Best Image of Big Bang Afterglow Ever Confirms Standard Cosmology

If the universe were ice cream, it would be vanilla. That's the take-home message from researchers working with the European Space Agency's orbiting Planck observatory, who today released the most precise measurements yet of the afterglow of the big bang—the so-called cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. The new data from Planck confirm cosmologists' standard model of how the universe sprang into existence and what it's made of. That may disappoint scientists who were hoping for new puzzles that would lead to a deeper understanding.

Brain Researchers Can Detect Who We Are Thinking About

Scientists scanning the human brain can now tell whom a person is thinking of, the first time researchers have been able to identify what people are imagining from imaging technologies.

Work to visualize thought is starting to pile up successes. Recently, scientists have used brain scans to decode imagery directly from the brain, such as what number people have just seen and what memory a person is recalling. They can now even reconstruct videos of what a person has watched based on their brain activity alone. Cornell University cognitive neuroscientist Nathan Spreng and his colleagues wanted to carry this research one step further by seeing if they could deduce the mental pictures of people that subjects conjure up in their heads.

New details of atomic structure of water under extreme conditions found

Scientist from Dortmund, Helsinki, Potsdam, and the ESRF have revealed details of the microscopic atomic structure of water under extreme conditions. The results have now been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Liquid water remains a mystery even after decades of dedicated scientific investigations and researchers still struggle to fully describe its unusual structure and dynamics.

Saga of ‘the Hobbit’ highlights a science in crisis

To state the obvious: human evolution is not without its drama – and the latest salvo in the ongoing Hobbit, or Homo floresiensis, battle confirms this yet again.

The 2004 announcement of Homo floresiensis – dubbed “the Hobbit” – marked the beginning of a saga all too frequent in the rarefied field of human evolution.

Immediately upon its announcement, anthropologists divided along long-entrenched party lines to support or oppose the find as something novel to science.

Хамукар

 

Хамукар, араб. حموقار‎‎ — древний город, крупный археологический памятник, расположенный в округе Джазира на северо-востоке Сирии у границы с Ираком (провинция Хасеке) и Турцией.

Ураганы разогрелись

Количество ураганов вырастет, а их разрушительная мощь увеличится. К такому выводу пришли ученые Пекинского университета, проанализировавшие статистические данные минувших десятилетий. Связано это с глубинными процессами изменения климата. По-видимому, нам стоит ждать и других природных катаклизмов.

В начале XX века тропические циклоны казались чем-то несерьезным и не представляли особой опасности для крупных поселений, в настоящее же время ситуация кардинально изменилась: названные женскими именами ураганы «Катрина» и «Сэнди» теперь кажутся скорее предвестниками апокалипсиса, нежели обыкновенными природными катаклизмами, о которых забываешь, чуть только они завершились.

Фея Моргaна

Фея Морга́на (от древневаллийского имени Morcant: môr (море) + cant (круг) либо от древнегаэльского имени кельтской богини войны и смерти Mórríghan (Mhór Rioghain — «Великая Королева»)) — волшебница, персонаж английских легенд артуровского цикла, единоутробная сестра короля Артура. Именно ей начиная с XIX века приписывается верховенство, командование всеми миражами.

Считается, что мифы о Моргане перекликаются с преданиями о Морриган в Ирландии, с мифами о кельской Матроне и валлийской Модрон. Легенды о том, что богиня и фея Моргана вызывает чудесных морских дев, распространились по всей Британии, а затем по Европе, пока наконец миражи в Мессинском проливе не получили название "Фата Моргана".

Geophysicist: A Katrina hurricane will strike every two years

Increases in Earth’s average temperature will result in far more hurricanes in the future, new study reveals.

Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes in US history. The hurricane and the subsequent flooding killed 1,836 people.

The UN climate panel estimates that Earth’s average temperature may rise by 3.4 degrees Celsius over the next hundred years. This, scientists say, will increase the frequency of extreme weather events.

”If this trend continues, it is realistic to expect a ten-fold increase in hurricanes like Katrina. That amounts to once every two years,” says geophysicist Aslak Grinsted, of Copenhagen University’s Niels Bohr Institute.

Reasoning Training Increases Brain Connectivity Associated with High-Level Cognition

A number of studies across various domains– from juggling to taxi navigation to meditation to music to motor learning to processing speed– demonstrate the importance of experience on patterns of neural connectivity. Finally, the cognitive ability domain is catching up.

In recent years, neuroscientists have discovered a large-scale brain network critical for novel and complex goal-directed problem solving. According to Aron Barbey and colleagues, a major function of this network is the manipulation, integration, and control of distributed patterns of neural activity throughout the brain, including lower-level sensory and motor modules. This neural integrative architecture– sometimes referred to as the prefrontal parietal network– involves efficient and reliable communication between specific areas of the lateral prefrontal cortex (critical for high-level abstract integration) and posterior parietal lobe (critical for sensory integration). Here’s an illustration of the key regions of this neural architecture, along with the critical white matter tract binding these regions together into a coordinated network:

Dr. David Livingstone, a Bicentenary

Two hundred years ago the remarkable Dr. David Livingstone was born in the small village of Blantyre, Scotland.

His family was poor, and he started work in a cotton mill at the age of 10. His life as a laborer did not prevent him from the Herculean task (for a poor man) of pursuing the study of medicine, and at the age of 23 he entered Anderson College in Glasgow.

Livingstone was from a deeply religious family, but he rejected the antagonism growing between Science and Religion. He believed in a Christian theology that was dedicated to a scientific understanding of nature.

Starting in 1840 he worked in and explored Africa as a missionary and a scientist. His contributions to medicine, geography, and natural history were, and still are, significant. His experiences led him to become a leading anti-slavery crusader. His phrase describing the East African slave trade, “this open sore of the world,” still condemns the slave trade of today.