Tag: main (page 4 of 18)

Far Flung Star Cluster Found at Milky Way’s Edge

March 8, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Astronomers in Brazil have discovered a cluster of stars forming at the edge of the Milky Way, according to a press release from the Royal Astronomical Society.




Excerpt from  news.discovery.com


This is unusual because it was believed that stars generally take form closer to the center of our spiral-shaped galaxy, rather than from its swirling, spiral arms, which are thousands of light-years away. These two clusters of stars — named Camargo 438 and 439 — were seen in a cloud at the galaxy’s outskirts.

Denilso Camargo, an astronomer at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil, led a team that analyzed data from NASA’s orbiting Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) observatory. They zeroed in on dense clumps of gas in so-called giant molecular clouds(GMCs) that are known to generate stars. GMCs are mainly located in the inner part of the galactic disc.

The new star clusters lie about 16,000 light-years away from the main disk of the Milky Way galaxy. How did they form there? The scientists aren’t yet sure but Camargo theorizes that one of two scenarios could have led to the stars’ formation.

In the first scenario, called the “chimney model,” supernovas could have flung the gas and dust that formed the cloud out of the Milky Way. Another explanation is the material could have drifted in from outside the galaxy.


“Our work shows that the space around the Galaxy is a lot less empty that we thought,” said Camargo. “The new clusters of stars are truly exotic.”

Camargo’s team published their results in the journal Monthly

View Article Here Read More

Astronomers Discover Ancient Dust Filled Galaxy ~ Debunks earlier theories that earliest galaxies had no dust only gas

March 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments


2262451851_21c1c74069


Excerpt from voicechronicle.com


Astronomers have discovered a dust-filled ancient galaxy from the very early universe, which debunks earlier theories that earliest galaxies had no dust but gas. Astronomers from the University of Copenhagen used the Very Large Telescope’s X-shooter instrument along with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and discovered a galaxy, named Galaxy A1689-zD1, which is an ancient galaxy and far from Earth.
The astronomers stated that the galaxy which
they were surprised to discover is far more evolved system than expected. It had a fraction of dust similar to a very mature galaxy, such as the Milky Way. Such dust is vital to life, because it helps form planets, complex molecules and normal stars. 

According to the astronomers A1689-zD1 is only observable by virtue of its brightness being amplified more than nine times by a gravitational lens in the form of the spectacular galaxy cluster. Without the gravitational boost, the glow from this very faint galaxy would have been too weak to detect.

The astronomers stated that they are viewing A1689-zD1 when the Universe was only about 700 million years old, which is 5% of its present age. According to them, it is a relatively modest system — much less massive and luminous than many other objects that have been studied before at this stage in the early universe and hence a more typical example of a galaxy at that time.

A1689-zD1 is being observed as it was during the period of reionization, when the earliest stars brought with them a cosmic dawn, illuminating for the first time an immense and transparent universe and ending the extended stagnation of the Dark Ages. Expected to look like a newly formed system, the galaxy surprised the observers with its rich chemical complexity and abundance of interstellar dust.

Dust plays an extremely important role in the universe – both in the formation of planets and new stars.

Darach Watson, Associate Professor at Dark Cosmology Centre, University of Copenhagen, and the lead author of the study, said, “After confirming the galaxy’s distance using the VLT we realized it had previously been observed with ALMA. We didn’t expect to find much, but I can tell you we were all quite excited when we realized that not only had ALMA observed it, but that there was a clear detection. One of the main goals of the ALMA Observatory was to find galaxies in the early Universe from their cold gas and dust emissions — and here we had it!”

The researchers hope that future observations of a large number of distant galaxies could help unravel how frequently such evolved galaxies occur in this very early epoch of the history of the universe.

View Article Here Read More

What It’s Like to Be at the 24th International UFO Congress

February 26, 2015 / / 0 Comments







Excerpt from nbcnews.com
By Katie Linendoll
FOUNTAIN HILLS, Ariz. — If words like UFO, extraterrestrial, crops circles and abductee have ever piqued your paranormal interest, do yourself a favor and head to the International UFO Congress. 

