It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

Audre Lorde

We all have dreams, hopes, and aspirations. Most of these are left to the confines of our minds, acting only as seemingly-unattainable realities that are nice to think about in order to escape the daily reality we find ourselves in, day after day. It doesn’t have to be this way. We as humans have [...]]]>

We all have dreams, hopes, and aspirations. Most of these are left to the confines of our minds, acting only as seemingly-unattainable realities that are nice to think about in order to escape the daily reality we find ourselves in, day after day. It doesn’t have to be this way. We as humans have the incredible ability to have unbridled will that can be the driving force for attaining the most amazing dreams, hopes, and aspirations we come up with. Combine this will with the courage to transform our thoughts into realities and an unstoppable determination to actualize those thoughts, and you now have the mental framework laid out which will allow you to live your dreams.

As humans we have relatively short lifespans and as we grow older and begin to feel to side effects of aging we tend to reflect more and more on our past and the things we managed to accomplish or have experienced. This self-reflection can lead to great sadness and depression if we look back and see regretfully that we didn’t chase our dreams (usually because of the fear of the great unknown) or we have regrets about things we did that we never reacted to with actions that could undo those regretful decisions.

It doesn’t have to be this way…it doesn’t have to be this way at all. Why settle for anything less than the live you imagined for yourself? If you look around you and see that others have attained what you wish you had, then this shows you that you can create the same reality for yourself. As long as what you dream for yourself is possible within the confines of the 3D reality we as human beings experience on a daily basis, then the only obstacle between you and living the life you imagine for yourself is your mind. As the Kala, Makia, and Mana principles in the ancient Hawaiian Huna Philosophy state:

There are no limits…Energy flows where attention goes…All power comes from within.

There are no limits to the mind except those that we acknowledge, as Napoleon Hill had once said. When we realize the barrier to living our lives in the way that we feel would make us content and happy is our very own mind (and more specifically, the structure-process illusion created by the human mind called the ego) then once we become aware of this, we can say “To hell with these self-imposed limits, I want to live my dreams and chase away the doubts!” Yes, it really is that simple. To change your mindset is the most critical and most important step in actualizing your dreams. The rest will follow but you need to establish a welcoming environment within your mind for those dreams so that they can eventually become dreams no more but expressions of your actual life. In the words of Lao Tzu, “when I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

Why settle for anything less than that which brings you incredible bliss, joy, ecstasy, and happiness? You shouldn’t have to. This is your life, this is your time to shine. If you see yourself living a life that is but a shadow of what you dream your life was like, then the time to change is now. Change your state of mind and the rest will sure follow.

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” -Patanjali

Love cannot be thought about, love cannot be cultivated, love cannot be practiced. The practice of love, the practice of brotherhood, is still within the field of the mind, therefore it is not love. When all this has stopped, then love comes into being, then you will know what it [...]]]>

Love cannot be thought about, love cannot be cultivated, love cannot be practiced. The practice of love, the practice of brotherhood, is still within the field of the mind, therefore it is not love. When all this has stopped, then love comes into being, then you will know what it is to love. Then love is not quantitative but qualitative. You do not say, “I love the whole world” but when you know how to love one, you know how to love the whole. Because we do not know how to love one, our love of humanity is fictitious. When you love, there is neither one nor many: there is only love. It is only when there is love that all our problems can be solved and then we shall know its bliss and its happiness.

J.Krishnamurti

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to [...]]]>

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

Patanjali

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost, that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution from Tasha Mearns

For thousands of years humanity co-existed with nature and with our Earth. We learned from her. We watched the trees grow and tapped into their expanding wisdom and presence. We watched nature with an ever-present eye…we were true to ourselves and our intentions were pure. [...]]]>

Editor’s Note: This is a contribution from Tasha Mearns

For thousands of years humanity co-existed with nature and with our Earth. We learned from her. We watched the trees grow and tapped into their expanding wisdom and presence. We watched nature with an ever-present eye…we were true to ourselves and our intentions were pure. We learned of the precious, limited time we had to experience and most importantly we had respect. We respected our animal friends, our humble teachers. They taught us to live in the moment, to switch off from the egoic mind-set and to be at peace with ourselves. We watched on, as our intimate villages and families began to grow. From birth to death, as we were granted the gift of life, new souls came in, our relatives and friends began to leave. We did not mourn, we rejoiced. Life is but a temporary gift, a glimpse of beauty and the experience to grow and learn. The cycle of life is never a permanent thing, modern day man clings to his life and lives in constant fear of death. This is such an unnatural way of living. There is nothing to fear. When man understands his kindred relationship with the eternal, he will laugh at the unnecessary, wasted energy he put into fearing the inevitable.

