A new satellite could see shadow of extra dimensions

David Shiga over at New Scientists reports on a new satellite to be launched next year that could possibly detect theoretical dimensions beyond the common 3 we are familiar with.

The satellite might be able to detect the hint of the extra dimensions in the afterglow of the big bang. The afterglow is from the cosmic microwave background that describes the structure of the universe from about 370,000 years after the big bang. But hey what's a few hundred thousand years when you are talking about billions!

This is fascinating as the extra dimensions are key to string theory which is attempting to unify everything into a single theory of everything. 2007 looks to be an exciting year for science (as long as we can keep the politics at bay!) as the Large Hadron Collider is to go online by the end of the year and will provide our first real glimpse into the reality of string theory. If it proves out it will change everything and we will all have to face the fact that there just might be unlimited parallel universes!

Where did life come from?

Wired Mag and Big Questions Wiki have an interesting article today about the origins of life.

The answer is pretty simplistic and has not been validated in any lab so you can imaging the banter is already starting on the conversation threads.

It is part of a bigger set of questions (42 of the biggest questions in science). Yes Douglas Adams still lives on with that famous answer to everything: 42!

Here is the link to the other 41 questions: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.02/bigquestions.html