100,000 Stars es who will change your life Neuroscience News - Neuroscience Research Neuroscience Labs Neuroscience Jobs Neuroscience Books Reviews Neuroscience Forums Social Network Prospects 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. One of the properties of a negative-energy vacuum is that light actually travels faster in it than it does in a normal vacuum, something that may one day allow people to travel faster than the speed of light in a kind of negative-energy vacuum bubble. 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. Relativity of Simultaneity This is similar to arranging tiles evenly on a floor.
Events Test that can predict death - with a terrifying degree of accuracy Click graphic to enlarge The test measures the average length of tiny structures on the tips of chromosomes called telomeres which are known to get shorter each time a cell divides during an organism’s lifetime. Telomeres are believed to act like internal clocks by providing a more accurate estimate of a person’s true biological age rather than their actual chronological age. This has led some experts to suggest that telomere tests could be used to estimate not only how fast someone is ageing, but possibly how long they have left to live if they die of natural causes. Telomere tests have been widely used on experimental animals and at least one company is offering a £400 blood test in the UK for people interested in seeing how fast they are ageing based on their average telomere length. Now scientists have performed telomere tests on an isolated population of songbirds living on an island in the Seychelles and found that the test does indeed accurately predict an animal’s likely lifespan.
Painting How can parts of Canada be 'missing' gravity?" For more than 40 years, scientists have tried to figure out what's causing large parts of Canada, particularly the Hudson Bay region, to be "missing" gravity. In other words, gravity in the Hudson Bay area and surrounding regions is lower than it is in other parts of the world, a phenomenon first identified in the 1960s when the Earth's global gravity fields were being charted. Two theories have been proposed to account for this anomaly. But before we go over them, it's important to first consider what creates gravity. At a basic level, gravity is proportional to mass. One theory centers on a process known as convection occurring in the Earth's mantle. A new theory to account for the Hudson Bay area's missing gravity concerns the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered much of present-day Canada and the northern United States. To get a better idea of what happened, think about what happens when you lightly press your finger into the surface of a cake or a piece of really springy bread.
WEB Saturn's moon Enceladus holds promise of alien life By Robin McKie, The ObserverSunday, July 29, 2012 17:21 EDT Enceladus is little bigger than a lump of rock and has appeared, until recently, as a mere pinprick of light in astronomers’ telescopes. Yet Saturn’s tiny moon has suddenly become a major attraction for scientists. Many now believe it offers the best hope we have of discovering life on another world inside our solar system. The idea that a moon a mere 310 miles in diameter, orbiting in deep, cold space, 1bn miles from the sun, could provide a home for alien lifeforms may seem extraordinary. This point is endorsed by astrobiologist Professor Charles Cockell of Edinburgh University. The cause of this unexpected interest in Enceladus – first observed by William Herschel in 1789 and named after one of the children of the Earth goddess Gaia – stems from a discovery made by the robot spacecraft Cassini, which has been in orbit of Saturn for the past eight years. Equally remarkable is the impact of this water on Saturn.