As my mind returns to the present reality, I am saddened. We have lost so much of ourselves. The intuitive gifts we once cherished have all but disappeared under the vast illusion of material gain. Our sacred connection with Earth and with all life has weakened. As people litter the streets with their waste and dump their unwanted material possessions into the Earth’s streams, they remain completely unaware of the damaging and lasting effect their actions hold. People no longer watch the trees with the same mystery and respect as our ancestors once did. The oxygen which is gifted to us from the trees now goes unnoticed, as people prefer to obsess over the illusion of pop culture and celebrity worship. The true reality of nature and life lives on, weakened and disregarded. No longer do we stop to watch and learn from our animal friends and no longer do we kill them for survival. They are caged into suffering, so cruelly refused their freedom to live as they wish to live. The present-day meat industry is just another vile example of our backwards society.

Man is no longer living in his natural state, we have become a cancer to the Earth. Those in power are to blame since they have assumed control and with this control comes great responsibility. They have the power to change everything. These people must be aware that they are making these ignorant decisions on behalf of every man, woman, child, and animal on this planet and they are providing a bleak future for generations to come. They have forgotten what it means to be human. A true, conscious human being would never rip apart our planet and drain her for the sake of money and power.

Some of us may not want to admit it but we are children of the Earth. Born out of nature, given the opportunity to experience the beauty within her great blue aura. Every moment is a gift. As children of the Earth, we have a responsibility to cherish, heal and protect our Mother. The great spirit of the Earth watches over us from the minute we are born to the day we take our last breathe. She is present in everything. She is our home, she is our provider. We must never take her for granted. She is vital to the evolution of our species. The delicate ecosystems of our planet provide us with all we need to live happy, healthy lives. Let’s not sell ourselves short by being sucked into these ridiculous ideologies of modern man’s unfounded and dangerous logic. So if you feel how I feel and you see how I see, make it your mission to bring about change. Help people to step out of their ignorance, the Earth is our one common ground. It’s time to awaken to our true potential.

“Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the Earth is our mother.” – Chief Seattle, 1855

Tasha Mearns is a 22 year old visionary and rainbow warrior. In her own words, “We need to help people understand the fragility of our Earth and her ecosystems. The damage can no longer be ignored, it’s time to take action.”

A mind which is possessive will be possessed. To possess anything is to be possessed by it. The more you possess, the more slavery you create around yourself. The freedom comes when you unlearn possessiveness.

Osho

2011 has been a novelty-filled year with an enormous amount of incredible and fantastic discoveries in all areas of the human experiences. Most people already know about the global revolutions that have significantly shaken up the order of things but how about the other news stories that didn’t necessarily gain front page coverage but [...]]]>

2011 has been a novelty-filled year with an enormous amount of incredible and fantastic discoveries in all areas of the human experiences. Most people already know about the global revolutions that have significantly shaken up the order of things but how about the other news stories that didn’t necessarily gain front page coverage but may be just as significant? We’re going to give you the top 40 most paradigm-shifting stories of 2011 that will hopefully show you just how much incredible progress at understanding ourselves and our reality. If you wish to read up more, click on the titles to go to their source articles.

General Paradigm Shifts

Amazonian tribe has no calendar and no concept of time

The Amondawa people who live deep in the Amazonian rainforests of Brazil have no watches or calendars and live their lives to the patterns of day and night and the rainy and dry seasons. They also have no age – and mark the transition from childhood to adulthood to old age by changing their name. The team of researchers, led by University of Portsmouth, said that it is the first time they have been able to prove time is not a deeply entrenched universal human concept, as previously thought. They also have their own language which have a number system but it only goes up to four. They also found nobody in the community had an age. Instead, they change their names to reflect their life-stage and position within their society.

