2007-12-31

A cool prediction that actually came true

This is the time of year that you begin to read predictions about what will happen next year. Mobile viruses are nigh. A Macintosh tablet is on the horizon. The Detroit Tigers will win the World Series. Things like that. But how about a very specific prediction made in 1967 about the then future (1999) that is darn near dead-on accurate? That's what the folks at Philco-Ford created with this video about how people would be shopping and paying bills by the end of the 20th century. Gender stereotypes aside, it's an excellent analysis of not only what might happen, but what actually did take place. Hats off to whoever did it. Maybe they'll turn their crystal ball on who will be the 2008 World Series champs. (Won't be the Tigers.)

http://blogs.computerworld.com/a_cool_prediction_that_actually_came_true

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2007-12-18

NASA Announces Discovery of Assault by a Black Hole

Dec.
18, 2007:
A powerful jet from a supermassive black
hole is blasting a nearby galaxy, according to new data from
NASA observatories. This never-before witnessed galactic violence
may have a profound effect on planets in the jet's path and
trigger a burst of star birth in its destructive wake.

This
real-life scene, worthy of the most outlandish science fiction,
is playing out in a faraway binary galaxy system known as
3C321. Two galaxies are in orbit around one another. A supermassive
black hole at the core of the system's larger galaxy is spewing
a jet in the direction of its smaller companion.
see caption

"We've
seen many jets produced by black holes, but this is the first
time we've seen one punch into another galaxy," says
Dan Evans, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics and leader of the study. "This jet could
be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it
is pummeling."


see caption


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