The annual conference—which holds the Guinness record for being the largest convention dedicated to unidentified flying objects—takes place in the picturesque desert town of Fountain Hills, and this year it ran from Feb. 18 to 22. It's worth noting that Arizona is known as a hotbed of activity when it comes to sightings. Thousands flock to the annual event, which is produced by Open Minds, a paranormal research organization. 

Each attendee has his or her own reason for being there. My goal was to find out if modern science and technology have changed the game when it comes to UFO sightings and evidence gathering. 

"A lot of people think, go to a UFO convention, it's going to be tinfoil hats, but that's not what this is. We have NASA astrobiologists speak, scientists, high-ranking military officials, the works. I mean, there's a lot of really credible people covering this subject," said UFO Congress co-organizer and paranormal journalist Maureen Elsberry.

Air Force UFO documents now available online

When attending a UFO conference, the best approach is to come in with an open mind, ask lots of questions and talk with people about why they are there. Everyone has a story, from the speakers to the attendees, and even the vendors (some of whom double as ufologists). 

The highlight of this year's conference was undeniably the speaker series, and it was standing room only to see one man, Bob Lazar. Lazar first spoke out in 1989, claiming that he'd worked as a government scientist at a secret mountainside facility south of Area 51's main site, where he saw remarkably advanced UFO technology. Critics have sought to discredit Lazar, questioning his employment record and educational credentials. 

During the conference, George Knapp, an investigative TV reporter in Las Vegas who broke the Lazar story in '89, led an onstage question-and-answer session with Lazar, who discussed the work he did at a place called S4. Lazar spoke in detail about the alien UFO hangars and UFO propulsion systems he was allegedly asked to reverse engineer, and even loosely sketched them out for the audience. 

"All the science fiction had become reality," said Lazar, who was noticeably uncomfortable and clearly surprised by the fact that, decades later, he remains such a draw. 

You never know whom you'll bump into at the Congress. In the vendor hall, I met sculptor Alan Groves, who traveled all the way from Australia to peddle his "true to scale" Zetan alien figurines. I wondered if his side gig was lucrative, only to realize he was selling the figures like hotcakes. Then we talked about his day job, and he told me he's worked on special and creature effects for films such as "Star Wars," "Alien," "Labyrinth" and "Jurassic Park." 

Many of the attendees told me that hard evidence is a requirement for ufologists and paranormal field experts. Derrel Sims, also known as Alien Hunter, told me he spent two years in the CIA, and also has served as a police officer and licensed private investigator. 

He said his first alien encounter happened at age 4, and others in his family have also seen aliens. In 38-plus years of alien research, Sims has learned this: "If you look, the evidence is there." To date, he said, more than 4,000 pieces of that evidence exist. 

Sims is adamant about only working with evidence-based methods, using DNA tests and collecting samples as well as relying on ultraviolet, infrared and x-ray tools in his research. He said that, in 1992, he discovered aliens leave their own kind of fluorescent fingerprint, and he continues to test for these clues. He added that if you have had an alien encounter, it's important to react quickly to gather evidence: "fluorescence" stays on the skin for only 24 hours. He said that other marks aliens leave include "scoop" marks, which are an identifying thread some abductees have in common. 

Another commonality he's discovered is heritage. He said that, in his research, he has found 45 percent of all abductions happen to Native Americans, Irish and Celtic people, and he said that women also have a higher chance of being abducted. 

When it comes to filming hard-to-explain phenomena, Patty Greer, who makes documentaries about crop circles, said that quadcopters — a.k.a. drones — have added production value to her films. Lynne Kitei, who covered a mass UFO sighting in her book and in the documentary The Phoenix Lights, said that even low-tech tools, like the 35mm film she used, are still a reliable way to gather proof of inexplicable flying craft, especially because they offer something an iPhone doesn't: negatives.

