Web tool puts wildlife diseases on the map

A new online map makes it possible, for the first time, to track news of disease outbreaks around the world that threaten the health of wildlife, domestic animals, and people.

The Global Wildlife Disease News Map was developed jointly by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Updated daily, the map displays pushpins marking stories of wildlife diseases such as West Nile virus, avian influenza, chronic wasting disease, and monkeypox. Users can browse the latest reports of nearly 50 diseases and other health conditions, such as pesticide and lead poisoning, by geographic location. Filters make it easy to focus on different disease types, affected species, countries, and dates.

The map is a product of the Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN), a five-year-old collaboration between UW-Madison and two federal agencies, the National Wildlife Health Center and the National Biological Information Infrastructure, that are part of the U.S. Geological Survey. WDIN is housed within the university’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the USGS.

A powerful feature of the wildlife disease news map is its ability to tap into the WDIN’s large and growing electronic library of information from around the globe.

“If you click on the name of a particular disease, it takes you to our main Web site and does a quick search of everything that we have on that topic,” says Cris Marsh, a librarian who oversees the wildlife disease news services for the WDIN.

State and federal wildlife managers, animal disease specialists, veterinarians, medical professionals, educators, and private citizens will all find the news map useful for monitoring wildlife disease, adds Marsh.

Produced by WDIN staffer Megan Hines, the map is the latest addition to a suite of tools aimed at keeping users abreast of wildlife disease appearances. The WDIN gathers news from more than 20 online sources and makes it available in a number of handy formats, from a Wildlife Disease News Digest at wdin.blogspot.com to desktop widgets, e-mail, and RSS feeds.

Ultimately, the WDIN seeks to provide a comprehensive online wildlife disease information warehouse, according to project leader Josh Dein, a veterinarian with the Madison-based USGS wildlife health center.

“People who collect data about wildlife diseases don’t currently have an established communication network, which is something we’re working to improve,” says Dein. “But just seeing what’s attracting attention in the news gives us a much better picture of what’s out there than we’ve ever had before.”

Concerns about the emergence and spread of diseases that can pass between species have forged new links in recent years between wildlife health, human health, and domestic animal health professionals.

“It all ties in together,” says Marsh. “The West Nile virus acted as a catalyst for that connection. People in different areas in the eastern U.S. began to see isolated incidences of dead and dying crows that seemed abnormally high, but nobody knew other areas were experiencing the same thing.”

Because West Nile virus also affects humans and other mammals, it became apparent to scientists that disease outbreaks of this kind need to be addressed as quickly as possible, explains Marsh. Outbreaks of monkeypox and highly pathogenic avian influenza soon afterward underscored the importance of linking information about emerging diseases across all species.

“If scientists share with one another the information they’re collecting on the patterns of diseases like these, we can respond to outbreaks much more efficiently,” says Marsh.

Besides providing news services, WDIN collaborates with a wide variety of public and private entities to gather and provide access to important wildlife disease data. Because of the global significance of these diseases, WDIN encourages others to become involved with the project.

“The more information we can link,” says Marsh, “the more robust our service becomes.”

Manmohan shown images from Cartosat-2A

Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G. Madhavan Nair on Monday presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the first lot of high quality images received from the recently launched satellites Cartosat-2A and the Indian Mini Satellite-1 (IMS-1).

Excited space scientists who accompanied Dr. Nair pointed out the exact spot where they were located. “Here we are,” they told the Prime Minister as he looked at the images and appreciated their clarity.

Cartosat-2A and IMS-1 were launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on April 28 when a total of 10 small satellites were successfully put in orbit.

Future plans

The high-quality cameras are capable of sending back high-resolution images.

Dr. Nair and other scientists briefed the Prime Minister on not only the latest success of ISRO but also its future programmes that include manned space flight and the mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1.

A scale model of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C9 that put the satellites in orbit was also presented to the Prime Minister.

Oxygen vanishing from tropical oceans: scientists

An international team of physical oceanographers has discovered that oxygen-poor regions of tropical oceans are expanding as the oceans warm, limiting the areas in which predatory fishes and other marine organisms can live or enter in search of food.

The results of the study was released on Thursday and will appear in the May 2 issue of journal Science.

