Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe

The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded.

via Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe - Telegraph.

Interesting! I will have to read it when it comes out.

Jupiter loses one of its stripes and scientists have no idea why | Mail Online

Jupiter has lost one of its iconic red stripes and scientists are baffled as to why.The largest planet in our solar system is usually dominated by two dark bands in its atmosphere, with one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphere.However, the most recent images taken by amateur astronomers have revealed the lower stripe known as the Southern Equatorial Belt has disappeared leaving the southern half of the planet looking unusually bare.The band was present in at the end of last year before Jupiter ducked behind the Sun on its orbit. However, when it emerged three months later the belt had disappeared.

via Jupiter loses one of its stripes and scientists have no idea why | Mail Online.

Super-Earths

A PLANET orbiting a nearby star is the best candidate yet for an alien world made almost entirely of liquid water. The discovery suggest that "super-Earths" are a much more diverse bunch than we suspected.

Super-Earths weigh up to 10 times as much as our planet. They may be among the most common types of planet in the Milky Way, and some could turn out to be cosy places for life. Around a dozen have been found, but for the most part, astronomers have been unable to pin down their properties because they don't pass in front of, or transit, their host stars as seen from Earth. Transits reveal a planet's size, allowing its density and composition to be inferred.

via Alien planet could be ultimate water world - space - 16 December 2009 - New Scientist.

Looks like supermans home has been found. LOL

Mystery as spiral blue light display hovers above Norway | Mail Online

A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled.

Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing sight to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or a shock wave - although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet.

The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, then began to circulate.

via Mystery as spiral blue light display hovers above Norway | Mail Online.

Its a vortex to another place made by a ship traveling from here to there. Just my guess.

Dark power: Grand designs for interstellar travel – space – 25 November 2009 – New Scientist

SPACE is big," wrote Douglas Adams in his book The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. "You just wont believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is."He wasnt exaggerating. Even our nearest star Proxima Centauri is a staggering 4.2 light years away - more than 200,000 times the distance from the Earth to the sun. Or, if you like, the equivalent of 50 million trips to the moon and back.Such vast distances would seem to put the stars far beyond the reach of human explorers. Suppose we had been able to hitch a ride on NASAs Voyager 1 the fastest interstellar space probe built to date. Voyager 1 is now heading out of the solar system at about 17 kilometres per second. At this rate it would take 74,000 years to reach Promixa Centauri - safe to say we wouldnt be around to enjoy the view.

via Dark power: Grand designs for interstellar travel - space - 25 November 2009 - New Scientist.

This is so cool.

Selling chip makers on optical computing

Computer chips that transmit data with light instead of electricity consume much less power than conventional chips, but so far, they’ve remained laboratory curiosities. Professors Vladimir Stojanović and Rajeev Ram and their colleagues in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics and Microsystems Technology Laboratory hope to change that, by designing optical chips that can be built using ordinary chip-manufacturing processes.

via Selling chip makers on optical computing.

This is cool.

A faraway planet intrigues

Two teams of astronomers have found a planet outside the solar system that might be orbiting backwards compared to its star’s rotation, a discovery that could shed light on how unique the relatively perfect alignment of our solar system is compared to that of other planetary systems.

via A faraway planet intrigues.

cool stuff

Clearing oasis trees felled ancient Peru civilisation – environment – 02 November 2009 – New Scientist

Clearing oasis trees felled ancient Peru civilisation - environment - 02 November 2009 - New Scientist.

Really interesting article on ancient deforestation.

First black hole for light created on Earth – physics-math – 14 October 2009 – New Scientist

An electromagnetic "black hole" that sucks in surrounding light has been built for the first time.

The device, which works at microwave frequencies, may soon be extended to trap visible light, leading to an entirely new way of harvesting solar energy to generate electricity.

A theoretical design for a table-top black hole to trap light was proposed in a paper published earlier this year by Evgenii Narimanov and Alexander Kildishev of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Their idea was to mimic the properties of a cosmological black hole, whose intense gravity bends the surrounding space-time, causing any nearby matter or radiation to follow the warped space-time and spiral inwards.

Narimanov and Kildishev reasoned that it should be possible to build a device that makes light curve inwards towards its centre in a similar way. They calculated that this could be done by a cylindrical structure consisting of a central core surrounded by a shell of concentric rings.

via First black hole for light created on Earth - physics-math - 14 October 2009 - New Scientist.

This reminds me off an episode of Star Trek Voyager. When some alien race harnessed a black hole to power a space station and communication array.