Science is Drokking Fantastic Because...

[Zarjazzer]

Those Mars  rebs will get what's coming to them!

Er, quite meanwhile some 63.4  light years away...http://www.gemini.edu/node/12113

[O Lucky Stevie!]

A star.

Within another star.

[The Legendary Shark]

Previously unknown dead Egyptian guy dug up:  news.discovery.com/history/ancient-egypt/mystery-pharaoh-found-in-egypt-140116.htm#mkcpgn=emnws1

[Bubba Zebill]

Where have we seen this before?
A new scientific development - a device that helps you breath underwater with no tank.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2540610/The-gadget-turns-FISH-Mask-extracts-oxygen-ocean-breath-continuously-underwater.html

...sorry it's a Daily Fail link.

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Wasn't that in an Usborne book Bubba?

[The Legendary Shark]

So, I was sat in front of the fire reading a book and my mind was wandering. I found myself captivated by the flames in the fireplace and the radiated warmth and began pondering the nature of the universe. As you do.
.
I never really liked the idea of black holes - or rather, I never liked the idea of a singularity being in the middle of one. I have no scientific or mathematical expertise to back up my dislike of the concept of a singularity, I just don't like it. To me it feels like a mathematical artefact, the result of drawing straight mathematical lines.
.

To illustrate my meaning: On the Chattering Cyclops I once saw a melon exploded from the core. Imagine that explosion was slowed down so dramatically that sentient bacteria had time to evolve on one of the melon fragments. They might discern that their 'universe' is slowly (from their perspective) flying apart and then mathematically rewind the explosion. Without knowing what the original melon was like or why it exploded, would these sentient bacteria also rewind their universe to a singularity?
.
Okay, so that's more analogous to not liking the idea of a singularity driving the Big Bang but hey, a singularity's a singularity and it holds broadly true for black holes as well.
.
So, if not a singularity, then what? How about a fractal? I remember reading that there might be dozens of other dimensions in the universe but most of them are (from our perspective) wrapped up very small. But beyond the event horizon of a black hole, where gravity seems to be Emperor, what happens to all those dimensions? Do they just get squashed smaller and smaller or do they begin to merge and interact? Do they begin impinging on 'normal' 4D spacetime, maybe fracturing or fragmenting it, turning it into 'bubbles' or splinters - all fractal-shaped, folding and bending and twisting in and around each other. Wouldn't need a singularity then, I imagine - just countless little 'multidimensional pockets'. Or something.
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But here's another idea that struck me in my quest to eliminate the singularity: What if matter creates spacetime?
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Let's imagine that a hydrogen atom generates an infinitesimally small amount of spacetime, say one Planck Length per electron orbit - the smallest amount of space and the shortest duration of time possible. (I have no idea how this would work, of course, maybe the almost non-existent vibrations in spacetime caused by electrons moving, perhaps.)
.
So, one hydrogen atom isn't going to have much of an effect in expanding the universe. Nor the spacetime created by the massed atoms of the Earth which would be subsumed inside the spacetime emitted by the sun which is in turn swamped by the spacetime emitted by the galaxy and so on. The effects of gravity keep the galaxies together but in the intergalactic voids the spaceime starts 'piling up' - driving the omnidirectional expansion of the universe.
.
As for black holes, maybe these are areas where a massive concentration of matter emits a phenomenal amount of spacetime. At a certain point, the event horizon, the emission of spacetime overcomes the pull of gravity and anything falling beyond the event horizon continues to "fall" practically forever as, the further it "falls" the more spacetime there is for it to "fall into".
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Now, those two ideas are probably utter bullshit or, if they're not, almost certainly unoriginal but it does prove - to me at least - why science is drokking fantastic. It allows even people like me to have a go on the Big Questions and also, and more importantly, thinking about this is enormous fun
.
I just wish I had the brains to work out the maths of it all. Screw it, though - it's probably easier just to put it in a Future Shock or something!

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Pandora's permafrost

Will smallpox reemerge in Siberia as corpses flaw from Climate Change?

[Jim_Campbell]

Pandora's permafrost

Will smallpox reemerge in Siberia as corpses flaw from Climate Change?

A somewhat sensationalist headline, given that the article itself basically says "No."

Cheers!

Jim

[shaolin_monkey]

At least the thing about the icecaps and the mini-ecolgies being released into the sea was interesting.

[The Legendary Shark]

As there doesn't seem to be a 'Science is Drokking Creepy Because...' thread, I guess I'll just have to post this here:  Rentacyberghost...

[Mardroid]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25022-oldest-human-footprints-outside-africa-found-in-uk.html

[shaolin_monkey]

As there doesn't seem to be a 'Science is Drokking Creepy Because...' thread, I guess I'll just have to post this here:  Rentacyberghost...

Good grief, is that for real??

EDIT:   It is!!!

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/unlively-chat-skype-dead-eterni-me-2D12024238

[The Legendary Shark]

Imagine, 1,000 years from now, the Earth is dead and lifeless but the internet is still up and running - peopled entirely by synthetic ghosts all trolling and twittering away for eternity.

It's not new technology. I myself passed away in 2003...

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Oh Sharky! If only you had avoided the drift nets for another 12 months  your ceaselss patrol of the seven seas would not have seemed so lonely..

http://www.artificial-life.com/en/about_us/cat/about/1/0/artaboutus_041005

[The Legendary Shark]

Heh, that's brilliant. Women have always been expensive, now even non-existent ones cost money too!