The Vortex Cannon

A couple of weekends ago Amy and I enlisted the help of a few of her friends to pick up a gigantic dresser from Amy's parents' house, only to create an accidental meeting of the minds. Conversations moved fluidly from one topic to another, experiments with the creation of gun powder and thermite, burning out dead stumps and creating massive canons with high arcing flames, the sorts of things you might hear of on a televised science program.

The discussion eventually lead to something that Cliff had discovered on the internets, something called a vortex cannon which created a powerful blast - strong enough to knock stacked polystyrene cups over at a distance of thirty feet - simply using air compression in an empty cardboard box. Surely this science experiment will soon be on the docket for this intelligent group of twenty-somethings.

Perhaps we will even weaponize it in time to use it against the oncoming zombie apocalypse. Only time will tell.

I give you the vortex cannon:

A River Beneath the Amazon

Amy and I were amazed to find out the other day that there is a subterranean river 400 kilometers beneath the Amazon river that, though the same length, is sometimes up to a hundred times wider. This is the article that she found at Guardian.co.uk titled "Underground River 'Rio Hamza' Discovered 4KM Beneath the Amazon."

Covering more than 7 million square kilometres in South America, the Amazon basin is one of the biggest and most impressive river systems in the world. But it turns out we have only known half the story until now.

Brazilian scientists have found a new river in the Amazon basin – around 4km underneath the Amazon river. The Rio Hamza, named after the head of the team of researchers who found the groundwater flow, appears to be as long as the Amazon river but up to hundreds of times wider.

Both the Amazon and Hamza flow from west to east and are around the same length, at 6,000km. But whereas the Amazon ranges from 1km to 100km in width, the Hamza ranges from 200km to 400km.

The underground river starts in the Acre region under the Andes and flows through the Solimões, Amazonas and Marajó basins before opening out directly into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Amazon flows much faster than the Hamza, however, draining a greater volume of water. Around 133,000m3 of water flow through the Amazon per second at speeds of up to 5 metres per second. The underground river's flow rate has been estimated at around 3,900m3 per second and it barely inches along at less than a millimetre per hour.

The Hamza was located using data collected inside a series of 241 abandoned deep wells that were drilled in the Amazon region by the petrochemical company Petrobras in the 1970s and 1980s. Elizabeth Tavares Pimentel and Valiya Hamza of the Department of Geophysics at Brazil's National Observatory led the work and presented their results last week at the International Congress of the Society Brasiliera Geophysical in Rio de Janeiro.

The researchers used a mathematical model to predict the presence of the underground river, based on the measured changes in temperature down the wells. In the presentation, Piementel said that the flow of groundwater was almost vertical through the rocks to depths of around 2,000m. After this, the water flow changes direction and becomes almost horizontal.

According to the researchers, the presence of the Rio Hamza river might account for the relatively low salinity of the waters around the mouth of the Amazon.

Professor Hamza said Piementel's measurements represented preliminary work on the discovery of the new river, but Hamza said he expected to confirm the existence of the flow with additional measurements within the next few years.

The Amazing Gene-Stealing Clam

I just read this article titled "Crazy Sex Trick Fuels All-Male Clam Species" over at Wired:

Amidst the animal kingdom’s menagerie of sexual practices, those of Corbicula clams stand out.

A common freshwater genus about the size of a half-dollar, most Corbicula species reproduce by cloning. That’s odd, albeit not extraordinary. They’re also physically hermaphroditic but genetically male — again odd, but not extraordinary.


What’s really strange is that, once in a great while, they hijack fresh DNA from other clams.

“They can steal the eggs of other species,” said David Hillis, a University of Texas at Austin computational biologist whose Corbicula investigations are described May 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Usually, the whole maternal genome is then kicked out. But sometimes they keep some of the genes, and incorporate them into their own genome.”


At a glimpse, Corbicula reproduction seems to be of the unexceptional, sperm-meets-egg-in-the-water marine variety. But in most cases, sperm and egg come from the same clam, which produces both. Then, after fertilization, egg genes are ejected from the embryo. Should currents happen to mix sperm and egg from different clams, the same happens. In either case the result is a clone descended from one original clam’s sperm.


Cloning’s great advantage is that it lets organisms quit worrying about finding the right mate, which is of course themselves, and channel all that time and energy elsewhere. Once considered an evolutionary aberration, cloning is now seen as a fairly common and successful reproductive strategy. But every self-cloning species is confronted by what Hillis calls the Xerox principle: with each round of copying, errors are introduced. Genomes become smudged and, over time, unreadable.