The researchers found through analysis of a database of ocean oxygen measurements that oxygen levels in tropical oceans at a depth of 300 to 700 meters have declined significantly during the past 50 years. The width of the low-oxygen zone is expanding deeper but also shoaling toward the ocean surface.

"We found the largest reduction in a depth of 300 to 700 meters in the tropical northeast Atlantic, whereas the changes in the eastern Indian Ocean were much less pronounced," said Lothar Stramma, lead research from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Germany.

"Whether or not these observed changes in oxygen can be attributed to global warming alone is still unresolved. The reduction in oxygen may also be caused by natural processes on shorter time scales," said Stramma.

Researchers say that these low-oxygen zones are "underwater deserts," which will likely have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems because important organism can not survive in them.

NASA names planet after Kerala professor

In a rare honour, the US space agency NASA has named a 'minor' planet after a Kerala zoology professor in appreciation of his environmental research.

Sainudeen Pattazhy, who teaches in a college in Kollam, received a phone call from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory run by the space agency Wednesday that the minor planet '5178 CD4' has been named after him.

The planet was discovered in 1989 by US-based scientist Rajmohan, who - on coming to know of the research conducted by Sainudeen on many ecological and environmental issues - proposed that the planet be given Sainudeen's name.

"I did not believe it (initially), but later came to terms with what the caller had said," said Pattazhy, who teaches at the S.N.College here.

The minor planet will now be known as '5178 Pattazhy

Over the last several years, Sainudeen, an unassuming college professor, has done pioneering research work on environment related subjects that won him recognition.

He carried out research on the red rain that took place in the state in 2001. He also researched on the effect of mobile phone towers and the eco-biology of 'holy groves'.

"I am happy that my little village has now got a new identity," said Sainudeen.

The International Astronomical Union has allotted numbers to 185,685 minor planets or asteroids of the nearly 400,000 such items in the solar system.

New circuit element devised

As all science students know, there are only three basic elements that make up an electrical circuit: the resistor, the capacitor and the inductor.

Sorry guys! It may be time to tear up your textbooks and write new ones: scientists have realised physical samples of a fourth fundamental element which they call a memristor —short for memory resistor.

In a paper published in the latest issue of Nature magazine (‘The missing memristor found’; May 1, 2008; vol no. 453; pp 80-83), researchers at Hewlett Packard Labs, U.S., report that the ‘missing’ fourth element of circuitry that Professor Leon Chua of the University of California in Berkeley predicted in 1971 is indeed realisable.

The team, led by R. Stanley Williams, believes that using nano technology one can soon build practical units of the resistor-with-memory that cannot be created by a mere combination of the three basic circuit elements.

Such elements could fuel a new class of computer memory that would ‘remember,’ even if the machine were switched off.... in other words, tomorrow’s PCs could boot up and spring to life instantly.

The engineers are busy building memristors using titanium dioxide and have already realised a few hybrid versions in silicon.

Memory banks built using memristors could be a thousand times faster than today’s magnetic disk systems, and consume a fraction of the power, the scientists suggest.

AGING-A BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Aging has lately been linked to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) damage.

• Mitochondrial DNA provides energy to the cells; when damaged, they do not provide the energy they need to help you function properly and you get sick.
• Damaged mitochondrial DNA in genetic diseases is similar to damaged mitochondrial DNA seen in older humans, only the damage presents itself much sooner.
• Humans are programmed to overeat—to “store up for winter,” but by overeating, mtDNA produces oxygen radicals that damage our bodies.

Aging is definitely related to DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid] damage. But certainly, DNA damage, in and of itself, is not the whole answer.

The food that we eat is a source of our energy. Then, the air that we breathe is used to burn the food that we eat inside the mitochondria, and that is used to make heat and then energy to perform the work that we wish to do.

We eat fats and carbohydrates, specifically carbohydrates such as sugar. You can think of your mitochondria as little fireplaces; but instead of giving off light and heat, they are giving off heat plus they are trapping the light in the form of ATP [adenosine triphosphate], which is a small molecule that carries energy to the body to use for different things.

The mitochondria are unique because they have their own DNA (labeled mtDNA) and that DNA is the blueprint to determine how energy is generated and used. So, as we age in the process of making energy, the mitochondria also make oxygen radicals.Oxygen radicals over a long period of time can accumulate and ultimately kill off its agent —i.e. your body.

