Some of the rumors going around the Internet about UFOs and aliens are getting very strange. I just read one which states there is proof the Nazis were enticed to start World War II by Reptilian aliens who promised them if they did, they would be given advanced technology. I think this was thought up as an excuse, since the Nazis did show they had advanced technology which in some cases was about 20 years ahead of its time. Was this technology advance really due to aliens? It did exist obviously, but was not the result of alien influence, but rather the superb organizational abilities of the Germans. They had put almost all of their scientists and engineers together at Peenemünde. It is said there were about 20,000 of them located there. They were encouraged to exchange technology and new ideas with each other, something we still don’t do today to such a great extent. This is how the Germans got ahead of the world in technology and it is a lucky thing for us they didn’t beat us to the atom bomb.

Scientists have discovered something which leads to instantaneous results. It is called quantum tunneling. Quantum tunneling refers to a quantum mechanical phenomenon where a particle tunnels through a barrier that it classically could not surmount. Scientists are very excited about this since time scales this short have never been studied before. On the surface this reminds me of the instantaneous results of what Einstein called spooky at a distance. This is where one particle can be entangled with another no matter how far away it is, yet when you do something to it the other particle is instantly affected. "At that time scale the time an electron takes to quantum tunnel out of an atom was thought to be significant. But the mathematics says the time during tunneling is imaginary - a complex number - which we realized meant it must be an instantaneous process," said one scientist. When I read things like this I can’t help but wonder if this will allow for instant communication at any distance someday and maybe eventually instant travel.

Scientists have told us there are four forces in nature. They are gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear. Hungarian scientists believe we may not know about all the forces and state there is a possibility of a fifth force. Why are scientists so taken with a search for more natural forces? We can blame this on dark matter. Science has yet to find a way to explain the existence of dark matter since none of the four forces of nature can explain it. When the scientists conducted an experiment looking for dark matter by firing protons at a slice of lithium-7 they got an unexpected anomaly. They got more pairs of electrons and positrons than they should have, considering the angle which was used. The Hungarian scientists think this was the result of an undiscovered force and a new particle. They said they were very confident about their experimental results.

I was surprised to read IBM was involved with the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore. Apparently working together they were able to take subunits of molecules and create a macromolecule. This is not the end of the story however, it turns out this macromolecule can ward off viruses and not just any of them. Some of the ones mentioned were the most dangerous of all such as influenza, dengue and Ebola. When the viruses mutated and became harmless the macromolecule still remained active. IBM plans to test it against the Zika virus next. The macromolecule attracts the viruses with an electrical charge. When the virus is near it attaches itself to it. When this happens the virus can no longer attach itself to healthy cells. The next step is the macromolecule neutralizes the virus’s acidity levels, stopping it from replicating. The method is only in the trial stage at this moment so it could be another 3 to 5 years before it reaches the market assuming every test goes smoothly.

Most scientists believed they understood the fundamental nature of light. We should never be so sure we understand everything about anything. In the case of light this was thrown out the window, because a new type of light has been discovered. It was believed all light beams had angular momentum which was the same. In the newly discovered light the angular momentum of each photon, which is a particle of visible light, has only half the value of other types of light. Scientists have said they are excited because “….even this fundamental property of light, that physicists have always thought was fixed, can be changed." It is believed this will have a great impact in optical communications for instance.

Space is a dangerous place. It is full of radiation and other harmful rays along with many other dangers. Scientists know we have to find a way to deal with cosmic radiation if we want to be space travelers and explorers and are pushing to try and find a way to protect an astronaut when he or she are traveling in space. Scientists at CERN are working on a superconducting magnetic shield which will be able to protect the occupants of a spaceship while it is in deep space. Last year a discovery was made by CERN physicists when they were able to achieve a record-breaking electrical current using magnesium diboride known as MgB2 for their superconductor cables. They are going to use the same cables in a new configuration designed to generate a field which will be strong enough to stop harmful cosmic rays from penetrating the spaceship and harming astronauts inside.

Some scientists are saying we are being misled with all the talk about how wonderful stem cells are and how they seem to be able to cure anything. One scientist said this is bad for the field of medicine since it gets people’s hopes up and there are still many years of experimentation to go before many of the cures discussed will be available if at all. There certainly has been a lot of stem cell news, I would hate to think much of it isn’t true or refers to experimental procedures.