Science is Looking for Answers Scientists have found a plant which they believe grows even faster than the one holding the title of fastest growing plant. The title holder is bamboo. It grows so fast it was used to kill people. They would be tied over the plant and in a few days the plant would grow so fast it would pierce their body executing them. The plant I am talking about now is known as Duck Weed. Scientists are trying to find out its secret for such fast growth with the hope they can use that secret to make our crops grow much faster. Think about it, something like this could eventually wipe out world hunger if we can figure out the secret of its phenomenal growth. Another area is clean energy. To that end scientists know the best answer would be nuclear fusion power. This is true for several reasons. First of all, there is no nuclear waste. It is extremely safe because if anything goes wrong it just shuts down. This eliminates the need for reinforced buildings and such. The problem is it is hard for scientists to figure out how to keep the reaction going. I believe the longest reaction time was just met at about 20 seconds, but we are getting there, but it is a slow procedure. One burning question for scientists is how exactly did life originate. Obviously, they do not accept the biblical version, at least some of them. The question is however, even if the biblical version is correct, how did God do it? What materials did he use? The bible tells us we were made from the dirt or mud of the earth. If this turns out to be true, could there have been DNA in that mud, or some other precursors of life? Dark matter and dark energy have been mysteries ever since they were thought about. Dark matter was proposed to make up for the matter missing from the universe which science said was quite enormous. Dark energy was thought of as the cause for the universe expanding at an accelerated rate. The Euclid spacecraft is scheduled to be launched by the European Union in July 2023. Its purpose is to try and find out the secrets of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. The probe contains a special telescope. Another goal, one which as been sought for decades is a cure for cancer or even a way to slow down all forms of cancer growth dramatically. This has resulted in all sorts of different avenues being explored such as genes. Some believe heredity is the cause of some mutations and others contribute much of it to aging. It is probably a combination of many different things which contribute to cancer and that is why it is so hard to find the cause. Recently over 12,000 cancer tumors have been genetically sequenced giving valuable clues to scientists. Artificial intelligence has been drafted to help discover cancer’s hidden causes. A new test was created to diagnose pancreatic cancer one of the deadliest cancers of all. The search for extraterrestrial life has become a hot topic with some of the scientific community. Why some are mainly interested in intelligent extraterrestrial life, most scientists are interested in any life they might find. There is a school of thought which states we might have a hard time recognizing some forms of life. On the other hand, there are those scientists who believe the worst thing we can do is discover alien life and use the experience of the American Indians when the Europeans came here. Many of them were wiped out and these scientists think there is a good chance of it happening to us when a civilization much more advanced meets us. Scientists would love to know the exact nature of a black hole. A black hole is an object in space which has gravity so strong no light can escape from it. It has an accretion disk which can be seen circling it where matter swarms around the hole before being drawn in. There are many ideas about what is inside a black hole and one or two ways some advanced civilization might be able to use it. There are those who believe there might be galaxies in there, and others who believe it is all just crushed rubble. Some even believe time would be much different inside one. As far as using it, recently it was thought an advanced civilization might be able to use it as an energy source. One thing which knocked science on its collective ear was quantum entanglement. Stated simply, it is one particle communicating with another instantly without any regard for distance. Scientists are thinking about the uses of this incredible finding. So far, they have been thinking about how they might use it for communication and perhaps to power a spaceship in some way. Quantum physics has shown us some incredible things which boggle the mind, such as a particle being in two places at the same time. It has blown our reality apart and we are just getting started with its wonders. Right now, if we had a colony on Mars it would take about at least 5 to 20 minutes for a radio signal to reach Mars depending on the position of the planets and another 5 to 20 minutes for a return. With quantum communications that would be eliminated and also make communications with our spacecraft and probes instant. One area which has been found out not to be what it seems is time. Most of us believed and some still do, time travels in a straight line. We have been told by science this is not necessarily true and time, and space can be bent when enough gravity is involved. Will we find a planet where a race of Benjamin Buttons live? Benjamin Button in fiction was a man who aged backwards, eventually became a baby and disappeared. Must time be the same everywhere? Is time travel possible and do all the ages of time exist and will we someday be able to access them? There are just so many areas science is interested in, they would fill a library. I haven’t even touched on weapons development, transportation, aging, medicines and other areas. There is no doubt we are getting more advanced every day, but it is not always in a good way. The spread of nuclear weapons is making the world a much more dangerous place. One area we are yet to figure out is how to stop war. Once we do that, if we ever do, all technology will accelerate in a different direction and benefit mankind.
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