Humans May Have ‘Magnetic’ Sixth Sense

Humans may have a sixth sense after all, suggests a new study finding that a protein in the human retina, when placed into fruit flies, has the ability to detect magnetic fields. The researchers caution that the results suggest this human protein has the capability to work as a magnetosensor. Past research has suggested that in addition to helping animals such as sea turtles and migratory birds navigate, the ability to detect magnetic fields could help with visual spatial perception. The human protein only worked in the blue range of light, the researchers found.

Scientists discover tipping point for the spread of ideas

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals. An important aspect of the finding is that the percent of committed opinion holders required to shift majority opinion does not change significantly regardless of the type of network in which the opinion holders are working. In other words, the percentage of committed opinion holders required to influence a society remains at approximately 10 percent, regardless of how or where that opinion starts and spreads in the society.

Stockbrokers More Competitive, Willing To Take Risks Than Psychopaths

A recent study from the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland led by forensics expert Pascal Scherrer and prison administrator Thomas Noll, finds that professional stock traders actually outperform diagnosed psychopaths when it comes to competitive and risk-taking behavior. According to Der Spiegel, Scherrer and Noll had a group of 28 stockbrokers participate in various simulations and intelligence tests, and then compared their results to a group of psychopaths. They found that the traders showed a higher degree of competitiveness than the psychopaths — and that the traders were surprisingly willing to cause harm to their competitors if they thought it would bring them an advantage.

How Friends Ruin Memory: The Social Conformity Effect

Like all good narrators, we tend to forsake the facts when they interfere with the plot. We’re so addicted to the anecdote that we let the truth slip away until, eventually, those stories we tell again and again become exercises in pure fiction. We tweak our stories so that they become better stories. We bend the facts so that the facts appeal to the group. Because we are social animals, our memory of the past is constantly being revised to fit social pressures. The power of this phenomenon was demonstrated in a new Science paper by Micah Edelson, Tali Sharot, Raymond Dolan and Yadin Dudai. The neuroscientists were interested in how the opinion of other people can alter our personal memories, even over a relatively short period of time and the results confirmed the social conformity effect.

Researchers have found evidence for the existence of a hypnotic state

Researchers have found evidence for the existence of a hypnotic state — the key was in the glazed staring eyes. The researchers used high-resolution eye-tracking methodology and presented a set of well-established oculomotor tasks that trigger automatic eye behavior. They found the glazed stare was accompanied by objectively measurable changes in automatic, reflexive eye behavior that could not be imitated by non-hypnotized participants. In the field of hypnosis research this result means that hypnosis can no longer be regarded as mental imagery that takes place during a totally normal waking state of consciousness. On the other hand, the result may have wider consequences for psychology and cognitive neuroscience, since it provides the first evidence of the existence of a conscious state in humans that has previously not been scientifically confirmed.

Skin’s eye-like receptors ‘see’ UV light

Skin is able to detect ultraviolet light by using a receptor previously thought to only exist in the eye.
This eye-like ability of skin to sense light triggers the production of melanin within hours, more quickly than previously thought, in an apparent rush to protect against damage to DNA. “As soon as you step out into the sun, your skin knows that it is exposed to UV radiation,” says senior author Elena Oancea, assistant professor of biology at Brown University. “This is a very fast process, faster than anything that was known before.” Elena Oancea and Nadine Wicks have discovered that skin cells contain rhodopsin, a photosensitive receptor used by the eye to detect light, and use it as a self-defense measure against damage to DNA.

Health and Wellness

Happy People Live Healthier, Longer Lives

Although it may seem intuitive, it is now scientifically established that happy people have an advantage over unhappy ones–they may be healthier and may live longer. An extensive review of literature using seven types of evidence indicates that high subjective well-being (SWB), such as life satisfaction, optimism, and positive emotions, causes better health and longevity. The review, published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being (2011), examined 160 studies which showed compelling evidence that positive feelings predict health and longevity. The findings of the review, based from seven types of evidence which are longitudinal studies, physiology and health, experimental manipulations of emotions, animal studies, quasi-experimental studies in natural settings, and interventions that influence subjective well-being ( SWB). In sum, these converging studies form a compelling proof that SWB, such as happiness, causally influences health and longevity.