Cloners have evolved a variety of solutions to this problem. Some species of fungi, along with a fish called the Amazon molly, reproduce sexually just often enough to prevent their gene pools from drying. Certain all-female lizards can alternate between single and double-sexed–species status as needed, or rely on chromosome mix-up mechanisms that bootstrap them into genetic diversity. One class of animals can even absorb the DNA of its deceased (see sidebar). But how Corbicula stayed genetically vital was unknown.


In the new study, Hillis and colleagues scanned the genomes of 19 different Corbicula species from around the world, searching for patterns that could reveal the clams’ trick. They found odd spikes — groups of genes that belonged to one species, but inexplicably showed up in another.
According to Hillis and colleagues, the most plausible explanation involves rare fertilization events when sperm mets egg that doesn’t just come from another clam, but from another Corbicula species. Most of the time, development proceeds normally, with egg DNA jettisoned — but every so often, once in thousands or even millions of generations, some of the egg’s genes are allowed to stay. The clone’s lineage is replenished.


“This is the signature you’d expect to find to find from these genetic-capture events,” he said. “It’s exactly what we observe.”


Hillis is now curious as to whether there’s a relationship between this reproductive habit and Corbicula’s propensity for sudden population booms, which in some areas has made it a pipe-clogging pest. He’s also interested in whether all-male species, which seem to be a rarity among single-sex reproducers, are actually more common than thought.


In a recent Systematic Biology paper, Hillis described how the cells of various organisms, from other mollusks to oak trees, contain DNA traces from other related species. These are generally explained as the genetic remnants of past hybridization events, but to Hillis the patterns don’t look right. He suspects that androgenesis — the technical name for father-only reproduction — is responsible.


“There are all kinds of interesting questions now about asexual systems. A lot of them we don’t know much about, and biologists never even spent any time thinking about them,” said Hillis. “When it comes to sexual systems, almost anything you can imagine, and a lot of things we never imagined, happen somewhere in nature. ”

Pendulum Waves

Serious Sci Fi: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is the fourth installation of film adaptations of he original 1966 television show Star Trek. In this film, James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his crew travel back in time to save two humpback whales in a sort of "save the whales, save the universe" plot. (Are lame Heroes jokes still vogue?) The crew must split up in order to abduct, store and transport the two whales efficiently, or else...

Many of you have difficulty suspending disbelief long enough to believe that one can time travel (accurately) by using a space vessel to "slingshot" around the sun. Perhaps, due to the fact that my dad raised us on Star Trek, it's easier for me to deal with this uncritically. Perhaps I fear the consequences of closing minds to, as Mulder would say, "extreme possibilities." I do have a problem with Star Trek IV, however. If you guessed that it involves Mr. Spock mind-melding with a whale then you've guessed wrong. My problem has to do with the actions of Scotty in the above divide and conquer situation, or what I call the Montgomery Scott Paradox.

Mr. Scott's job, in preparation for saving the whales, is to acquire panels of ultra-thick acrylic glass which will be used to construct water tanks in the ship's cargo bay strong enough to transport two humpback whales and tons of water. Since Mr. Scott does not have enough money - 23rd-century economics is apparently drastically different from 20th century economics - he gives Dr. Nichols of Plexicorp the chemical formula for transparent aluminum in exchange for several sheets of plexiglass. Dr. Leonard McCoy, always concerned with the ethical implications of peoples' actions, censures Mr. Scott for giving Nichols the formula and potentially changing the future with possibly dire consequences. Mr. Scott brushes off the accusation humorously, responding, "How do you know he didn't invent the thing?" According to the novelization of the film, Dr. Nichols did, in fact, invent transparent aluminum.

The Montgomery Scott Paradox is better known as the predestination paradox. (Apparently people talked about this paradox prior to Star Trek IV. All I know is that I sure as heck didn't...) If Montgomery Scott's knowledge ultimately originates in the knowledge of Dr. Nichols, and the knowledge of Dr. Nichols originally comes from Montgomery Scott (as depicted in the film), then the result is an infinite loop in which the knowledge doesn't have any true origin. There is no original idea, no inception, only the transmission of an idea that technically should not exist. Assuming that only one timeline / dimension / reality exists (which we technically can't do after the events of J.J. Abrams's Star Trek), this exchange of knowledge without origin cannot happen.