The mitochondrial DNA’s blueprints encode the wiring diagram for the electrical power of the house, and so if you disrupt the wiring diagram, then you don’t have the power. Then, you have the equivalent of a brownout inside the cell, which is what we call a mitochondrial genetic disease. All mitochondrial genetic diseases are energy-deficiency diseases, and they are commonly associated with things such as people feeling like they don’t have much energy; they have chronic pain; they have problems with seeing and their vision; they have problems with their heart; they have problems with their kidneys. All the kinds of tissues that need a lot of energy do not function well because the energy is not there.

The quantity of oxygen radicals produced by the body can be controlled by controlling the quantity of excess food intake .So a balanced diet with the requisite calorie intake can hold the key to make you look more like a teenager when u may actually be a septuagenarian.

So to keep your partner more intyerested in you and to maintain the glaze of your youth better watch out for the caloriemeter!!!!

NANOPHOTONIC SWITH DISCOVERY-A STAGGERING INVENTION

The advancement of technology over the decades has been mind boggling and the latest in the march of advancement is the discovery of the nanophotonic switches by IBM researchers.I recently came to know about it from the ELECTRONICS FOR YOU magazine.Here i would like to briefly share this information.

Another significant advance in IBM'''s quest to develop next generation high-performance multi-core computer chips which transmit information internally using pulses of light travelling through silicon instead of electrical signals on copper wires.

IBM scientists have developed the world's tiniest nanophotonic switch with a footprint about 100X smaller than the cross section of a human hair. With this development, IBM scientists have taken another significant advance towards sending information inside a computer chip by using light pulses instead of electrons. The nanophotonic switch is claimed to be an important building block to control the flow of information inside future chips and can significantly speed up the chip performance while using much less energy.

“This new development is a critical addition in the quest to build an on-chip optical network,” said Yurii Vlasov, manager, silicon nanophotonics, TJ Watson Research Center, IBM. “In view of all the progress that this field has seen for the last few years it looks that our vision for on-chip optical networks is becoming more and more realistic”.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Photonics, IBM unveiled the development of a silicon broadband optical switch, another key component required to enable on-chip optical interconnects. Once the electrical signals have been converted into pulses of light, this switching device performs the key role of 'directing traffic' within the network, ensuring that optical messages from one processor core can efficiently get to any of the other cores on the chip.

The IBM team demonstrated that their switch has several critical characteristics which make it ideally suited to on-chip applications. First, the switch is extremely compact. As many as 2,000 would fit side-by-side in an area of one sq.mm, easily meeting integration requirements for future multi-core processors.

Second, the device is able to route a huge amount of data since many different wavelengths or 'colours' of light can be switched simultaneously. With each wavelength carrying data at up to 40 Gb/s, it is possible to switch an aggregate bandwidth exceeding 1 Tb/s -- a requirement for routing large messages between distant cores.

Last but not least, the optical switch is capable of operating within a realistic on-chip environment, where the temperature of the chip itself can change dramatically in the vicinity of 'hot-spots', which move around depending upon the way the processors are functioning at any given moment. IBM scientists believe this temperature-drift tolerant operation to be one of the most critical requirements for on-chip optical networks.

An important trend in the microelectronics industry is to increase the parallelism in computation by multi-threading, by building large scale multi-chip systems and, more recently, by increasing the number of cores on a single chip. For example, the IBM Cell processor which powers Sony’s PlayStation 3 gaming console consists of nine 'brains', or cores, on a single chip. As users continue to demand greater computing performance, chip designers plan to increase this number to tens or even hundreds of cores.

This approach, however, only makes sense if each core can receive and transmit large messages from all other cores on the chip simultaneously. The individual cores located on today’s multi-core microprocessors communicate with one another over millions of tiny copper wires. However, this copper wiring would simply use up too much power and be incapable of transmitting the enormous amount of information required to enable massively multi-core processors.

IBM researchers are exploring an alternative solution to this problem by connecting cores using pulses of light in an on-chip optical network based on silicon nanophotonic integrated circuits. Like a long-haul fibre-optic network, such an extremely miniature on-chip network will transmit, receive and route messages between individual cores that are encoded as a pulses of light. It is envisioned that using light instead of wires, as much as 100 times more information can be sent between cores, while using 10 times less power and consequently generating less heat.