Healthy Diet Boosts Childhood IQ

Eating chips, chocolate and cake may be damaging to a child’s intelligence, according to researchers at Bristol University. Their study suggests a link between a diet high in processed foods and a slightly lower IQ. They suggest poor nutrition may affect brain development. The eating habits of 3,966 children taking part in the The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children were recorded at the ages of 3, 4, 7, & 8.5. The researchers said three types of diet emerged: Processed diets which were high in fat, sugar and convenience foods, traditional diets of meat, potato and vegetables, and health conscious diets of salads, fruit and fish. The children all took IQ tests when they were 8.5. The researchers found a link between IQ and diet, even after taking into account other factors such as the mother’s level of education, social class and duration of breast feeding. A diet high in processed food at the age of three was linked to a slightly lower IQ at the age of eight and a half, suggesting early eating habits have a long term impact. Although the relationship between diet and IQ was very strong, the impact was quite small. Processed foods were linked with IQs only a few points lower.

Processed Meat Increases Risk of Cancer & Unsafe for Human Consumption

The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) has just completed a detailed review of more than 7,000 clinical studies covering links between diet and cancer. The most authoritative ever report on bowel cancer risk has confirmed that red and processed meat increase risk of the disease and concluded that the evidence that foods containing fibre protect against bowel cancer has become stronger. Their recommendation is to limit intake of red meat to 500g (cooked weight) per week and avoid processed meat entirely, essentially declaring it unsafe for human consumption.

Cuddling A Key to a Long-Term Happy Relationship

Cuddling and caressing help boost satisfaction in long-term relationships, according to a new study of middle-aged and older couples. The study also found that tenderness is more important to men than to women, that men are more likely to report being happy in their relationship, and that women are more likely to be satisfied with their sexual relationship, said the researchers from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. The participants were 40- to 70-year-old men and their female partners. Men were more likely to be happy in a relationship if they were in good health and if it was important to them that their partner experienced orgasm during sex. Frequent cuddling and kissing also predicted relationship happiness for men, but not for women. Both women and men were happier the longer they had been together and if they had higher levels of sexual functioning, the investigators found.

Living in Fear Can Be Deadly

Stress can kill on a dramatic scale, according to a new study of immature dragonflies forced to live next to scary predators. In a newly published study, dragonfly larvae living within sight and smell of a predators such as fish had 2.5 to 4.3 times higher mortality than dragonfly larvae living in a predator-free environment — even though the dragonfly larvae were protected by a cage and could never be eaten by the predators. It was particularly surprising because dragonfly larvae are typically so hardy and robust — they can withstand dirty water, crowded conditions and even being out of the water they normally live in for short periods of time — qualities that make them good subjects to study in the lab. Because of that, researchers suspect that stress can have significant impacts on mortality in other organisms.

Having Physical Contact With Trees Improves Health

Immature remarks aside, hugging trees has now been shown to have scientific validity after all. Contrary to popular belief, touching a tree does make you healthier. In fact you don’t even have to touch the tree to get better, just being within its vicinity has the same effect. In a recently published book, Blinded by Science, the author Matthew Silverstone, proves scientifically that trees improve many health issues such as; mental illnesses, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), concentration levels, reaction times, depression and the ability to alleviate headaches. The answer to how plants and trees affect us physiologically turns out to be very simple. It is all to do with the fact that everything vibrates, and different vibrations affect biological behaviors. It has been proven that if you drink a glass of water that has been treated with a 10Hz vibration your blood coagulation rates will change immediately on ingesting the treated water. It is the same with trees, when touching a tree its different vibrational pattern will affect various biological behaviours within your body. This vibrational idea is backed up throughout the book by hundreds of scientific studies to provide overwhelming proof that ‘tree hugging’ as it has been called has scientific basis.

Nature

Foxes May Have Been Pets Before Cats and Dogs

Scientists analysing remains at a prehistoric burial ground in Jordan have uncovered a grave in which a fox was buried with a human, dated thousands of years before cats and dogs were kept as companions. They believe that the unprecedented case – in which the remains of the animal and the man were then partially transferred to an adjacent grave – points to some kind of emotional link between human and fox. Their study suggests that the fox may have been kept as a pet and was being buried to accompany its master, or mistress, to the afterlife. If so, it marks the first known burial of its kind and suggests that long before man hunted foxes using dogs, our ancestors were keeping them as pets. The cemetery, at Uyun-al-Hammam, in northern Jordan, is about 16,500 years old, which makes the grave 4,000 years older than the earliest known human-dog burial.

