On the tiniest scale, spacetime ain’t flat at all but a-bubblin and a-fizzin with virtual particles leapin in ‘n outta existence. Quantum gravity, say them cosmologists, is a kinda foam.

Ain’t nobody observed quantum gravity. But this week, them astrogawpers say they might have seen some indirect evidence while a-starin and a-gogglin at Markarian 501, an active galaxy 300 million light years from Earth that flared up in 2005.

The thinkin’ is that quantum foam makes life hellish for photons which have to zip through the quantum hills and valleys that it forms, causin’ them to deviate, ever-so-slightly, from the straight and true. That deviation means two photos travellin’ in the same direction from the same place will take different routes. And the difference can be measured in their arrival times over very long distances, like the 300 milion light years from Markarian 501.

So when it flared up in 2005, a few astrobods got out their stopwatches and started a-countin and a-timin the gamma rays as they arrived, using a machine called MAGIC in the Canary Islands.

Now the results have been totted up and published on the arXiv, but no drum rolls please.

The team ain’t sure what they seen. Sure, them photons do seem to get filtered according to NRG, which is what ya’ll expect if quantum foam were playin havoc with em. (The team is able to rule out other dispersion effects on the photons, such as QED plasma refraction, which is kinda excitin’.)

But they still have a problem: ain’t nobody worked out how the flares generate gamma rays in the first place. Maybe the photons ain’t all emitted at the same time, p’raps there is some mechanism in active galactic flares that makes photons look as if they bin filtered by quantum foam.

So we’re left a-hangin. What we need is more data from different kindsa flares. And some a-sweatin and a-toilin by them astrotheorists to tell us what kinda observations will tease all this apart.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0708.2889: Probing Quantum Gravity using Photons from a Mkn 501 Flare Observed by MAGIC

Ya’ll know that connectedness is an important feature of small world networks. And that various busy bodies have worked out the best connected film stars, scientists, toilet attendents etc by analysing the network of links between these people in their various professions.

Very clever and, at one time, even kinda intrestin’.

Now Juan “Don” Merelo and a buddy at the University of Granada in Spain asks over the course of 16 pages: “Who is the best connected researcher in evolutionary computing?”

Who cares?

I guess Don cares and to be fair, he’s done a thoroughly entertaining job on this piece of research.

And if he’s lookin for work, he ain’t gonna do himself any harm with this magnificent arselickin’ extravaganza.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0708.2021: Who is the Best Connected EC Researcher? Centrality Aanalysis of the Complex Network of authors in Evolutionary Computation

Them stargazers have been a-gapin’ and a-gawpin’ at a champagne supernova called SN2006g.

A long, long time ago in galaxy far, far away (NGC 1260 in the constellation of Perseus) this mutha blew up big time: the blast was huge, offerin up 100 times more a-rumblin and a-tremblin than anything them astrogawpers have seen before.

But how to explain it? Here’s what happens in the conventional model of supernovas : the star runs outta fuel and collapses in on itself with such force that atomic nuclei and electrons fuse forming all kindsa exotic bits ‘n’ pieces but primarily neutrons.

This fusion process releases energy that blasts away the outer layers of the star creatin an explosion.

But this theory don’t produce enough juice to explain a supernova as big as SN2006g.

What could produce more NRG? Denis “Supermarket” Leahy and his buddy Rachid at the University of Calgary have dreamed up a wild n’ wacky alternative. They say that if the star collapses even further, so that atomic nuclei fuse to form quarks, this would release even more energy, in fact justa nuff to explain SN2006g.

Neat eh? (Actually this ah-dear ain’t entirely their own since Ed “Dial M for…” Witten and others have all skinny dipped in the same pool).

If Supermarket Leahy has banged the metaphorical nail on the head, SN2006g is the first quarknova.

For an astrogeek, there ain’t nothin better than a-ferretin out something new up there. A real quarknova should get more than a few people a-hummin and a-whistlin.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0708.1787 : Supernova SN2006gy as a First Ever Quark Nova?

It ain’t right, this dark matter business. The problem is these galaxies that astronomers are a-peepin and a-starin at: they’re just rotatin too quick for Newton’s beloved gravity to hold em together. So something has to be a-stickin and a-holdin them tight.

Ya’ll bin told that dark matter provides the extra gravitational oomph to stop galaxies flyin apart. For some reason, the notion has stuck. Physicists have squandered more than their fair share of pocket money lookin for dark matter and wot have they got to show for it? Zilch.

But it don’t got to be dark matter says John “Mohawk” Moffat at the Perimeter Institute in Canada. Maybe gravity needs a-nudgin and a-kneedin to fit the data.

The most famous attempt is a quick’n’easy rewrite of Newton called MOdified Newtonian Dynamics or MOND which was proposed by Mordehai “Mouse” Milgrom in 1981. MOND makes gravity stronger at large distances, which stops ’em galaxies a-rippin and a-tearin themselves apart without invokin dark matter.

But MOND don’t work on much larger scales for clusters of galaxies, which also need something to stop em flyin apart.

So Mohawk Moffat has dreamt up MOdified Gravity or MOG and now fitted it to the data. Works a treat, he says. MOG explains the motions of galaxies and clusters of galaxies without needin dark matter.

What Mohawk needs now is a way a-measurin MOG on planet Earth. Cos ain’t nobody gonna believe him otherwise.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0708.126: Testing Modified Gravity with Globular Cluster Velocity Dispersions