The only way out, according to my imagination, is through multiverse theory, though the intermingling of tangent universes and the propagation of knowledge across dimensions. Even with the help of multiverse theory, however, I have trouble coming up with a concise account of how one can solve this paradox. The Montgomery Scott paradox from Star Trek IV remains, to this interpreter at least, a serious difficulty.

(If anyone can provide an acocunt of how to resolve this paradox, please feel free to make me look like a fool. I would love to learn from your science / sci-fi expertise.)

NASA Finds Alien Life?

A couple of weeks ago, everyone on the Facebook community was posting one of these two articles, "NASA Finds New Life" or "Nasa Reportedly Discovers 'Completely Alien' Life on Earth." If you've read my article "Office For Outer Space Affairs," you know that I am something of a conspiracy theorist interested in the existence of extraterrestrial life. By extension, you know that I was pretty excited to stumble upon these articles.

Shortly after people began talking about NASA's discovery of aliens on Earth, a much smaller faction of Facebook researchers began to surface. While many had begun to act as if we were living in a momentous time in history, the time of first contact with extraterrestrial life, this faction was devoted to deriding these individuals for their ridiculous beliefs. They began talking about how this scientific discovery was a heck of a let down.

These particular articles talk about how NASA has discovered a new form of bacteria called GFAJ-1 in Mono Lake, California. Nearly all life forms on this planet are called carbon-based life forms, which means that the structures that support us are carbon compounds. These newly discovered bacteria do not fit this mold. Their DNA, RNA, proteins and cell membranes are instead constructed from arsenic compounds.

It has been hypothesized for years that non-carbon-based lifeforms may exist on Earth. When I was in grade school I remember hearing that people suspected that silicon-based organisms lived beneath the Earth's crust. Since silicon is a metal, it would be more useful as a building block of life where heat and pressure reach extremes beyond that which carbon-based life forms can handle. Furthermore, it is directly below carbon on the periodic table, which means that it would function like carbon in many ways. This theory was common enough by the 1960s that Star Trek: The Original Series featured a silicon-based alien life form called a Horta in the first season episode "The Devil in the Dark."

The 20th century has seen its fair share of upsets in the definition of how life forms are defined, most significantly with the discovery of archaea, microorganisms that were originally understood as bacteria but which are now understood as having a completely different evolutionary path. These organisms can thrive in the harshest of climates, in volcanic vents and toxic waste even, because of their ability to metabolize a variety of gases and metals that would kill nearly any other organism. Knowing about these variations on life, it never seemed like much of a leap to suggest that we would find a non-carbon-based life form on or in the Earth.

While the discovery of arsenic-based bacteria is certainly a momentous scientific discovery that can lead humankind down some interesting avenues of research, it has been marketed to the public as if scientists had just discovered intelligent extraterrestrial life capable of long-distance space travel. If the headlines referred to scientists discovering new life, few would find it very interesting. The nature specials I used to watch in the 90s told me that new species are being discovered on a daily basis in places like the Amazon rain forest. Instead, the headlines made use of the "NASA" keyword, which combined with the keywords "new" and "life," plants the false idea that we are dealing with ET here. Throw in the word "alien," meaning "other" or "different," and people automatically think you mean "extraterrestrial in origin."

I would love to fit this story into my greater theory regarding the possibility of extraterrestrial biological entities traveling lightyears to make contact with the civilization of Earth, but it just doesn't fit. This scientific advance is extraordinary but it is also a let down, and the crux of this distinction is the bait and switch that popular sources reporting on this issue have used. They promise Independence Day and X-Files, but instead they give us Nova.

Monkeys See Selves In Mirror, Open a Barrel of Questions

If I had followed my original plans upon entering college in 2001, I probably would be some sort of microbiologist or geneticist right now, perhaps even some sort of post-Skinner behaviorist. Having chosen the route of philosophy and writing instead, I find myself most interested in the science involved with the brain, thoughts and consciousness on the one hand, and the composition of the universe on the other. The first hand that I mentioned has been experiencing a scientific hand full ever since I read the Wired article Monkeys See Selves In Mirror, Open a Barrel of Questions which raises the question of whether other animals are capable of mental acts we'd previously limited to human consciousness.

Monkeys may possess cognitive abilities once thought unique to humans, raising questions about the nature of animal awareness and our ability to measure it.

In the lab of University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Luis Populin, five rhesus macaques seem to recognize their own reflections in a mirror. Monkeys weren’t supposed to do this.

“We thought these subjects didn’t have this ability. The indications are that if you fail the mark test, you’re not self-aware. This opens up a whole field of possibilities,” Populin said.