Magnetic Reversal Seen To Be in Progress

According to the British Geological Survey (BGS), we could now be headed into a magnetic reversal. The South Atlantic Anomaly is growing and spreading westwards from South Africa as the Earth’s internal magnetic field rapidly weakens in this region. “The Earth’s magnetic field, generated deep within the planet, is a shield against particle radiation from space,” the BGS article continues. “In the South Atlantic this shield is much weaker than elsewhere across the globe and radiation from space therefore penetrates deeper into the atmosphere. This region is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) and the radiation in the SAA is a known hazard to satellites, spacecraft and high-altitude aircraft.” The earth’s magnetic field strength declines dramatically during a magnetic reversal. This reduces our shielding and allows more and more radioactivity onto our planet which can cause mutations and transformations of biological systems and consciousness.

Biology’s ‘Dark Matter’ Hints at Fourth Domain of Life

According to biologists, we may be on the verge of discovering the fourth domain of life. The bold statement is the result of an analysis of water samples collected from the world’s seas. Jonathan Eisen at the University of California, Davis, Genome Center has identified gene sequences hidden within these samples that are so unusual they seem to have come from organisms that are only distantly related to cellular life as we know it. So distantly related, in fact, that they may belong to an organism that sits in an entirely new domain.

‘Quadruple rainbow’ caught on film for the first time

Scientists have captured the first image of a “quaternary” rainbow – the fourth rainbow caused by the bending of light through water in the air. This refraction frequently creates a visible second rainbow, but until now, no-one had caught sight of the fainter third and fourth arcs that the process creates in a different part of the sky. The first tertiary, or third, rainbow has only just been caught on film. Unfortunately, the pictures are not as striking as more familiar images of double rainbows – and some image processing was the only way to make the arcs visible at all. That is principally due to the fact that the tertiary and quaternary rainbows are by definition far fainter than their more familiar cousins.

Fish Kept in Home Aquariums at Risk for Higher Aggression & Anger

A new study has found that ornamental fish across the U.S. — all 182.9 million of them — are at risk of becoming aggressive due to cramped, barren housing. researcher Ronald Oldfield’s paper is the first to scientifically study how the environment of home aquariums affects the aggressive behavior of ornamental fishes. Oldfield compared the behavior of Midas cichlid (Amphilophus citrinellus) in a variety of environments: within their native range in a crater lake in Nicaragua, in a large artificial stream in a zoo, and in small tanks of the sizes typically used to by pet owners. The study looked at just juvenile fish in order to remove the possibility of aggressive behavior related to mating. The experiments were also set up so that the fish weren’t competing for food and shelter. In addition to tank size, he tested the complexity of an environment and the effects of the number of fish within tanks. Tanks with more complexity, and of a larger size, helped to reduce aggressive behaviors. Tempers were observed to literally flare, however, in the less desirable aquariums, with perturbed fish flaring their fins. More frustrated fish nipped, chased, charged, and even murdered each other.

Antiproton ring found around Earth

Antiprotons appear to ring the Earth, confined by the planet’s magnetic field lines. The antimatter, which may persist for minutes or hours before annihilating with normal matter, could in theory be used to fuel ultra-efficient rockets of the future. Charged particles called cosmic rays constantly rain in from space, creating a spray of new particles – including antiparticles – when they collide with particles in the atmosphere. Many of these become trapped inside the Van Allen radiation belts, two doughnut-shaped zones around the planet where charged particles spiral around the Earth’s magnetic field lines. Satellites had already discovered positrons – the antimatter partners of electrons – in the radiation belts. Now a spacecraft has detected antiprotons, which are nearly 2000 times as massive.

Wild Crows Recognize Individual Human Faces & Hold a Grudge For Years

Wild crows can recognise individual human faces and hold a grudge for years against people who have treated them badly. This ability – which may also exist in other wild animals – highlights how carefully some animals monitor the humans with whom they share living space. Field biologists have observed that crows seem to recognise them, and a few researchers have even gone to the extreme of wearing masks when capturing birds to band them, so that they could later observe the birds without upsetting them. Whenever a person wearing the same mask approached those crows later, the birds scolded them loudly.

