We are about to find out if our universe really is a hologram. What could be the most important scientific experiment of our lifetime is about to begin. The so-called Holometer Experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory aims to determine whether our perception of a three-dimensional universe is just an illusion. Do we actually live on a 2D plane, as a holographic projection? There is a well-established theory that states we are indeed living in a hologram, with a pixel size of about 10 trillion trillion times smaller than an atom. This has certain implications, some of which are quite sinister, even unspeakably horrific. The argument about the nature of the universe hinges on something that 99.99% of people are not able to comprehend even on the most superficial level — namely, a comparison of the energy contained in a theoretical flat universe with no gravity and the internal energy of a black hole, and whether these two energy levels match or not.
Or whatever. And this is where the cosmic horror seeps in. Is 'genius' a dirty word? 21 September 2011Last updated at 11:06 By Kate Dailey BBC News Magazine Extraordinary individuals: Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Ludwig van Beethoven The annual awarding of MacArthur Foundation grants means that another 22 people are going to find themselves called "genius". But is the title a blessing or a curse? According to the MacArthur Foundation, annual fellowships are awarded to outstanding individuals who show talent, originality, and dedication in all fields. But due to a popular nickname, the fellows are known by a much grander moniker - genius. The winners of the genius grants, as they're often called in the media, reflect the Foundation's broader goals.
Continue reading the main story “Start Quote A lot of kids who are labelled prodigies early on end up being mediocre or worse” End QuoteDavid ShenkAuthor of The Genius In All of Us "It's a joke. Unfathomable insight To call oneself a genius seems like a boast. Continue reading the main story Genius Class of 2011 The freedom factor. Online gamers crack AIDS enzyme puzzle. Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade. The exploit was published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where - exceptionally in scientific publishing - both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.
Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV. Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them. Advertisement But a microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti. Pharmacologists, though, need a 3D picture that "unfolds" the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs. This is where Foldit comes in. Solve Puzzles for Science | Foldit.
New species of dolphin discovered. 15 September 2011Last updated at 10:16 Formal delineation of dolphin species is notoriously tricky Researchers have determined that dolphins found in southeastern Australia represent a previously unknown species. Around 150 of the dolphins live around the Melbourne area and had until now been assumed to be one of the known bottlenose dolphins. But detailed DNA studies and analysis of skulls in museums showed the two populations are in fact a new species. The new classification as Tursiops australis is described in PLoS One. The common name of Burrunan dolphins derives from the Aboriginal Australian for "large sea fish of the porpoise kind". Previous research had shown that the DNA found in the dolphins differed from that of the known bottlenose species Tursiops truncatus and Tursiops aduncus.
But in order to define a new species, more evidence is needed. In fact, now that it is recognised as a separate species it may immediately qualify under Australia's criteria for endangered animals. Supercomputer predicts revolution. 9 September 2011Last updated at 15:57 Sentiment mining showed a sharp change in tone around Egypt ahead of President Mubarak's ousting Feeding a supercomputer with news stories could help predict major world events, according to US research.
A study, based on millions of articles, charted deteriorating national sentiment ahead of the recent revolutions in Libya and Egypt. While the analysis was carried out retrospectively, scientists say the same processes could be used to anticipate upcoming conflict. The system also picked up early clues about Osama Bin Laden's location. Kalev Leetaru, from the University of Illinois' Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts and Social Science, presented his findings in the journal First Monday.
Mood and location The study's information was taken from a range of sources including the US government-run Open Source Centre and BBC Monitoring, both of which monitor local media output around the world. Predicting trouble Continue reading the main story. Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth. Scientists scanning the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean. The discovery marks the first time such a large body of water has found in the planet's deep mantle.
[The World's Biggest Oceans and Seas] The finding, made by Michael Wysession, a seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and his former graduate student Jesse Lawrence, now at the University of California, San Diego, will be detailed in a forthcoming monograph to be published by the American Geophysical Union. Looking down deep The pair analyzed more than 600,000 seismograms — records of waves generated by earthquakes traveling through the Earth—collected from instruments scattered around the planet.
[Image Gallery: This Millennium's Destructive Earthquakes] They noticed a region beneath Asia where seismic waves appeared to dampen, or "attenuate," and also slow down slightly. The Beijing anomaly.