Populin doesn’t usually study monkey self-awareness. The macaques described in this study, published Sept. 29 in Public Library of Science One, were originally part of his work on attention deficit disorder. But during that experiment, study co-author Abigail Rajala noticed the monkeys using mirrors to study themselves.

So-called mirror self-recognition is thought to indicate self-awareness, which is required to understand selfhood in others, and ultimately to be empathic. Researchers measure this with the “mark test.” They paint or ink a mark on unconscious animals, then see if they use mirrors to discover the marks.

It was once thought that only humans could pass the mark test. Then chimpanzees did, followed by dolphins and elephants. These successes challenged the notions that humans were alone on one side of a cognitive divide. Many researchers think the notion of a divide is itself mistaken. Instead, they propose a gradual spectrum of cognitive powers, a spectrum crudely measured by mirrors.

Indeed, macaques — including those in Populin’s study — have repeatedly failed the mark test. But after Rajala called attention to their strange behaviors, the researchers paid closer attention. The highly social monkeys only rarely tried to interact with the reflections. They used mirrors to study otherwise-hidden parts of their bodies, such as their genitals and the implants in their heads. Mark tests not withstanding, they seemed quite self-aware.

“I think that these findings show that self-awareness is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon,” said Lori Marino, an Emory University evolutionary neurobiologist who was not involved in the study. “There may be much more of a continuum in self-awareness than we thought before."

According to Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal, the new findings fit with his work on capuchin monkeys who don’t quite recognize themselves in mirrors, but don’t treat the reflections as belonging to strangers. “As a result, we proposed a gradual scale of self awareness. The piece of intriguing information presented here may support this view,” he said.

However, de Waal cautioned that “many scientists would want more tests and more controls” — a warning especially salient in light of a high-profile controversy involving Marc Hauser, a Harvard University evolutionary biologist who appears to have overstated the cognitive powers of his own monkeys.

“What you’re seeing in the videos is subject to all kinds of interpretations,” said Gordon Gallup, a State University of New York at Albany psychologist who invented the mirror test, and has administered it with negative results to rhesus monkeys. “I don’t think these findings in any way demonstrate that rhesus monkeys are capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors.”

Populin said his monkeys may have developed an unusual familiarity with mirrors, which are given to them as toys during infancy. The presence of saltshaker-sized implants screwed into their skulls may also have captured their interest more readily than an inked mark.

Marino, who helped demonstrate self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins, disagreed with Gallup. “The videos are absolutely convincing,” she said. “I have been trying to find an alternative explanation for the results – and haven’t come up with one yet.”

Marino said the findings fit with other research on monkey cognition, including a since-replicated Journal of Experimental Psychology study in which macaques displayed unexpectedly sophisticated math skills and passed other, non-mirror-based tests of self-awareness.

“There are many ways to look at animals. Mirror tests are not the end-all and be-all,” said Diana Reiss, a mammal cognition specialist at the City University of New York.

If research continues to find that monkeys possess higher-than-expected awareness, it could influence how researchers and the public think about biomedical research on monkeys. Macaques were critical in the development of a polio vaccine during the 20th century and, more recently, the refinement of embryonic stem cell techniques.

“I would absolutely hope that we do not stop using them now. Their contributions have been immense,” said Populin, who studies how ritalin affects the brain’s prefrontal cortex.

“There are decisions I would make with a monkey, that I would not feel comfortable making with a chimpanzee,” said University of Wisconsin psychologist Chris Coe, who was not involved in the study. “Some of the other cognitive abilities that monkeys would have to show, I don’t believe they do. I don’t believe they sit and ponder their fate, or reflect on the past, or fret about the future, because they are able to see themselves in a mirror,” he said.

“We don’t know whether they have a sense of past or future,” said Marino, who called Coe’s research distinction an ethical non-sequitur. “Whether an animal has a sense of the past or future is irrelevant to the issue of whether they can suffer in the present.”

Even if Coe accepts human-benefiting research involving contagious diseases or invasive procedures in monkeys that he wouldn’t in chimps, however, he said the findings underscore the importance of improving research animal conditions. The macaques’ unexpected self-awareness certainly influences the equations by which society must continually balance the harms and benefits of research.

“A study such as this one, that pushes our own awareness of what monkeys can and can’t do, challenges us,” Coe said. “I’m not going to argue that having animals live in small cages is so wonderful. One has to reflect on that.”

