Tabletop time travel?
With other established physicists now speaking openly about time travel, Ronald Mallett, a physicist at the University of Connecticut, can discuss his research without fear of ridicule, writes Dan Falk, a Toronto-based correspondent with The Boston Globe. "He's currently designing a tabletop experiment using a ring of high-powered lasers. The idea is that light carries energy, and, as Einstein showed, energy is equivalent to mass - therefore beams of light can distort space-time, just as large masses do. ... Inside Mallett's circle of laser beams, empty space would become 'twisted' in much the same way that milk in a coffee cup begins to swirl when the coffee is stirred. If the beams of light are intense enough, the warping of space and time close to the beams could be severe enough to create a 'loop' in time, Mallett says. ... His goal is to send a stream of neutrons through the light beams - and, he predicts, transport them back in time by a tiny fraction of a second." His work has drawn mixed reactions; some physicists call the success of his effort to make a time machine improbable or impossible.
Archeology: the reality
Next week, the latest movie in the Indiana Jones series - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - will make its debut. The character's bull-in-a-china-shop approach to archeology, more tomb raiding than science, is good fun for real archeologists, but also makes them cringe, the Associated Press reports. A few notes:
Real archeologists don't carry bullwhips - at least, not while working.
The most exciting thing that could happen to many archeologists in the field might be battling dysentery or coping with a lemon of a Land Rover.
Indy's main value to the academic world has been as an inspiration to aspiring archeologists. Paul Zimansky, an archeology professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, noticed a spike in new students in the early 1990s when teaching at Boston University; Indiana Jones movies first appeared in the 1980s. However, "I wish he'd take more notes and things. What's his publication record? But I don't think anybody ever bought the ethos of Indiana Jones as a real career track."
The closest thing to authentic archeology in the film series is done by the bad guys, whose elaborate, systematic digs in Raiders of the Lost Ark resemble actual excavations. The Nazis, said Jane MacLaren Walsh, an anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution, "seem to be doing some real archeological work."
Mobile kibitzers
It's probably best for motorists not to view DVDs while they are driving, Psychology Today declares. And a new study has found that peeking across
the lane at a nearby car to watch its DVD show can also impair driving - and happens regularly.
Don't give up
Dan Hill, a 32-year-old investment banker in Britain earning £80,000 ($156,000 Canadian) a year, quit his job recently to train as a carpenter. He wanted a stress-free life. However, after several weeks of training, he discovered he had a rare allergy to wood. Whenever he was in the workshop, Mr. Hill developed an itchy rash all over his body and his eyes were left streaming. "All my friends thought I was mad giving up my city job," he told the Daily Express. "I had given up everything to become a carpenter. ... I had been fine just pottering around on my own, but it all started to go wrong when I was doing it all day." Not daunted, he continued his training, wearing a mask and gloves - even though they offered little relief. After a few weeks, he discovered he didn't get an allergic reaction while working with Welsh oak. He is going to move to Mumbles, near Swansea in Wales.
Back to creative play
A defunct century-old elementary school in Tokyo that boasted 1,000 pupils in its heyday has been reborn as a museum that aims to revive the passion of playing with toys that don't require batteries, The Japan Times reports. Yotsuya No. 4 Elementary School in Shinjuku Ward, which was lying vacant, has reopened as the Tokyo Toy Museum, now filled with happy children running around and discovering low-tech toys to play with. "Children are ingenious players by nature," said Chihiro Tada, 47, head of the non-profit Good Toy Association. "But nowadays, high-tech games and toys offer children little opportunity for being creative, and those high-tech games have significantly undercut their ability to play."
Thought du jour
"Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself."
- Abraham Joshua Heschel