That said, the things I've shared on Facebook recently interest me because of the discourse that occurs when I share them. The same is true when I talk to friends and family who have read the blog, and they share their thoughts and ideas. It's important to have a shared dialogue, I think, because no one person can know everything about everything. So, please know that I welcome your thoughts, criticisms, and ideas. They help to shape my further understanding of situations and the world, and they are much appreciated.
On a related note, a few days ago I was writing about Roth's Divergent series, and I wanted to let you all know that I have finished it. I am not sure how people couldn't have enjoyed the third book, and I am having a hard time finding criticism for her work. She stayed true to the characters that she wrote, and she offered a compelling story about someone who believed in actions to effect changes in the world. If it inspires bravery in the young men and women who read it, I don't think that's a bad thing; and if it inspires in those who read it a desire to look at the world as we know it in a new light, I think that, too, is a good thing. Overall, I thought the concept held up, had merit, and showed how we can blind ourselves to some important ethical questions when it comes to "scientific facts". In short, I would recommend the books to anyone who is interested in reading about a dystopian society that challenges us to look at our own modern ideas of bigotry, psychology, and war.
Let's move on from science fiction to some science facts, though (and bear with me; there is a lot to cover today).
We are drawing closer to a better understanding of our universe--the shape of it, and how it continues to evolve. In an article on Phys.org, it was revealed that scientists have uncovered just how fast our universe expanded. In information gathered from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), scientists were able to determine how fast the universe was expanding when it was a quarter of its present age. This information could help us build a better picture of our current universe, and may help scientists determine the properties of dark matter; it may also reveal secrets as to why, and how, dark matter formed. But for now, these latest findings give us only a slice of the picture of our universe that we can see, since the light that we observe, along with many of the intergalactic gas density variations observed, have taken quite a long time to get here from where they were in the past.
From somewhere out there in our universe, there are particles that come and go, passing through our planet as though we weren't really here. Some of those particles are known as neutrinos which are in essence non-electrically charged, very-small-massed subatomic particles created by certain types of radioactive decay or nuclear reactions that aren't affected by electromagnetic forces but are affected by the weak sub-atomic force. To put that in easier terms to understand, they're particles that can pass through matter more or less unhindered.
Recently we detected a pretty big one which was named "Big Bird".
It is the highest energy neutrino that we have ever detected and struck the ice at the IceCube experiment (which is buried under a glacier in Antarctica) with 2 million billion electron volts of energy. I can't even think of a way to put that number into perspective. It's just ...a lot.
The picture above illustrates the detection of Big Bird with the red part being the initial flash of light triggered by it.
A post on MSN yesterday brought to light the use of new technology to unwrap the secrets of mummies. According to the article, scientists used CT scans and volume graphics software to get a look at what lay beneath the wrappings to uncover skin, bones, and internal organs. These findings will help archaeologists better understand the mummies for who they were as people--the kinds of lives they led, their body structures, and the health issues they faced. It is an amazing opportunity to look into our human past, and the British Museum will be putting together a new exhibition to share those findings with the world.
From the ancient world of Egypt, we travel to the ancient monastery in Petra, where new research suggests it was built to track the sun.
Petra Monastery Was Built to Interact With the Sun by GeoBeats
Last, but not least, site io9 recently updated their manifesto, inviting all of us to become political proponents of science. While I am happy to agree with this idea that science should be important in our culture, I also think that we ought to be wary of it, as well. There is, after all, good science and bad science, and far too often we are more willing to believe propaganda regarding the science than the science itself.
So what do I mean by that? In essence I mean that scientific discoveries that benefit people who have money are going to get more attention by virtue of the fact that the people with the money are going to spend more on promoting it. And what about science that hurts monetary endeavors? I'm pretty sure that if it can be buried, it will be.
And while science is on an upswing with shows like Cosmos and other sci-fi dramas littering the T.V. landscape, it is important to remember that revered personalities are still only people at heart with their own temptations and failings. In short, we shouldn't start putting scientists on pedestals simply because of their work. We should also seek to understand what makes science "good science" so that we're better informed overall.
I guess I fear science becoming political because I worry that it will be used as just another tool to gain votes instead of a means by which we seek to truly better our lives and the lives of those around us. And I would really, really hate to see that.
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