The Theory of Inflation
Astronomers have found evidence to support the theory of inflation, which explains how the universe expanded so uniformly and so quickly in the instant after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.
Tag Archives: science
shared content
““We’re built to be wary of something novel, but once it’s not novel, we can develop new food preferences into old age,” said Gary Beauchamp, an expert on the science of taste at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. Precisely as a child’s diet broadens, so can a 40-year-old’s or a 50-year-old’s, because in every instance, Dr. Beauchamp said, “it’s not about something that’s going on in the mouth or the taste buds but something that’s going on further up in the brain.” Our palates matter less than our perspectives, and over those we have some control.”
shared content
“The study, by Balazs Kovacs of the University of Lugano and Amanda Sharkey of the University of Chicago, compared online reader reviews for 32 pairs of books that either won or were nominated for a major literary prize. They found that winning a prestigious award not only garners more attention for a book, but also more negative reviews.”
shared content
“
Perhaps the weirdest factor of all pertains to Norfolk, Va., and points nearby. What is now the Tidewater region of Virginia was slammed by a meteor about 35 million years ago — a collision so violent it may have killed nearly everything on the East Coast and sent tsunami waves crashing against the Blue Ridge Mountains. The meteor impact disturbed and weakened the sediments across a 50-mile zone. Norfolk is at the edge of that zone, and some scientists think the ancient cataclysm may be one reason it is sinking especially fast, though others doubt it is much of a factor.
Coastal flooding has already become such a severe problem that Norfolk is spending millions to raise streets and improve drainage. Truly protecting the city could cost as much as $1 billion, money that Norfolk officials say they do not have. Norfolk’s mayor, Paul Fraim, made headlines a couple of years ago by acknowledging that some areas might eventually have to be abandoned.
Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, municipal planners want to know: How bad are things going to get, and how fast?
”
shared content
“
Scientists have long known that in certain spots, evolution runs faster than normal. The Galápagos Islands, for example, are home to some 13 species of Darwin’s finches, which all evolved from a single group of birds that originally colonized them. The archipelago is just a few million years old, however, which means that all their diversity has evolved in a geologically short period of time.
In recent years, scientists have identified other regions where evolution is running fast. To measure its speed, researchers have looked at the DNA of species living in each place. The longer it has been since two species diverged from a common ancestor, the more time each lineage has had to accumulate mutations. Young species have relatively few mutations.
”
– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/science/high-above-sea-level-evolutionary-hot-spots.html?ref=todayspaper
shared content
“In a paper in the winter issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, two researchers — D. Mark Anderson of Montana State University and Daniel Rees of the University of Colorado at Denver — report that legalization of marijuana for medical purposes has been associated with reductions in heavy drinking, especially among 18- to 29-year-olds, and with an almost 5 percent decrease in beer sales. In addition, the increase in the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 seems to encourage greater marijuana use among people under 21, usage that drops sharply when they reach the legal drinking age.”
– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/opinion/marijuana-and-alcohol.html?ref=todayspaper
shared content
“They compared the results of the Oreo and rice cake test with results from rats that were given an injection of cocaine or morphine, known addictive substances, on one side of the maze and a shot of saline on the other. Professor Schroeder is licensed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to purchase and use controlled substances for research.
The research showed the rats conditioned with Oreos spent as much time on the “drug” side of the maze as the rats conditioned with cocaine or morphine.”
– http://www.conncoll.edu/news/news-archive/2013/student-faculty-research-shows-oreos-are-just-as-addictive-as-drugs-in-lab-rats-.htm#.Ul3oLRZ0-5f
shared content
“
Although we are just beginning to answer basic questions about the canine brain, we cannot ignore the striking similarity between dogs and humans in both the structure and function of a key brain region: the caudate nucleus.
Rich in dopamine receptors, the caudate sits between the brainstem and the cortex. In humans, the caudate plays a key role in the anticipation of things we enjoy, like food, love and money. But can we flip this association around and infer what a person is thinking just by measuring caudate activity? Because of the overwhelming complexity of how different parts of the brain are connected to one another, it is not usually possible to pin a single cognitive function or emotion to a single brain region.
But the caudate may be an exception. Specific parts of the caudate stand out for their consistent activation to many things that humans enjoy. Caudate activation is so consistent that under the right circumstances, it can predict our preferences for food, music and even beauty.
In dogs, we found that activity in the caudate increased in response to hand signals indicating food. The caudate also activated to the smells of familiar humans. And in preliminary tests, it activated to the return of an owner who had momentarily stepped out of view. Do these findings prove that dogs love us? Not quite. But many of the same things that activate the human caudate, which are associated with positive emotions, also activate the dog caudate. Neuroscientists call this a functional homology, and it may be an indication of canine emotions.
”
– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/dogs-are-people-too.html?ref=todayspaper
shaun james bockert 