Recycling You

Big bounce cosmos makes inflation a sure thing - space - 13 October 2010 - New Scientist: "IS OUR universe a recycled version of an earlier cosmos? The idea, which replaces the big bang with a 'big bounce', has received a boost: this vision of the birth of the universe can explain why a subsequent process, called inflation, occurred.

'The result puts the idea of inflation on firmer ground, and at the same time makes the bounce scenario much more credible,' says Carlo Rovelli, who was not involved in the work but studies quantum gravity at the University of Marseille in France.

Inflation is an episode of exponential expansion thought to have occurred fractions of a second after the big bang. It is needed to explain, among other things, why the universe today has the geometry it does, but explaining what triggered inflation is tricky."

Clouded

I'll take "corrupt" for $800, Alex:

Americans' Image of "Federal Government" Mostly Negative: "PRINCETON, NJ -- More than 7 in 10 Americans use a word or phrase that is clearly negative when providing a top-of-mind reaction to the federal government.

A Sept. 20-21 USA Today/Gallup poll asked respondents what they would say 'if someone asked you to describe the federal government in one word or phrase.' The accompanying chart shows the results in graphic form, with the words or phrases displayed according to how frequently they are mentioned.

Additionally, the complete list of verbatim responses to the question, along with basic demographic information on respondents, is available here."

Weapons

SMBlog -- 27 September 2010: "There are still many questions that haven't been answered, at least publicly, about Stuxnet. There are some that I suspect will never be answered in the open literature. But as I said in the first paragraph, I think we now have an existence proof for weapons-grade attack software. Policy-makers around the world need to take this into account; claiming it can't happen is no longer tenable. The real question is the cost of this sort of attack. Remember, though, that a single F-35 fighter plane is estimated to cost $112M 2010 dollars; that's not exactly cheap, either."