It’s almost like a cosmic hurricane warning signal…  From Bad Astronomy:  “So, what’s the deal with Betelgeuse? What is it, will it explode, and if so, when?”
The constellation Orion’s biggest star is Betelgeuse (pronounced “beetle-juice”), a red supergiant, and it’s one of the brightest stars in the sky - that’s the “what”.  
Will it explode?  Well, according to some observers, the star is not round, and it’s getting smaller.  This could be the signs of Betelgeuse heading toward a supernova phase, but it also could be explained away by large sunspots that …

Recent discovery of a new supernova may lead to questions about dark matter theory. Science aficionados know that there appears to be more gravitational attraction than can be explained by the matter that we can see. So, in order for the extra gravity to be there, it’s been theorized that there must be extra matter that we can’t see – in other words, “dark matter“.
However, this new supernova discovery may shine some light on the darkness.  Apparently, this supernova is spewing calcuim and titanium, and while most reports are focusing …

I love to read, and I especially love to read nonfiction books that help me understand how the world works.  So, I’m going to be providing reviews of some of the books that I’ve been reading lately, and let you in on why I like (or don’t like) them and what I’m learning.
Recently I picked up a copy of The Perfect Swarm by Len Fisher, Ph.D., which focuses on the science of complexity in everyday life  Dr. Fisher has also written books on game theory in real life (Rock, Paper, Scissors) …

Last week, Nancy Atkinson posted on Universe Today that astronomers are now understanding why they’ve missed 90% of the observable galaxies, and, with new tools, are now able to see them.
Here’s a paragraph from Atkinson’s article:
“Astronomers have long known that many surveys of distant galaxies miss 90% of their targets, but they didn’t know why. Now, astronomers have determined that a large fraction of galaxies whose light took 10 billion years to reach us have gone undiscovered. This was found with an extremely deep survey using two of the four …

Element 112 has an official name – Copernicium – named after the 16th-century Polish scientist Nicholas Copernicus, who first theorized that the Earth revolved around the Sun.  Copernicium’s periodic element symbol is Cn.
While the name was announced some time back, it became official only recently.
Wonder how this would look in the periodic table of periodic tables?…
Read the Los Angeles Times article about Copernicium and the other most recently named elements here…

In a previous post, I mentioned that the Large Hadron Collider was starting their official research program, seeking to smash protons together in the 17-mile tunnel at energies of 7 trillion electron-volts (7 TeV).
Well, they did it!  The record was officially achieved today, breaking its previous record.
You can read more about the events at CERN here…

Discover Magazine has a really good article about some of today’s scientists that are trying to overthrow the conventional wisdom and find a more complete and accurate model for our universe.
Isaac Newton presented his theory of universal gravitation in 1687, and Albert Einstein overthrew that explanation with his theory of general relativity in 1915.  However, the efforts since Einstein, which include combinations of quantum mechanics and superstring theory, has left most of the scientific world wanting.
There is no doubt that quantum mechanics can predict much of the universe’s probabilistic weirdness.  However, string …

March 30, 2010, marks the date on which the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will attempt to break its own record for achieving energies near what was present at the Big Bang.
Twin beams of protons, traveling with energies of 3.5 trillion electron-volts (TeV), will be directed at each other in the 17-mile round LHC, located underneath the French-Swiss border at CERN.  According to CERN, this will mark the beginning of LHC’s official research program.
I posted their original landmark test here, and you can read more about their upcoming tests here…

I recently came across this great interview by Discover Magazine with Sir Roger Penrose of Oxford University.  Penrose has made monumental contributions to theoretical physics, geometry, and mathematics.  He’s also the author of The Emperor’s New Mind and The Road To Reality, and invented what are now called Penrose tiles, which are geometric shapes that can be tiled together to create solid surface (see the graphic on the right…)
Penrose talks about the problems with quantum physics and string theory, leading to mass belief within the scientific communities of “many worlds” and …

In work to be presented at this week’s American Physical Society, Andrew Cleland and his team will describe results from an experiment where they have effectively supersized the effects of quantum physics.
Normally, quantum effects are only apparent at the very smallest of scales.  However, scientists at the University of California at Santa Barbara recently created a quantum mechanical drum about 30 micrometers across, and were able to show this drum being in a state of vibrating and not vibrating at the same time. 
This is the weirdness that makes quantum physics …