The goal keeper in blue (Scott Sterling) is incredible.!!!

In the last few years, hundreds of extrasolar systems have been detected orbiting other stars. One of the typical features of these systems is how common it is to find planets much closer to their stars than Mercury is to the Sun.

So astrophysicists asked themselves: why there aren't any planets closer to our Sun than Mercury?

Here's one hypothesis, from UC Santa Cruz.

http://news.ucsc.edu/2015/03/wandering-jupiter.html

They hypothesize that a number of massive rocky "super-Earths" originally formed very close to our Sun, in the manner of other extrasolar systems. Then Jupiter spiraled into the vicinity of the Sun like a giant wrecking ball, throwing these new planets out of orbit and crashing them into one another. Then, so the hypothesis goes, the formation of Saturn made Jupiter recede to its present location, leaving the inner solar system a disaster area. The present planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars then formed from the depleted dust cloud and from fragments of the earlier planets.

"Emmy Noether was one of the most brilliant and important mathematicians of the 20th century. She altered the course of modern physics. Einstein called her a genius. Yet today, almost nobody knows who she is.

In 1915, Noether uncovered one of science's most extraordinary ideas, proving that every symmetry found in nature has a corresponding law of conservation. So, for example, the fact that physical laws work the same today as they did yesterday turns out to be related to the notion that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Noether's theorem is a deep insight that underpins much of modern-day physics and things like the search for the Higgs boson.

DESPITE HER BRILLIANCE, UNIVERSITIES DIDN'T WANT TO HIRE A WOMAN

Even so, as one of the very few female mathematicians working in Germany in her day, Noether faced rampant sexism. As a young woman, she wasn't allowed to formally attend university. Even after she proved herself a first-rate mathematician, male faculties were reluctant to hire her. If that wasn't enough, in 1933, the Nazis ousted her for being Jewish. Even today, she remains all too obscure.

That should change. So it’s welcome news that Google is honoring Noether today with a Google Doodle on her 133rd birthday. To celebrate, here's an introduction to the life and work of a woman Albert Einstein once called "the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced."====http://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8274777/emmy-noether

"If one proves the equality of two numbers a and b by showing first that "a is less than or equal to b" and then "a is greater than or equal to b", it is unfair, one should instead show that they are really equal by disclosing the inner ground for their equality."==Emmy Noether

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technolo...m5oei.html

Oxford University professor of Machine Learning Michael Osborne studied the characteristics of 702 jobs and figures 47% will be replaced by robots in the next 20 years.

Some industries will be hit more than others. He predicts that 87% of accommodation and food service jobs will be lost. 75% of transportation and warehousing jobs will be lost.

Jobs that are relatively safe include upper management (the suits always look out for themselves) and creative-type jobs that require lots of contextual knowledge.

Jobs that are in particular danger are low skill jobs.

I can imagine a wonderful brave-new-world coming in which only a privileged elite have jobs, incredible incomes and net worth, while the majority of the population are unemployed and live on public assistance. (Or alternatively, finally have the freedom to live lives of leisure.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_tiles

"The Toynbee tiles (also called Toynbee plaques) are messages of unknown origin found embedded in asphalt of streets in about two dozen major cities in the United States and four South American cities. Since the 1980s, several hundred tiles have been discovered. They are generally about the size of an American license plate (roughly 30 cm by 15 cm), but sometimes considerably larger. They contain some variation on the following inscription:

TOYNBEE IDEA
IN MOViE `2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPITER

Some of the more elaborate tiles also feature cryptic political statements or exhort readers to create and install similar tiles of their own. The material used for making the tiles was initially unknown, but evidence has emerged that they may be primarily made of layers of linoleum and asphalt crack-filling compound.[3] Articles about the tiles began appearing in the mid-1990s, though references may have started to appear in the mid-1980s."

To air on Tuesday the 24th of March. Let's see how we stack up..

Meanwhile, here's a slideshow of famous atheists:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/25/living/gallery/atheists/

I don't know if I'd take that. I'd probably end up giving all my money away, inviting drifters into my home, and mugged and robbed by homeless people. Compassion is a dangerous game.

"What if there were a pill that made you more compassionate and more likely to give spare change to someone less fortunate? UC Berkeley scientists have taken a big step in that direction.

A new study by UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco researchers finds that giving a drug that changes the neurochemical balance in the prefrontal cortex of the brain causes a greater willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as ensuring that resources are divided more equally.

The researchers also say that future research may lead to a better understanding of the interaction between altered dopamine-brain mechanisms and mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia or addiction, and potentially light the way to possible diagnostic tools or treatments for these disorders.

"Our study shows how studying basic scientific questions about human nature can, in fact, provide important insights into diagnosis and treatment of social dysfunctions," said Ming Hsu, a co-principal investigator and assistant professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

"Our hope is that medications targeting social function may someday be used to treat these disabling conditions," said Andrew Kayser, a co-principal investigator on the study, an assistant professor of neurology at UC San Francisco and a researcher in the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley.

In the study, published online today (March 19) in the journal Current Biology, participants on two separate visits received a pill containing either a placebo or tolcapone, a drug that prolongs the effects of dopamine, a brain chemical associated with reward and motivation in the prefrontal cortex. Participants then played a simple economic game in which they divided money between themselves and an anonymous recipient. After receiving tolcapone, participants divided the money with the strangers in a fairer, more egalitarian way than after receiving the placebo.

"We typically think of fair-mindedness as a stable characteristic, part of one's personality," said Hsu. "Our study doesn't reject this notion, but it does show how that trait can be systematically affected by targeting specific neurochemical pathways in the human brain."====http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...143414.htm

"The detection of miniature black holes by the Large Hadron Collider could prove the existence of parallel universes and show that the Big Bang did not happen, scientists believe.

The particle accelerator, which will be restarted this week, has already found the Higgs boson – the God Particle – which is thought to give mass to other particles.

Now scientists at Cern in Switzerland believe they might find miniature black holes which would reveal the existence of a parallel universe.

And if the holes are found at a certain energy, it could prove the controversial theory of ‘rainbow gravity’ which suggests that the universe stretches back into time infinitely with no singular point where it started, and no Big Bang.

The theory was postulated to reconcile Einstein’s theory of general relativity – which deals with very large objects, and quantum mechanics – which looks at the tiniest building blocks of the universe. It takes its name from a suggestion that gravity's effect on the cosmos is felt differently by varying wavelengths of light.

The huge amounts of energy needed to make ‘rainbow gravity’ would mean that the early universe was very different. One result would be that if you retrace time backward, the universe gets denser, approaching an infinite density but never quite reaching it.

The effect of rainbow gravity is small for objects like the Earth but it is significant and measurable for black holes. It could be detected by the Large Hadron Collider if it picks up or creates black holes within the accelerator.

“We have calculated the energy at which we expect to detect these mini black holes in gravity's rainbow [a new theory]. If we do detect mini black holes at this energy, then we will know that both gravity's rainbow and extra dimensions are correct, Dr Mir Faizal told Phys.org."====
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/...lider.html