Abandoned Planet

Imagine being young, and abandoned by your parent. Drifting through millions and millions of miles of space, all alone. This is exactly what has happened to CFBDSIR J214947.2-040308.9 (Very creative name). This young planet was cast away by it's parent star, and was left to fend for itself and drift aimlessly through the cosmos.

Since it is not near any star, it has allowed scientists to study its mass, atmosphere and temperature in great detail. This discovery will help astronomers now, because it will allow us to extrapolate data on other planets that are in the same conditions as this, but close to their host star. Most of the drive for this however is just curiosity. Discovering the randomness and strangeness of the universe is the real reason for astronomers' existence, and it is curiosity that is our greatest reason to live!

UPDATE: Invisibility

Last week, I had discused the possibility of invisiblity for us humans, and just yesterday, we have come closer to that goal! Researchers have created a diamond-shaped cloaking device, which splits light into 2 waves around it, and forces them back together as one on the other side, making it seem like the light passed through a void space, rendering it invisible.

However, with all these cloaking devices, there is a catch. Currently, only microwaves are able to be bent around the material, while still making it visible to the human eye. They are working on modifying the material to bend the frequency of light that we are able to see, and once they perfect that, we can each fullfil our desires to be like Harry Potter!

Language of Scent

Many of us would assume that humans could only communicate with either verbal cues, or visual ones. Anything else such as touch or thought would deem us supernatural... Well to those searching to become supernatural, look no more! Netherlands researchers have discovered that our emotions are also conveyed through scent. For example, a man who sweats out of fear will make other humans subconsciously react to things in a fearful manner, and the same goes for disgust, and other emotions.

The implications of this discovery are rather large. This means that there are chemicals in our bodily fluids, or that we emit, that can alter someones mood, or make them feel induced emotions. If people could harness that chemical, we could essentially make "fear gas" or other things we only see in those James Bond movies!

Broken Laws and Invisibility!

One of the major sci-fi dreams of science is to be able to shield things from view, or make things invisible. just recently, scientists have made this feat possible, by creating a "meta-material" which bends light around the material; showing only what is behind it (invisibility). However, these materials only worked on very small objects.

Stanford researchers, however, have discovered a way to make magnetic fields manipulate light. Previously, light was not affected by those fields, but by forcing them to bend and reverse, we are breaking a key law of physics: the Time-Reversal Symmetry of Light. By sending photons backwards, their properties could change, and we would essentially be sending them backwards in time. Breaking such a "set-in-stone" law also goes to show that others can be broken, which theoretically would allow us to do all the fun things which were deemed impossible. Things like time travel, FTL (faster than light) travel, teleportation, infinite power generators, and much more. The very definition of a nerd-gasm.

Star Wars VII?

Yesterday, a major disaster struck the modern world. Millions are grieving, along with me. No, I'm not talking about Hurricane Sandy.... I'm talking about the devastating deal that led to lucasfilms being aquired by Disney, which resulted in the announcement of Star Wars VII, VIII, and IX. The Star Wars series seem to be getting worse and worse as time goes on, which are ranked as (from best to worst): IV, V, VI, III, II, I. Adding another 3 films will just ruin the series' already tarnished reputation. We can all see what happened to John Carter: Disney's latest sci-fi flop. Who knows what they will do to this series. 

Despite the overwhelming despair, I still have hope; A New Hope, if you will. Deep down I obviously hope that Disney will be hiring creative geniuses, and actors that will blow away good ol Harry Ford. The odds are not in my favour, as history clearly shows, though. Overall, today Disney wasted $4.05 billion on a dead franchise, while the american economy is still in tatters.

BREAKING NEWS: MASS TURTLE GRAVE

"Bones upon bones... we couldn't believe our eyes." Says Oliver Wings, the unfortunate paleontologist that stumbled on the mass grave of more than 1800 Jurassic Era turtles in China's province of Xinjiang (I couldn't pronounce it either). Poor Oliver was just minding his own business, looking for other dead things, when they found the huge number of turtles in their watering hole.

The turtles were said to have converged on the watering hole, because of -you guessed it- a lack of water, or drought. The turtles happily awaited the rain, but alas the rain came too late. By the time it got there, most of the turtles were probably dead, and their bodies rotting. The rain came with a vengeance, and brought with it a wall of mud, which covered and killed the remaining population.

This is only scientific speculation, however. For all we know, there was a massive World War in the Jurassic period, between the turtles, dinosaurs, and other prehistoric life. Is it not fishy that the dinosaurs AND these turtles were prone to mass extinction? Clearly, the turtles developed nuclear weapons, and used it to eliminate all of the dinosaurs. However in the processs, they wiped out a huge number of their own. Embarassed of their mistake, they tried to bury their fallen comrades in various graves throughout the world, and it is only now that we are discovering this.

VOTE OBAMA FOR THE TRUTH!

Strange Batteries

Speaking of paint, how do you think it would be possible to have battery concealed in that paint? First off, lets start with a normal battery. A standard household battery is comprised of a positive cathode and negative anode, separated down the middle, and a "Current Collector" to gather the charges passing through it.

The spray-paint battery works in the same way, except the cathode/anodes are the top/bottom layers of the paint, which a current collector in the middle. Could you imagine... If instead of covering that asteroid with just regular paint to move it, we could make it into a 180 square km battery?! That would be as insane as jumping from the edge of space... Almost. The implications of this techonology are massive, except it will take an unnecessarily long time to make into a product, no thanks to the lack of scientific funding!