Imagine a future in which humans have built advanced spacecraft, capable of traveling at a significant percentage of the speed of light. Scientists have also become aware of a large black hole in our galactic neighborhood — now well within our reach.When a team of researchers assemble to travel to the black hole, one curious question might rise above all others: “What would happen if we flew straight into it?”For now, this hypothetical scenario is still a long way off. Yet for as long as w ...read more
What, exactly, is science? It's something people in lab coats do, right? Science has been a potent tool, providing us with technology we once never dreamt possible. It has also helped us answer questions that have sat dormant in the human psyche for millennia.The history of science, however, is filled with revolutions or modifications of accepted theory. Newton described gravity as an immutable background entity, an ever-present force that permeated the cosmos. That was until Einstein came along ...read more
If you've ever watched an ice cube melt or stirred creamer into a pool of black coffee, you've witnessed a fundamental truth about the universe: The "arrow of time" always marches forward. Time flows from past to future. What we call the present is a never-ending series of inflection points, where the collection of events that have already happened (the past) meets the collection of events that have yet to happen (the future). And while time doesn’t ever stop, it can slow down.Slowing Down Tim ...read more
With words like "unprecedented" "remarkable," and "utterly unbelievable," scientists are raising the alarm about climatic developments that have already been unfolding in 2023."This is getting to be utterly unbelievable," University of Miami researcher Brian McNoldy said of sizzling sea surface temperatures. In a Twitter post, he noted that "North Atlantic SSTs have just set a new record anomaly on June 20, beating the previous one from June 10." The chances of this occurring are more than one i ...read more
Tanystropheus, a strange marine reptile that lived alongside dinosaurs, has puzzled paleontologists since its discovery in the mid-1800s. At first, scientists mistook the species for flying reptiles, due to their extremely elongated neck bones. Only later did they realize that the vertebrae framed a neck so long that it looked like evolution was trying to create a cartoon.Now, a new paper seeks to answer a nearly 170-year-old question: Wasn’t such a long and awkward neck a liability?Just How L ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
