the first and the last snowfalls, the reduction of the number of sunny days in the Northern Hemisphere is evidence that the climate is becoming cooler and wetter.
This will lead to a fundamental transformation of the entire socio-economic system. However, the U.S. policy is far more convincing than public research in favor of the "ice scenario". In the last three years after the oil apocalypse, the U.S. and its allies fully cleared the Mediterranean coast of Africa from hostile regimes. The next step is Syria and its eastern sector of the sea.
This goes beyond oil, as the U.S. is quite successfully getting rid of the fuel dependency, finding an alternative in the form of commercial production of shale gas. This has to do with control of the territories free of ice and suitable for a comfortable life of the "golden billion," the goal that justifies the destruction of the international law system, killing of tens of thousands of people and billions in military spending. Perhaps these same strategic interests guide Chinese leaders, who consciously and deliberately organize economic expansionism in the African continent. Today China has become the largest trade partner of most African countries. What about Russia? It will freeze and envy, it is used to it.
By :Yuri Skidanov
Three years ago, the largest environmental catastrophe of modern history occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. On April 20th, 2010 after an explosion at the Deepwater platform owned by British Petroleum, there was a tremendous release of oil into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The company could not shut the well for six months, and as a result, up to one hundred thousand barrels of oil were released into the ocean every day. The exact amount is still unknown because it would determines the amount of fines that, naturally, BP does not want to pay. However, indirect estimates indicate that nearly 480 million barrels of raw oil was released. We will not discuss why, while chasing the high prices of oil markets, the transnational corporation launched a technically unprepared platform. The impact of the disaster could be far more tragic than the financial losses of individual corporations and large-scale killing of all living things in the area of the Gulf of Mexico.
In August of 2010, the famous Italian physicist Dr. Gianluigi Zangari by examining available by the time materials and information on the disaster made a stunning conclusion. Due to the release of vast amounts of oil and chemicals into the ocean, the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico has stalled. Translated into plain language, the circulation of cold and warm water in the Gulf of Mexico has stopped, leading to deterioration "of the ocean river" - the Gulf Stream that determines the weather in the northern hemisphere. Cold current Kurosivo whose impact was offset by the Gulf Stream will begin to freeze Europe. The results of such transformations, as claimed by the Italian scholar, will be very grim. Europe will experience scorching heat in summer, and cold winters will push the permafrost zone to the latitude of Paris and Rome.
The outflow of Siberian rivers into the Arctic Ocean will touch the ice zone, and within two or three years will flood the Siberian plains, turning them into huge swamps. Sahara and African desert zone will be reborn, turning into, as in the days of ancient Greece and Egypt, blooming tropical forest-steppes. This will happen in the shortest historical period, by 2025.
Later other well-known researchers, including Russian geologist Polevanov, independently of each other came to similar conclusions. There are more radical forecasts. In particular, the Russian scientists, physicist and biologist Bashkin and Galiullin predict the onset of the Little Ice Age in 2014. However, they link it with cyclical nature of solar activity. They believe that Europe will face the so-called Maunder minimum, a sharp decline in the functioning of the Sun, which has already happened in Europe during over the seventy-year period from 1645 to 1715.
Have the apocalyptic predictions been confirmed today, three years after the disaster? Experts believe so. The massive drought and floods in Asia and Europe, the unprecedented cold weather in Russia, shifted dates of the first and the last snowfalls, the reduction of the number of sunny days in the Northern Hemisphere is evidence that the climate is becoming cooler and wetter.
This will lead to a fundamental transformation of the entire socio-economic system. However, the U.S. policy is far more convincing than public research in favor of the "ice scenario". In the last three years after the oil apocalypse, the U.S. and its allies fully cleared the Mediterranean coast of Africa from hostile regimes. The next step is Syria and its eastern sector of the sea.
This goes beyond oil, as the U.S. is quite successfully getting rid of the fuel dependency, finding an alternative in the form of commercial production of shale gas. This has to do with control of the territories free of ice and suitable for a comfortable life of the "golden billion," the goal that justifies the destruction of the international law system, killing of tens of thousands of people and billions in military spending. Perhaps these same strategic interests guide Chinese leaders, who consciously and deliberately organize economic expansionism in the African continent. Today China has become the largest trade partner of most African countries. What about Russia? It will freeze and envy, it is used to it.
By :Yuri Skidanov
Sebastiaan de Boorder
Scientist predicts earth is heading for another Ice Age
AS Arctic Britain prepares to shiver for at least another month, a leading scientist today predicted the world was heading for another Ice Age.
AS Arctic Britain prepares to shiver for at least another month, a leading scientist today predicted the world was heading for another Ice Age.
Sebastiaan de Boorder
Incredibly, British Summer Time officially starts tomorrow but millions of brassed off Brits pining for warmth will have to endure freezing temperatures and biting winds until May.
The misery will continue with daytime temperatures struggling to reach a bracing 5C (41F). The only ray of sunshine, forecasters said, is that it will stay dry.
As if the outlook wasn’t bleak enough already, meteorologists believe the shivering start to 2013 has been the coldest in more than 200 years.
More worryingly, the combination of sub-zero temperatures and heavy snow experienced across much of the country recently could be the prelude to a new Ice Age that will begin next year and last for 200 years.
Russian scientist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, of the St Petersburg Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, painted the Doomsday scenario saying the recent inclement weather simply proved we were heading towards a frozen planet.
Dr Abdussamatov believes Earth was on an “unavoidable advance towards a deep temperature drop”. The last big freeze, known as the Little Ice Age, was between 1650 and 1850.
Today he said: “The last global decrease of temperature (the most cold phase of the Little Ice Age) was observed in Europe, North America and Greenland.
“All channels in the Netherlands were frozen, glaciers were on the advance in Greenland and people were forced to leave their settlements, inhabited for several centuries.
“The Thames river in London and Seine in Paris were frozen over every year. Humanity has always been prospering during the warm periods and suffering during the cold ones. The climate has never been and will never be stable.”
The miserable weather since the turn of the year has been blamed on two episodes of high pressure.
A poorly positioned jet stream means ice cold temperatures and the continuing risk of snow showers across the north and east.
Almost all of the UK can expect a continuation of night frost, which will turn severe at times.
April is forecast to be a drier than average month in the north and east, slightly wetter to the south and west but it is expected to be one of the oldest on record.
Forecaster Jonathan Powell, of Vantage Weather Services, said: “My goodness haven’t we suffered over the winter, but if people are after sunshine in the next month my advice would be to head for the airport.
“It is going to remain dry at least, but we will all need to remember to pull on an extra layer of clothing before stepping outside.
“May could well be our saving grace because at the moment it’s looking a lot better but I am sorry to say after that we are heading down the same route as last year.”
Numbing temperatures of -11C (12F) last night <> broke the previous coldest Easter with some describing the past few months as “Britain’s lost spring”
As the clocks go forward the Met Office forecast record lows to of -11C in north Wales, northern England and Scotland.
Met Office forecaster Steven Keates said: ““Nights will stay cold with -10C possible and -11C not out of the question from north Wales northwards to Scotland.
“The weather is exceptional, unusually cold and unusually prolonged - with little change next week.
“Snow showers are certainly an increasing risk in the second half of the week, especially in the south.
“They are expected to fall more widely than flurries this week, with a slight covering in places - but nothing like the heavy snow last weekend.”
British tourism is braced to suffer heavy losses calculated at “tens of millions of pounds” with as many as two million scrapping pre-planned domestic Easter breaks because of the chill.
