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The Fabric of the Cosmos

The Fabric of the Cosmos
The Fabric of the Cosmos, a four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene, takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time, and the universe. With each step, audiences will discover that just beneath the surface of our everyday experience lies a world we'd hardly recognize - a startling world far stranger and more wondrous than anyone expected. Brian Greene is going to let you in on a secret: We've all been deceived. Our perceptions of time and space have led us astray. Much of what we thought we knew about our universe - that the past has already happened and the future is yet to be, that space is just an empty void, that our universe is the only universe that exists - just might be wrong. Watch the full documentary now (playlist)

Largest Ever Water Reservoir Discovered in Space The reservoir is gigantic, holding 140 trillion times the mass of water in the Earth's oceans, and resides 10 billion light years away. Since astronomers expected water vapor to be present even in the early universe, the discovery of water is not itself a surprise, the Carnegie Institution, one of the groups behind the findings, said. The water cloud was found to be in the central regions of a faraway quasar. Quasars contain massive black holes that are steadily consuming a surrounding disk of gas and dust; as it eats, the quasar spews out amounts of energy, the institution said in its statement. The quasar where the gigantic water reservoir is located is some 12 billion years old, only 1.6 billion years younger than the Big Bang. The discovery was part of a larger study of the quasar named APM 08279+5255, where the black hole is 20 billion times greater than the Sun. The environment around this quasar is very unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water.

10 Ways Our Minds Warp Time How time perception is warped by life-threatening situations, eye movements, tiredness, hypnosis, age, the emotions and more… The mind does funny things to our experience of time. Just ask French cave expert Michel Siffre. In 1962 Siffre went to live in a cave that was completely isolated from mechanical clocks and natural light. He soon began to experience a huge change in his perception of time. When he tried to measure out two minutes by counting up to 120 at one-second intervals, it took him 5 minutes. But you don’t have to hide out in a cave for a couple of months to warp time, it happens to us all the time. 1. People often report that time seems to slow down in life-threatening situations, like skydiving. But are we really processing more information in these seconds when time seems to stretch? To test this, Stetson et al. (2007) had people staring at a special chronometer while free-falling 50 metres into a net. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Time is relative “Time is an illusion.

Extensive water in Mars' interior -- Science & Technology © NASAMars, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Until now, Earth was the only planet known to have vast reservoirs of water in its interior. Scientists analyzed the water content of two Martian meteorites originating from inside the Red Planet. They found that the amount of water in places of the Martian mantle is vastly larger than previous estimates and is similar to that of Earth's. The results not only affect what we know about the geologic history of Mars, but also have implications for how water got to the Martian surface. The data raise the possibility that Mars could have sustained life. The research was led by former Carnegie postdoctoral scientist Francis McCubbin, now at the University of New Mexico. The scientists analyzed what are called shergottite meteorites. "We analyzed two meteorites that had very different processing histories," explained Hauri. "There has been substantial evidence for the presence of liquid water at the Martian surface for some time," Hauri said.

5 simple ways to increase self-confidence Self-confidence is one of the key personal qualities necessary for success. Here are 5 ways to develop self-confidence, presented in the book The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz. Use them in life, and you will certainly become successful. 1. Usually in lectures, conferences, briefings and seminars the back rows of the classroom are filled first. 2. There are many bright and talented people (sitting in the same conferences and workshops) who for whatever reason are afraid to express their opinions in order to avoid saying something stupid, not to seem ridiculous, etc. Each time a person wants to say something and says nothing, he injects himself with a portion of the poison that kills confidence. And vice versa: the more you speak, the more confident you become, so after each time you find it more and more easy to speak in public. Make rule to express your opinion in every public meeting you attend. And do not think that you will look silly. 3. How to develop self-confidence?

Life on Mars found but destroyed by mistake - Sci/Tech Bungling NASA scientists are believed to have found tiny live microbes on Mars - but mistakenly killed them by boiling them alive, a media report said. Bungling NASA scientists are believed to have found tiny live microbes on Mars - but mistakenly killed them by boiling them alive, a media report said Saturday. Two spacecraft that landed on the Red Planet in 1976 are now thought to have detected microbes in Martian soil. But scientists at the time failed to spot the signs of life - and cooked the bugs at 160 degrees Centigrade during experiments, The Sun reported. Now an international team has used modern techniques to re-examine data collected by the two unmanned Viking probes. Biologist Joseph Miller, of the University of Southern California, said: "I'm 99 percent sure there's life there. During the 1976 mission, nutrients were added to the Martian soil. Experts dismissed the possibility that the gas came from bugs.

How to Get Your Confidence Back Getting confidence is one thing, getting your confidence back is a substantially different one. You see, people who’ve always lacked confidence in a certain area aren’t familiar with the emotion and they have a hard time grasping the associated behavior. On the other hand, people who had confidence in a certain area at some point but they’ve lost it are familiar with the emotion and the related behavior, they’ve just lost touch with them. What they need is to get those emotions to surface again. This is easier than inventing them from scratch, but it is also different in many ways and it requires a customized approach. It’s a lot easier to get a feeling of confidence when you need it if you get reacquainted with that feeling when you had it. One highly effective exercise for this is . Make the visualization as vivid as possible; remember as much of the details as you can, as if that past experience was really happening right now. The mind and the body are connected.

Meteoroid impact triggers bright flash on the moon CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An automated telescope monitoring the moon has captured images of an 88-pound (40 kg) rock slamming into the lunar surface, creating a bright flash of light, NASA scientists said on Friday. The explosion on March 17 was the biggest seen since NASA began watching the moon for meteoroid impacts about eight years ago. So far, more than 300 strikes have been recorded. "It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before," Bill Cooke, with NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a statement. A NASA satellite orbiting the moon is now on a hunt for the newly formed crater, which scientists estimate could be as wide as 66 feet. The flash was so bright that anyone looking at the moon at the moment of impact could have seen it without a telescope, NASA said. But not always. (Editing by Kevin Gray and Doina Chiacu)

The Best Books to Spark Your Creativity | World of Psychology - StumbleUpon Books open up worlds we never even knew existed. Whether they address creativity directly or not, books are a treasure trove of inspiration just waiting to be tapped. For recommendations, I turned to bloggers and artists who connect to their creativity every day. Below they share the diverse books that have ignited their imaginations—which I bet will spark yours, too! “I’m a voracious reader and find most books in any genre inspiring in one way or another,” said Nellie Jacobs, a bestselling author, award-winning artist and creativity consultant. The books below have helped Jacobs think more creatively. Jacobs also suggested reading books outside genres you typically pick to help you think differently. “Learn how to write scripts, or paint watercolors, or take photographs, or create crafts. Life coach and artist Tiffany Moore agreed that seeing the world in different ways is key to creativity. What books help ignite your imagination?

Moon water came from young wet Earth - space - 09 May 2013 The notion that all Earth's water was delivered by comets or asteroids has just taken a hit. Chemical analysis of lunar rocks suggests that Earth was born wet, and it held on to its water long enough to donate some to the moon. The moon is thought to have formed after a massive collision between the infant Earth and another proto-planet around 4.5 billion years ago. Until a few years ago, most astronomers thought that the moon must be bone dry – any water would have been vaporised in the impact. That changed when Alberto Saal of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and colleagues studied rocks brought back from the Apollo 17 mission in the 1970s. In 2008 they found that crystallised magmas in the rocks – and not just a little. "The question became, where did the water come from?" Water level Several research teams had already tackled the question by measuring the ratios of hydrogen and its heavier isotope, deuterium, in primitive rocks from Earth and the moon. Impact rate

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