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Why I am still unimpressed with the Space Station dark matter search
Plot of the latest AMS-02 results (red) compared with other experiments. Though these data are clearer than other experiments, I still fail to see a major trend indicating dark matter detection, as...
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Colliders fit for gods
Artist’s impression of two neutron stars colliding. [Credit: Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital, Inc.]Neutron stars — the incredibly dense, weird remnants of stars more massive than the Sun — are like...
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The dark matter at the edge of the map
Portrait of the writer with a very big drill. This was taken in the former Homestake gold mine, which now houses the Sanford Underground Research Facility, including the LUX dark matter detector....
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What happened in the first instants after the Big Bang?
The BICEP2 telescope at the South Pole, designed to look for polarization of light that could be the sign of inflation. [Credit: Steffen Richter]One of the biggest science stories of 2014 came out of...
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Everything you wanted to know about inflation, but were afraid to ask
Cosmology observatory at the South Pole, including the South Pole Telescope (SPT) on the left and BICEP2 on the right. [Credit: Stephen Hoover/University of Chicago]Well, my upcoming class is unlikely...
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Black holes seem to know their place in the cosmic web
6 Degree Field galaxy survey (6dFGS) map of 125,071 galaxies in the nearby universe, showing how they are clustered together. [Credit: C. Fluke/6dF Survey]A study of 19 quasars — extremely bright black...
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What would you like to learn in 2015?
As I’ve mentioned on several occasions, I’m director of CosmoAcademy: the branch of the CosmoQuest public outreach/citizen science organization that runs online classes. We’ve had a good year, offering...
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Don’t bet on the failure of relativity
Yes, I’ve used this xkcd comic before. So sue me. [Credit: Randall Munroe. Click for the original.]One of the unfortunate side effects of being a professional science writer is that people send me...
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Some thoughts on BICEP2 and dust
[ Quick advertisement: my newest online class, “Gravity and Orbits”, starts a week from today. Sign up now, and please tell your friends! ] Colorful visualization of Planck data in the region of...
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Come to the dark side (of the cosmos)
The contents of the Universe are mostly dark matter and dark energy. [Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team]Dark matter and dark energy make up 95% of all the stuff in the cosmos, but what is it? Our newest...
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