How Nearby Supernovae Affected Life On Earth 109
sycodon writes with news of research into how nearby supernovae affected the development of life on Earth. "[Professor Henrik Svensmark] found that the changing frequency of nearby supernovae seems to have strongly shaped the conditions for life on Earth. Whenever the Sun and its planets have visited regions of enhanced star formation in the Milky Way Galaxy, where exploding stars are most common, life has prospered. Prof. Svensmark remarks in the paper, "The biosphere seems to contain a reflection of the sky, in that the evolution of life mirrors the evolution of the Galaxy.' ... The data also support the idea of a long-term link between cosmic rays and climate, with these climatic changes underlying the biological effects. And compared with the temperature variations seen on short timescales as a consequence of the Sun's influence on the influx of cosmic rays, the heating and cooling of the Earth due to cosmic rays varying with the prevailing supernova rate have been far larger.""
Re:Star Trek (Score:5, Funny)
IIRC, a temporal anomaly - which was created by the Enterprise shooting its magical bullshit beam into the same place, at three points in time, grew bigger as it went back in time, and prevented life from forming.
Q bopped Picard around from past to present until he figured it out, and saved the day with an inverse magical bullshit beam and paradox, whatever bullshit LeVar Burton spewed out to "explain" it.
Ultimately Q's the good guy, since while he wasn't allowed to directly affect or fix it because of more magical bullshit Q rules, he bent the rules to lead Piccard figure it all out.
Or was that not the last episode? You should maybe ask someone who liked the show more than me. I just liked to rub one out to the space cheerleader mind reading chick, now and then.
Re:Life Has Prospered (Score:5, Funny)
HULK AGREES!
Re:Electric/Plasma Universe Theory - Supported Aga (Score:4, Funny)
The energy output of the sun is tied to the electric field strength of the surrounding galactic neighborhood, which fluctuates over time.
Indeed. I'm working on a unification for Electric Universe Theory and Time Cube Theory, which, if I can pull it off, should make me the Crank of the Century.
Re:Electric/Plasma Universe Theory - Supported Aga (Score:4, Funny)
Let's see, on the one hand I have the opinion that almost every cosmologist holds, and the other I have the opinion of a Slashdotter.
I'm really torn on this one.