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Lab tuned to gravity's 'ripples'
(BBC News, 26 June 2006)
One of the great scientific experiments of our age is now fully underway. . . . A German/UK team has put the giant GEO 600 gravitational wave detector in a continuous observational mode. . . . The Hanover lab is trying to detect the ripples created in the fabric of space-time that sweep out from merging black holes or exploding stars. . . . Success would confirm fundamental physical theories and open a new window on the Universe, enabling scientists to probe the moment of creation itself. . . . GEO 600 is working alongside a US project known as Ligo (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory). It may also be joined in the hunt by an Italian lab within a year. . . . A confirmed detection would require the super-sensitive equipment at more than one of these widely spaced facilities to record an event simultaneously. . . . "The first step towards gravitational wave astronomy has been taken."

posted by LoZo 8:25 AM

 

'Thirst For Knowledge' May Be Opium Craving
(ScienceDaily, June 20, 2006)
Neuroscientists have proposed a simple explanation for the pleasure of grasping a new concept: The brain is getting its fix. . . . The "click" of comprehension triggers a biochemical cascade that rewards the brain with a shot of natural opium-like substances, said Irving Biederman of the University of Southern California. He presents his theory in an invited article in the latest issue of American Scientist. . . . "While you're trying to understand a difficult theorem, it's not fun," said Biederman, professor of neuroscience in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. . . . "But once you get it, you just feel fabulous." . . . The brain's craving for a fix motivates humans to maximize the rate at which they absorb knowledge, he said. . . . "I think we're exquisitely tuned to this as if we're junkies, second by second."

[Click the link above for a detailed description of this hypothesis.]

posted by LoZo 9:24 AM