deSignale

Bei diesen Bildern musste ich an das Lied Hiroshima von Wishful Thinking denken, nur mit einer neuen Strophe 'Fukushima':

There is a wave across the Land and Fukushima...

Offizielles Video aus einem Hubschrauber:

Eine interessante Theorie wird in sciencedaily.com vorgestellt, die eine Art von Zeitmaschine für Materieteilchen durch das LHC beschreibt:

hier

One of the major goals of the collider is to find the elusive Higgs boson: the particle that physicists invoke to explain why particles like protons, neutrons and electrons have mass. If the collider succeeds in producing the Higgs boson, some scientists predict that it will create a second particle, called the Higgs singlet, at the same time.

According to Weiler and Ho's theory, these singlets should have the ability to jump into an extra, fifth dimension where they can move either forward or backward in time and reappear in the future or past.

"One of the attractive things about this approach to time travel is that it avoids all the big paradoxes," Weiler said. "Because time travel is limited to these special particles, it is not possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his parents before he himself is born, for example. However, if scientists could control the production of Higgs singlets, they might be able to send messages to the past or future."

Unsticking the "brane"

The test of the researchers' theory will be whether the physicists monitoring the collider begin seeing Higgs singlet particles and their decay products spontaneously appearing. If they do, Weiler and Ho believe that they will have been produced by particles that travel back in time to appear before the collisions that produced them.

Weiler and Ho's theory is based on M-theory, a "theory of everything." A small cadre of theoretical physicists have developed M-theory to the point that it can accommodate the properties of all the known subatomic particles and forces, including gravity, but it requires 10 or 11 dimensions instead of our familiar four. This has led to the suggestion that our universe may be like a four-dimensional membrane or "brane" floating in a multi-dimensional space-time called the "bulk."

According to this view, the basic building blocks of our universe are permanently stuck to the brane and so cannot travel in other dimensions. There are some exceptions, however. Some argue that gravity, for example, is weaker than other fundamental forces because it diffuses into other dimensions. Another possible exception is the proposed Higgs singlet, which responds to gravity but not to any of the other basic forces.

Answers in neutrinos?

Weiler began looking at time travel six years ago to explain anomalies that had been observed in several experiments with neutrinos. Neutrinos are nicknamed ghost particles because they react so rarely with ordinary matter: Trillions of neutrinos hit our bodies every second, yet we don't notice them because they zip through without affecting us.

Weiler and colleagues Heinrich Päs and Sandip Pakvasa at the University of Hawaii came up with an explanation of the anomalies based on the existence of a hypothetical particle called the sterile neutrino. In theory, sterile neutrinos are even less detectable than regular neutrinos because they interact only with gravitational force. As a result, sterile neutrinos are another particle that is not attached to the brane and so should be capable of traveling through extra dimensions.

Weiler, Päs and Pakvasa proposed that sterile neutrinos travel faster than light by taking shortcuts through extra dimensions. According to Einstein's general theory of relativity, there are certain conditions where traveling faster than the speed of light is equivalent to traveling backward in time. This led the physicists into the speculative realm of time travel.

Eine interessante Alternative zur Dunklen Energie konnte nun widerlegt werden, wie science daily berichtet: hier

In Folge eines sehr starken Erdbebens in Japan gab es jetzt eine Explosion in einem AKW. Wahrscheinlich war ein Reaktor explodiert.

Ein Artikel der faz beschreibt die Situation recht fundiert:

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Zu den oft geäußerten Angriffen gegen das Journal of Cosmology, es sei nicht wissenschaftlich und hätte keine Reputation, gibt es nun folgenden Stellungnahme:

The Controversy of the Hoover Meteorite Study

Official Statement The Journal of Cosmology,

Have the Terrorists Won?

The Journal of Cosmology is free, online, open access. Free means = No money.

Our intention has always been to promote science and this means, particularly in this case, stepping on the toes of the "status quo" who have responded with a barrage of slanderous attacks.

The Journal of Cosmology is a Prestigious Scientific Journal Two of NASA Senior Scientists Science Directorates have published in the Journal of Cosmology (JOC). A NASA Senior Scientist Science Directorate served as a "guest" Executive editor and repeatedly referred to the Journal as "prestigious." Four astronauts, two who walked on the Moon have published with JOC. Over 30 top NASA scientists have published in JOC.