Researchers Find Electrical Current Stemming From Plants

Stanford scientists have plugged in to algae cells and harnessed a tiny electric current. They found it at the very source of energy production – photosynthesis, a plant’s method of converting sunlight to chemical energy. “We believe we are the first to extract electrons out of living plant cells,” said WonHyoung Ryu, the lead author of the paper published in the March issue of Nano Letters. The Stanford research team developed a unique, ultra-sharp nanoelectrode made of gold, specially designed for probing inside cells. They gently pushed it through the algal cell membranes, which sealed around it, and the cell stayed alive. From the photosynthesizing cells, the electrode collected electrons that had been energized by light and the researchers generated a tiny electric current.

Millions of King Crabs Come to Antarctica for 1st Time in Perhaps Millions of Years

Thousands and possibly millions of king crabs are marching through icy, deep-sea waters and up the Antarctic slope. “They are coming from the deep, somewhere between 6,000 to 9,000 feet down,” said James McClintock, Ph.D., University of Alabama at Birmingham Endowed Professor of Polar and Marine Biology. Shell-crushing crabs haven’t been in Antarctica, Earth’s southernmost continent, for hundreds or thousands, if not millions, of years, McClintock said. The king crabs’ large numbers on the slope suggest that they are increasing in number at a rate faster than anticipated. McClintock and his fellow researchers are exploring causes for the invasion, which they believe is linked to human-induced climate warming.

Space & Physics

New Type Of Entanglement Allows “Teleportation in Time”

Entanglement is the strange quantum phenomenon in which two or more particles become so deeply linked that they share the same existence. Jay Olson and Timothy Ralph at the University of Queensland in Australia say they’ve discovered a new type of entanglement that extends, not through space, but through time. They found that entanglement is so deeply enmeshed in the universe that a measurement in the past has an automatic influence on the future. What they’re saying is that it’s possible to travel into the future without being present during the time in between.

Physicists Create a Sonic Black Hole

In a new study, scientists have created a sonic analogue of a black hole in the lab – that is, a sonic black hole in which sound waves rather than light waves are absorbed and cannot escape. The researchers created the sonic black hole in a Bose-Einstein condensate made of 100,000 rubidium atoms slowed to their lowest quantum state in a magnetic trap. This cold cluster of atoms acts like a single, large quantum mechanical object. In order to transform this condensate into a sonic black hole, the scientists had to find a way to accelerate some of the condensate to supersonic speeds so that the condensate would contain some regions of supersonic flow and some regions of subsonic flow. The scientists achieved this acceleration by shining a large-diameter laser on the condensate in such a way as to create a steplike potential and a harmonic potential. When the condensate crosses the “step” in the steplike potential, the condensate accelerates to supersonic speeds. The scientists demonstrated that the condensate could accelerate to more than an order of magnitude faster than the speed of sound.

Moving Mirrors Make Light From Nothing

A team of physicists have coaxed sparks from the vacuum of empty space. According to theory, a mirror can absorb energy from virtual photons onto its surface and then re-emit that energy as real photons. The effect only works when the mirror is moving through a vacuum at nearly the speed of light — which is almost impossible for everyday mechanical devices. Per Delsing, a physicist at the Chalmers University of Technology, and his colleagues circumvented this problem using a piece of quantum electronics known as a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), which is extraordinarily sensitive to magnetic fields. The team fashioned a superconducting circuit in which the SQUID effectively acted as a mirror. Passing a magnetic field through the SQUID moved the mirror slightly, and switching the direction of magnetic field several billion times per second caused it to ‘wiggle’ at around 5% the speed of light, a speed great enough to see the effect. The result was a shower of microwave photons shaken loose from the vacuum, the team claims. The group’s analysis shows that the frequency of the photons was roughly half the frequency at which they wiggled the mirror — as was predicted by quantum theory.

Edge of the Solar System Filled with Magnetic Bubbles

The edge of our solar system is filled with a turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles, according to new NASA research. Scientists made the discovery by using a new computer model, which is based on data from NASA’s twin Voyager probes. The unmanned Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which launched in 1977, are plying the outer reaches of our solar system, a region known as the heliosheath.

