Science Odds and Ends

I never liked that there was no explanation of what existed before the Big Bang. Glad to see there are people working on it!

No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning
February 9, 2015 by Lisa Zyga

The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. The model may also account for dark matter and dark energy, resolving multiple problems at once.

The widely accepted age of the universe, as estimated by general relativity, is 13.8 billion years. In the beginning, everything in existence is thought to have occupied a single infinitely dense point, or singularity. Only after this point began to expand in a "Big Bang" did the universe officially begin.

Although the Big Bang singularity arises directly and unavoidably from the mathematics of general relativity, some scientists see it as problematic because the math can explain only what happened immediately after—not at or before—the singularity.

Ali and coauthor Saurya Das at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, have shown in a paper published in Physics Letters B that the Big Bang singularity can be resolved by their new model in which the universe has no beginning and no end.

Read more at: phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html#jCp

Meanwhile, a little later in the universe's existence...

Earth is made up of two planets fused together, new research suggests
RIP, planet buddy.
FIONA MACDONALD
2 FEB 2016

Copyright William K. Hartmann

Astronomers investigating how the Moon formed have found evidence that it was produced after a small planet smashed headfirst into Earth around 4.5 billion years ago. And research suggests that this collision was so violent that the 'planetary embryo' that hit us, called Theia, ended up fusing with both Earth and the Moon as a result.

The idea that the Moon was formed as part of a Solar System crash isn't new , but scientists in the past have proposed that Theia simply side-swiped Earth, blasting the Moon into orbit and then continuing off into space. Now new research by a team at the University of California, Los Angeles, suggests that Theia actually never left us .

Press release from UCLA: newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/moon-was-prod...and-a-forming-planet

Research publication: Oxygen isotopic evidence for vigorous mixing during the Moon-forming giant impact
Edward D. Young1,*, Issaku E. Kohl1,*, Paul H. Warren1, David C. Rubie2, Seth A. Jacobson2,3, Alessandro Morbidelli3
↵*Corresponding author E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (E.D.Y.); This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (I.E.K.)
Science 29 Jan 2016:
Vol. 351, Issue 6272, pp. 493-496
DOI: 10.1126/science.aad0525

This is pretty cool, just goes to show you that just because it's improbable doesn't mean that it's impossible.

Scientists have discovered a legendary boiling river in the Amazon rainforest
Fiona Macdonald, Science Alert
Feb. 20, 2016

For centuries, Peruvian locals have talked about a river in the Amazon that burns so hot it can kill.

According to legend, Spanish conquistadors foolishly ventured into the rainforest in search of gold, and the few men that returned told stories of poisoned water, man-eating snakes, and a river that boiled from below.

For Peruvian geoscientist, Andrés Ruzo, the myth had fascinated him since childhood. But it wasn't until he was completing his PhD project on geothermal energy potential in Peru that he began to question whether the river could actually be real.

According to the experts he spoke to, the answer was a unanimous "no" — after all, hot rivers do exist, but they're generally associated with volcanoes, and there are no volcanoes in that part of the country.

But when Ruzo went home over the holidays and asked his family where the myth had come from, his mother told him that the river didn't just exist, she and his aunt had actually swum in it before.

You won't be sorry, it's a fascinating story!