Top scientists from prestigious universities from around the world have published in the Journal of Cosmology, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, and so on. Sir Roger Penrose of Oxford and who shared the "Wolf Prize" in physics with Stephen Hawking is Guest editing the April edition.

Peer Review NASA Senior Scientist Science Directorate Joel Levine, while participating in a NASA press conference, remarked about how his papers were peer reviewed and he was required to revise all of them, even though he was the editor for that edition of JOC!

As every editor, and guest editor will attest, all articles are subjected to peer review. We reject over 30% of invited papers and over 70% of those which are not invited. Every editor, and Guest editor, has had their work subjected to peer review, and every editor has been required to revise their articles after peer review. Even the executive editors have been required to revise their papers after peer review. We believe in peer review. Peer review provides wonderful feedback which can help make a paper better, or which can explain why the paper is hopeless and must be rejected. However, we do not reject great papers because we disagree with them as is the habit of other periodicals.

Richard Hoover's paper was received in November. It was subjected to repeated reviews and underwent one significant revision.

The Journal of Cosmology is Not For Sale & Will Continue Publishing The Journal of Cosmology has no income, a small staff, and is overwhelmed with submissions from scientists around the world.

We were well aware we would suffer profound, slanderous, attacks by those who would do anything to destroy our reputation. It took tremendous courage to publish this paper, and despite its lack of funds, the Journal will continue publishing great ideas and great research.

Have the Terrorist Won? Only a few crackpots and charlatans have denounced the Hoover study. NASA's chief scientist was charged with unprofessional conduct for lying publicly about the Journal of Cosmology and the Hoover paper. His latest official statement is littered with falsehoods. This is the same man who approved the bogus "Arsenic-life" story which was published in Science magazine and immediately shown to be untrue. Science magazine with its 180 editors was accused by numerous scientists of failing to have the "arsenic" paper properly reviewed. NASA has no credibility on these issues.

Tremendous efforts have been made to shout down the truth, and the same crackpots, self-promoters, liars, and failures, are quoted repeatedly in the media. However, where is the evidence the Hoover study is not accurate?

Few legitimate scientists have come forward to contest Hoover's findings. Why is that? Because the evidence is solid.

In 1584, Giordano Bruno published "Of Infinity, the Universe, and the World" and wrote: "There are innumerable suns and an infinite number of planets which circle around their suns as our seven planets circle around our Sun." However, according to Bruno, we are unable to see these planets and suns "because of their great distance or small mass." On February 19, 1600 Bruno was burned at the stake by the Inquisition for publishing these claims.

Following the publication of Richard Hoover's paper, what ensued could be likened to a rein of terror, a witch hunt, an inquisition designed to crush all discussion of his findings. There were even calls to "hang" Richard Hoover. Three hundred years ago, they would have burned us all at the stake.

The silence is deafening. What prominent scientist would dare to publicly support Hoover's findings, when they know that raving lunatics will be unleashed to destroy their reputation?

How can science advance in this country if NASA and the media promotes frothing-at the-mouth-attacks on legitimate scientists and scientific periodicals who dare to publish new discoveries or new ideas?

The Journal of Cosmology sought to promote science and scientific debate, but the scientific community is too frightened and terrorized to speak up.

It took courage to publish the Hoover discoveries. The Journal of Cosmology will continue to publish great theories and new discoveries.

The terrorists and the lunatic fringe have lost.

Wie nicht anders zu erwarten entfacht das Paper von Richard Hoover viel Widerspruch in der Mainstream-Wissenschaft. In erster Linie wird dabei das Online - Journal als nicht renomiert angegriffen, hier auch vor allem deswegen, weil dort die Panspermie-Theorie vertreten wird und diese Theorie den eingefleischten Neodarwinisten nicht ins Konzept passt. Eine Biowissenschaft, die nichts anderes als den Neodarwinismus gelten lässt muss da natürlich gegenhalten. Mit polemischen Attacken wird auch die wissenschaftliche Arbeit von Hoover insgesamt herabgewürdigt.

Doch ganz so leicht ist die Lage eben nicht und ich bin sehr erfreut, dass nun auch das weitverbreitete Nachrichtenportal und Magazin New Scientist einen sehr ausführlichen Beitrag geschrieben hat. Und siehe da, die stereotypen Anwürfe der ach so renomierten Wissenschaft sind bei Lichte betrachtet bei weitem nicht so fundiert, wie es den Anschein hat.

