It used to be China that was considered to be at the forefront of the development of fusion energy (the same energy the sun uses), but now it appears to be–of all places–that lovely tourist destination of southern France where the largest fusion reactor every constructed is being built.
read more
Scientists are now closer than ever to bringing an ice age species back to life. Researchers from the Northeast Federal University in Yakutsk found liquid blood in a 10,000-year-old mammoth discovered off the coast of northeast Russia. With the help of a team of South Korean scientists, they plan to use the liquid blood to clone a woolly mammoth.
Semyon Grigoriev, the head of the expedition that discovered the mammoth said, "The fragments of muscle tissues, which we’ve found out of the body, have a natural red color of fresh meat. The reason for such preservation is that the lower part of the body was underlying in pure ice."
read more
In the early hours of Tuesday, August 20, a comet estimated to be only sixty to a hundred feet across dove into the sun, causing a huge solar explosion.
Just before the comet hit, a coronal mass ejection exploded off the sun’s surface. While there is no known reason that there would be a connection between a CME and the impact of a tiny comet, this has been observed before. The CME was emitted from the opposite side of the sun that was struck by the comet, and appears to have begun before the comet struck.
read more
The speed of light may be the key to our getting off this planet. NASA physicist Harold G. White and his team are trying to determine whether faster-than-light travel–a "Star Trek"-type warp drive–might someday be possible (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show). In the July 23rd edition of the New York Times, Danny Hakim quotes White as saying, "Space has been expanding since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, and we know that when you look at some of the cosmology models, there were early periods of the universe where there was explosive inflation, where two points would’ve gone receding away from each other at very rapid speeds.
read more