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Comparison of Old and New Star Catalogs Shows 100 Stars Vanished!
Headline image caption: ‘Where’d it go? An image taken in the 1950s (left) shows a large object at center that doesn’t appear in an image of the same field taken more recently. (Villarroel et al.)’ Physics in Sweden and the Institute for Astrophysics on the Canary Islands reports something strange in the current issue of The Astronomical Journal. They compared … Continue reading
A Black Hole the Gargantuan Size of LB-1 ‘Should Not Exist’ in our Galaxy
Scientists have discovered a black hole in our own galaxy that could rewrite the book on stellar evolution. Few cosmic phenomena remain as frightening and mysterious as black holes – regions of space in which the gravitational pull is so great that nothing, not even light itself, can escape. Stellar black holes (not to be confused with the supermassive black … Continue reading
Beethoven’s Unfinished 10th Symphony to be Completed by Artificial Intelligence
A team of musicologists and programmers will use artificial intelligence to complete German composer Ludwig van Beethoven’s unfinished 10th Symphony by next year to mark the 250th anniversary of the famous musician’s birth. Starting from just a few notes that Beethoven had written in a notebook before his death in 1827, researchers plan to use computer software combined with artificial … Continue reading
Human ‘Natural’ Lifespan is Actually Only 38 Years, According to New Study
A perplexing figure for our ‘natural’ lifespan was determined using a new method for determining lifespans from DNA. Writing for The Conversation, CSIRO molecular biologist and bioinformatician Benjamin Mayne explains the research that he and his colleagues conducted as part of this fascinating new study. Humans have a “natural” lifespan of around 38 years, according to a new method we … Continue reading
Transhumanism May Hold Key to Eternal Life, but with Multiple Caveats & Ethical Dilemmas
Some people hope to cheat death by storing their consciousness digitally. Science isn’t quite there yet, but we’ve done enough brain and memory research to have immediate implications – and to start asking uncomfortable questions. The idea of attaining de facto immortality by translating your brain into code and storing your personality as a digital copy online has been captivating … Continue reading
Asteroid Will Make Close Fly by of Earth on Friday the 13th
NASA has been monitoring an asteroid which maintains an orbit around various bodies in the solar system and consistently passes through Earth’s orbit with the sun. 13 near-Earth objects in total are expected to fly past Earth in December of this year. Earth is set to have a close encounter with an enormous asteroid which is set to fly nearby … Continue reading
Number of Near-Earth Asteroids Grows
People using telescopes to stare at the night sky on December 20 or 26 might see a distant light traversing the heavens, but proclaiming it as a harbinger of a New Testament rerun would be unwise. The European Space Agency’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre advises that on neither night will the Star of Bethlehem be visible, but an asteroid very … Continue reading
‘Short Window’ to Stop AI Taking Control of Society, ex-Google Employee Warns
Meredith Whittaker warns we are becoming lab animals in a giant tech experiment. The big news in tech this week is the announcement that Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are stepping down as executives of parent company Alphabet, founded in 2015 with the goal of making it “cleaner and more accountable”. Page and Brin said it was time … Continue reading
Two of the America’s Biggest Earthquake Faults Might Be Linked
“Provocative analysis of sea-floor cores suggests that quakes on the Cascadia fault off California can trigger tremors on the San Andreas.” A controversial study argues that at least eight times in the past 3,000 years, quakes made a one-two punch off the west coast of the United States. A quake hit the Cascadia fault off the coast of northern California, … Continue reading
There is Growing Evidence That the Universe Is Connected by Giant Structures
The Milky Way, the galaxy we live in, is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies strewn across the universe. Their variety is stunning: spirals, ring galaxies shaped like star-studded loops, and ancient galaxies that outshine virtually everything else in the universe. But despite their differences, and the mind-boggling distances between them, scientists have noticed that some galaxies move together … Continue reading