White House responds to UFO request

Night vision also offers added opportunities for UFO researchers, according to Ben Hansen, who was the host and lead investigator of SyFy channel's "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files." He's now the owner of Night Vision Ops, an online store that sells night-vision technology. Hansen said that the consumer accessibility of new military-grade technologies in thermal and light amplification scopes are upping the game for the everyday UFO enthusiast. 

To close out an intense few days on site at the Congress, Hansen's team invited me to a night watch near Arizona's Superstition Mountains. It was fascinating to see the latest optics add incredible clarity to the night sky, amplifying available light up to 50,000 times beyond what the unaided eye can see. Using the right technology, we were also able to see that a certain flying object, which made everyone nearby jump, wasn't a UFO after all. It was a bat. 

I was surrounded by some serious tech all weekend, and it was eye-opening to see the ways that UFO hunters are gathering scientific evidence to learn more about the paranormal world. But I have to say, the gadget that was the most useful to me at the conference was my iPhone, which I used to download a free nightlight app for kids. For the few hours I managed to sleep, it was with the soothing illumination provided by "Kiwi the Green Koala." In short, I was officially freaked out.

View Article Here Read More

‘God Particle’ analogue spotted outside a supercollider: Scientists find Higgs mode in a superconductor

February 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments


The God Particle, which is believed to be responsible for all the mass in the universe, was discovered in 2012 using a Cern's supercollider. In this image two high-energy photons collide. The yellow lines are the measured tracks of other particles produced in the collision, which helped lead to the discovery of the God particle
The God Particle, which is believed to be responsible for all the mass in the universe, was discovered in 2012 using a Cern's supercollider. In this image two high-energy photons collide. The yellow lines are the measured tracks of other particles produced in the collision, which helped lead to the discovery of the God particle.


Excerpt from dailymail.co.uk
  • God Particle is believed to be responsible for all the mass in the universe
  • Particle was discovered in 2012 using a Cern's supercollider in Geneva
  • uperconductor experiment suggests the particle could be detected without the huge amounts of energy used at by the Large Hadron Collider
  • LHC is due to come back online next month after an upgrade that has given it a big boost in energy

Scientists have discovered a simulated version of the elusive 'God particle' using superconductors.

The God Particle, which is believed to be responsible for all the mass in the universe, was discovered in 2012 using a Cern's supercollider.

The superconductor experiment suggests that the Higgs particle could be detected without the huge amounts of energy used at by the Large Hadron Collider. 
The results could help scientists better understand how this mysterious particle – also known as the Higgs boson – behaves in different conditions.

'Just as the Cern experiments revealed the existence of the Higgs boson in a high-energy accelerator environment, we have now revealed a Higgs boson analogue in superconductors,' said researcher Aviad Frydman from Bar-Ilan University.

Superconductors are a type of metal that, when cooled to low temperatures, allow electrons to pass through freely.

'The Higgs mode was never actually observed in superconductors because of technical difficulties - difficulties that we've managed to overcome,' Professor Frydman said.

The superconductor experiment suggests that the Higgs particle could be detected without the huge amounts of energy used at by the Large Hadron Collider (pictured)
The superconductor experiment suggests that the Higgs particle could be detected without the huge amounts of energy used at by the Large Hadron Collider (pictured)

WHAT IS THE GOD PARTICLE? 

The 'God Particle', also known as the Higgs boson, was a missing piece in the jigsaw for physicists in trying to understand how the universe works.

Scientists believe that a fraction of a second after the Big Bang that gave birth to the universe, an invisible energy field, called the Higgs field, formed.

This has been described as a kind of 'cosmic treacle' across the universe. 

As particles passed through it, they picked up mass, giving them size and shape and allowing them to form the atoms that make up you, everything around you and everything in the universe.

This was the theory proposed in 1964 by former grammar school boy Professor Higgs that has now been confirmed.

Without the Higgs field particles would simply whizz around space in the same way as light does.

A boson is a type of sub-atomic particle. Every energy field has a specific particle that governs its interaction with what's around it. 