Intel Solar-Powered Computer Processor Offers Glimpse Of Future. SAN FRANCISCO -- A solar cell the size of a stamp. That's all Intel Corp. researchers needed to power a computer processor that could hold a tantalizing vision for the low-power chips of the future. The company showed off the feat this week at its annual developer conference in San Francisco. The achievement was less about the fact the chip ran on solar power and more about how Intel employees were able to create a chip that ran on little more than the power needed to turn on its transistors, the so-called "threshold" voltage. Intel's chief technology officer, Justin Rattner, said the experimental processor was 5 times more energy-efficient than today's processors. But he emphasized that it is nowhere near ready for prime time. The chip was based on a redesign of a Pentium processor that's more than a decade old, and the underlying technology was so dated that employees needed to scour eBay for a motherboard to plug the chip into, he said.
THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2011. "Deliciously creative...the variety astonishes...intellectual skyrockets of stunning brilliance. Nobody in the world is doing what Edge is doing. It's the greatest virtual research university in the world. " —Denis Dutton, Arts & Letters Daily James Flynn has defined "shorthand abstractions" (or "SHA's") as concepts drawn from science that have become part of the language and make people smarter by providing widely applicable templates ("market", "placebo", "random sample," "naturalistic fallacy," are a few of his examples).
His idea is that the abstraction is available as a single cognitive chunk which can be used as an element in thinking and debate. The Edge Question 2011 The term 'scientific"is to be understood in a broad sense as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything, whether it be the human spirit, the role of great people in history, or the structure of DNA. 164CONTRIBUTORS (115.000 words): Daniel Kahneman, Richard Dawkins, V.S. Paul Jáuregui ... [Continue] We All Get Shorter As We Age, Research Confirms. You're not just imagining it -- you do get shorter as you get older, new research reveals. Research has shown that most people shrink from age 30 to 70, with men getting about an inch shorter and women getting about two inches shorter, the Early Show reported. And when people hit age 80, men and women lose another inch on top of that. After age 40, it's not uncommon to start getting just a little bit shorter.
But shrinking too much or too fast could be a sign of health problems, research shows. The Wall Street Journal reports research that shows men age 70 or older who shrink more than 2 inches in two years are 54 percent more likely to break their hip bone than men who don't shrink as much as fast. And for women, that increased fracture risk is 21 percent. The reason why people shrink as they age is because the little gel-like discs in your back get more and more squished with time, thereby making you shorter, the Early Show reported. Lab chimps see daylight for first time in 30 years. New emotion detector can see when we're lying.
13 September 2011Last updated at 13:26 By Hamish Pritchard Science Reporter, Bradford Our faces betray a range of emotions; the thermal sensor even detects changes in blood vessels A sophisticated new camera system can detect lies just by watching our faces as we talk, experts say. The computerised system uses a simple video camera, a high-resolution thermal imaging sensor and a suite of algorithms.
Researchers say the system could be a powerful aid to security services. It successfully discriminates between truth and lies in about two-thirds of cases, said lead researcher Professor Hassan Ugail from Bradford University. The system, developed by a team from the universities of Bradford and Aberystwyth in conjunction with the UK Border Agency, was unveiled today at the British Science Festival in Bradford.
This new approach builds on years of research into how we all unconsciously, involuntarily reveal our emotions in subtle changes of expression and the flow of blood to our skin. NASA awakens its humanoid robot at international space station. Scientists chasing a particle they believe may have played a vital role in creation of the universe indicated last week that they were coming to accept that it might not exist after all. But they stressed that if the so-called Higgs boson turns out to have been a mirage, the way would be open for advances into territory dubbed “new physics” to try to answer one of the great mysteries of the cosmos.
The CERN research center, whose giant Large Hadron Collider has been the focus of the search, said it had reported to a conference in Mumbai that possible signs of the Higgs noted last month were now seen as less significant. A number of scientists from the center, whose formal name is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, went on to make comments that raised the possibility that the mystery particle might not exist. For some scientists, the Higgs remains the simplest explanation of how matter got mass. . — Robert Evans, Reuters.