NASA Discovers That There is a “Space-Time Vortex” Around Earth

There is a space-time vortex around Earth, and its shape precisely matches the predictions of Einstein’s theory of gravity. Researchers confirmed these points at a press conference at NASA headquarters where they announced the long-awaited results of Gravity Probe B. “The space-time around Earth appears to be distorted just as general relativity predicts,” says Stanford University physicist Francis Everitt, principal investigator of the Gravity Probe B mission. Pulling off the experiment was an exceptional challenge. But after a year of data-taking and nearly five years of analysis, the GP-B scientists appear to have done it.

Single Atom Stores Quantum Information

Researchers working with Gerhard Rempe at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching have stored quantum information in a single atom. The researchers wrote the quantum state of single photons, i.e. particles of light, into a rubidium atom and read it out again after a certain storage time. This technique can be used in principle to design powerful quantum computers and to network them with each other across large distances.

Scientists Teleport Light

Researchers from Australia and Japan have successfully teleported wave packets of light, potentially revolutionizing quantum communications and computing. The team, led by researchers at the University of Tokyo, say this is the first-ever teleportation, or transfer, of a particular complex set of quantum information from one point to another. Professor Elanor Huntington, of the School of Engineering and Information Technology at UNSW’s Canberra campus, explains that teleportation — the transfer of quantum information from one location to another using normal, “classical” communications — is a fundamental quantum communication technique.

Pluto’s Atmosphere Keeps Expanding

Recent observations of Pluto reveal that the icy orb’s atmosphere has expanded dramatically since 2000, and for the first time researchers have detected carbon monoxide. The findings may be evidence of seasonal changes in climate linked to Pluto’s most recent close approach to the sun, but scientists still aren’t sure about how those variations unfold over the course of each 248-year orbit. Pluto is the only object orbiting in the frigid realm beyond Neptune that is known to have an atmosphere. That tenuous sheath of gas was discovered in 1988 when the “dwarf planet” passed between Earth and a distant star, blocking some of the star’s light. Although telescopic observations at various wavelengths since the early 1990s have since identified several substances in Pluto’s surface ices—including nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide—only methane had been detected previously in its atmosphere. Now scientists can add carbon monoxide to the mix. New observations of the atmosphere’s emissions at various wavelengths, particularly at the 1.3-millimeter wavelength, betray the presence of the gas for the first time.

Supercomputer Discovers Our 3D Universe Comes From a 9D Universe

A group of three researchers from KEK, Shizuoka University and Osaka University has for the first time revealed the way our universe was born with 3 spatial dimensions from 10-dimensional superstring theory in which spacetime has 9 spatial directions and 1 temporal direction. This result was obtained by numerical simulation on a supercomputer. In this study, the team established a method for calculating large matrices (in the IKKT matrix model), which represent the interactions of strings, and calculated how the 9-dimensional space changes with time. In the figure, the spatial extents in 9 directions are plotted against time. If one goes far enough back in time, space is indeed extended in 9 directions, but then at some point only 3 of those directions start to expand rapidly. This result demonstrates, for the first time, that the 3-dimensional space that we are living in indeed emerges from the 9-dimensional space that superstring theory predicts.

Two Diamonds Linked by Strange Quantum Entanglement

Scientists have linked two diamonds in a mysterious process called entanglement that is normally only seen on the quantum scale. This demonstrates that quantum mechanical effects are not limited to the microscopic scale. “It’s big enough you can see it,” Walmsley told LiveScience of the diamonds.”They’re sitting on the table, out in plain view. The laboratory isn’t particularly cold or particularly hot, it’s just your everyday room.”

Nature’s Laws May Vary Across the Universe

According to a new study, it was found that one of the four known fundamental forces, electromagnetism – measured by the so-called fine-structure constant and denoted by the symbol ‘alpha’ – seems to vary across the Universe. The first hints that alpha might not be constant came a decade ago when Professor John Webb, Professor Victor Flambaum, and other colleagues at UNSW and elsewhere, analysed observations from the Keck Observatory, in Hawaii. Those observations were restricted to one broad area in the sky. In the new study Professor Webb said that “In one direction – from our location in the Universe – alpha gets gradually weaker, yet in the opposite direction it gets gradually stronger.”