To try to pin it down, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva smashed together beams of protons – the 'hearts of atoms' – at close to the speed of light, recreating conditions that existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

Although they would rapidly decay, they should have left a recognisable footprint. This footprint was found in 2012.

The main difficulty was that the superconducting material would decay into something known as particle-hole pairs.

Large amounts of energy – which are usually needed to excite the Higgs mode - tend to break apart the electron pairs that act as the material's charge.

Professor Frydman and his colleagues solved this problem by using ultra-thin superconducting films of Niobium Nitrite (NbN) and Indium Oxide (InO) as something known as the 'superconductor-insulator critical point.'

This is a state in which recent theory predicted the decay of the Higgs would no longer occur.

In this way, they could still excite a Higgs mode even at relatively low energies.

'The parallel phenomenon in superconductors occurs on a different energy scale entirely - just one-thousandth of a single electronvolt,' Professor Frydman added.

'What's exciting is to see how, even in these highly disparate systems, the same fundamental physics is at work.'

The different approach help solve one of the longstanding mysteries of fundamental physics.

The discovery of the Higgs boson verified the Standard Model, which predicted that particles gain mass by passing through a field that slows down their movement through the vacuum of space.

To try to pin it down, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva smashed together beams of protons – the 'hearts of atoms' – at close to the speed of light, recreating conditions that existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

Although they would rapidly decay, the also left a recognisable footprint.

Professor Higgs, 83, has been waiting since 1964 for science to catch up with his ideas about the Higgs boson
Professor Higgs, 83, has been waiting since 1964 for science to catch up with his ideas about the Higgs boson

According to Professor Frydman, observation of the Higgs mechanism in superconductors is significant because it reveals how a single type of physical process behaves under different energy conditions.

'Exciting the Higgs mode in a particle accelerator requires enormous energy levels - measured in giga-electronvolts, or 109 eV,' Professor Frydman says.

'The parallel phenomenon in superconductors occurs on a different energy scale entirely - just one-thousandth of a single electronvolt.

'What's exciting is to see how, even in these highly disparate systems, the same fundamental physics is at work.'

The LHC is due to come back online in March after an upgrade that has given it a big boost in energy.

'With this new energy level, the (collider) will open new horizons for physics and for future discoveries,' CERN Director General Rolf Heuer said in a statement.
'I'm looking forward to seeing what nature has in store for us.'

Cern's collider is buried in a 27-km (17-mile) tunnel straddling the Franco-Swiss border at the foot of the Jura mountains.

The LHC in Geneva will come back online in March after an upgrade that has given it a big boost in energy
The LHC in Geneva will come back online in March after an upgrade that has given it a big boost in energy

View Article Here Read More

History Repeating? Study shows Ancient cities were bigger and denser, just like modern cities

February 21, 2015 / / 0 Comments




Excerpt from  thenextdigit.com

Recently, a new research has been done, which found that the ancient cities were similar to the current modern-day cities in terms of size as well as the density of those settlements. In the research paper, the researcher explains that modern cities with large amount of populations as well as density, are similar to the characteristics of ancient cities. The research claims that the character of the inhabitants of ancient cities is similar to those of inhabitants of modern cities.

 The study was done by the researchers at Santa Fe Institute and at the University of Colorado Boulder. The main objective of the researchers is to find the functionality of the settlements and they started to find out whether current cities and ancient cities are similar in nature.

Scott Ortman, Researcher at Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder says,
“Our findings indicate the fundamental processes behind the emergence of scaling in modern cities have structured human settlement organization throughout human history, and that contemporary urban systems are best-conceived as lying on a continuum with the smaller-scale settlement systems known from historical and archaeological research.”
The researcher grouped together and analyzes the structures as well as dimensions of both cities and estimated the way of construction of monuments, housing styles, the amount of people stayed in a region and so on. They found the place or region where the density was high, the productivity was more.