A more accurate understanding of animal awareness may ultimately require better tools. Many researchers are skeptical of the mirror test, which Marino said “is shaped more by the cognitive limitations of human researchers than anything else.”

Wrote Marino in an e-mail, “Other animals may be more deeply contemplative than humans – we just don’t know.  That’s really the bottom line. Any scientist who tells you they know that other animals don’t think as richly or as complexly as humans — is, well, not being scientific.”

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) lives up to its name by providing web surfers a new picture with brief explanation daily. I recently decided that when I have children, I want to be the kind of father who knows when to expect meteor showers and who can explain which constellation is which. Astronomy Picture of the Day is an amazing web site that assists me toward my awesome endgame.

Perseid Meteor Shower 2010

NOTE: It's not fair to count the recent Northern Lights debacle against me. On both August 3 and 4, I went out and patiently waited for those waves of red, green and blue, and on both August 3 and 4 I was just as disappointed as you were. It seems the prediction that they could be seen in Michigan due to solar storms meant that they could be seen in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan due to solar storms. Sigh.

We're very fortunate that on the evenings of Wednesday, August 11, Thursday, August 12, and Friday, August 13, the best-known meteor shower, the Perseids (or Tears of St. Lawrence), will be lighting up the evening and early morning skies. I was lucky enough to witness last year's Leonid meteor shower in mid-November on a dark stretch of road in Northern Texas and it, along with the cold, cold night, was breath-taking. That's why I think you should look to the sky during the next couple of days and give the Perseids the chance to dazzle you.

The Perseid meteor shower is named after its proximity to the constellation Perseus, which will be located low in the Northeast. As a result, it is customary to watch the patch of sky halfway between the Double Star Cluster of Perseus and the zenith (directly above you). This is where you will find the highest concentration of meteor activity, but don't be surprised if they appear in other parts of the night sky.

As a bonus this year, the bright planets Venus, Mars, and Saturn can be seen in a tight cluster in the Southwestern sky (the exact opposite direction of Perseus) just after sunset, so there is an added bonus for stargazers who get out just as soon as darkness falls.

The peak times for viewing the Perseid meteor shower are from 2 AM until daybreak local time on Wednesday and Thursday evening, and around 8 PM on Thursday when Earth is predicted to cut through the densest part of the Perseid stream. But you can probably see the meteor shower just about any time during the night if you head outside to a secluded area with a low tree line and devoid of light pollution during the next couple days.

Six Common Nature Myths

The National Wildlife Federation recently released these six common myths about nature:

Myth 1: Never put a baby bird back in its nest. The parents will smell your scent and abandon the chick.

Nope, they won’t! While it’s usually best not to disturb wildlife, this reasoning is hogwash. Most birds have a very poor sense of smell. If a nestling has fallen and you can reach the nest easily, it’s fine to put the baby back in. However, young birds that have already left the nest often hang out on the ground before they can fly well. Check to see if the chick has its feathers. If so, it’s a fledgling, and you don’t need to do anything. Most likely the parents are nearby, keeping an eye out and bringing food.

Myth 2: Don't touch a toad - you'll get warts!

Totally false. A toad can’t give you warts. Though its skin may look warty, it has nothing to do with the virus that causes warts in humans. So it’s perfectly safe to gently touch a toad...

Myth 3: Always wait an hour after eating to swim.

Although there’s nothing wrong with a bit of post-meal quiet time before the splashing starts up again, there’s absolutely no evidence that debilitating stomach cramps will set in if you dip a toe in the water before 60 minutes have passed. Just think how many hours of swimming you missed out on as a kid if your parents enforced this rule! Of course, caution around water is always a good idea—so if you need a break from watching your little swimmer, by all means call a time out!

Myth 4: Look out if you see a bat swooping close - it could get tangled in your hair.

Bats use echolocation to navigate in the dark. Here’s how it works: Bats emit high-pitched squeaks that bounce off objects and return to their sensitive ears, providing them with a clear picture of their surroundings. A bat can pinpoint something as small as a mosquito or a moth from high above, so you can be sure it knows exactly where you are—and has no desire to get close enough to get stuck in your hair.

Myth 5: Porcupines will shoot their quills at you if you get too close.

Porcupines do indeed use their sharp quills for defense. But the quills only release from the porcupine’s skin when contact is made with another animal. The porcupine can’t launch them through the air like missiles. So do avoid a close encounter with a porkie, but don’t be afraid to observe one from a short distance away...