A fed-up Brighton tourism spokesman said: “We had 100,000 visitors last Easter - but bad weather will hit tourism numbers. We do have indoor attractions however.”
Source : http://www.express.co.uk/
The misery will continue with daytime temperatures struggling to reach a bracing 5C (41F). The only ray of sunshine, forecasters said, is that it will stay dry.
As if the outlook wasn’t bleak enough already, meteorologists believe the shivering start to 2013 has been the coldest in more than 200 years.
More worryingly, the combination of sub-zero temperatures and heavy snow experienced across much of the country recently could be the prelude to a new Ice Age that will begin next year and last for 200 years.
Russian scientist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, of the St Petersburg Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, painted the Doomsday scenario saying the recent inclement weather simply proved we were heading towards a frozen planet.
Dr Abdussamatov believes Earth was on an “unavoidable advance towards a deep temperature drop”. The last big freeze, known as the Little Ice Age, was between 1650 and 1850.
Today he said: “The last global decrease of temperature (the most cold phase of the Little Ice Age) was observed in Europe, North America and Greenland.
“All channels in the Netherlands were frozen, glaciers were on the advance in Greenland and people were forced to leave their settlements, inhabited for several centuries.
“The Thames river in London and Seine in Paris were frozen over every year. Humanity has always been prospering during the warm periods and suffering during the cold ones. The climate has never been and will never be stable.”
The miserable weather since the turn of the year has been blamed on two episodes of high pressure.
A poorly positioned jet stream means ice cold temperatures and the continuing risk of snow showers across the north and east.
Almost all of the UK can expect a continuation of night frost, which will turn severe at times.
April is forecast to be a drier than average month in the north and east, slightly wetter to the south and west but it is expected to be one of the oldest on record.
Forecaster Jonathan Powell, of Vantage Weather Services, said: “My goodness haven’t we suffered over the winter, but if people are after sunshine in the next month my advice would be to head for the airport.
“It is going to remain dry at least, but we will all need to remember to pull on an extra layer of clothing before stepping outside.
“May could well be our saving grace because at the moment it’s looking a lot better but I am sorry to say after that we are heading down the same route as last year.”
Numbing temperatures of -11C (12F) last night <> broke the previous coldest Easter with some describing the past few months as “Britain’s lost spring”
As the clocks go forward the Met Office forecast record lows to of -11C in north Wales, northern England and Scotland.
Met Office forecaster Steven Keates said: ““Nights will stay cold with -10C possible and -11C not out of the question from north Wales northwards to Scotland.
“The weather is exceptional, unusually cold and unusually prolonged - with little change next week.
“Snow showers are certainly an increasing risk in the second half of the week, especially in the south.
“They are expected to fall more widely than flurries this week, with a slight covering in places - but nothing like the heavy snow last weekend.”
British tourism is braced to suffer heavy losses calculated at “tens of millions of pounds” with as many as two million scrapping pre-planned domestic Easter breaks because of the chill.
A fed-up Brighton tourism spokesman said: “We had 100,000 visitors last Easter - but bad weather will hit tourism numbers. We do have indoor attractions however.”
Source : http://www.express.co.uk/
Sebastiaan de Boorder
Chinese physicists measure speed of Einstein’s ‘spooky action at a distance’: At least 10,000 times faster than light
Sebastiaan de Boorder
A team of Chinese physicists have clocked the speed of spooky action at a distance — the seemingly instantaneous interaction between entangled quantum particles — at more than four orders of magnitude faster than light. Their equipment and methodology doesn’t allow for an exact speed, but four orders of magnitude puts the figure at around 3 trillion meters per second.
Spooky action at a distance was a term coined by Einstein to describe how entangled quantum particles seem to interact with each other instantaneously, over any distance, breaking the speed of light and thus relativity. As of our current understanding of quantum mechanics, though, it is impossible to send data using quantum entanglement, preserving the theory of relativity. A lot of work is being done in this area, though, and some physicists believe that faster-than-light communication might be possible with some clever manipulation of entangled particles.
Now, thanks to these Chinese physicists — the same ones who broke the quantum teleportation distance record last year — we know that spooky action at a distance has a lower bound of four orders of magnitude faster than light, or around 3 trillion meters per second. We say “at least,” because the physicists do not rule out that spooky action is actually instantaneous — but their testing equipment and methodology simply doesn’t allow them to get any more accurate.
To get this figure, the physicists entangled pairs of photons at a base station, and then transmitted half of each pair to two receiving sites. The receiving sites were 15.3 kilometers (9.5mi) apart, and aligned east-west so as to minimize the interference from the Earth’s rotation (which is significant, when measuring speed on this scale). One half of the pair was then observed, and the time for the other half to assume the same state is measured. This process was repeated continuously for 12 hours to generate enough data to accurately divine the speed of spooky action.
According to the physicists, other research groups have tried to measure the speed of spooky action before, but they’ve all had locality loopholes — flaws in the methodology that undermine the quantum nonlocality that the experiment requires. This time, the physicists claim, all the loopholes have been closed, and that their measurement of at least 3 trillion meters per second is accurate.
Where do we go from here? Good question. In recent months we’ve seen a group of international scientists teleport entangled photons over 143km (89mi), the first ever teleportation between macroscopic objects, and the first fiber optic network that can carry conventional data and quantum data. We’re now at the point where a quantum internet — either using conventional fiber or satellites — is starting to become feasible. If it turns out that we actually can communicate data via quantum entanglement, we now know that it’ll be much faster than the speed of light.
At the very least, this is one of the first observations of the subluminal (superluminal? transluminal?!) universe — a significant event for all scientists everywhere.
By Sebastian Anthony
Spooky action at a distance was a term coined by Einstein to describe how entangled quantum particles seem to interact with each other instantaneously, over any distance, breaking the speed of light and thus relativity. As of our current understanding of quantum mechanics, though, it is impossible to send data using quantum entanglement, preserving the theory of relativity. A lot of work is being done in this area, though, and some physicists believe that faster-than-light communication might be possible with some clever manipulation of entangled particles.
Now, thanks to these Chinese physicists — the same ones who broke the quantum teleportation distance record last year — we know that spooky action at a distance has a lower bound of four orders of magnitude faster than light, or around 3 trillion meters per second. We say “at least,” because the physicists do not rule out that spooky action is actually instantaneous — but their testing equipment and methodology simply doesn’t allow them to get any more accurate.
To get this figure, the physicists entangled pairs of photons at a base station, and then transmitted half of each pair to two receiving sites. The receiving sites were 15.3 kilometers (9.5mi) apart, and aligned east-west so as to minimize the interference from the Earth’s rotation (which is significant, when measuring speed on this scale). One half of the pair was then observed, and the time for the other half to assume the same state is measured. This process was repeated continuously for 12 hours to generate enough data to accurately divine the speed of spooky action.
According to the physicists, other research groups have tried to measure the speed of spooky action before, but they’ve all had locality loopholes — flaws in the methodology that undermine the quantum nonlocality that the experiment requires. This time, the physicists claim, all the loopholes have been closed, and that their measurement of at least 3 trillion meters per second is accurate.
Where do we go from here? Good question. In recent months we’ve seen a group of international scientists teleport entangled photons over 143km (89mi), the first ever teleportation between macroscopic objects, and the first fiber optic network that can carry conventional data and quantum data. We’re now at the point where a quantum internet — either using conventional fiber or satellites — is starting to become feasible. If it turns out that we actually can communicate data via quantum entanglement, we now know that it’ll be much faster than the speed of light.