Archeology

Neanderthals Disappeared As a Result of Humans

It has been one of the great mysteries of human existence but scientists have cracked what happened to our Neanderthal ancestors, who ruled the globe for 300,000 years then suddenly vanished. Modern humans, who evolved in the cradle of Africa, arrived in Europe with more than ten times the population of the Neanderthals and took over their habitats. This dramatic increase in numbers meant the Neanderthals were unable to compete for animals and scarce food supplies during the freezing sub-zero winters. ‘Faced with this kind of competition, the Neanderthals seem to have retreated initially into more marginal and less attractive regions of the continent and eventually – within a space of at most a few thousand years – for their populations to have declined to extinction….around 40,000 years ago.’

Genetic Research Confirms Non-Africans Are Part Neanderthal

Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, according to an international team of researchers led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. “This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred,” says Dr. Labuda. His team places the timing of such intimate contacts and/or family ties early on, probably at the crossroads of the Middle East. When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, is was compared 6000 chromosomes from all parts of the world to the Neanderthal haplotype. The Neanderthal sequence was present in peoples across all continents, except for sub-Saharan Africa, and including Australia.

Bosnia’s Moon Pyramid Built Over 10.000 Years Ago

Radiocarbon dating confirmed: Bosnia’s Moon Pyramid was built about ten thousand years ago. The research project of the Bosnian Valley of the Pyramids is the largest archaeological project in the world. Over the past seven years researchers spent 340.000 working hours excavating the pyramids, and some 700 people from 42 countries/ six continents applied for positions as volunteers in 2011. Backed by experts from other countries like Italy, Russia and Egypt, who unanimously confirmed the existence of the Bosnian pyramids, the attacks of those who spoke out against the project seem to have ceased.

Egypt Finds 17 Lost Pyramids

A new satellite survey of Egypt reportedly found 17 lost pyramids along with more than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements. The survey used infra-red images to detect underground buildings, the BBC reports. Satellites above the earth were equipped with cameras that could pin-point objects on the earth’s surface less than three-feet wide. The infra-red imaging then highlighted different materials under the surface, it states.

Lost Mayan City Revealed Under Centuries of Jungle Growth

Hidden for centuries, the ancient Maya city of Holtun, or Head of Stone, is finally coming into focus. Three-dimensional mapping has “erased” centuries of jungle growth, revealing the rough contours of nearly a hundred buildings, according to research presented earlier this month. Using GPS and electronic distance-measurement technology last year, the researchers plotted the locations and elevations of a seven-story-tall pyramid, an astronomical observatory, a ritual ball court, several stone residences, and other structures. The findings at Head of Stone—named for giant masks found at the site—could shed light on how “secondary” Maya centers were organized and what daily life was like for Maya living outside of the larger metropolitan areas such as Tikal, about 22 miles to the north, according to Kathryn Reese-Taylor, a Preclassic Maya specialist at Canada’s University of Calgary.

Dinosaur Found in Antarctic Mountains

Paleontologists working high in a remote range of Antarctic mountains have found a new species of primitive dinosaur dating back to nearly 200 million years ago — a time when one of the coldest parts of the world was a temperate forest. William Hammer of Augustana College found the new creature — a four- to five-foot ornithischian or bird-hipped dinosaur that he believes is related to the fabrosaur or heterodontosaur. These dinosaurs were the forerunners of the bigger and more spectacular ornithischians like stegosaurus,ankylosaurus and the duck-billed dinosaurs. The fossils came from a site on Mt. Kirkpatrick, in the Central Trans-Antarctic Mountains, which divide east and west Antarctica. It’s the same place where Hammer and colleagues found Antarctica’s first dinosaur in 1990 — the 22-foot, meat-eating Cryolophosaurus, or “frozen crested reptile.”

520 Million-Year-Old “Walking Cactus” Discovered

Around 520 million years ago, a walking cactus roamed the Earth. Its body had nine segments, each bearing a pair of armour-plated legs, covered in thorns. Jianni Liu from Northwest University in Xi’an discovered this bundle of spines and named it Diania cactiformis – the “walking cactus from Yunnan”. And she thinks that it sits at the roots of the most successful group of animals on the planet. If Liu is right, it was an animal that was “close to the point of becoming a true arthropod”.