Why Sliders may be possible--the science of multi-universes

When I was younger, I was hooked on a television show called Sliders--a concept based on a group of travelers who end up by accident going through a "gateway" to an alternate universe. Throughout the series, they have to go through world after world as they try to find their way back home to their reality. Not sure about you but as a teen, I had a crush on Jerry O'Connell. Anyway, through their travels, the each new world is completely different than the last. Sometimes, they barely make it out into another (they have a device that helps them "slide" to the next location and that device runs on a timer. If it runs out, they're stuck in that world forever).

But what if multi-universes are real? The potential for a multiverse comes from a theory called eternal inflation--postulating that shortly after the Big Bang that formed the universe, space-time expanded at different rates in different places, giving rise to bubble universes that may function with their own separate laws of physics.

In a recent study, a team of researchers have revealed that they have discovered four statistically unlikely circular patterns in what they call the cosmic microwave background (or CMB-- essentially, it is the thermal radiation filling the observable universe). Bubble universes are thought to be not only irregular-shaped, but that they can move about. The researchers believe that these marks could be "bruises" that our universe received when it bumped into other universes.

On researcher said:

If you imagine two ordinary soap bubbles colliding, then the surface where they intersect is going to be a circle, so that's the key signature we're looking for in the CMB. It's not any old perturbation, it's circular and it's got a particular type of profile. There's no obvious sort of other thing that could cause this.


Based on this thought, the researchers developed a computer algorithm to analyze CMB observations for patterns that would fit.

But this wasn't the only strange discovery. Before the bubbles were discovered, quantum physicists in 2010 at the University of California found that an object you can see in front of you may exist simultaneously in a parallel universe (causing some scientists to believe that time travel may be plausible-- if you're interested in reading more on time travel, I wrote two posts on it: Pt 1 and Pt 2). What the physicists found, was a way to move a tiny metal paddle, and yet keep it still at the same time.

This paddle, about a width of a human hair was cooled in the fridge. After dimming the lights and being placed under a special bell jar with all the air sucked out to eliminate vibrations, the paddle was plucked-- and was noted to move and stand still at same time (kind of hard to picture that, I'll admit). As it's explained, electrons, which circle the nucleus of an atom, are swirling around in multiple states at the same time.

What does it mean? One physicist says:

"When you observe something in one state, one theory is it that it splits the universe into two parts."

So because of this, only one universe would be seen and therefore would "freeze" while all the
others remain in motion, out of sight.

While both of the findings (the bubbles and the paddle being in two states at once) could just be coincidental, it could also be a step in the direction of learning more and perhaps proving that our world may not be the only one. What do you think? Do you believe we live in a multiverse?

For fun, there's a site out there that allows you to input your picture and to find your doppelganger. Who do you look like?

Zombies Pt 2: Historical Accounts

Last week, I posted about zombies in nature and how it's not all sci-fi and brain eating corpses brought back to life. Such is the tale of Clairvius Narcisse, a man who was allegedly poisoned with the poisons used by a Bokor. In 1962, he "died" and was given a burial. When the Bokor later dug him up, Clairvius was given a paste that at certain doses has hallucinogenic effects that can cause memory loss. He was then forced to work, alongside others, on a sugar plantation until the master's death. Because the doses of the narcotic paste stopped, Clairvius eventually regained his sanity (unlike many others who suffered brain damage). One day in 1980, in a supermarket, Angelina Narcisse was shocked when Clairvius, her brother, walked in.

Accounts of zombies go back even farther. Recently, archaeologists found an 8th century graveyard in Roscommon, Ireland with more than 120 of human skeletons with large stones stuck in their mouths--a ritual researches believe the locals did to stop the dead from returning to walk the Earth as zombies. The bodies in the cemetery dated between the 7th and 14th centuries.

At first, the team of archaeologists thought that they had stumbled across a burial ground for the remains of the victims of the Black Death. Initially, they believed that it possibly could have been related to vampire slayings, where a stake is driven into the heart. During the Middle Ages, the people at the time thought that vampires were believed to spread plague. A stone placed inside the mouth was thought to prevent this, causing the corpse to starve. The only thing against the theory about vampires, was that the vampire culture didn't evolve until the 16th century. Therefore, researchers thought that the act of placing stones in the mouths might have simply acted as a barrier to stop the dead from coming back from the graves, possibly feeding into the theory that the vampires would starve with such methods later on.

One scientist said that the mouth 'was viewed as the main portal for the soul to leave the body upon death. Sometimes, the soul could come back to the body and re-animate it or else an evil spirit could enter the body through the mouth and bring it back to life'.

In fact, many cultures placed something in the mouth of the deceased. Ancient Greeks and Romans, for instances, placed a coin in the the person's mouth before burial, believing that it would be payment for the ferryman who conveyed souls across the river that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead.

There are many practices of putting stone and other objects into the mouth of the deceased. What do you think was going on? Was it to stop the dead from rising? Or some other reason?

