A bang.

Via New Scientist: researchers have worked on a (computer) model that suggests that our universe could have emerged from another collapsing universe. The researchers based their model on a theory called the Loop Quantum Cosmology, which was (originally) proposed in 2003. At the end of the article, there’s a funny quote about how these physicist came up on LQC:

“From a physicist’s point of view, it is fully justified. Mathematicians perhaps would not be amused.”

I hear that if you give mathematicians a couple of beers, you can convince them that the Earth is only 5,000 years old. I’m not joking: please try it on your local math teacher!

This is important news: there’s finally empirical evidence that our galaxy, the proud Milky Way, has a white creamy coconut center and a soft crunchy chocolate crust, that melts in the mouth, not in your hands. Or as astronomers would say, a black hole in its center. I may have mentioned this a couple of years ago, but this black hole story is actually old news, I mean astronomers were already convinced that our galaxy had a black hole in its center. Obviously, it took many years to collect the evidence for this. Additionally, witness the smartness of the Slashdot crowd:

When i heard that there were black holes in other galaxies, i was fine with that, since they are so far away. But now i hear there is one in OUR galaxy? That’s kinda scary, since its so close to us!

Oh: this Hubble telescope that they launched in the 80s, yes? It still seems to be hitting the news: this time, astronomers managed to find CO2 in the atmosphere of a planet circling around a star, what, 65 million light-years away.

And hanging around the Discovery site: Did you know that 2008 will get one extra second? I remember this happened years ago too, which is exactly the reason why I tend to be at work 2 seconds later than normal. Who else can I blame for this?