Universe's Largest Structure Found - It's a Blob! Astronomers have discovered the universe's largest structure. It's not exactly a thing, rather a gigantic linkage of various 30 large clouds of gas and thousands of galaxies.

The blob of gas measures 200 million light-years across. It surpasses the Great Wall, which was discovered a dozen or more years ago.

Unfortunately, it's not very photogenic. Here's a 3-D simulation of the blob.



Here's a sampling of what the blobs actually look like (the green clouds). The astronomers found that all these were linked.



Should you care? If you're interested in how today's universe came to be, this is important. Everything we see today and live in was formed around the gravity of blobs in the early universe. So it's good to know how big these were, to understand how we came out the way we are now. this blob formed 2 billion years after the Big Bang, which is early in our universe's 13.8 billion year life.

The discovery was made with the Subaru and Keck telescopes.  ¶ 2:21 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  A meeting of greatness - Trek and Python You may thank me for your biggest laugh of the week.


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  Swoon 149 - July 24, 2006 Audiofly and Scarlett Etienne - Kambuca
Amblos Chapler - Sorbitol (Defrag)
Stardiver - Borderline (Kompakt)
Ilar and Hedvall - Cookies and Milk
Ripperton and She DJ Masaya - I Love (Nummer)
Axel Bartsch - Tranceformation (Kompakt)
Phonem - Isodensity (Morr)
Caribou - Crayon (Domino)
Nathan Fake - Charlie's House (Border Community)
Hessen - Sylvester (Wechsel Garland mix) (Morr)
Ezekiel Honig - Books on Tape
Ellen Allien and Apparat - Bubbles (Bpitchcontrol)
Jonas Bering - Before Sunset (Kompakt)
FUSE - Technotropic (Plus8)
Peace Division - What is that Sound? (King Unique mix)
Chris Lake - Fantasy (Rising)
Deerfoot - Hyperion (Deerfoot)
Nouvelle Vague - Don't Go (Peacefrog)  ¶ 9:03 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Ripperton - nice mixes There are some very nice mixes at Ripperton's site. He is a Swiss producer who is putting out a ton of releases this year. I played his "Love Distance" track on last week's Swoon.

His July 2006 Perspective mix is all modern minimal stuff. Anyone who likes Swoon will enjoy it.

DJ Estroe's mix goes all over the place with more electronic house and techno.

The Lazy Fat People live mix is good.

The 30 Songs mix is quite long, and would be good background for any summer party. Pop, electronic, soul and other genres make appearances.  ¶ 10:13 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 148 - July 17, 2006 1000 Homo DJs - Supernaut
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Sleepless (Bpitchcontrol)
Fairmont - Gazebo Tool (Border Community)
The Suffragettes - Teni (Kompakt)
Ripperton - Long Distance (Nummer)
And.Id - Jester Plays (Ware)
3 Channels - Lady Amnesia (Trapez)
Ricardo Villalobos - Seiso (Cadenza)
Giorgios Gratzigristos - Skip Tutorial (K2)
SCSI-9 - When She Said Goodbye (Kompakt)
Unai - Oh You and I (Trentemoller mix)
Black Dice - Smiling Off (Luomo mix) (DFA)
Sia - Numb (Paradise Soul mix)
Orbital - Lush 3-1 (ffrr)
Orbital - Lush 3-2 (ffrr)
Speedy J - Treatments (Warp)
Cabaret Voltaire - Sensoria
Caribou - James' Second Haircut (Domino)
Kinnie Starr - Sex in the Prairies (MapleMusic)
Nouvelle Vague - Dance With Me (Peacefrog)  ¶ 8:29 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 147 - July 10, 2006 U-ziq - Xolbe 2 (Rephlex)
Radiowaves - Radiowaves 2 (Rising High)
AFX - Analogue Bubblebath 3.8 (Rephlex)
Nouvelle Vague - Dancing With Myself (Peacefrog)
Orb - Towers of Dub (Attic)
Boards of Canada - Left Side Drive (Warp)
Ellen Allien and Apparat - Jet (Bpitchcontrol)
Rechenzentrum - IBM (Kitty Yo)
Air Liquide - If There Was No Gravity (Rising High)
Arovane - Auben Vor Amx (Din)
Autechre - Drone (Warp)
Speedy J - Basic Design rmx
Fuse - Dimension Intrusion (Plus8)
Soulwax - Another Excuse (DFA mix) (Astralwerks)
Bola - Metalug 2 (Skam)
Orbital - Attached (ffrr)  ¶ 10:17 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Nature on the most popular science blogs The journal Nature had Technorati figure out the five most popular science blogs written by scientists in a news story. Here are the winners, with some brief descriptions added by me, and links to their posts about the story.

179th Pharyngula http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula (foaming at the mouth liberal atheist biology professor and evolution defender) Portrait of the blogger
1,647th The Panda’s Thumb http://www.pandasthumb.org/ (defenders of evolution, dissecters of intelligent design) Nature on Science Blogs
1,884th RealClimate http://www.realclimate.org/ (global warming is real, dammit! Or I'll jam this hockey stick up your ass!)
2,174th Cosmic Variance http://cosmicvariance.com/ (A pentarchy of physicists and astrophysicists talk about life, the universe and everything.) Pandering Frivolity
3,429th The Scientific Activist http://scienceblogs.com/scientificactivist (Never read it, actually. Guess I better start.) The Scientific Activist Ranked #5 in Science Blogging  ¶ 1:47 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Summertime World Cup house mix You can check out my friend and dj'ing colleague's summer World Cup house mix at Pocketradio.

Music
House  ¶ 12:31 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Swoon 146 - July 3, 2006 Plaid - Superpositions (Warp)
Ellen Allien and Apparat - Sleepless (Bpitchcontrol)
Funckarma - Duuster and Donker
1-Speed Bike - There is an Oil Tanker Named Condoleeza Rice (Broklyn Beats)
The Black Dog - D.O.G. Style (Dusted)
Boards of Canada - Skyliner (Warp)
Nathan Fake - Long Sunny (Vincent Oliver mix) (Border Community)
Solenoid - Protein Lemuria (Ware)
Markese - Oregano (Dirty Mixmasters mix) (My Best Friend)
Anders Ilar - Cookies and Milk (Nummer)
Tomas Jirku - All You Need is Love (Nummer)
The Field - A Paw In My Face (Kompakt)
Michael Mayer and Reinhard Voigt - Transparenza (Kompakt)
Pulseprogramming - Off to do Showery Snapshots (Static mix) (Aesthetics)
Nathan Fake - You Are Here (Border Community)
Blockhead - The First Snowfall (Ninja Tune)
Martina Topley-Bird - Soulfood (Charles Webster's Slo Mix) (Quango)
Champion - Guy Doune (Saboteur)
Junobot - Plastic (R9)
Brian Eno and David Byrne - The Carrier (Nonesuch)


Music
Tracklist
Techno  ¶ 9:42 AM 0 Comments Links to this post