Silent, microchip-sized 'fan' has no moving parts, yet produces enough wind to cool a laptop

Engineers harnessing the same physical property that drives silent household air purifiers have created a miniaturized device that is now ready for testing as a silent, ultra-thin, low-power and low maintenance cooling system for laptop computers and other electronic devices.

The compact, solid-state fan, developed with support from NSF's Small Business Innovation Research program, is the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size. It produces three times the flow rate of a typical small mechanical fan and is one-fourth the size.

Dan Schlitz and Vishal Singhal of Thorrn Micro Technologies, Inc., of Marietta, Ga. will present their RSD5 solid-state fan at the 24th Annual Semiconductor Thermal Measurement, Modeling and Management Symposium (Semi-Therm) in San Jose, Calif., on March 17, 2008. The device is the culmination of six years of research that began while the researchers were NSF-supported graduate students at Purdue University.

"The RSD5 is one of the most significant advancements in electronics cooling since heat pipes. It could change the cooling paradigm for mobile electronics," said Singhal.

The RSD5 incorporates a series of live wires that generate a micro-scale plasma (an ion-rich gas that has free electrons that conduct electricity). The wires lie within un-charged conducting plates that are contoured into half-cylindrical shape to partially envelop the wires.

Within the intense electric field that results, ions push neutral air molecules from the wire to the plate, generating a wind. The phenomenon is called corona wind.

"The technology is a breakthrough in the design and development of semiconductors as it brings an elegant and cost effective solution to the heating problems that have plagued the industry," said Juan Figueroa, the NSF SBIR program officer who oversaw the research.

With the breakthrough of the contoured surface, the researchers were able to control the micro-scale discharge to produce maximum airflow without risk of sparks or electrical arcing. As a result, the new device yields a breeze as swift as 2.4 meters per second, as compared to airflows of 0.7 to 1.7 meters per second from larger, mechanical fans.

The contoured platform is a part of the device heat sink, a trick that enabled Schlitz and Singhal to both eliminate some of the device's bulk and increase the effectiveness of the airflow.

"The technology has the power to cool a 25-watt chip with a device smaller than 1 cubic-cm and can someday be integrated into silicon to make self-cooling chips," said Schlitz.

This device is also more dust-tolerant than predecessors. While dust attraction is ideal for living-room-scale fans that that provide both air flow and filtration, debris can be a devastating obstacle when the goal is to cool an electrical component.

Developing long-term relations with robots

Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London are leading an international project which is set to advance the relationship between robots and humans, as part of new European project called LIREC - Living with Robots and Interactive Companions.

LIREC aims to create a new generation of interactive, emotionally intelligent, companion technology, that is capable of long-term engagement with humans – in both a virtual (graphical) world, and in the real-world (as robots). The project will also be the first in the world to examine how we react to a familiar companion entity when it swaps from a robot body into a virtual form, for example on a computer screen.

The Queen Mary team are leading a consortium of nine other internationally leading European partners, who intend to develop and study a variety of robots and other autonomous interactive companions during the four-year project.

Professor Peter McOwan, from Queen Mary’s Department of Computer Science, explained: “We’re interested in how people can develop a long-term relationship with artificial creatures, in everyday settings. You may not be able to find a robot that can help you do the dishes anytime soon, but we’re hoping to explore how such friendly future technology could be developed, and start to predict what the intelligent machines of tomorrow might look like, and how we should treat them.”

LIREC will first look at existing technology to study people’s perceptions of robots. This includes entertainment robots like Pleo, which is an interactive toy dinosaur available commercially; and GlowBots - small wheeled robots that communicate with each other and users through colourful patterns of light.

Other robots will include ‘iCat: the Affective Chess Player’ – a robotic game buddy whose behaviour and expressions are influenced by the state of play; as well as the child-sized minimally expressive humanoid ‘KASPAR’, and ‘peoplebots’, which are enhanced by humanoid features.

LIREC will also look for inspiration in creating synthetic companions from studies of the way that humans and pet dogs bond and interact.

The £6.5m grant involves partners from seven countries and will run for four and a half years. The project kicks off on 17/18 April when the research partners convene for the first time.