At the very least, this is one of the first observations of the subluminal (superluminal? transluminal?!) universe — a significant event for all scientists everywhere.
By Sebastian Anthony
Sebastiaan de Boorder
The idea of the universe as a 'giant brain' has been proposed by scientists - and science fiction writers - for decades.
But now physicists say there may be some evidence that it's actually true. In a sense.
According to a study published in Nature's Scientific Reports, the universe may be growing in the same way as a giant brain - with the electrical firing between brain cells 'mirrored' by the shape of expanding galaxies.
The results of a computer simulation suggest that "natural growth dynamics" - the way that systems evolve - are the same for different kinds of networks - whether its the internet, the human brain or the universe as a whole.
A co-author of the study, Dmitri Krioukov from the University of California San Diego, said that while such systems appear very different, they have evolved in very similar ways.
The result, they argue, is that the universe really does grow like a brain.
The study raises profound questions about how the universe works, Krioukov said.
"For a physicist it's an immediate signal that there is some missing understanding of how nature works," he told Space.com.
The team's simulation modelled the very early life of the universe, shortly after the big bang, by looking at how quantum units of space-time smaller than subatomic particles 'networked' with each other as the universe grew.
They found that the simulation mirrored that of other networks. Some links between similar nodes resulted in limited growth, while others acted as junctions for many different connections.
For instance, some connections are limited and similar - like a person who likes sports visiting many other sports websites - and some are major and connect to many other parts of the network, like Google and Yahoo.
No, it doesn't quite mean that the universe is 'thinking' - but as has been previously pointed out online, it might just mean there's more similarity between the very small and the very large than first appearances suggest.
But now physicists say there may be some evidence that it's actually true. In a sense.
According to a study published in Nature's Scientific Reports, the universe may be growing in the same way as a giant brain - with the electrical firing between brain cells 'mirrored' by the shape of expanding galaxies.
The results of a computer simulation suggest that "natural growth dynamics" - the way that systems evolve - are the same for different kinds of networks - whether its the internet, the human brain or the universe as a whole.
A co-author of the study, Dmitri Krioukov from the University of California San Diego, said that while such systems appear very different, they have evolved in very similar ways.
The result, they argue, is that the universe really does grow like a brain.
The study raises profound questions about how the universe works, Krioukov said.
"For a physicist it's an immediate signal that there is some missing understanding of how nature works," he told Space.com.
The team's simulation modelled the very early life of the universe, shortly after the big bang, by looking at how quantum units of space-time smaller than subatomic particles 'networked' with each other as the universe grew.
They found that the simulation mirrored that of other networks. Some links between similar nodes resulted in limited growth, while others acted as junctions for many different connections.
For instance, some connections are limited and similar - like a person who likes sports visiting many other sports websites - and some are major and connect to many other parts of the network, like Google and Yahoo.
No, it doesn't quite mean that the universe is 'thinking' - but as has been previously pointed out online, it might just mean there's more similarity between the very small and the very large than first appearances suggest.
Sebastiaan de Boorder
A Front-Row Seat to a Black Hole in Action
A simulation of how the gas cloud may break apart as it approaches the black hole
A simulation of how the gas cloud may break apart as it approaches the black hole
Sebastiaan de Boorder
If you want to feel a shiver of cosmic menace, just ponder black holes. Venture a bit too close to one of these voracious monsters, and you’ll never get out — although it hardly matters, since you’ll be torn to shreds and flash-heated to millions of degrees along the way. Star-size black holes are bad enough, but the supermassive holes that lurk at the centers of most galaxies are millions of times more powerful. When they swallow a star or a giant gas cloud, we call the resulting flare of energy a quasar, which can be visible halfway across the universe.
Now it’s about to happen — albeit with less spectacular fireworks — right in our backyard. Back in 2011, astronomers spotted an interstellar gas cloud plunging more or less toward the Milky Way’s own supermassive black hole, which is about the mass of 4 million suns. And by the scientists’ calculations, the cloud will meet its doom this coming September or October. “The impact will be deeper and more exciting than we thought,” says Stefan Gillessen of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and the lead author of the Nature report that first announced the cloud’s existence.
Astronomers have already seen changes in the cloud’s structure since it was first discovered. “There are clear signs that it’s being stretched,” says Gillessen. That’s a result of tidal forces: the cloud’s leading edge feels the black hole’s gravity much more strongly than the trailing edge. The difference in speed between front and rear is about 360 miles (580 km) per second, and by April, says Gillessen, “we’re pretty sure the cloud should be starting to shred apart.” It is reminiscent, albeit on a much larger scale, of the fragmentation of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9, which was tidally broken apart by Jupiter’s gravity before plunging to its death in July 1994.
Even at its closest approach later in the year, the cloud fragments will not have reached the black hole’s Schwarzschild radius — the point of no return, where a final plunge into infinite density and pressure is inescapable. But it should soon be slamming into the black hole’s “atmosphere” — the thin haze of gas that whirls around it at a safe distance. “That could create shock waves, which could be visible in X-ray wavelengths,” says Gillessen.
The bits of cloud may eventually funnel into the black hole itself, orbiting faster and faster, like water spiraling down a drain as the cloud’s own internal friction heats it to millions of degrees, giving off bursts of energy as it goes. Nobody knows quite how long it might take for that to happen. “I don’t necessarily expect fireworks next fall,” says Genzel, “but there could be. It might be that bits and pieces might shoot directly in.”
Astronomers around the world will be tuned in just in case. “People will be looking with telescopes in all wave bands, from radio to gamma rays,” says Gillessen. “There’s a list of proposals from those who want to observe it. We’ll certainly see the cloud shredded this year … Whether we see something more, well, that’s the fun part.”
By Michael Lemonick
Now it’s about to happen — albeit with less spectacular fireworks — right in our backyard. Back in 2011, astronomers spotted an interstellar gas cloud plunging more or less toward the Milky Way’s own supermassive black hole, which is about the mass of 4 million suns. And by the scientists’ calculations, the cloud will meet its doom this coming September or October. “The impact will be deeper and more exciting than we thought,” says Stefan Gillessen of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and the lead author of the Nature report that first announced the cloud’s existence.
Astronomers have already seen changes in the cloud’s structure since it was first discovered. “There are clear signs that it’s being stretched,” says Gillessen. That’s a result of tidal forces: the cloud’s leading edge feels the black hole’s gravity much more strongly than the trailing edge. The difference in speed between front and rear is about 360 miles (580 km) per second, and by April, says Gillessen, “we’re pretty sure the cloud should be starting to shred apart.” It is reminiscent, albeit on a much larger scale, of the fragmentation of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9, which was tidally broken apart by Jupiter’s gravity before plunging to its death in July 1994.
Even at its closest approach later in the year, the cloud fragments will not have reached the black hole’s Schwarzschild radius — the point of no return, where a final plunge into infinite density and pressure is inescapable. But it should soon be slamming into the black hole’s “atmosphere” — the thin haze of gas that whirls around it at a safe distance. “That could create shock waves, which could be visible in X-ray wavelengths,” says Gillessen.
The bits of cloud may eventually funnel into the black hole itself, orbiting faster and faster, like water spiraling down a drain as the cloud’s own internal friction heats it to millions of degrees, giving off bursts of energy as it goes. Nobody knows quite how long it might take for that to happen. “I don’t necessarily expect fireworks next fall,” says Genzel, “but there could be. It might be that bits and pieces might shoot directly in.”
