From black holes to potholes, from the outer reaches of the solar system to the inner reaches of our brains, and from medical science to musical science (literally) it was yet another amazing week in the world of science!
Here are this week’s most popular stories – as voted by your clicks – from Science Rocks My World:
What Happens When a Black Hole Vanishes
For all their extraordinary power, black holes are not immortal.
They have a life cycle just like we do. Forty years ago Stephen Hawking, the world’s foremost expert on black holes, announced that they evaporate and shrink because they emit radiation.
But if a black hole evaporates and shrinks, what happens to everything it devoured during its lifetime?
Microwave repairs might annihilate zombie potholes once and for all
Some potholes are like zombies – they never die. Or at least that’s the perception of much of the driving public, especially as we enter peak pothole season: late winter and early spring.
At a minimum, potholes create rough roads and poor driving conditions. Too often they degenerate into vehicle-damaging safety hazards that incur the wrath of drivers, attractnegative attention from the news media and adversely affect commerce by disrupting or slowing traffic…
Details About Huge Mountain on Ceres Emerge
Just past it’s 1-year anniversary of sliding into obit around the dwarf planet Ceres, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has sent back the most detailed images of the huge mountain that’s very existence on Ceres is a mystery to scientists. Dawn’s orbit of Ceres also made history for NASA, because that accomplishment made Dawn the first spacecraft to orbit two different extraterrestrial objects. It had previously achieved orbit around Vesta in 2011 and spent about a year completing a detailed imaging and mapping mission there.
The new images from Ceres reveal a mountain that rises about 2.5 miles above the surface of the dwarf planet, making it as tall as Mt. Rainier in Washington State…
This Region of the Brain Motivates us to Violently Attack
The ominous behaviors that often precede violent acts—stalking, bullying, and possibly sexual aggression—are tied to a distinct part of the hypothalamus, the brain region that also controls body temperature, hunger, and sleep in mammals, new research shows.
The structure is anatomically known as the ventrolateral part of the ventromedial hypothalamus, or VMHvl, because of its central location inside the brain on the underside of the hypothalamus.
“Our study pinpoints the brain circuits essential to the aggressive motivations that build up as animals prepare to attack,” says study senior investigator Dayu Lin…
Why There is so much Hubub about Gravitational Waves
Physicists were all abuzz in February 2016 with a universe-shaking announcement: Scientists had detected the sound of two massive black holes smashing into one another, forming a new black hole nearly twice as big.
The sound came in the form of a brief burst of gravitational waves, vibrations that radiated from the collision-like ripples spreading on a pond, traveling more than a billion light-years before they reached Earth. This was the first time in history that anyone had directly detected gravitational waves…
[Video] Must See: “LIGO Feel That Space” – An Awesome & Info-Packed Parody
![[Video] Must See: “LIGO Feel That Space” – An Awesome & Info-Packed Parody](http://www.sciencerocksmyworld.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/1112/2016/03/video-must-see-ligo-feel-that-sp-110x110.jpg)
Hot on the heels of LIGO’s detection of gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, A Capealla Science has released an awesome YouTube video that simultaneously parodies The Weeknd’s “I Can’t Feel My Face,” while summarizing practically all of the science behind LIGO and the now-famous GW detection.
Teachers and Professors: this one’s for you! 100% classroom friendly…
What Life was Like for Early Humans – 1.8 Million Years Ago
Scientists have pieced together an early human habitat in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and discovered that despite access to food, water, and shady shelter, the living 1.8 million years ago was far from easy.
These human ancestors, who looked like a cross between apes and modern humans, even had stone tools with sharp edges, but still had to eke out a tough living, says Gail M. Ashley, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Rutgers University. “It was a very stressful life because they were in continual competition with carnivores for their food.”…
Game-Changing Screening Test for Cancer & Other Diseases is 10,000 Times More Sensitive
A common theme in medicine is that detecting a disease early on can lead to more effective treatments. The idea relies partly on luck that the patient gets screened at the right time, but more important is that the testing techniques are sensitive enough to register minuscule hints that diseases leave in the blood stream.
A new technique shows promise to be thousands of times more sensitive than current techniques in lab experiments, and it is now being put to test in real-world clinical trials…
Can we ‘vaccinate’ plants to boost their immunity?
When you pick up the perfect apple in the supermarket it’s easy to forget that plants get sick just like we do. A more realistic view might come from a walk outside during summer: try to find a leaf without a speck, spot or blemish. Tough, huh? Those are the signs of a microscopic battle waged every day in and on plants…
Now, Check Out These Other Great Stories From This Week:
- Research is Leading to a Pill for Preventing Cavities
- Scientists Find Stardust that May be Older than Our Sun
- New Drug Literally Explodes Malaria Parasites
- Flexible Cloak Makes Objects Invisible to Radar
- Huge Solar Prominence Eruption Caught by SDO [Video]