Zum sehr ausführlichen New Scientist - Artikel geht es hier.

Daraus will ich einige Punkte zitieren.

Zunächst werden noch klärungswürdige Punkte angesprochen, dies in aller Sachlichkeit, wie es für eine solche Entdeckung auch angemessen ist:

Olcott Marshall and her colleagues revealed that what we thought were the oldest known bacterial fossils on Earth are only deceptive patterns formed in the rock by geological processes. The researchers sliced the 3.5-billion-year old Apex Chert rock containing the alleged fossils into 30-micrometre sections, thinner than any previously studied slices, and shone a powerful laser at them to get a good look under the microscope.

The new analysis confirmed that the fibrous structures researchers had originally identified as fossilised cyanobacteria were in fact fractures in the rock filled with inorganic haematite and quartz.

"One lesson we learn over and over again is that morphology is very common between minerals and life," says Olcott Marshall, who is also unconvinced by Hoover's new paper. "Finding circles and wiggles is not necessarily evidence of life."

Nun, hier hätte ich mir gerne mal Bilder dieser mineralischen Strukturen angeschaut, um zu vergleichen, ob sie wirklich wie Bakterien aussehen. Ferner muss man aber sagen, dass Fossilien eben organische Bestandteile durch Mineralien ersetzt haben. Aber gut, dieser Punkt muss im Auge behalten werden. Mal ein sachlicher Einwand der Kritiker, ok.

Kommen wir zur Ansicht, dass diese Strukturen zwar wirklich fossile Bakterien sein könnten, aber diese zuvor erst auf der Erde in die Bruchstücke eindrang, es also irdische Bakterienreste sind. Schließlich waren sie 1864 eingeschlagen. Kurze aber wirkungsvolle Entgegnung dazu:

If the squiggles are bacteria from Earth, it is unclear how they would have fossilised between 1864 and now.

Also, wenn es wirklich fossile Bakterien sind, dann müssten sie innerhalb sehr sehr kurzer Zeit fossilisiert sein. Das ist nicht möglich.

Kommen wir zu einer anderen Frage: Wann würden denn die Kritiker überhaupt bereit sein, Alien-Bakterien in Meteoriten als solche anzuerkennen? Ihre Argumentation läuft darauf hinaus, dass man immer - noch so abwegige wie Fossilbildung in hundert Jahren etwa - ein Minimum an Unsicherheit als Kilerargument heranziehen kann. New Scientist meint daher zurecht:

But even with tools that let them examine meteorites in exquisite detail, researchers cannot easily distinguish a squiggle in a rock from the remains of a living creature, which begs the question: what is the gold standard for evidence of alien life? Assuming that a little green man is not going to drop by NASA's headquarters any time soon, what will convince scientists that they have found extraterrestrial life?

The answer, it seems, is nothing short of "extraordinary evidence" – a phrase that is currently leaping from the lips of scientists around the world as they argue over Hoover's new study.

Kommen wir zu den unsachlicheren Angriffen betreffend der Veröffentlichung dieser Ergebnisse im Journal of Cosmology und nicht in Science oder Nature oder einem anderen angesehenen als renomiert geltenden peer review Journal.

More than a few scientists and journalists have argued that the evidence Hoover does offer is all the more ensconced in suspicion – though certainly not invalidated – by the journal in which he chose to publish: the peer-reviewed, open access Journal of Cosmology, which announced it is likely to go out of business in a few month's time.

The journal's editor-in-chief, Harvard University's Rudy Schild, is a proponent of panspermia – the idea that life abounds in the universe and that a meteorite crawling with alien organisms likely seeded life on Earth.

Wurde Hoovers Arbeit also einem peer review Verfahren im Journal of Cosmology unterworfen? Ja!

However, the Journal of Cosmology's editorial guidelines state that all articles are peer reviewed. In an email to New Scientist, the journal's managing director Lana Tao explained that Hoover's article was first submitted in November 2010, reviewed by Chandra Wickramasinghe, who requested certain changes and sent out for external review by five experts.

Hoover then revised the paper and it was subsequently reviewed by two external referees, who requested minor revisions. None of the external reviewers have been named.