Astronomers around the world will be tuned in just in case. “People will be looking with telescopes in all wave bands, from radio to gamma rays,” says Gillessen. “There’s a list of proposals from those who want to observe it. We’ll certainly see the cloud shredded this year … Whether we see something more, well, that’s the fun part.”
By Michael Lemonick
Sebastiaan de Boorder
29 January 2013 : Venus Express has made unique observations of Venus during a period of reduced solar wind pressure, discovering that the planet’s ionosphere balloons out like a comet’s tail on its nightside.
The ionosphere is a region of weakly electrically charged gas high above the main body of a planet’s atmosphere. Its shape and density are partly controlled by the internal magnetic field of the planet.
For Earth, which has a strong magnetic field, the ionosphere is relatively stable under a range of solar wind conditions. By comparison, Venus does not have its own internal magnetic field and relies instead on interactions with the solar wind to shape its ionosphere.
The extent to which this shaping depends on the strength of the solar wind has been controversial, but new results from Venus Express reveal for the first time the effect of a very low solar wind pressure on the ionosphere of an unmagnetised planet.
The observations were made in August 2010 when NASA’s Stereo-B spacecraft measured a drop in solar wind density to 0.1 particles per cubic centimetre, around 50 times lower than normally observed; this persisted for about 18 hours.
As this significantly reduced solar wind hit Venus, Venus Express saw the planet’s ionosphere balloon outwards on the planet’s ‘downwind’ nightside, much like the shape of the ion tail seen streaming from a comet under similar conditions.
“The teardrop-shaped ionosphere began forming within 30–60 minutes after the normal high pressure solar wind diminished. Over two Earth days, it had stretched to at least two Venus radii into space,” says Yong Wei of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, lead author of the new findings.
The new observations settle a debate about how the strength of the solar wind affects the way in which ionospheric plasma is transported from the dayside to the nightside of Venus.
Usually, this material flows along a thin channel in the ionosphere, but scientists were unsure what happens under low solar wind conditions. Does the flow of plasma particles increase as the channel widens due to the reduced confining pressure, or does it decrease because less force is available to push plasma through the channel?
“We now finally know that the first effect outweighs the second, and that the ionosphere expands significantly during low solar wind density conditions,” says Markus Fraenz, also of the Max Planck Institute and co-author on the paper.
A similar effect is also expected to occur around Mars, the other non-magnetised planet in our inner Solar System.
“We often talk about the effects of solar wind interaction with planetary atmospheres during periods of intense solar activity, but Venus Express has shown us that even when there is a reduced solar wind, the Sun can still significantly influence the environment of our planetary neighbours,” adds Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s Venus Express project scientist.
Source : ESA
The ionosphere is a region of weakly electrically charged gas high above the main body of a planet’s atmosphere. Its shape and density are partly controlled by the internal magnetic field of the planet.
For Earth, which has a strong magnetic field, the ionosphere is relatively stable under a range of solar wind conditions. By comparison, Venus does not have its own internal magnetic field and relies instead on interactions with the solar wind to shape its ionosphere.
The extent to which this shaping depends on the strength of the solar wind has been controversial, but new results from Venus Express reveal for the first time the effect of a very low solar wind pressure on the ionosphere of an unmagnetised planet.
The observations were made in August 2010 when NASA’s Stereo-B spacecraft measured a drop in solar wind density to 0.1 particles per cubic centimetre, around 50 times lower than normally observed; this persisted for about 18 hours.
As this significantly reduced solar wind hit Venus, Venus Express saw the planet’s ionosphere balloon outwards on the planet’s ‘downwind’ nightside, much like the shape of the ion tail seen streaming from a comet under similar conditions.
“The teardrop-shaped ionosphere began forming within 30–60 minutes after the normal high pressure solar wind diminished. Over two Earth days, it had stretched to at least two Venus radii into space,” says Yong Wei of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, lead author of the new findings.
The new observations settle a debate about how the strength of the solar wind affects the way in which ionospheric plasma is transported from the dayside to the nightside of Venus.
Usually, this material flows along a thin channel in the ionosphere, but scientists were unsure what happens under low solar wind conditions. Does the flow of plasma particles increase as the channel widens due to the reduced confining pressure, or does it decrease because less force is available to push plasma through the channel?
“We now finally know that the first effect outweighs the second, and that the ionosphere expands significantly during low solar wind density conditions,” says Markus Fraenz, also of the Max Planck Institute and co-author on the paper.
A similar effect is also expected to occur around Mars, the other non-magnetised planet in our inner Solar System.
“We often talk about the effects of solar wind interaction with planetary atmospheres during periods of intense solar activity, but Venus Express has shown us that even when there is a reduced solar wind, the Sun can still significantly influence the environment of our planetary neighbours,” adds Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s Venus Express project scientist.
Source : ESA
Sebastiaan de Boorder
Researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park and Towson University are reporting that they have created multiple universes inside a laboratory-created multiverse — a world first.
To be exact, the researchers created a metamaterial — like those used to fashion invisibility cloaks — that, when light passes through it, multiple universes are formed within it. These universes, called Minkowski spacetimes, are similar to our own, except they more neatly tie up Einstein’s theory of special relativity by including time as a fourth dimension.
While this is rather extraordinary, the experimental setup is actually quite simple — though definitely rather unconventional. The multiverse is created inside a solution of cobalt in kerosene. This fluid isn’t usually considered a metamaterial, but lead researcher Igor Smolyaninov and co found that by applying a magnetic field, the ferromagnetic nanoparticles of cobalt line up in neat columns. When light passes through these columns, it behaves as if it’s in a Minkowski universe.
To create multiple universes, the researchers fine-tuned the amount of cobalt in the fluid until there wasn’t quite enough to form the nanocolumns. Natural variations in the fluid mean that some regions still have enough cobalt to form the columns, and thus new universes. As the fluid moves the columns collapse, multiple universes constantly pop in and out of existence.
There are two key takeaways here: First, metamaterials are usually rather hard to manufacture — and yet here the researchers have seemingly discovered a self-organizing metamaterial. Second, this is the first ever time that new universes have been created in a laboratory setting. This is about as bleeding-edge as it gets, so we’re not exactly sure what avenues of research this opens up, but Smolyaninov suggests that they could be used to study how particles behave in universes with different properties than our own. Our universe has fairly firm rules on how particles behave, but it might be interesting to create a pet universe where, say, photons have mass and light travels really slowly.
By: Sebastian Anthony
Research paper: arXiv:1301.6055 – “Experimental demonstration of metamaterial multiverse in a ferrofluid” [via Physics arXiv]
To be exact, the researchers created a metamaterial — like those used to fashion invisibility cloaks — that, when light passes through it, multiple universes are formed within it. These universes, called Minkowski spacetimes, are similar to our own, except they more neatly tie up Einstein’s theory of special relativity by including time as a fourth dimension.
While this is rather extraordinary, the experimental setup is actually quite simple — though definitely rather unconventional. The multiverse is created inside a solution of cobalt in kerosene. This fluid isn’t usually considered a metamaterial, but lead researcher Igor Smolyaninov and co found that by applying a magnetic field, the ferromagnetic nanoparticles of cobalt line up in neat columns. When light passes through these columns, it behaves as if it’s in a Minkowski universe.
To create multiple universes, the researchers fine-tuned the amount of cobalt in the fluid until there wasn’t quite enough to form the nanocolumns. Natural variations in the fluid mean that some regions still have enough cobalt to form the columns, and thus new universes. As the fluid moves the columns collapse, multiple universes constantly pop in and out of existence.
