Black Hole Particle Jets Explained 201
Screaming Cactus writes "A team of researchers led by Boston University's Alan Marscher have apparently worked out the physics behind the particle streams emanating from many black holes. According to the researchers, 'twisted, coiled magnetic fields are propelling the material outward.' By watching an 'unprecedented view' of a black hole in the process of expelling mass, they were able to confirm their theory, predicting where and when bursts of energy would be detected."
Re:This is how science works (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally sat through a lecture nearly 20 years ago that was given at the Stroud Water Research Center by the guy who discovered "global warming". I remember he was introduced by Dr. Ruth Patrick of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. AT THAT TIME, he said the worst mistake he'd ever made in his career was allowing the name "global warming" to get attached to what he was studying. He said that the global average warming trend was an indicator that something was changing, and that it appeared to correlate with increased carbon in the atmosphere mostly likely caused by human pollution, and that talking about "global warming" was like (my words here, don't remember his metaphor) calling your baby's influenza "mercury rise" because the tyke had a fever. Get it?
I suggested he should have called it "terrestrial albedo modification" but I was in a room full of biologists so they all looked at me funny. Really it should just be called "air pollution".
Incidentally, he presented pretty conclusive evidence at that time - ice cores, the Mauna Loa data, etc. that carbon in the atmosphere is increasing proportionally to global mean temperature. He also suggested that the increased energy being absorbed from the sun might result in more energetic weather, and a bunch of other stuff that seems prophetic now, but he cautioned that these suggestions could not be supported by the data and that we should not assume that his reasoning would necessarily pan out.
Re:This is how science works (Score:2, Interesting)
Your argument has already been shot down. Dr. Dino uses the terms "micro evolution" and "macro evolution". Macro evolution is when a single-celled organism evolves into a mouse. Micro evolution describes the minute changes within an existing organism that vary its sense of smell, appendage length, scalieness of skin, whatever.
I can't say I've heard anyone argue against micro evolution. Macro evolution, on the other hand, I have never seen shown to be true. As far as I know, even fossil records don't ever show a clear transition from one species to another. Thus, no one has ever provided much evidence for evolution. (I suppose it could be explained by one article I read that mutations are "stored up" and expressed all at once -- many smaller changes would be unworkable and the resultant creature being unable to survive or breed with either its own species or another mutated creature -- and when a great many of them all mutate drastically, then you may get a few that can survive. A leap, but I'd say it's better than magic. That, and the fact that even mass deaths (think black plague) don't show markedly..)
My former employer once said to me, "Evolution is like throwing pieces of a watch into a drier, turning it on, and getting a watch out again. It's nonsense." I'd contend that if you gave it 15 billion years, not only would you get a fully functional watch out, but if you put in enough random matter and gave it enough energy, you would not only get _one_ watch, but you'd end up with an entire _industry_ of watches with different styles, qualities,
So.. yeah.
-DrkShadow
Re:Does it even matter? (Score:3, Interesting)