The shape of time

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link here

Big Bang? Or did the universe just unwind?

Here's a really good introduction to string theory:

http://superstringtheory.com/

Hawking rewrites history -again

To understand the Universe we must start from the here and now.
Philip Ball


How did the Universe begin? Many scientists would regard this as one of the most profound questions of all. But to Stephen Hawking, who has perhaps come closer than anyone to answering it, the question doesn't in fact even exist.

Hawking, based at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleague Thomas Hertog of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, are about to publish a paper claiming that the Universe had no unique beginning1. Instead, they argue, it began in just about every way imaginable (and maybe some that aren't).

Out of this profusion of beginnings, the vast majority withered away without leaving any real imprint on the Universe we know today. Only a tiny fraction of them blended to make the current cosmos, Hawking and Hertog claim.

That, they insist, is the only possible conclusion if we are to take quantum physics seriously. "Quantum mechanics forbids a single history," says Hertog.
Find the rest of the story "here":
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060619/full/060619-6.html

High Surf Advisory

Posted at 2:01 a.m., Friday, December 29, 2006

High surf warning remains in effect

Advertiser Staff

A high surf warning remains in effect until 6 tonight for the north and west shores of Ni'ihau, Kaua'i, O'ahu, Maui, the Big Island and Molokai.
Surf along north shores was expected to be 28 to 32 feet overnight but decline to below 25 feet by this afternoon.

Surf along west shores was expected to be 15 to 22 feet overnight and decline to 8 to 15 feet by this afternoon.

The rest of the National Weather Service's surf forecast calls for south shores to see surf 1 to 2 feet and east shores to see surf 3 to 5 feet.

Another large northwest swell is expected Monday night and Tuesday.
http://www.surfnewsnetwork.com/

eat less meat

According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, entitled "Livestock's Long Shadow":

The livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent -- 18 percent -- than transport.
...
Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land, [which is] used to produce feed for livestock
...
The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth's increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs.
...
Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass.

I suppose we can add to the list of "simple things you can do to save the Earth" this bon mot:

Eat Less Meat

Not to mention the fact that it also has the potential to extend your life.

Global O

My first inkling of the Global O project. http://www.globalorgasm.org/
I must have been (be) a canary in a mine in another life.
I'd lay odds it won't be a petit mal. Perhaps a petit mort.
Can't hurt to try.