There are two key takeaways here: First, metamaterials are usually rather hard to manufacture — and yet here the researchers have seemingly discovered a self-organizing metamaterial. Second, this is the first ever time that new universes have been created in a laboratory setting. This is about as bleeding-edge as it gets, so we’re not exactly sure what avenues of research this opens up, but Smolyaninov suggests that they could be used to study how particles behave in universes with different properties than our own. Our universe has fairly firm rules on how particles behave, but it might be interesting to create a pet universe where, say, photons have mass and light travels really slowly.
By: Sebastian Anthony
Research paper: arXiv:1301.6055 – “Experimental demonstration of metamaterial multiverse in a ferrofluid” [via Physics arXiv]
Sebastiaan de Boorder
Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released...
The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures. rose, 1980 to 1996
The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures. rose, 1980 to 1996
Sebastiaan de Boorder
The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.
This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.
Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.
The regular data collected on global temperature is called Hadcrut 4, as it is jointly issued by the Met Office’s Hadley Centre and Prof Jones’s Climatic Research Unit.
Since 1880, when worldwide industrialisation began to gather pace and reliable statistics were first collected on a global scale, the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius.
Some scientists have claimed that this rate of warming is set to increase hugely without drastic cuts to carbon-dioxide emissions, predicting a catastrophic increase of up to a further five degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
The new figures were released as the Government made clear that it would ‘bend’ its own carbon-dioxide rules and build new power stations to try to combat the threat of blackouts.
At last week’s Conservative Party Conference, the new Energy Minister, John Hayes, promised that ‘the high-flown theories of bourgeois Left-wing academics will not override the interests of ordinary people who need fuel for heat, light and transport – energy policies, you might say, for the many, not the few’ – a pledge that has triggered fury from green activists, who fear reductions in the huge subsidies given to wind-turbine firms.
Flawed science costs us dearly :
Here are three not-so trivial questions you probably won’t find in your next pub quiz. First, how much warmer has the world become since a) 1880 and b) the beginning of 1997? And what has this got to do with your ever-increasing energy bill?
You may find the answers to the first two surprising. Since 1880, when reliable temperature records began to be kept across most of the globe, the world has warmed by about 0.75 degrees Celsius.
From the start of 1997 until August 2012, however, figures released last week show the answer is zero: the trend, derived from the aggregate data collected from more than 3,000 worldwide measuring points, has been flat.
Not that there has been any coverage in the media, which usually reports climate issues assiduously, since the figures were quietly release online with no accompanying press release – unlike six months ago when they showed a slight warming trend.
The answer to the third question is perhaps the most familiar. Your bills are going up, at least in part, because of the array of ‘green’ subsidies being provided to the renewable energy industry, chiefly wind.
They will cost the average household about £100 this year. This is set to rise steadily higher – yet it is being imposed for only one reason: the widespread conviction, which is shared by politicians of all stripes and drilled into children at primary schools, that, without drastic action to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, global warming is certain soon to accelerate, with truly catastrophic consequences by the end of the century – when temperatures could be up to five degrees higher.
Hence the significance of those first two answers. Global industrialisation over the past 130 years has made relatively little difference.
And with the country committed by Act of Parliament to reducing CO2 by 80 per cent by 2050, a project that will cost hundreds of billions, the news that the world has got no warmer for the past 16 years comes as something of a shock.
It poses a fundamental challenge to the assumptions underlying every aspect of energy and climate change policy.
This ‘plateau’ in rising temperatures does not mean that global warming won’t at some point resume.
But according to increasing numbers of serious climate scientists, it does suggest that the computer models that have for years been predicting imminent doom, such as those used by the Met Office and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are flawed, and that the climate is far more complex than the models assert.
‘The new data confirms the existence of a pause in global warming,’ Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science at America’s Georgia Tech university, told me yesterday.
‘Climate models are very complex, but they are imperfect and incomplete. Natural variability [the impact of factors such as long-term temperature cycles in the oceans and the output of the sun] has been shown over the past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse warming effect.
‘It is becoming increasingly apparent that our attribution of warming since 1980 and future projections of climate change needs to consider natural internal variability as a factor of fundamental importance.’
Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, who found himself at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ scandal over leaked emails three years ago, would not normally be expected to agree with her. Yet on two important points, he did.
The data does suggest a plateau, he admitted, and without a major El Nino event – the sudden, dramatic warming of the southern Pacific which takes place unpredictably and always has a huge effect on global weather – ‘it could go on for a while’.
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were imperfect: ‘We don’t fully understand how to input things like changes in the oceans, and because we don’t fully understand it you could say that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We don’t know what natural variability is doing.’
Yet he insisted that 15 or 16 years is not a significant period: pauses of such length had always been expected, he said.
Yet in 2009, when the plateau was already becoming apparent and being discussed by scientists, he told a colleague in one of the Climategate emails: ‘Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’
But although that point has now been passed, he said that he hadn’t changed his mind about the models’ gloomy predictions: ‘I still think that the current decade which began in 2010 will be warmer by about 0.17 degrees than the previous one, which was warmer than the Nineties.’
Only if that did not happen would he seriously begin to wonder whether something more profound might be happening. In other words, though five years ago he seemed to be saying that 15 years without warming would make him ‘worried’, that period has now become 20 years.
Meanwhile, his Met Office colleagues were sticking to their guns. A spokesman said: ‘Choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system.’
He said that for the plateau to last any more than 15 years was ‘unlikely’. Asked about a prediction that the Met Office made in 2009 – that three of the ensuing five years would set a new world temperature record – he made no comment. With no sign of a strong El Nino next year, the prospects of this happening are remote.
Why all this matters should be obvious. Every quarter, statistics on the economy’s output and models of future performance have a huge impact on our lives. They trigger a range of policy responses from the Bank of England and the Treasury, and myriad decisions by private businesses.
Yet it has steadily become apparent since the 2008 crash that both the statistics and the modelling are extremely unreliable. To plan the future around them makes about as much sense as choosing a wedding date three months’ hence on the basis of a long-term weather forecast.
Few people would be so foolish. But decisions of far deeper and more costly significance than those derived from output figures have been and are still being made on the basis of climate predictions, not of the next three months but of the coming century – and this despite the fact that Phil Jones and his colleagues now admit they do not understand the role of ‘natural variability’.
The most depressing feature of this debate is that anyone who questions the alarmist, doomsday scenario will automatically be labelled a climate change ‘denier’, and accused of jeopardising the future of humanity.
So let’s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the catastrophists have claimed – a conclusion with enormous policy implications.
By: DAVID ROSE
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.
This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.
Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased.
The regular data collected on global temperature is called Hadcrut 4, as it is jointly issued by the Met Office’s Hadley Centre and Prof Jones’s Climatic Research Unit.
Since 1880, when worldwide industrialisation began to gather pace and reliable statistics were first collected on a global scale, the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius.
Some scientists have claimed that this rate of warming is set to increase hugely without drastic cuts to carbon-dioxide emissions, predicting a catastrophic increase of up to a further five degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
The new figures were released as the Government made clear that it would ‘bend’ its own carbon-dioxide rules and build new power stations to try to combat the threat of blackouts.
At last week’s Conservative Party Conference, the new Energy Minister, John Hayes, promised that ‘the high-flown theories of bourgeois Left-wing academics will not override the interests of ordinary people who need fuel for heat, light and transport – energy policies, you might say, for the many, not the few’ – a pledge that has triggered fury from green activists, who fear reductions in the huge subsidies given to wind-turbine firms.
