Welcome to Gaia! ::

Reality: Resurrection!

Back to Guilds

relax with us 

Tags: contests, games, variety 

Reply 72: Science & Astronomy Hangout
Science News Goto Page: [] [<] 1 2 3 ... 4 5 6 7 [>] [»|]

Quick Reply

Enter both words below, separated by a space:

Can't read the text? Click here

Submit


AstronomyGirl


Planetary Astronomer

57,900 Points
  • Conventioneer 300
  • That One Hero 500
  • Planetary Technician 150
PostPosted: Wed May 17, 2006 9:23 pm


Wednesday/Thrusday May 17/18th 2006

Trio of Neptunes and their Belt


LINK TO THE ARTICLE

" Using the ultra-precise HARPS spectrograph on ESO's 3.6-m telescope at La Silla (Chile), a team of European astronomers have discovered that a nearby star is host to three Neptune-mass planets. The innermost planet is most probably rocky, while the outermost is the first known Neptune-mass planet to reside in the habitable zone. This unique system is likely further enriched by an asteroid belt."
PostPosted: Sat May 20, 2006 12:02 pm


Saturday May 20th 2006

Where have all the flowers come from?


LINK TO THE ARTICLE

"FLOWERING plants are the most diverse group of plants ever to sit on the Earth," says William Friedman of the University of Colorado at Boulder. But with no obvious evolutionary predecessors, where did they come from?


AstronomyGirl


Planetary Astronomer

57,900 Points
  • Conventioneer 300
  • That One Hero 500
  • Planetary Technician 150


Endrael


Codger

PostPosted: Sun May 21, 2006 5:32 pm


This is from a couple months ago, but I only found it a few days ago. Being a technology geek, I find it pretty cool that tech companies are relying more and more on physics in order to achieve computational power.

Terabyte Hard Drives, Anyone?

There was also an article I ran across in Wired about two months ago talking about a new technique for using nano-wires to control the current in chips or act as 1's and 0's to store data. Basically, it would act like computer ram, being used as a data cache, but since none of the information would be lost when the computer was turned off, you could store things in this cache and not lose them if you happen to lose power in the middle of working on something.

In a way, it would basically be a hard drive without moving parts, rather akin to flash drives, only capable of storing immense amounts of information because the circuitry would be on the scale of <5 microns. In practical terms, once the tech gets off the ground and further refined, it means hard disk drives will become obsolete, both in terms of space available for storage (petabytes of storage are easily conceivable with nano-tube technology like this) and reliability, since there wouldn't be any moving parts that would wear out or shift out of alignment.
PostPosted: Sun May 21, 2006 7:00 pm


whoa.. that's really cool. Thanks for posting about that Endrael. ^_^
It's really amazing what they're able to do with nanotechnology now-a-days.


AstronomyGirl


Planetary Astronomer

57,900 Points
  • Conventioneer 300
  • That One Hero 500
  • Planetary Technician 150


AstronomyGirl


Planetary Astronomer

57,900 Points
  • Conventioneer 300
  • That One Hero 500
  • Planetary Technician 150
PostPosted: Sun May 21, 2006 7:08 pm


Sunday May 21th 2006

Scientists say they have cleared technical hurdle in fusion research


LINK TO THE ARTICLE

" Physicists working in the United States believe they have cracked an important problem facing man-made nuclear fusion, touted as the cheap, safe, clean and almost limitless energy source of the future."
PostPosted: Tue May 23, 2006 12:08 pm


Two articles, actually.

Trio of Neptune Sized Planets Discovered

"Scientists looking for planets around stars beyond our sun have found a system that contains an asteroid belt and three Neptune-sized worlds, one of which orbits in a zone where liquid surface water could exist."

------

Hogwarts Dinosaur Unearthed

"A dragon-like dinosaur named after Harry Potter's alma mater has performed a bit of black magic on its own family tree, say paleontologists who unveiled the "Dragon King of Hogwarts" on Monday in Albuquerque."


Endrael


Codger



AstronomyGirl


Planetary Astronomer

57,900 Points
  • Conventioneer 300
  • That One Hero 500
  • Planetary Technician 150
PostPosted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:43 pm


Endrael
Two articles, actually.

Trio of Neptune Sized Planets Discovered

"Scientists looking for planets around stars beyond our sun have found a system that contains an asteroid belt and three Neptune-sized worlds, one of which orbits in a zone where liquid surface water could exist."