Auch bei Nature oder Science werden die Reviewer nicht namentlich genannt. Immerhin wurde hier aber Chandra Wickramasinghe als Referee genannt und dieser Forscher ist eben kein Leichtgewicht, auch wenn seine Panspermietheorie ungeliebt ist.

Doch es haben weitere Forscher reagiert und sind einer Aufforderung gefolgt. Hundert Experten sollen bis 11.3.2001 ihr Urteil öffentlich abgeben, 21 sind bislang tätig geworden:

In a move unusual for research journals, the Journal of Cosmology sent 100 requests for additional review and analysis from scientists and has published 21 responses so far, most of which largely applaud Hoover's study, raising minor quibbles here and there.

It could all yet prove to be a tempest in a teacup, though. It appears likely that Hoover's study may soon be ignored by the majority of the scientific community, instead of enjoying a healthy debate such as that raised by McKay's 1996 paper on the Mars meteorite. Redfield says that a microbiologist that she knows refused to read it.

The Journal of Cosmology, however, does not show signs of backing down. "It should be expected that a discovery as momentous as reported by Dr. Richard Hoover, would be met with hoots and jeers," said Lana Tao in another email. "The choice is simple: Scientific discourse vs psychosis. Hysteria and lies do not constitute scientific doubt. They are calls for medication."

Der Link zu den ergänzenden Reviews hier.

Übrigens, die unsachliche Mehrhetsfraktion meinte, dass dem Aufruf nicht einmal eine Handvoll Forscher folgen würden. Nun, so kann man sich irren!

Meine Meinung zu der Entdeckung: Sie verdient eine unvoreingenommene Prüfung, nicht mehr, aber auch nicht weniger!

Hier mal ein wenig Hintergrund zur bisherigen Forschung von Richard B. Hoover, der nun Beweise für außerirdische Lebensformen proklamiert.

NASA - Wissenschaftler veröffentlichen - nach ihrer Meinung - Beweise für außerirdische Mikroben-Fossilien in einem Meteoritenstück.

Zum peer review Journal mit der Abhandlung:

hier

Die Bilder sind beeindruckend, viel klarer als damals ALH84001...

Darin:

Dr. Hoover has discovered evidence of microfossils similar to Cyanobacteria, in freshly fractured slices of the interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites. Based on Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) and other measures, Dr. Hoover has concluded they are indigenous to these meteors and are similar to trichomic cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes such as filamentous sulfur bacteria. He concludes these fossilized bacteria are not Earthly contaminants but are the fossilized remains of living organisms which lived in the parent bodies of these meteors, e.g. comets, moons, and other astral bodies. The implications are that life is everywhere, and that life on Earth may have come from other planets.


Official Statement from Dr. Rudy Schild,
Center for Astrophysics, Harvard-Smithsonian,
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Cosmology.

Dr. Richard Hoover is a highly respected scientist and astrobiologist with a prestigious record of accomplishment at NASA. Given the controversial nature of his discovery, we have invited 100 experts and have issued a general invitation to over 5000 scientists from the scientific community to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis. Our intention is to publish the commentaries, both pro and con, alongside Dr. Hoover's paper. In this way, the paper will have received a thorough vetting, and all points of view can be presented. No other paper in the history of science has undergone such a thorough analysis, and no other scientific journal in the history of science has made such a profoundly important paper available to the scientific community, for comment, before it is published. We believe the best way to advance science, is to promote debate and discussion.


Edit (7.3.2011):

Korrekterweise muss ich aber auch auf das Statement der NASA hinweisen:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=32928

Im Jahre 2007 hat Hoover wohl versucht seine Ergebnisse im Journal for Astrobiology zu veröffentlichen, aber das peer-review Verfahren wurde nie vollendet. Was bedeutet das? Nun, seine Arbeit wurde nicht in Bausch und Bogen abgelehnt, aber man wollte wohl Korrekturen in den weitreichenden Aussagen Hoovers haben, die der Autor wohl nicht bereit war durchzuführen. Seine Schlussfolgerungen - nicht nur zu den einzelnen Befunden von Alien-Bakterien, sondern zum Leben im All insgesamt - sind wirklich sehr weitreichend. Jedenfalls wollte ich das auch zur Kenntnis bringen...