Ortman also said that the results were amazing and unbelievable for them and added that the modern world is radically different from the ancient world with its capitalism, democracy, industrialization and so on. They also noticed that, once the population of a particular area grew, then the productivity of that same place rose high. Even a few patterns that are used in the ancient human societies were same as that we are following in our modern urban system.
“It was amazing and unbelievable,” Ortman said. “We’ve been raised on a steady diet, telling us that, thanks to capitalism, industrialization, and democracy, the modern world is radically different from worlds of the past. What we found here is that the fundamental drivers of robust socioeconomic patterns in modern cities precede all that.”

View Article Here Read More

‘Firefly’ Starship to Blaze a Trail to Alpha Centauri?

February 21, 2015 / / 0 Comments

The Icarus Interstellar 'Firefly' starship concept could use novel nuclear fusion techniques to power its way to Alpha Centauri within 100 years.Adrian MannExcerpt from news.discovery.com As part of Icarus Interstellar's continuing series ...

View Article Here Read More

Watch This ‘Celestial Visitor’ Turn Into a Massive Fireball Over Pennsylvania

February 18, 2015 / / 0 Comments


That was more than a regular old shooting star — that was a meteor that illuminated the whole sky.
A giant space rock fired up the firmament Tuesday night near Pittsburgh, and NASA caught the whole thing on camera.



Excerpt from theblaze.com

Using a network of 15 specialized cameras around the country, NASA tracks fireball events throughout the U.S.

NASA estimated the size of Tuesday’s meteor to be roughly 500 pounds and said the rock blew up as it traveled some 45,000 miles per hour through the atmosphere.

For a meteor’s-eye-view of the event, check out NASA’s Facebook post below:

“This celestial visitor had an orbit that took it out to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter,” read part of NASA’s Facebook post on the meteor. “[I]t came a mightly long way to a fiery end in the predawn Pennsylvania sky.”

The massive rock broke up into tiny fragments in the atmosphere, but NASA said some of those fragments may be near Kittaning, Pennsylvania.


Click to zoom

View Article Here Read More

SpaceX Rocket’s Stunning View of Our Home Planet

February 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments


Falcon 9 Carrying DSCOVR to L1
Image of Earth taken by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket



Excerpt from news.discovery.com

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket made its first foray into deep space this week, depositing a U.S. space weather satellite into an orbit that eventually will reach more than four times farther away than the moon.

The rocket’s upper-stage deposited the Deep Space Climate Observatory, nicknamed DSCOVR, into an initial orbit that stretched more than 770,000 miles from Earth. From there, DSCOVR will spend the next 110 days getting itself into its operational orbit 930,000 miles from Earth and circling the sun.

A camera aboard the upper-stage shared the view. More pictures will be coming from DSCOVR. Though its main mission is to monitor the sun for potentially dangerous geomagnetic storms, the satellite has a camera that will be pointed to the sun-lit side of Earth. Pictures will be taken every two hours and posted on the Internet the following day.

View Article Here Read More

NASA probe snaps amazing image of Ceres

February 6, 2015 / / 0 Comments



    NASA's Dawn space probe has taken the sharpest-yet image of Ceres, a dwarf planet in our solar system's asteroid belt.

    Excerpt from SPACE.com

    By Mike Wall  

    NASA's Dawn spacecraft has taken the sharpest-ever photos of Ceres, just a month before slipping into orbit around the mysterious dwarf planet.

    Dawn captured the new Ceres images Wednesday (Feb. 4), when the probe was 90,000 miles (145,000 kilometers) from the dwarf planet, the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

    On the night of March 5, Dawn will become the first spacecraft ever to orbit Ceres — and the first to circle two different solar system bodies beyond Earth. (Dawn orbited the protoplanet Vesta, the asteroid belt's second-largest denizen, from July 2011 through September 2012.) 

    "It's very exciting," Dawn mission director and chief engineer Marc Rayman, who's based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said of Dawn's impending arrival at Ceres. "This is a truly unique world, something that we've never seen before."