(Also, check out this awesome hardware store, taking zombie preparedness to a whole new level!)

Zombies Pt 1: Zombies in nature

Zombies. They're quite popular these days. Movies like Dawn of the Dead, Zombieland, or Residence Evil are everywhere, depicting flesh eating creatures going on a killing spree--either because of a virus, chemical, radiation or some other paranormal explanation. Even the CDC got in on the action and specialized their web-page to prepare you for the zombie apocalypse.

But in reality, zombies have a whole different meaning. The creole word ''zombi' is derived from Nzambi, a West African deity, coming into use in 1929 after the publication of The Magic Island by William B. Seabrook's. The book describes the first 'zombie' Seabrook came across:

"The eyes were the worst. It was not my imagination. They were in truth like the eyes of a dead man, not blind, but staring, unfocused, unseeing. The whole face, for that matter, was bad enough. It was vacant, as if there was nothing behind it. It seemed not only expressionless, but incapable of expression."

Haitian voodoo priests, known as Bokors, study and use black magic to resurrect the deceased. According to local lore, a bokor captures a victim's ti bon ange, or the part of the soul directly connected to an individual, to create a zombie. What the Bokor uses, however, is a powder issued to the victim orally that is often called coup padre. After analyzing the powder, scientists found tetrodoxin (a poison from the puffer fish), a marine toad that also produces a toxic substance, a hyla tree frog, and sometimes, human remains as main ingredients. In addition, some contain other plant and animal ingredients, like lizards and spiders, which would be likely to irritate the skin. Some even included ground glass.

Once the powder gets into the bloodstream, the victim's heart rate begins to slow to a near stop and he/she is perceived as 'dead', despite them only being paralyzed. Thinking the person dead, the public would bury him/her. The victim would then be exhumed by the Bokor. Although alive, the victim's memory would be messed up badly and they are said to be transformed into a mindless drone, often said to be put to work in the fields as slaves.

There are also natural sources of zombie-nism that can be found. Recently, a stalk of fungus species Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani was found growing out of a "zombie" ant's head in Brazil. The fungus was found to infect an ant and take over its brain. Once the ant gets to an ideal location for the fungi to grow and spread their spores, the ant is killed.

Another natural "zombie" is created in South America by a female phorid fly. With the use of a needle-like appendage, the female fly will inject their egg into a fire ant. The egg grows and the larva migrates to the ant's head, living there for weeks as it eats at the brain. Sometimes, the ant is compelled to move away from its colony to avoid attack by the other ants. Once it's grown, the fly decapitates its host, exiting through the ant's head.

There's also the case of a parasitic jewel wasp that uses a venom injected into a cockroach's brain to inhibit it of free will. The venom was found to block a chemical substance called octopamine (a brain substance that places insects in an alert state, inspires them to move, and allows them to perform demanding physical tasks) in the cockroach's brain. Unable to fight back, the "zombie" cockroach can be pulled into the wasp's underground lair where an egg is laid in its abdomen. Much like with the fire ant, the larva eats the still living cockroach from the inside out in about seven to eight days.

These are just a few instances of natural zombie-nism and how it could occur. How do you feel about pop culture's obsession with the brain-eating zombies?

The Rise of the Phoenix, a case of spontaneous combustion?

On Sept 23, 2011, a man burned to death in his home, his death ruled as spontaneous combustion.

We've all heard the tales, the most famous, a fictional story by Charles Dickens when he killed off an alcoholic character in such a manner in his book "Bleak House." The character, named Krook, was an alcoholic, following the belief at the time that spontaneous human combustion was caused by excessive amounts of alcohol in the body. However, one of the first known accounts of spontaneous combustion dates back farther back to 1663 by a Thomas Bartholin who described a woman in Paris as she "went up in ashes and smoke" while she was sleeping, the straw mattress unmarred by the fire. And then in 1763, a collection of spontaneous combustion cases--"De Incendiis Coporis Humani Spontaneis"--was published.

There are several popular theories:

1. a fire is sparked when methane builds up in the intestines and is ignited by enzymes

If this was true, victims would suffer greater damage to their internal organs. However, from the cases where the body wasn't completely charred, the evidence suggests the opposite.

2. a fire results as a buildup of static electricity inside the body
3. from an external geomagnetic force exerted on the body
4. one individual has claimed that it is the work of a particle called a pyroton, which he says interacts with cells to create a mini-explosion.

No evidence has been found to prove the existence of these.

Although many attribute such ideas of spontaneous human combustion to the paranormal, in 1998, forensic scientists believed they found a possible explanation as they tested the "wick" effect.

Using a dead pig, wrapped in cloth, they tested the idea that a body can be devoured by flames from its own body fat. Scientists found that the clothes soaked up the melted fat, acting like the wick of a candle, leaving all surrounding materials unharmed, such as the case in 1951 of Mary Reeser who is suspected to have burned to death after taking sleeping pills while smoking, causing her body to burn from within. Another example, in 1966, a body of a 92-year-old was discovered. while only his leg and slippered foot was found, the rest of his body had been burned to ashes. A hole in his bathroom floor was the only evidence of the fire that had killed him, everything else untouched.

