Time Trave Impossible: Blame It On The Photons

Sorry scifi nerds, looks like the Tardis is just an old call box after all.

Science fiction will never be the same again. Apparently time travel has now been proven to be impossible and it's all thanks to those little balls of light, photons.

The prospect of time travel seems unlikely, according to the latest findings by physicists who confirmed the ultimate speed limit of photons, which are packets of light.

The universe's ultimate speed limit is the speed of light in a vaccum. Recent experiments suggested that single photons might beat it and allow for the prospect of time travel, but now findings indicate that individual photons are also limited to the vacuum speed limit.

Einstein's theory of special relativity maintains that an event's effect cannot precede its cause by traveling faster than light. A violation of this causality would permit time travel.

The limit in a vacuum is a fixed number - about 300,00km per second, but the speed of light can vary.

"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," said professor Shengwang Du of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

In conclusion, photons cannot time travel, and moving information around at faster-than-light speeds is not possible. But that doesn't mean that time travel is entirely ruled out.

Source: www.ibtimes.com

Resource: http://physics.aps.org

Ok, so it's not ruled out. It just means that it's impossible if you are made of matter. So, now all we have to do is figure out how to turn matter into anti-matter or harness the energy of a star, find a black hole, if they exist, toss ourselves in and use that harnessed energy to propel us into another time and space hoping that DS9, Stargate and Sliders got it right.

Volcanoes On The Moon: Now Someone Can Write the Book "Journey To The Center Of The Moon"

A Map Showing The Location Of The Possible Volcanoes
If possible, volcanoes on the moon just became even more awesome.

According to NASA's Lunar Science Center, scientists have recently discovered what they believe to be dormant silicate volcanoes on the far side of the moon. While the surface of the moon is littered with more common basaltic volcanoes, the type that "ooze" magma, this new find suggests a different type of activity.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) discovered the now dead volcanoes, according to Space.com. Previous lunar exploration missions had hinted at this type of activity on the moon, but it wasn't until this find that the presence of silicate volcanoes could be confirmed.

The find tells scientists a lot more than was previously known about volcanic activity of the Earth's largest satellite.

“To find evidence of this unusual composition located where it is, and appearing to be relatively recent volcanic activity is a fundamentally new result and will make us think again about the Moon’s thermal and volcanic evolution,” Bradley Jolliff, PhD, research professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis said.

Apparently these volcanoes, located on the far, or "dark," side of the moon present some of the youngest volcanic activity predicted to have taken place on the moon, occurring about three to four billion years ago, according to NASA.

Wired reports that, despite the cool finding, NASA's plans to return to the moon were canceled in 2010, and thus "Sadly, we probably won't get a chance to take a hands-on look anytime soon."

resource: www.huffingtonpost.com

Godspeed: The Last Space Shuttle Launch

The last space shuttle of the US manned space program launched today and with conditions that couldn't have been better. The US government has shut down a 50 year program that "launched" us into a new era of technology and discovery. The shuttle program was started in 1981 and has launched 132 shuttles into space including the final one this morning. I am not, of course, a NASA engineer nor a politician, but I think it’s a huge mistake to give up such a huge stake in space exploration. The reasons I have heard are everything from financial issues, to changing technology even to conspiracy type ideas like the powers that be switching world powers... though I don't put much stock in the latter. No matter the reason I find it sad that so many people who have such a life investment in the program are just let go and forced to hang up their childhood dreams of space. This of course doesn't mean that we are no longer researching space it’s just no longer going to be seen as the final frontier by the US government.

NASA is adjusting to what they are calling a commercial space flight program where small companies will be able to pick up the slack that NASA leaves behind. This will undoubtedly redefine the astronaut and what space travel will look like. If anything good was to come of this I suppose it would be that a new industry will be created supplying new jobs. Who knows... maybe this will be the beginning of public space transportation here in the states. Still, I am sad to see a legacy of NASA come to an end.

Read an article at www.thenewamerican.com for more on the last shuttle launch.

Deion Sanders: He Can Sing Too? Oh, He Can't?

Did you know that one football's legends also moonlighted as an R&B star in the early 90s. He actually made it to #70 on the Top R&B Hip-Hop Albums list. Bad Lip Reading needs to do a cover of this song.

Nerd Hair: Luke, I Am Your Hairdresser

Now we know how Luke got that feathered hair looking so Jedi-tastic. Let's face it, Tatooine isn't exactly the mostly friendly planet when it comes to hair. All that dry, sandy, air and not a hairstylist in the system judging by the miscreants that trod the streets of Mos Eisly and hang out at Jabba's crib. So when the atmo of Tatooine gets your hair down, and you need a feathered boost, try the Darth Vader hair dryer for that slightly imperial, brush-with-the-dark-side, look.