    The 590-mile-wide (950 km) Ceres was discovered by Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801. It's the only dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, and contains about 30 percent of the belt's total mass. (For what it's worth, Vesta harbors about 8 percent of the asteroid belt's mass.)

    Despite Ceres' proximity (relative to other dwarf planets such as Pluto and Eris, anyway), scientists don't know much about the rocky world. But they think it contains a great deal of water, mostly in the form of ice. Indeed, Ceres may be about 30 percent water by mass, Rayman said.

    Ceres could even harbor lakes or oceans of liquid water beneath its frigid surface. Furthermore, in early 2014, researchers analyzing data gathered by Europe's Herschel Space Observatory announced that they had spotted a tiny plume of water vapor emanating from Ceres. The detection raised the possibility that internal heat drives cryovolcanism on the dwarf planet, as it does on Saturn's moon's Enceladus. (It's also possible that the "geyser" was caused by a meteorite impact, which exposed subsurface ice that quickly sublimated into space, researchers said).

    The interior of Ceres may thus possess liquid water and an energy source — two key criteria required for life as we know it to exist.
    Dawn is not equipped to search for signs of life. But the probe — which is carrying a camera, a visible and infrared mapping spectrometer and a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer — will give scientists great up-close looks at Ceres' surface, which in turn could shed light on what's happening down below. 

    For example, Dawn may see chemical signs of interactions between subsurface water, if it exists, and the surface, Rayman said.
    "That's the sort of the thing we would be looking for — surface structures or features that show up in the camera's eye, or something about the composition that's detectable by one of our multiple spectrometers that could show evidence," he told Space.com. "But if the water doesn't make it to the surface, and isn't in large enough reservoirs to show up in the gravity data, then maybe we won't find it."

    Dawn will also attempt to spot Ceres' water-vapor plume, if it still exists, by watching for sunlight scattered off water molecules above the dwarf planet. But that's going to be a very tough observation to make, Rayman said.

    "The density of the water [observed by Herschel] is less than the density of air even above the International Space Station," he said. "For a spacecraft designed to map solid surfaces of airless bodies, that is an extremely difficult measurement." 

    Merging onto the freeway

    Dawn is powered by low-thrust, highly efficient ion engines, so its arrival at Ceres will not be a nail-biting affair featuring a make-or-break engine burn, as most other probes' orbital insertions are.

    Indeed, as of Friday (Feb. 6), Dawn is closing in on Ceres at just 215 mph (346 km/h), Rayman said —and that speed will keep decreasing every day.

    "You take a gentle, curving route, and then you slowly and safely merge onto the freeway, traveling at the same speed as your destination," Rayman said. "Ion propulsion follows that longer, more gentle, more graceful route."

    Dawn won't start studying Ceres as soon as it arrives. The spacecraft will gradually work its way down to its first science orbit, getting there on April 23. Dawn will then begin its intensive observations of Ceres, from a vantage point just 8,400 miles (13,500 km) above the dwarf planet's surface.

    The science work will continue — from a series of increasingly closer-in orbits, including a low-altitude mapping orbit just 230 miles (375 km) from Ceres' surface — through June 30, 2016, when the $466 million Dawn mission is scheduled to end.
    Rayman can't wait to see what Dawn discovers.

    "After looking through telescopes at Ceres for more than 200 years, I just think it's really going to be exciting to see what this exotic, alien world looks like," he said. "We're finally going to learn about this place."

    View Article Here Read More

    New Religion and Science Study Reveals ‘Post-Seculars’ Reject Evolution

    February 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments





    Excerpt from huffingtonpost.com

    (RNS) Meet the “Post-Seculars” — the one in five Americans who no one seems to have noticed before in endless rounds of debates pitting science vs. religion.

    They’re more strongly religious than most “Traditionals” (43 percent of Americans) and more scientifically knowledgeable than “Moderns” (36 percent) who stand on science alone, according to two sociologists’ findings in a new study.

    “We were surprised to find this pretty big group (21 percent) who are pretty knowledgeable and appreciative about science and technology but who are also very religious and who reject certain scientific theories,” said Timothy O’Brien, co-author of the research study, released Thursday (Jan. 29) in the American Sociological Review.