Flawed science costs us dearly :
Here are three not-so trivial questions you probably won’t find in your next pub quiz. First, how much warmer has the world become since a) 1880 and b) the beginning of 1997? And what has this got to do with your ever-increasing energy bill?
You may find the answers to the first two surprising. Since 1880, when reliable temperature records began to be kept across most of the globe, the world has warmed by about 0.75 degrees Celsius.
From the start of 1997 until August 2012, however, figures released last week show the answer is zero: the trend, derived from the aggregate data collected from more than 3,000 worldwide measuring points, has been flat.
Not that there has been any coverage in the media, which usually reports climate issues assiduously, since the figures were quietly release online with no accompanying press release – unlike six months ago when they showed a slight warming trend.
The answer to the third question is perhaps the most familiar. Your bills are going up, at least in part, because of the array of ‘green’ subsidies being provided to the renewable energy industry, chiefly wind.
They will cost the average household about £100 this year. This is set to rise steadily higher – yet it is being imposed for only one reason: the widespread conviction, which is shared by politicians of all stripes and drilled into children at primary schools, that, without drastic action to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, global warming is certain soon to accelerate, with truly catastrophic consequences by the end of the century – when temperatures could be up to five degrees higher.
Hence the significance of those first two answers. Global industrialisation over the past 130 years has made relatively little difference.
And with the country committed by Act of Parliament to reducing CO2 by 80 per cent by 2050, a project that will cost hundreds of billions, the news that the world has got no warmer for the past 16 years comes as something of a shock.
It poses a fundamental challenge to the assumptions underlying every aspect of energy and climate change policy.
This ‘plateau’ in rising temperatures does not mean that global warming won’t at some point resume.
But according to increasing numbers of serious climate scientists, it does suggest that the computer models that have for years been predicting imminent doom, such as those used by the Met Office and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are flawed, and that the climate is far more complex than the models assert.
‘The new data confirms the existence of a pause in global warming,’ Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Science at America’s Georgia Tech university, told me yesterday.
‘Climate models are very complex, but they are imperfect and incomplete. Natural variability [the impact of factors such as long-term temperature cycles in the oceans and the output of the sun] has been shown over the past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse warming effect.
‘It is becoming increasingly apparent that our attribution of warming since 1980 and future projections of climate change needs to consider natural internal variability as a factor of fundamental importance.’
Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, who found himself at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ scandal over leaked emails three years ago, would not normally be expected to agree with her. Yet on two important points, he did.
The data does suggest a plateau, he admitted, and without a major El Nino event – the sudden, dramatic warming of the southern Pacific which takes place unpredictably and always has a huge effect on global weather – ‘it could go on for a while’.
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were imperfect: ‘We don’t fully understand how to input things like changes in the oceans, and because we don’t fully understand it you could say that natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We don’t know what natural variability is doing.’
Yet he insisted that 15 or 16 years is not a significant period: pauses of such length had always been expected, he said.
Yet in 2009, when the plateau was already becoming apparent and being discussed by scientists, he told a colleague in one of the Climategate emails: ‘Bottom line: the “no upward trend” has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’
But although that point has now been passed, he said that he hadn’t changed his mind about the models’ gloomy predictions: ‘I still think that the current decade which began in 2010 will be warmer by about 0.17 degrees than the previous one, which was warmer than the Nineties.’
Only if that did not happen would he seriously begin to wonder whether something more profound might be happening. In other words, though five years ago he seemed to be saying that 15 years without warming would make him ‘worried’, that period has now become 20 years.
Meanwhile, his Met Office colleagues were sticking to their guns. A spokesman said: ‘Choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system.’
He said that for the plateau to last any more than 15 years was ‘unlikely’. Asked about a prediction that the Met Office made in 2009 – that three of the ensuing five years would set a new world temperature record – he made no comment. With no sign of a strong El Nino next year, the prospects of this happening are remote.
Why all this matters should be obvious. Every quarter, statistics on the economy’s output and models of future performance have a huge impact on our lives. They trigger a range of policy responses from the Bank of England and the Treasury, and myriad decisions by private businesses.
Yet it has steadily become apparent since the 2008 crash that both the statistics and the modelling are extremely unreliable. To plan the future around them makes about as much sense as choosing a wedding date three months’ hence on the basis of a long-term weather forecast.
Few people would be so foolish. But decisions of far deeper and more costly significance than those derived from output figures have been and are still being made on the basis of climate predictions, not of the next three months but of the coming century – and this despite the fact that Phil Jones and his colleagues now admit they do not understand the role of ‘natural variability’.
The most depressing feature of this debate is that anyone who questions the alarmist, doomsday scenario will automatically be labelled a climate change ‘denier’, and accused of jeopardising the future of humanity.
So let’s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the catastrophists have claimed – a conclusion with enormous policy implications.
By: DAVID ROSE
· 1
Sebastiaan de Boorder
Star Trek's "tractor" beam created in miniature by researchers.
A team of scientists from Scotland and the Czech Republic has created a real-life “tractor” beam, as featured in the Star Trek movies, which for the first time allows a beam of light to attract objects.
Although light manipulation techniques have existed since the 1970s, this is the first time a light beam has been used to draw objects towards the light source, albeit at a microscopic level.
Researchers from the University of St Andrews and the Institute of Scientific Instruments (ISI) in the Czech Republic have found a way to generate a special optical field that efficiently reverses radiation pressure of light.
The new technique could lead to more efficient medical testing, such as in the examination of blood samples.
In the US science fiction show, a tractor beam was a method of using a beam of light which could pull space-ships and other large objects towards the source of the light.
The team, led by Dr Tomas Cizmar, Research Fellow in the School of Medicine at the University of St Andrews, with Dr Oto Brzobohaty and Professor Pavel Zemanek, both of ISI, discovered a technique which will allow them to provide 'negative' force acting upon minuscule particles.
Normally when matter and light interact the solid object is pushed by the light and carried away in the stream of photons.
Such radiation force was first identified by Johanes Kepler when observing that tails of comets point away from the sun.
Over recent years researchers have realised that while this is the case for most of the optical fields, there is a space of parameters when this force reverses.
The scientists at St Andrews and ISI have now demonstrated the first experimental realisation of this concept together with a number of exciting applications for bio-medical photonics and other disciplines.
The exciting aspect is that the occurrence of negative force is very specific to the properties of the object, such as size and composition.
This in turn allows optical sorting of micro-objects in a simple and inexpensive device. Over the last decade optical fractionation has been identified as one of the most promising bio-medical applications of optical manipulation allowing, for example, sorting of macromolecules, organelles or cells.
Interestingly, the scientists identified certain conditions, in which objects held by the “tractor” beam force-field, re-arranged themselves to form a structure which made the beam even stronger.
Dr Cizmar said: “Because of the similarities between optical and acoustic particle manipulation we anticipate that this concept will provide inspiration for exciting future studies in areas outside the field of photonics.”
Dr Brzobohaty said: “These methods are opening new opportunities for fundamental phonics as well as applications for life-sciences.”
Professor Zemanek said: “The whole team have spent a number of years investigating various configurations of particles delivery by light. I am proud our results were recognised in this very competitive environment and I am looking forward to new experiments and applications. It is a very exciting time.”
By: The Press Office, University of St Andrews
A team of scientists from Scotland and the Czech Republic has created a real-life “tractor” beam, as featured in the Star Trek movies, which for the first time allows a beam of light to attract objects.
