10 Strange Things About The Universe. Space The universe can be a very strange place. While groundbreaking ideas such as quantum theory, relativity and even the Earth going around the Sun might be commonly accepted now, science still continues to show that the universe contains things you might find it difficult to believe, and even more difficult to get your head around.
Theoretically, the lowest temperature that can be achieved is absolute zero, exactly ? 273.15°C, where the motion of all particles stops completely. However, you can never actually cool something to this temperature because, in quantum mechanics, every particle has a minimum energy, called “zero-point energy,” which you cannot get below. Remarkably, this minimum energy doesn’t just apply to particles, but to any vacuum, whose energy is called “vacuum energy.” One prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that when a large object moves, it drags the space-time around it, causing nearby objects to be pulled along as well.
Editorial: Shuttle Atlantis' last flight will end an era for Americans. Americans have been fascinated by the idea of space travel for more than 50 years. When President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation in 1961 to send a man to the moon before the end of the decade, he made it not just a scientific endeavor but also a matter of national pride. The Soviet Union had beaten the U.S. into space. For Americans still basking in their victories in World War II but increasingly nervous about the rise of the USSR and communist China, that was simply unacceptable. The nation rose to Kennedy's challenge. That's why, for those of us who watched anxiously as those early space travelers blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida and then cheered their safe return, the end of the space shuttle program is especially sad. O oWhen the shuttle Atlantis lands back on Earth next week, Wednesday or Thursday, the era of space travel that started with Kennedy's speech will essentially be over.President George W.
Ecotopia. Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston is a seminal utopian novel by Ernest Callenbach, published in 1975. The society described in the book is one of the first ecological utopias and was influential on the counterculture and the green movement in the 1970s and thereafter. The author himself claimed that the society he depicted in the book is not a true utopia (in the sense of a perfect society), but, while guided by societal intentions and values, was imperfect and in-process.[1] The book's context and background[edit] Besides the important social dimensions of the story, Callenbach talked publicly about being influenced, during work on the novel, by numerous streams of thought: The scientific discoveries in the fields of ecology and conservation biology.
The urban-ecology movement, concerned with a new approach to urban planning. The term "ecotopian fiction", as a sub-genre of science fiction and utopian fiction, makes implicit reference to this book. Plot summary[edit] San Francisco Secession: Could It Create 'Ecotopia'? Republican Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone wants a Republican state of his own, a place called South California that would carefully exclude Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other Democratic-leaning counties. On Tuesday, county supervisors gave his idea a boost, endorsing Stone's plan for a secession summit.
Stone's plan ultimately doesn't have a snowball's chance in Palm Springs, but in the meantime, he's been able to get people talking -- and some of them are even asking whether we shouldn't just throw the bums out. That question is reminiscent of earlier plans for NorCal to have a secession itself. Mike Trinklein, author of "Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It," told HuffPost that proposals like Stone's aren't as unusual as you might think (remember West Virginia), and said he's an enthusiast. "California is a poorly designed state geographically," Trinklein argued.
Why I Still Give My 11-Year-Old Marijuana | Medical Marijuana Marijuana Blog. (NEWSER) – Marie Myung-Ok Lee has been giving her autistic 11-year-old son medical marijuana for two years now, and judging from some of the responses she’s received from people who read her columns, “I will not be up for Mother of the Year any time soon,” she writes on Slate. But she doesn’t care about that as much as she cares about the fact that her son woke up the other day “and wanted a hug—the boy who formerly woke us with a scream of pain. The boy who, since he was 3 years old, never gave us hugs or let himself be hugged, because he couldn't bear to be touched.”
In addition to allowing him to avoid the powerful psychotropic drugs—and their serious side effects—normally prescribed in similar circumstances, her son’s medical cannabis regimen has allowed Lee and her family to enjoy trips to the beach, the farmers’ market, and the zoo. Earth View. Earth View. 3761_aa98229439307e962bbc8c1f153c404a_2.jpg (JPEG Image, 433x650 pixels)