The more one probes the universe at smaller and smaller scales, the weirder matter and energy seem to behave.

But this strangeness may limit its own extent in quantum mechanics, the theory describing the behavior of matter at an infinitesimal level, according to a new study by an ex-hacker and a physicist.

“We’re interested in this question of why quantum theory is as weird as it is, but not weirder,” said physicist Jonathan Oppenheim of the University of Cambridge. “It was an unnatural question for people to have asked even 20 years ago. The reason we’re able to get these results is that we’re thinking of things in the way a hacker might think of things.”

A lot of eerie things happen in the quantum world. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, for instance, it’s impossible to know everything about a quantum particle. The more precisely you know an electron’s position, the less precisely you know its momentum. Stranger still, the electron doesn’t even have properties like position and momentum until an observer measures them. It’s as if the particle exists in a plurality of worlds, and only by making a measurement can we force it to choose one.

In another weirdness, two particles can be bound together such that observing one causes changes in the other, even when they’re physically far apart. This quantum embrace, called entanglement (or more generally, nonlocality), made Einstein nervous. He famously called the phenomenon “spooky action at a distance.”

But there’s a limit to how useful nonlocality can be. Two separated people can’t send messages faster than the speed of light.

Read complete article here. {via wired.com}

Events that haven’t taken place yet can influence our behaviour, reveals a new study.

Parapsychologists have made outlandish claims about precognition – knowledge of unpredictable future events – for years.

The study, set to appear in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, describes a series of experiments involving more than 1000 student volunteers, reports New Scientist.

Daryl Bem of the Cornell University took well-studied psychological phenomena and simply reversed the sequence, so that the event generally interpreted as the cause happened after the tested behaviour rather than before it.

Read complete article here. {via medindia.net}

Computer simulation. CERN

A miniature Big Bang was created Sunday at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), as the world’s most powerful atom-smasher successfully entered a new phase of exploration.

The particle accelerator at the CERN laboratory near Geneva smashed together lead atoms for the first time, to produce temperatures a million times hotter than those found at the heart of the sun.

A miniature Big Bang was created Sunday at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), as the world’s most powerful atom-smasher successfully entered a new phase of exploration.The particle accelerator at the CERN laboratory near Geneva smashed together lead atoms for the first time, to produce temperatures a million times hotter than those found at the heart of the sun.

read complete article here {via foxnews.com}

The Matrix?

Have you ever wished that your life was actually a hologram, like Keanu Reeves’s in the The Matrix?

Craig Hogan, a particle astrophysicist at the University of Chicago and Fermilab (dedicated to the study of the science of matter, space and time), is trying to an interesting theory: whether our world is really two-dimensional and only appears three-dimensional, like a hologram on a credit card.

“There are a lot of mathematical ideas about how reality works, but we need experiments to guide us about what is really happening,” says Hogan in an interview with the Star.

Hogan is heading a team of researchers trying to test what has become known as the holographic theory.

Based on mathematical formulas and the study of black holes and string physics, some physicists have hypothesized that reality is a hologram.

Read complete article here. {via thestar.com}

In a Hubble picture, a red circle indicates an object in a distant galaxy that could be an ejected black hole.

A super-massive black hole — heavier than one billion suns — appears headed on an exit out of its home galaxy at 670,000 miles-an-hour.

“We have located a peculiar X-ray source,” says the upcoming study in The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal, led by Marianne Heida of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, “either a very blue type IIn supernova, a (X-ray star) with a very bright optical counterpart or a recoiling super-massive black hole.”

Noted by NASA’s Chandra X-ray space telescope, the object called CXO J122518.6+144545 resides some 607,000 light years away in the SDSS DR7 galaxy (one light year is about 5.9 trillion miles.) Curiously, the object is about 10,500 light years outside the center of the galaxy, marked by an accompanying bright spot in the sky, noted by Hubble space telescope images.

Read complete article here. {via USA Today}

Scientist suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

Aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

Scientist suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. Aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

Read complete article here. {via foxnews.com}

Hadron Collider

Scientists claim the giant atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being jinxed from the future to save the world.

In a bizarre sci-fi theory, Danish physicist Dr Holger Bech Nielsen and Dr Masao Ninomiya from Japan claim nature is trying to prevent the LHC from finding the elusive Higgs boson. Called the “God particle,” the theoretical boson could explain the origins of mass in the universe — if physicists can find the darn thing.
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UFOs over Washington, D.C., 1952(ufocasebook)

For many years “UFology” – or the study of the UFO phenomenon has generally been dismissed by the scientific community.  Many scientists continue to debunk the reality of UFO’s even in light of the fact that a recent national survey indicated that nearly 70 percent of the American public believes that UFO’s are real, and that they most likely are guided by intelligent beings from other worlds or dimensions.  There is ample evidence from credible witnesses including: former NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts, ex-military, and law enforcement officers.  So, what will it take to convince mainstream science to seriously consider the possible existence of UFO’s?  Patricia B. Corbett, in her article “UFOs-A Challenge to Mainstream Science”, suggests that it is essential to prevent this important phenomenon to serious scientists it a context with which they can identify, namely the discipline of science as it is practiced today.  Second, it is equally important to show that the tools of science can be used to investigate the UFO phenomenon, and to reach valid conclusions.

Read complete article here. {via The Examiner}

Butterfly emerges from stellar demise in Planetary Nebula NGC 6302. (Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team)

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is back in business, ready to uncover new worlds, peer ever deeper into space, and even map the invisible backbone of the universe.

The first snapshots from the refurbished Hubble showcase the 19-year-old telescope’s new vision. Topping the list of exciting new views are colorful multi-wavelength pictures of far- flung galaxies, a densely packed star cluster, an eerie “pillar of creation,” and a “butterfly” nebula.
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A clip from a BBC documentary explaining Hawking radiation around black holes. {source: stevebd1}