Although light manipulation techniques have existed since the 1970s, this is the first time a light beam has been used to draw objects towards the light source, albeit at a microscopic level.
Researchers from the University of St Andrews and the Institute of Scientific Instruments (ISI) in the Czech Republic have found a way to generate a special optical field that efficiently reverses radiation pressure of light.
The new technique could lead to more efficient medical testing, such as in the examination of blood samples.
In the US science fiction show, a tractor beam was a method of using a beam of light which could pull space-ships and other large objects towards the source of the light.
The team, led by Dr Tomas Cizmar, Research Fellow in the School of Medicine at the University of St Andrews, with Dr Oto Brzobohaty and Professor Pavel Zemanek, both of ISI, discovered a technique which will allow them to provide 'negative' force acting upon minuscule particles.
Normally when matter and light interact the solid object is pushed by the light and carried away in the stream of photons.
Such radiation force was first identified by Johanes Kepler when observing that tails of comets point away from the sun.
Over recent years researchers have realised that while this is the case for most of the optical fields, there is a space of parameters when this force reverses.
The scientists at St Andrews and ISI have now demonstrated the first experimental realisation of this concept together with a number of exciting applications for bio-medical photonics and other disciplines.
The exciting aspect is that the occurrence of negative force is very specific to the properties of the object, such as size and composition.
This in turn allows optical sorting of micro-objects in a simple and inexpensive device. Over the last decade optical fractionation has been identified as one of the most promising bio-medical applications of optical manipulation allowing, for example, sorting of macromolecules, organelles or cells.
Interestingly, the scientists identified certain conditions, in which objects held by the “tractor” beam force-field, re-arranged themselves to form a structure which made the beam even stronger.
Dr Cizmar said: “Because of the similarities between optical and acoustic particle manipulation we anticipate that this concept will provide inspiration for exciting future studies in areas outside the field of photonics.”
Dr Brzobohaty said: “These methods are opening new opportunities for fundamental phonics as well as applications for life-sciences.”
Professor Zemanek said: “The whole team have spent a number of years investigating various configurations of particles delivery by light. I am proud our results were recognised in this very competitive environment and I am looking forward to new experiments and applications. It is a very exciting time.”
By: The Press Office, University of St Andrews
Sebastiaan de Boorder
Mathematical breakthrough sets out rules for more effective teleportation.
New protocol advances solutions for more efficient teleportation - the transport of quantum information at the speed of light.
New protocol advances solutions for more efficient teleportation - the transport of quantum information at the speed of light.
Sebastiaan de Boorder
For the last ten years, theoretical physicists have shown that the intense connections generated between particles as established in the quantum law of ‘entanglement’ may hold the key to eventual teleportation of information.
Now, for the first time, researchers have worked out how entanglement could be ‘recycled’ to increase the efficiency of these connections. Published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the result could conceivably take us a step closer to sci-fi style teleportation in the future, although this research is purely theoretical in nature.
The team have also devised a generalised form of teleportation, which allows for a wide variety of potential applications in quantum physics.
Once considered impossible, in 1993 a team of scientists calculated that teleportation could work in principle using quantum laws. Quantum teleportation harnesses the ‘entanglement’ law to transmit particle-sized bites of information across potentially vast distances in an instant.
Entanglement involves a pair of quantum particles such as electrons or protons that are intrinsically bound together, retaining synchronisation between the two that holds whether the particles are next to each other or on opposing sides of a galaxy. Through this connection, quantum bits of information – qubits – can be relayed using only traditional forms of classical communication.
Previous teleportation protocols have fallen into one of two camps, those that could only send scrambled information requiring correction by the receiver or, more recently, “port-based” teleportation that doesn’t require a correction, but needs an impractical amount of entanglement – as each object sent would destroy the entangled state.
Now, physicists from Cambridge, University College London, and the University of Gdansk have developed a protocol to provide an optimal solution in which the entangled state is ‘recycled’, so that the gateway between particles holds for the teleportation of multiple objects.
They have even devised a protocol in which multiple qubits can be teleported simultaneously, although the entangled state degrades proportionally to the amount of qubits sent in both cases.
“The first protocol consists of sequentially teleporting states, and the second teleports them in a bulk,” said Sergii Strelchuk from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, who led the research with colleagues Jonathan Oppenheim of Cambridge and UCL and Michal Horodecki of the University of Gdansk.
“We have also found a generalised teleportation technique which we hope will find applications in areas such as quantum computation.”
Einstein famously loathed the theory of quantum entanglement, dismissing it as “spooky action at a distance”. But entanglement has since been proven to be a very real feature of our universe, and one that has extraordinary potential to advance all manner of scientific endeavor.
“There is a close connection between teleportation and quantum computers, which are devices which exploit quantum mechanics to perform computations which would not be feasible on a classical computer,” said Strelchuk.
“Building a quantum computer is one of the great challenges of modern physics, and it is hoped that the new teleportation protocol will lead to advances in this area.”
While the Cambridge physicists’ protocol is completely theoretical, last year a team of Chinese scientists reported teleporting photons over 143km, breaking previous records, and quantum entanglement is increasingly seen as an important area of scientific investment. Teleportation of information carried by single atoms is feasible with current technologies, but the teleportation of large objects – such as Captain Kirk – remains in the realm of science fiction.
Adds Strelchuk: “Entanglement can be thought of as the fuel, which powers teleportation. Our protocol is more fuel efficient, able to use entanglement thriftily while eliminating the need for error correction.”
By: Fred Lewsey (University of Cambridge)
The paper Generalized teleportation and entanglement recycling can be viewed here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.2683
Now, for the first time, researchers have worked out how entanglement could be ‘recycled’ to increase the efficiency of these connections. Published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the result could conceivably take us a step closer to sci-fi style teleportation in the future, although this research is purely theoretical in nature.
The team have also devised a generalised form of teleportation, which allows for a wide variety of potential applications in quantum physics.
Once considered impossible, in 1993 a team of scientists calculated that teleportation could work in principle using quantum laws. Quantum teleportation harnesses the ‘entanglement’ law to transmit particle-sized bites of information across potentially vast distances in an instant.
Entanglement involves a pair of quantum particles such as electrons or protons that are intrinsically bound together, retaining synchronisation between the two that holds whether the particles are next to each other or on opposing sides of a galaxy. Through this connection, quantum bits of information – qubits – can be relayed using only traditional forms of classical communication.
Previous teleportation protocols have fallen into one of two camps, those that could only send scrambled information requiring correction by the receiver or, more recently, “port-based” teleportation that doesn’t require a correction, but needs an impractical amount of entanglement – as each object sent would destroy the entangled state.
Now, physicists from Cambridge, University College London, and the University of Gdansk have developed a protocol to provide an optimal solution in which the entangled state is ‘recycled’, so that the gateway between particles holds for the teleportation of multiple objects.
They have even devised a protocol in which multiple qubits can be teleported simultaneously, although the entangled state degrades proportionally to the amount of qubits sent in both cases.
“The first protocol consists of sequentially teleporting states, and the second teleports them in a bulk,” said Sergii Strelchuk from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, who led the research with colleagues Jonathan Oppenheim of Cambridge and UCL and Michal Horodecki of the University of Gdansk.
“We have also found a generalised teleportation technique which we hope will find applications in areas such as quantum computation.”
Einstein famously loathed the theory of quantum entanglement, dismissing it as “spooky action at a distance”. But entanglement has since been proven to be a very real feature of our universe, and one that has extraordinary potential to advance all manner of scientific endeavor.