------

Hogwarts Dinosaur Unearthed

"A dragon-like dinosaur named after Harry Potter's alma mater has performed a bit of black magic on its own family tree, say paleontologists who unveiled the "Dragon King of Hogwarts" on Monday in Albuquerque."


I already posted an article about the new planets. blaugh Different site though.
lol that dinosaur one is rather humerous. They named the dinosaur after Harry Potter. lol
PostPosted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:55 pm


Tuesday May 23th 2006

The End of Small Galaxies

LINK TO THE ARTICLE

"When the universe was young, countless dwarf galaxies formed, heating the universe and preventing the formation of more small galaxies, a new study suggests."


AstronomyGirl


Planetary Astronomer

57,900 Points
  • Conventioneer 300
  • That One Hero 500
  • Planetary Technician 150


Endrael


Codger

PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2006 2:23 am


AstronomyGirl
I already posted an article about the new planets. blaugh Different site though.

So I see sweatdrop Go my observational skills blaugh
PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2006 12:21 pm


[ Message temporarily off-line ]


Endrael


Codger



AstronomyGirl


Planetary Astronomer

57,900 Points
  • Conventioneer 300
  • That One Hero 500
  • Planetary Technician 150
PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2006 10:42 pm


Endrael
AstronomyGirl
I already posted an article about the new planets. blaugh Different site though.

So I see sweatdrop Go my observational skills blaugh

lol that's ok. blaugh
PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2006 10:45 pm


[ Message temporarily off-line ]


AstronomyGirl


Planetary Astronomer

57,900 Points
  • Conventioneer 300
  • That One Hero 500
  • Planetary Technician 150


Endrael


Codger

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 2:49 am


[ Message temporarily off-line ]
PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 7:41 am


Endrael

In a way, though, it isn't entirely unexpected. Various labs around the world have repeated and verified experiments in which a particle is split and the halves sent off in opposite directions (I forget what kind of particles, exactly), and then a state change induced in one particle while the other particle has nothing done to it, but both particles undergo the state change at exactly the same time. So obviously such information can travel faster than the speed of light. It's just a matter of how practical it is to use the phenomenon for something.

Teleportation of particles has also been produced and verified under lab conditions, and if I remember right, some scientists in Germany reproduced the feat under non-lab conditions, but this was some years ago, so my memory of the article is rather vague.

I expect that once these new discoveries about light and such become feasibly useable in everyday ways, standards and methods of communication are going to undergo a very extreme shift. The paradigm shift may even be bigger than the one sparked by the spread of the internet.

Exciting times biggrin


Yea true, I guess it is rather unexpected to see this phenomenon with light, as light, as we know it, is like nothing else in the universe.

Ah, and yea all those other things you talk about, those advances, they sound familiar. I'm sure I heard about them as well. 3nodding

But yea, if we can be able to travel faster then the speed of light, that would greatly effect communications.

But then what about physics? What about all of Einstienian physics that's based on the fact that the speed of light is constant and nothing can go faster? Have we discovered something that will totally change physics? Will Einstien's physics become like Newtonian physics and only really apply in certain cases? (Rhetorical questions galore! blaugh )


AstronomyGirl


Planetary Astronomer

57,900 Points
  • Conventioneer 300
  • That One Hero 500
  • Planetary Technician 150


Endrael


Codger

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2006 9:45 pm


AstronomyGirl
Yea true, I guess it is rather unexpected to see this phenomenon with light, as light, as we know it, is like nothing else in the universe.

Ah, and yea all those other things you talk about, those advances, they sound familiar. I'm sure I heard about them as well. 3nodding

But yea, if we can be able to travel faster then the speed of light, that would greatly effect communications.

But then what about physics? What about all of Einstienian physics that's based on the fact that the speed of light is constant and nothing can go faster? Have we discovered something that will totally change physics? Will Einstien's physics become like Newtonian physics and only really apply in certain cases? (Rhetorical questions galore! blaugh )

But remember that the speed of light is also relative, though yeh, I agree. It should be interesting to see if string theory gains more traction and is able to predict and explain this light-faster-than-light phenomena. I think that would be a big step in both legitimising string theory and opening up a lot of lines for further research.
Reply
72: Science & Astronomy Hangout

Goto Page: [] [<] 1 2 3 ... 4 5 6 7 [>] [»|]
 
Manage Your Items
Other Stuff
Get GCash
Offers
Get Items
More Items
Where Everyone Hangs Out
Other Community Areas
Virtual Spaces
Fun Stuff
Gaia's Games
Mini-Games
Play with GCash
Play with Platinum