In this case of the man's death on Sept 23rd, forensics found that the fire in the fireplace of the sitting room where the badly burned body was discovered was not the cause of death. Neither was there any trace of an accelerant found, which could have suggested foul play. The only damage was to the body and the ceiling above him and floor underneath.

In mythology, we hear about a creature that burns up, much like in these cases of spontaneous human combustion. That creature is the phoenix, a mythical bird that, at the end of a 500 to 1000 year life-cycle, goes up in flame and a new phoenix (often as an egg) is reincarnated as an egg, born from the ashes.

Could spontaneous combustion be an explanation for such tales of a phoenix? What do you think?

Mermaids: Pt.1- Eye Physiology

A friend of mine gave me the suggestion to do this week’s post when her daughter asked how mermaids can keep their eyes open under the water, and whether or not they lay eggs or have live offspring.

Mermaids, they’re mythological creatures of the sea, half human and half fish. They’re known to sing to sailors and entrance them, distracting them from their word and causing people to walk off the deck or run their ship aground. The first mermaid stories appeared in Assyria ca 1000BC. It’s said that the goddess Atargatis, mother of an Assyrian queen, loved a mortal and when she unintentionally killed him, she jumped into a lake. Ashamed, she tried to take the form of a fish, but the waters couldn’t conceal her beauty so she took the form of a mermaid, human above the waist, fish below.

This isn’t the only story. There are some from all around the world, at all periods of time. A sighting was even proposed in 2009 off the town of Kiryat Yam in Israel, offering a prize of one million dollars for proof after dozens of people had reported seeing a mermaid leaping out of the water like a dolphin.

This brings me to mermaid physiology. Can mermaids see under the water? If so, how? Human eyes aren’t designed to see clearly underwater as we can out of it. Yes, there are those who can get used to it, but for the most part, eyesight will be blurry, not to mention chlorine and salt water will make them sting. If mermaids are human from the waist up, wouldn’t their eyes be like ours? As something that has adapted to life underwater, there are certain things that would need to be different. Just like needing gills to breathe, mermaids would need eyes like a fish to see. If you think about it, it’s believed that a long time ago, humans evolved from fish, so why not have a branch of that evolution that stayed in the water? Just think about Neandertals and Homo Sapiens. They lived side by side. Mermaids could be a line that just hung around. If mermaids were a new evolution, I’d say there’d be more sightings and we wouldn’t necessarily see stories about them going back to 1000BC. Yes, there could be a mermaid mutation gene that is rare, but still, you’d hear about some babies being born with tails and whatnot.

(Before rotten food gets thrown my way, I know this is a bit far-fetched, but, the point is that this is all the use of imagination and evolution does weird things. Some lines branch off and continue, some stay in limbo, some haven’t been discovered yet. Fossil records are spotty. There’s so much we’re still discovering.)

Ok back to fish eyes. Fish don’t have true eyelids, not like humans who have them to prevent their eyes from drying out or protecting against dirt. A fish’s eyes, however, are always covered by water. Whereas human irises can contract or expand depending on light conditions, fish irises don’t because light never changes in intensity underwater. They don’t have need for such an adaptation. The biggest difference between the human and fish eye, occurs in the lens. With humans, ours are fairly flat or ‘dishlike’. In fish, however, it is spherical or ‘globular’. Human eyes are capable of changing the curvature of the lens in order to change the focus at varying distances (flatter for long-range and more curved for shorter). Although fish eyes have a rigid lens and the curvature can’t change, it can move toward or away from the retina like when you’re focusing a camera.

Fish that live in dimly lit regions usually are found to have larger eyes. Because mermaids would probably live deep in the sea where it’s not as light, they would also have larger eyes than humans. Next week, I’ll get into the second part, do mermaids lay eggs or have live birth? What do you think?

Check out this interesting article if you want to read more about mer-physics.

A new breed of monsters

Monsters don't always hide in the closet or under beds.

Where in the past we used to see creatures of the night as villains such as Dracula, now, these beings are often being seen as heroes and heroines of their own story. Take a walk through the paranormal romance shelves for instance. You'll find vampires who although they need blood to survive also are looking for acceptance and love. Or were-creatures who turn furry (whether it's only by full moon or at at will is another post), needing the company of a mate. This doesn't even include faeries and ghosts and all other supernaturals. Sometimes, it's the HUMANS who are the monsters.

From dark monsters who kill ruthlessly, we've seen a rapid progression of the new times. And it's not just books. If you turn on the tv, you'll find shows as well that are following suit. Just look at Being Human. The show closely follows the lives of the ghost of a woman who was murdered by her ex-fiance, a vampire who although he may or may not have killed his family fights the urges constantly, and a werewolf afraid of what he's capable of doing on full moons.

Do you like this new wave of supernaturals or would you prefer your monsters dark and blood thirsty?