“There is a close connection between teleportation and quantum computers, which are devices which exploit quantum mechanics to perform computations which would not be feasible on a classical computer,” said Strelchuk.
“Building a quantum computer is one of the great challenges of modern physics, and it is hoped that the new teleportation protocol will lead to advances in this area.”
While the Cambridge physicists’ protocol is completely theoretical, last year a team of Chinese scientists reported teleporting photons over 143km, breaking previous records, and quantum entanglement is increasingly seen as an important area of scientific investment. Teleportation of information carried by single atoms is feasible with current technologies, but the teleportation of large objects – such as Captain Kirk – remains in the realm of science fiction.
Adds Strelchuk: “Entanglement can be thought of as the fuel, which powers teleportation. Our protocol is more fuel efficient, able to use entanglement thriftily while eliminating the need for error correction.”
By: Fred Lewsey (University of Cambridge)
The paper Generalized teleportation and entanglement recycling can be viewed here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.2683
Sebastiaan de Boorder
A gamma ray burst, the most powerful explosion known in the Universe, may have hit the Earth in the 8th Century.
In 2012 researchers found evidence that our planet had been struck by a blast of radiation during the Middle Ages, but there was debate over what kind of cosmic event could have caused this.
Now a study suggests it was the result of two black holes or neutron stars merging in our galaxy.
This collision would have hurled out vast amounts of energy.
The research is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Last year, a team of researchers found that some ancient cedar trees in Japan had an unusual level of a radioactive type of carbon known as carbon-14.
In Antarctica, too, there was a spike in levels of a form of beryllium - beryllium-10 - in the ice.
These isotopes are created when intense radiation hits the atoms in the upper atmosphere, suggesting that a blast of energy had once hit our planet from space.
Using tree rings and ice-core data, researchers were able to pinpoint that this would have occurred between the years AD 774 and AD 775, but the cause of the event was a puzzle.
The possibility of a supernova - an exploding star - was put forward, but then ruled out because the debris from such an event would still be visible in telescopes today.
Another team of US physicists recently published a paper suggesting that an unusually large solar flare from the Sun could have caused the pulse of energy. However some others in the scientific community disagree because they do not think that the energy produced would tally with the levels of carbon-14 and beryllium-10 found.
So now German researchers have offered up another explanation: a massive explosion that took place within the Milky Way.
One of the authors of the paper, Professor Ralph Neuhauser, from the Institute of Astrophysics at the University of Jena, said: "We looked in the spectra of short gamma-ray bursts to estimate whether this would be consistent with the production rate of carbon-14 and beryllium-10 that we observed - and [we found] that is fully consistent."
These enormous emissions of energy occur when black holes, neutron stars or white dwarfs collide - the galactic mergers take just seconds, but they send out a vast wave of radiation.
Prof Neuhauser said: "Gamma-ray bursts are very, very explosive and energetic events, and so we considered from the energy what would be the distance given the energy observed.
"Our conclusion was it was 3,000 to 12,000 light-years away - and this is within our galaxy."
Although the event sounds dramatic, our medieval ancestors might not have noticed much.
If the gamma-ray burst happened at this distance, the radiation would have been absorbed by our atmosphere, only leaving a trace in the isotopes that eventually found their way into our trees and the ice. The researchers do not think it even emitted any visible light.
Rare events
Observations of deep space suggest that gamma ray-bursts are rare. They are thought to happen at the most every 10,000 years per galaxy, and at the least every million years per galaxy.
Prof Neuhauser said it was unlikely Planet Earth would see another one soon, but if we did, this time it could make more of an impact.
If a cosmic explosion happened at the same distance as the 8th Century event, it could knock out our satellites. But if it occurred even closer - just a few hundred light-years away - it would destroy our ozone layer, with devastating effects for life on Earth.
However, this, said Prof Neuhauser, was "extremely unlikely".
Commenting on the research, Professor Adrian Melott from the University of Kansas, US, said that although he thought a short gamma-ray burst was a possible conclusion, his group's research suggested that a solar flare was more likely based on observations of Sun-like stars in our galaxy.
He said: "A solar proton event and a short gamma-ray burst are both possible explanations, but based on the rates that we know about in the Universe, the gamma-ray burst explanation is about 10,000 times less likely to be true in that time period."
By : By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC World Service
In 2012 researchers found evidence that our planet had been struck by a blast of radiation during the Middle Ages, but there was debate over what kind of cosmic event could have caused this.
Now a study suggests it was the result of two black holes or neutron stars merging in our galaxy.
This collision would have hurled out vast amounts of energy.
The research is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Last year, a team of researchers found that some ancient cedar trees in Japan had an unusual level of a radioactive type of carbon known as carbon-14.
In Antarctica, too, there was a spike in levels of a form of beryllium - beryllium-10 - in the ice.
These isotopes are created when intense radiation hits the atoms in the upper atmosphere, suggesting that a blast of energy had once hit our planet from space.
Using tree rings and ice-core data, researchers were able to pinpoint that this would have occurred between the years AD 774 and AD 775, but the cause of the event was a puzzle.
The possibility of a supernova - an exploding star - was put forward, but then ruled out because the debris from such an event would still be visible in telescopes today.
Another team of US physicists recently published a paper suggesting that an unusually large solar flare from the Sun could have caused the pulse of energy. However some others in the scientific community disagree because they do not think that the energy produced would tally with the levels of carbon-14 and beryllium-10 found.
So now German researchers have offered up another explanation: a massive explosion that took place within the Milky Way.
One of the authors of the paper, Professor Ralph Neuhauser, from the Institute of Astrophysics at the University of Jena, said: "We looked in the spectra of short gamma-ray bursts to estimate whether this would be consistent with the production rate of carbon-14 and beryllium-10 that we observed - and [we found] that is fully consistent."
These enormous emissions of energy occur when black holes, neutron stars or white dwarfs collide - the galactic mergers take just seconds, but they send out a vast wave of radiation.
Prof Neuhauser said: "Gamma-ray bursts are very, very explosive and energetic events, and so we considered from the energy what would be the distance given the energy observed.
"Our conclusion was it was 3,000 to 12,000 light-years away - and this is within our galaxy."
Although the event sounds dramatic, our medieval ancestors might not have noticed much.
If the gamma-ray burst happened at this distance, the radiation would have been absorbed by our atmosphere, only leaving a trace in the isotopes that eventually found their way into our trees and the ice. The researchers do not think it even emitted any visible light.
Rare events
Observations of deep space suggest that gamma ray-bursts are rare. They are thought to happen at the most every 10,000 years per galaxy, and at the least every million years per galaxy.
Prof Neuhauser said it was unlikely Planet Earth would see another one soon, but if we did, this time it could make more of an impact.
If a cosmic explosion happened at the same distance as the 8th Century event, it could knock out our satellites. But if it occurred even closer - just a few hundred light-years away - it would destroy our ozone layer, with devastating effects for life on Earth.
However, this, said Prof Neuhauser, was "extremely unlikely".
Commenting on the research, Professor Adrian Melott from the University of Kansas, US, said that although he thought a short gamma-ray burst was a possible conclusion, his group's research suggested that a solar flare was more likely based on observations of Sun-like stars in our galaxy.
He said: "A solar proton event and a short gamma-ray burst are both possible explanations, but based on the rates that we know about in the Universe, the gamma-ray burst explanation is about 10,000 times less likely to be true in that time period."
By : By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC World Service