Tag Archives: viskontas

In a Googol Years, Our Universe Will Be Empty

by Stan36091388457 Posted on June 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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The universe will die. Eventually it will become nothing. In roughly a quadrillion years, a last star will give its last twinkle, and black holes will devour everything before they completely evaporate. And in a googol years (that’s 10 to the hundredth power, which is a lot), the universe will be empty. Physicists speculate that emptiness will last for an infinite time period.

The universe, both its origin and its end, is the topic for this week’s Inquiring Minds podcast, where neuroscientist Indre Viskontas talks with Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist and professor at CalTech with a background in cosmology, gravity, and extra dimensions. You can listen to their full conversation below:

Here are some highlights from the interview:

The Big Bang might not have been the beginning. Humans love to put things in chronological order. We are slaves to our definitions of past, present, and future. But the inevitable passage of time isn’t a fundamental law for physics. So the very thing we label as the beginning, the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, may not have been the true start. “The universe could be eternal, or it could have had a beginning…Our theories just aren’t good enough to extrapolate backward.”

The end may not be the end, either. And even though the universe will eventually be gone, that doesn’t mean it will be the complete end. Little pieces—baby universes, if you will—can “pinch off,” Carroll says, and start their own universes. Ours could have come from this process. “We don’t know why our early universe was so small, so tiny,” says Carroll. “One possible explanation is that it came out of a preexisting space time that was just sort of sitting there quietly.”

We aren’t beings, we’re processes. The thought of being a human may be nice, but Carroll breaks it down in terms fit for a physicist. Our bodies are nothing but chemical reactions that occur while we’re alive—and, after that, different chemical reactions that happen when we die. An average life span consists of about 3 billion heartbeats. For some, this perspective might seem depressing. After all, what’s the point of those heartbeats when weighed against the gravity of the universe? (See young Alvy Singer below, for example.)

But for Carroll, it’s just the opposite. “If you think that all you get are those 3 billion heartbeats, then what happens here—to your life, to the people you know, and to the world you can affect—that matters enormously to me,” he says.

So yes, Alvy, the universe is expanding, but you still have to do your homework.

Inquiring Minds is a podcast hosted by neuroscientist and musician Indre Viskontas and Kishore Hari, the director of the Bay Area Science Festival. To catch future shows right when they are released, subscribe to Inquiring Minds via iTunes or RSS. You can follow the show on Twitter at @inquiringshow, like us on Facebook, and check out show notes and other cool stuff on Tumblr.

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In a Googol Years, Our Universe Will Be Empty

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How Global Warming Is Making Some Diseases Even Scarier

by ModestoBrickhou Posted on May 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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Americans should expect a surge in deaths from heat waves, flooding, and respiratory disease as the climate warms, according to a wide-ranging White House report released last month. And what spells disaster for humans could also be a boon to infectious microbes and the animals that transmit them.

The guest on this week’s episode of Inquiring Minds is Ben Beard, associate director for climate change at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He’s one of more than 100 researchers who contributed to the report, and his specialty is vector-borne diseases. These illnesses—which include Lyme disease, dengue fever, and Zika virus—are transmitted by other animals, especially insects such as mosquitos and ticks. Beard talks with co-host Indre Viskontas about how global warming is poised to alter their spread and whether the changes we’re already seeing can be attributed to climate change. “These diseases are emerging in the United States,” he says. “There are more and more cases every year.” You can listen to the full interview with Beard below:

It’s no coincidence that vector-borne illnesses are among the most “climate-sensitive” diseases, he adds, increasing in range and incidence when environmental conditions are favorable to the critters that harbor them. In some regions of the United States, recent decades have brought longer, warmer summers and shorter, milder winters. That’s played a role in the northward creep of tick-transmitted Lyme disease and seasonal flare-ups of the West Nile virus, which is carried by mosquitos. But the issue isn’t simply the expanding range of those diseases; at warmer temperatures, mosquitos can speed up their life cycles, Beard explains. Under hotter conditions, viruses like West Nile will typically replicate faster in the cold-blooded mosquito, making it more likely to be transmitted through each bite.

US Global Change Research Program

There’s also concern, Beard says, about local transmission of diseases typically associated with the tropics—he points to recent cases of dengue and chikungunya in Florida (both are transmitted by mosquitos). But he cautions that the precise causes remain poorly understood; the recent uptick could be linked as much to increases in global trade and travel as it is to changes in the climate.

But one takeaway is clear. “The brunt of this will be borne by the poorer, more tropical regions of the world,” Beard says. These are communities with climates that are already hospitable to disease-bearing insects, and in which the basic layers of prevention—from air conditioning to insect repellent—are scarce. They’re also less likely to have access to quick diagnosis and treatment, he says, which can increase the likelihood that mosquitos or other vectors will spread the illness from one infected individual to an entire household.

Inquiring Minds is a podcast hosted by neuroscientist and musician Indre Viskontas and Kishore Hari, the director of the Bay Area Science Festival. To catch future shows right when they are released, subscribe to Inquiring Minds via iTunes or RSS. You can follow the show on Twitter at @inquiringshow, like us on Facebook, and check out show notes and other cool stuff on Tumblr.

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How Global Warming Is Making Some Diseases Even Scarier

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Global Warming Is Making Some Diseases Even Scarier