    Put another way, there’s a sizable chunk of Americans out there who are both religious and scientifically minded but who break with both packs when faith and science collide.

    Post-Seculars pick and choose among science and religion views to create their own “personally compelling way of understanding the world,” said O’Brien, assistant professor at University of Evansville in Indiana.

    O’Brien and co-author Shiri Noy, an assistant professor of sociology at University of Wyoming, examined responses from 2,901 people to 18 questions on knowledge of and attitudes toward science, and four religion-related questions in the General Social Surveys conducted in 2006, 2008 and 2010.

    Many findings fit the usual way the science-religion divide is viewed:

    — Moderns, who stand on reason, scored high on scientific knowledge and scored lowest on religion questions regarding biblical authority and the strength of their religious ties.

    — Traditionals, who lean toward religion, scored lower on science facts and were least likely to agree that “the benefits of scientific research outweigh the harmful results.”

    However, the data turned up a third perspective – people who defied the familiar breakdown. The authors dubbed them “Post-Secular” to jump past a popular theory that Americans are moving way from religion to become more secular, O’Brien said.

    Post-Seculars — about half of whom identify as conservative Protestants — know facts such as how lasers work, what antibiotics do and the way genetics affect inherited illnesses.

    But when it comes to three main areas where science and Christian-centric religious views conflict — on human evolution, the Big Bang origin of the universe and the age of the Earth — Post-Seculars break away from the pack with very significantly different views from Traditionals and Moderns.

    Areas where the factions are clear:

    graphic

    The universe began with a huge explosion:
    Traditional: 21 percent
    Modern: 68 percent
    Post Secular: 6 percent
    Human beings developed from earlier species of animals:
    Traditional: 33 percent
    Modern: 88 percent
    Post-Secular: 3 percent
    The continents have been moving for millions of years and will move in the future:
    Traditional: 66 percent
    Modern: 98 percent
    Post-Secular: 80 percent
    “Post-Seculars are smart. They know what scientists think. They just don’t agree on some key issues, and that has impact on their political views,” said O’Brien.

    When the authors looked at views on the authority of the Bible and how strongly people said they were affiliated with their religion, Post-Seculars put the most faith in Scripture and were much more inclined to say they were strongly religious. And where science and faith conflict on hot-button issues, they side with the religious perspective.

    For example, Moderns are the most supportive of embryonic stem cell research and abortion rights for women, but Post-Seculars, who are nonetheless largely positive about science and society, are more skeptical in both areas, O’Brien said.

    Candidates running in the 2016 elections might take note.

    Where people fall in these three groups can predict their attitudes on political issues where science and religion both have claims, O’Brien said, even after accounting for the usual suspects — social class, political ideology or church attendance.

    View Article Here Read More

    Taiwan Conference Report / Solar System Situation Update

    January 29, 2015 / / 0 Comments

    Taiwan conference was a huge success. Because Taiwan is one of the main centers of the positive Dragon forces, it could grow a very strong Lightworker and Lightwarrior community. The conference took place very close to the location where Taiwanese Drag...

    View Article Here Read More

    The Mystery of the Ghost Ship Lunatic

    January 27, 2015 / / 0 Comments

    The Lunatic Piran found abandoned Jure Stwerk at the Helm           ...

    View Article Here Read More

    Alien Life? Nah, But Myserious White Spot on Ceres Leaves NASA Scientists Flummoxed

    January 26, 2015 / / 0 Comments

    Images of the dwarf planet Ceres, which were taken by the Dawn spacecraft, reveal a mysterious white spot that reflects more sunlight. NASA scientists are not yet certain what this is but they have a hypothesis.Excerpt from techtimes.comA series of ...

    View Article Here Read More
    Older posts Newer posts

    Deep Space Leaderboard 728x90

    Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
    International License    .
    unless otherwise marked.

    Terms of Use | Privacy Policy



    — Up ↑ —