Myth 6: Moss always grows on the north side of tree trunks. It's a good way to find your way through the woods.

It’s true that moss grows on the north side of tree trunks and rocks. But it also grows on the south, east, and west sides, too! Moss tends to grow where conditions are cool and moist. This is often the case on the north side, which tends to be more protected from direct sunlight. But in the woods all sides are likely to be shaded, so this clue isn’t reliable. Take a compass or a GPS device instead!

 Check out the original article here.

China's Straddle Bus

In order to reduce the nation's production of Greenhouse gases and energy as well as reduce automotive congestion without widening roads, Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment in China has developed a 4-meter high "Straddling Bus." It is essentially a bus on a track that can drive over any automobile 2-meters high or shorter.

I'm still not certain how the bus will cope with turns in the road or tall vehicles, or how automobiles will deal with lane changes, but I have to say that this is almost as smart as cars with stilts, springs, or raccoon buses.

More information on the straddling bus can be obtained here or here.

Northern Lights

As a result of a recent series of solar storms, the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) may be visible to most of the Northern United States and all of Canada tonight (Tuesday, August 3, 2010) and tomorrow (Wednesday, August 4, 2010). It will look like waves or curtains of red, green and blue light, and can be seen in the Northern sky.

Adventures in Very Recent Evolution

I recently came across an interesting article in The New York Times telling the story of recent changes in human DNA. No matter how stubborn we think our genes may be, human beings are still a species under construction, a species aiming toward something better, perhaps? Here is a snippet from the article:

Ten thousand years ago, people in southern China began to cultivate rice and quickly made an all-too-tempting discovery - the cereal could be fermented into alcoholic liquors. Carousing and drunkenness must have started to pose a serious threat to survival because a variant gene that protects against alcohol became almost universal among southern Chinese and spread throughout the rest of China in the wake of rice cultivation.

The variant gene rapidly degrades alcohol to a chemical that is not intoxicating but makes people flush, leaving many people of Asian descent a legacy of turning red in the face when they drink alcohol.

The spread of the new gene, desceibed in January by Bing Su of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is just one instance of recent human evolution and in particular of a specific population's changing genetically in response to local conditions.

Scientists from the Beijing Genomics Institute last month discovered another striking instance of human genetic change. Among Tibetans, they found, a set of genes evolved to cope with low oxygen levels as recently as 3,000 years ago. This, if confirmed, would be the most recent known instance of human evolution.

Many have assumed that humans ceased to evolve in the distant past, perhaps when people first learned to protect themselves against cold, famine, and other harsh agents of natural selection. But in the last few years, biologists peering into the human genome sequences now available from around the world have found increasing evidence of natural selection at work in the last few thousand years, leading many to assume that human evolution is still in progress.

"I don't think there is any reason to suppose that the rate has slowed down or decreased," says Mark Stoneking, a population geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

The full article, "Adventures in Very Recent Evolution," by Nicholas Wade can be found here.

Neave Planetarium

The Neave Planetarium is an interactive map of the stars and planets. Check it out here.

Future Man Arrested at Large Hadron Collider

I found this article from incredibly interesting. Thank you, CNET UK.

A would-be saboteur arrested today at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland made the bizarre claim that he was from the future. Eloi Cole, a strangely dressed young man, said that he had travelled back in time to prevent the LHC from destroying the world.

The LHC successfully collided particles at record force earlier this week, a milestone Mr Cole was attempting to disrupt by stopping supplies of Mountain Dew to the experiment's vending machines. He also claimed responsibility for the infamous baguette sabotage in November last year.

Mr Cole was seized by Swiss police after CERN security guards spotted him rooting around in bins. He explained that he was looking for fuel for his 'time machine power unit', a device that resembled a kitchen blender.

Police said Mr Cole, who was wearing a bow tie and rather too much tweed for his age, would not reveal his country of origin. "Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I'm here to stop it ever happening."

This isn't the first time time-travel has been blamed for mishaps at the LHC. Last year, the Japanese physicist Masao Ninomiya and Danish string-theory pioneer Holger Bech Nielsen put forward the hypothesis that the Higgs boson was so "abhorrent" that it somehow caused a ripple in time that prevented its own discovery.

Professor Brian Cox, a former CERN physicist and full-time rock'n'roll TV scientist, was sympathetic to Mr Cole. "Bless him, he sounds harmless enough. At least he didn't mention bloody black holes."

Mr Cole was taken to a secure mental health facility in Geneva but later disappeared from his cell. Police are baffled, but not that bothered.