A tool for hunting dark matter uncovered in Sudbury Ontario. Read more here.

A Rare Prehistoric reptile found in New Zealand. More here.

‘Missions in Spacetime’ Nature Videos are here.

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in the United States is encouraging you to go outside at nightfall, look up, count the stars you see in a specific constellation and report what you see online. Read more here about opening the windows to the universe — October 20 to November 3 2008.

The ExoFly, a lightweight aerobot that looks like a “dragonfly-on-steroids”, is being created at the Technical University Delft, Wageningen University in the Netherlands. One day this flying robot equipped with a tiny camera may be used for geological exploration on Mars or Titan. Read the full article and check out the video here.

The Noble Prize for Physics was announced this past Tuesday.
Yoichiro Nambu (University of Chicago’s Enrico Fermi Institute), Makoto Kobayashi (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization Tsukuba, Japan) and Toshihide Maskawa (Kyoto University’s Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics) shared the Nobel Physics prize – Nambu for the principle of symmetry breaking and Kobayashi and Maskawa for the prediction of three generations of elementary particles called quarks. Read more here.

We are back from our summer hiatus of working on the film.
It is very close to completion with a screening imminent this fall.
In the meantime, we are very excited about the opening of CERN
tomorrow – the beam will be turned on for one of the most elaborate
experiments in history. Scientists may learn more about the evolution
of the universe and perhaps see the particle that gives all particles their
mass – the Higgs Boson. For the world’s largest particle accelerator to
operate its magnets, the Large Hadron Collider’s 27km ring can be
super-cooled to degrees colder than outer space -271 degrees celsius !!
Learn more here.

Dr. Arlene J. Lennox was a pioneer, and leader in the treatment of cancer as Director of Neutron Therapy at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). She began this innovative medical approach alongside the actual construction of the world’s largest particle accelerator in the late 1960s.

“The beam in the linear accelerator is four feet below floor level, below street level…we have the right energy, we might be able to take those protons, hit a berilyum target and make neutrons, and treat cancer patients… And it turns out that there was a freight elevator kind of halfway down the linear accelerator…and we said okay, this freight elevator is going to become our treatment room.” Her groundbreaking work applying quantum physics to treat cancer patients that were previously considered incurable, was recognized the world over. “I made my career change in 1985 from quantum physics to medical…It’s my opportunity to take all this knowledge and all this hard science and apply it someplace to where it is really helping people.”

As well, she worked on reducing the side effects, the so-called ‘skin burns’ associated with radiation therapy, using low level electricity called microcurrents. “Once you stimulate circulation, nutrients start to get in; byproducts that should be disposed of get moved into the kidneys to get washed out and once that system starts to work, there’s nothing magic about it. Once an injured body part is getting the nutrients it needs, it can heal itself. So the research that I worked on was actually trying to get people who had side effects from cancer treatments and see if we could minimize or reduce the side effects, and we had very good results with that. And I actually published a paper.

The most exciting thing which I have not been able to follow through on but would dearly love to whenever I get the chance again, is if a patient is going through radiation and you give him this microcurrent treatment…like on alternate days, on the days he is going through radiation, concurrently, you can prevent the side effects. You can prevent them from ever happening!”

In our film interview, she spoke about dangers due to a lack of public understanding with science through the cautionary tale of the development of the nuclear bomb. On the upcoming DVD, we have also dedicated a section of the special features to Dr. Lennox’s work in Neutron Therapy at Fermilab.

A remarkable, true humanitarian and a force to be reckoned with, it was with much sadness to hear that on May 24, 2008 Dr. Arlene J. Lennox passed away. She is greatly missed.

We’d like to thank our good friend and editor, Bill Towgood for creating this trailer for The Matter Of Everything. In a very short time, he has exquisitely conveyed the vital energies of the documentary, and brought what we are learning the world over, closer to home for us all. Hope you enjoy it!

To see more of Bill’s wonderful work, click here.

Have a look into the fascinating, 11th annual Subtle Technologies Festival between May 29 – June 1 (Innis Town Hall at University of Toronto). This year’s theme is LIGHT. The festival is presenting many amazing things happening with light today as it “blurs the lines between art and science.”

While you’re there, be sure to pencil in Friday May 30 on your calendar at 1:30 pm as York University Professor of Physics, Scott Menary, explains the mysteriously revealing world of neutrinos in a talk entitled Illuminating the Universe with Neutrinos. To demonstrate, he will also be previewing clips from The Matter Of Everything.

http://www.subtletechnologies.com

What is the matter…the connectedness of everything?

The connection includes even light. Look again.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/02.08/99-hau.html

Here’s an idea: A One-Way, One-Person Mission to Mars

Check out this amazing new photo from Mars: Avalanches Caught in Action
and while you’re there, see more incredibly detailed landscapes of Mars
captured by HiRise.