A still wacky universe

Oddities from the world of science continue to attract my attention ...

Can the language we speak affect how we perceive the world? Perhaps. See Lost in Translation.

I've always thought this relationship must exist. It's not that one can't imagine a concept for which vocabulary doesn't already exist -- or else nothing new (including new vocabulary) would ever be created -- but surely it helps to have suitable vocabulary to conceptualize the new thing.

Think that's strange? How about pinpointing the differences in brain wiring between introverts and extroverts? See Brains of Introverts Reveal Why They Prefer Being Alone.

I admit it: I'm an introvert. Some days, a nice quiet house on the moon seems appealing. So it's encouraging to see that homes on the moon might be waiting for us to move in. It's not quite that simple, of course -- life never is, is it? -- but nature may have done some of the heavy construction. See Photos Inspire Dreams of Underground Moon Exploration.

Looking much farther afield than the moon, it turns out that cosmic rays don't come in the sort of uniform pattern that one might expect. See Antarctica Experiment Discovers Puzzling Space Ray Pattern. (At least my brain has become wired with a predisposition to distrust seeming violations of the Copernican Principle.)

And that's enough oddities for one day, at least from this brain.