Nanotechnology could solve lithium battery charging problems

Nanotechnology could improve the life of the lithium batteries used in portable devices, including laptop computers, mp3 players, and mobile phones. Research to be published in the Inderscience publication - International Journal of Nanomanufacturing - demonstrates that carbon nanotubes can prevent such batteries from losing their charge capacity over time.

Mobile phones, mp3 players, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and laptop computers usually use lithium-ion batteries to give them portability. However, Li-ion batteries suffer from degradation especially when they get too hot or too cold and eventually lose the capacity to be fully recharged. This means a loss of talk time for mobile phone users and often no chance to use a laptop for the whole of a long haul flight.

The problem of the slow degradation of Li-ion batteries is usually due to the formation of a solid electrolyte interphase film that increase the batteries internal resistance and prevents a full recharge. Researchers have suggested using silicon in the composition of the negative electrode material in Li-ion batteries to improve charge capacity. However, this material leads to even faster capacity loss as it repeatedly alloys and then de-alloys during charge-discharge cycles.

Shengyang's Hui-Ming Cheng and colleagues have turned to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to help them use silicon (Si) as the battery anode but avoid the problem of large volume change during alloying and de-alloying. Carbon nanotubes resemble rolled-up sheets of hexagonal chicken wire with a carbon atom at the crossover points of the wires and the wires themselves being the bonds between carbon atoms, and they can be up to a millimeter long but mere nanometers in diameter.

The researchers grew carbon nanotubes on the surface of tiny particles of silicon using a technique known as chemical vapor deposition in which a carbon-containing vapor decomposes and then condenses on the surface of the silicon particles forming the nanoscopic tubes. They then coated these particles with carbon released from sugar at a high temperature in a vacuum. A separate batch of silicon particles produced using sugar but without the CNTs was also prepared.

With the new Si-CNT anode material to hand, the team then investigated how well it functioned in a prototype Li-ion battery and compared the results with the material formed from sugar-coated silicon particles.

They found that after twenty cycles of the semi-cell experiments, the sugar-coated Si-CNT composite material achieved a discharge capacity of 727 milliamp hours per gram. In contrast the charge capacity of the simple sugar-coated particles had dropped to just 363 mAh per gram.

Eyeglass-Shaped Retinal Scanning Display Developed by Brother, Japan

An innovative eyeglass-shaped retinal scanning display has been developed by Brother, Japan. The prototype was first showcased at the Aichi Expo (Exposition of Global Harmony) in 2005. Apparently, the latest model’s size and weight is reduced to a great extent, less than 1/1000. The main unit installed on the eyeglass frame measures about 20cc and weighs about 25g.

The all-new retinal scanning display irradiates low-intensity light on the retina and scans it with the light at a high speed. The user recognizes the afterimage of the light scanned on the retina as an image. In simpler terms, the retinal scanning display is literally like a projector that makes use of the retina as the “screen.” It’s practically like shooting the movie, right onto the eyeball.

While the conventional invasive head-mounted display (HMD) used an LCD panel etc, Brother’s retinal scanning display claims to offer an unobstructed vision. The image can be viewed in the actual scenery in an overlapping manner.

This time around, Brother is in the works of integrating a light source module in the main unit with the size equivalent to that of the latest prototype’s main unit.

But, alas this amazing eyeglass-shaped retinal scanning display will not be released commercially until fiscal 2010.

'Revolutionary' CO2 maps zoom in on greenhouse gas sources

A new, high- resolution, interactive map of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels has found that the emissions aren't all where we thought.

"For example, we've been attributing too many emissions to the northeastern United States, and it's looking like the southeastern U.S. is a much larger source than we had estimated previously," says Kevin Gurney, an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric science at Purdue University and leader of the project.

The maps and system, called Vulcan, show CO2 emissions at more than 100 times more detail than was available before. Until now, data on carbon dioxide emissions were reported, in the best cases, monthly at the level of an entire state. The Vulcan model examines CO2 emissions at local levels on an hourly basis.

Researchers say the maps also are more accurate than previous data because they are based on greenhouse gas emissions instead of estimates based on population in areas of the United States.

To create the Vulcan maps, the research team developed a method to extract the CO2 information by transforming data on local air pollution, such as carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide emissions, which are tracked by the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and other governmental agencies.

"These pollutants are important to determine the ozone levels and air quality in major cities, and they are tracked on an hourly basis," Gurney says. "We've been able to leverage that data to determine the levels of CO2 being produced."

Carbon dioxide is the most important human-produced gas contributing to global climate change. The United States accounts for about 25 percent of global CO2 emissions.

The increased detail and accuracy of Vulcan will help lawmakers create policies to reduce CO2 emissions while also increasing scientists' understanding of the sources and fate of carbon dioxide, researchers say.


James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says Vulcan provides a "check" to judge the accuracy of existing satellite data.

"The high-resolution map from Vulcan also provides a picture of emission sources in a way that the public and policy-makers can understand, which may be helpful in discussing what we will do about the climate problem," Hansen says.


Vulcan is expected to complement NASA's planned December 2008 launch of the Orbital Carbon Observatory satellite, which will measure the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere.

The Vulcan data is available for anyone to download from the Web site at http://www.eas.purdue.edu/carbon/vulcan .

Geologists Discover New Way of Estimating Size and Frequency of Meteorite Impacts

Scientists have developed a new way of determining the size and frequency of meteorites that have collided with Earth.Their work shows that the size of the meteorite that likely plummeted to Earth at the time of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary 65 million years ago was four to six kilometers in diameter. The meteorite was the trigger, scientists believe, for the mass extinction of dinosaurs and other life forms.

When meteorites collide with Earth, they carry a different osmium isotope ratio than the levels normally seen throughout the oceans. The vaporization of meteorites carries a pulse of this rare element into the area where they landed.The osmium mixes throughout the ocean quickly. Records of these impact-induced changes in ocean chemistry are then preserved in deep-sea sediments.The record in marine sediments allows to discover how osmium changes in the ocean during and after an impact

The scientists expect that this new approach to estimating impact size will become an important complement to a more well-known method based on iridium. Even though these method works well for the K-T impact, it would break down for an event larger than that: the meteorite contribution of osmium to the oceans would overwhelm existing levels of the element, researchers believe, making it impossible to sort out the osmium's origin.

Under the assumption that all the osmium carried by meteorites is dissolved in seawater, the geologists were able to use their method to estimate the size of the K-T meteorite as four to six kilometers in diameter.
Scientists feel that this will help them in analysing the causes of yesteryears that have remained unexplained till now.

Before the Big Bang: A Twin Universe?

The new study suggests that the universe that came before our own universe was its identical twin. Image credit: NASA and ESA.

Until very recently, asking what happened at or before the Big Bang was considered by physicists to be a religious question. General relativity theory just doesn’t go there – at T=0, it spews out zeros, infinities, and errors – and so the question didn’t make sense from a scientific view.

But in the past few years, a new theory called Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) has emerged. The theory suggests the possibility of a “quantum bounce,” where our universe stems from the collapse of a previous universe. Yet what that previous universe looked like was still beyond answering.
Now, physicists Alejandro Corichi from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Parampreet Singh from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario have developed a simplified LQG model that gives an intriguing answer: a pre-Big Bang universe might have looked a lot like ours. Their study will appear in an upcoming issue of Physical Review Letters.

The finding builds on previous research, with some important differences. Last year, Penn State physicist Martin Bojowald used a simplified version of LQG to show that a universe “on the other side” of the bounce could have existed. However, although that model produced valid math, no observations of our current universe could have lead to any understanding of the state of the pre-bounce universe, as nothing was preserved across the bounce. Bojowald described this as a sort of “cosmic amnesia.”

But Corichi and Singh have modified the simplified LQG theory further by approximating a key equation called the quantum constraint. Using their version, called sLQG, the researchers show that the relative fluctuations of volume and momentum in the pre-bounce universe are conserved across the bounce. This means that the twin universe will have the same laws of physics and, in particular, the same notion of time as in ours.

That means that our universe today, roughly 13.7 billion years after the bounce, would share many of the same properties of the pre-bounce universe at 13.7 billion years before the bounce. In a sense, our universe has a mirror image of itself, with the Big Bang (or bounce) as the line of symmetry.


Ultimately, this model might even tell us what a future universe would look like. Depending on how fast our present universe is accelerating – which will ultimately determine its fate – there’s a possibility that a generalization of the model would predict a re-collapse of our own universe.