Taken from stills of a simulation of the universe’s evolution, this is a visualization of large-scale structures in the universe over time. (Photo: Habib et al./Argonne National Lab)

Since they can’t turn back time to witness the creation of the universe almost 14 billion years ago, scientists are working on the next best thing: creating a virtual universe, starting at the beginning with the Big Bang.

With the help of the world’s third^-fastest computer, physicists from the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are developing  simulations that will take them on a trip from the origins of the universe until today.

This is a mosaic of the images covering the entire sky as observed by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).  Sky surveys such as this will be used to create simulations of the universe. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA)

Over the years, scientists have scanned the night skies with telescopes which produced maps of the universe.  With the advances in astronomical technology, more details about the cosmos have emerged from these surveys.

Taking data from the best sky surveys and running it through Argonne’s Mira Supercomputer, the team plans to produce some of the largest high-resolution simulations of the distribution of matter in the universe.

Given the improvements in technology, Salman Habib, one of the project leaders, says it makes sense to try to understand  the universe  on the biggest possible scale.

“In effect, all of science, as you know it, can be studied by looking at the evolution of the universe,” says Habib.

The planned simulation, according to Katrin Heitmann, a co-leader on the project, will include  images and movies of the universe at different times.  Scientists who use the team’s recreation of the universe for their own cosmological research will be able to gather information taken and measured from the statistics produced by the simulation.

Scientists hope the project will help shed greater light on Dark Matter, a theoretical form of matter scientists believe accounts for much of the total mass in the universe.

Habib points out that we’re used to thinking of space as something static or fixed, but as time progresses new space continues to be created. The expansion of the universe is predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, but that same theory, according to Habib, also states that that expansion should slow down with time.

Albert Einstein (circa 1921) theorized  the expansion of the universe slows over time.  However, recent observations suggest the opposite might be true and that the universe is continuing to expand.  (Photo: Creative Commons/Wikipedia)

However, observations made over recent years, including work by winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011,  show the opposite is true, that in fact, the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate.

The cause of this expansion remains a mystery, according to Habib, but a number of scientists think  Dark Energy is the force behind the universe’s rapid growth.

The team also hopes to learn more about Dark Energy, the hypothetical form of energy thought to compose about 70 percent of the universe .

According to Habib, scientists are unsure exactly what Dark Energy is.

To help solve this mystery,  different models of what Dark Energy could be will be put through the simulation to allow scientists to compare the observational results of each model.

Habib and his colleagues hope their simulations will not only help scientists check various models of Dark Energy, and the properties of Dark Matter, but will also provide a kind of grand picture of the evolution of the universe.

Project leaders Habib and Heitmann join us this weekend on the radio edition of Science World to talk about creating a virtual universe.

Check out the right column for scheduled air-times or listen now to the interview below.

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Like humans, insects communicate with each other by “telephone” and can even leave messages, according to Dutch researchers.

No special electronics are needed because the bugs literally use green technology – plants – to communicate.

According to the new study from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology and Wageningen University, insects which live in and above the ground use a plant as a telephone by eating its roots. That changes the chemical composition of its leaves, which in turn causes the plant to release alarm signals into the air.

These signals tell other insects not to eat that plant and move along, in order to avoid any competition between insects. The signals also warn others of possibly-dangerous chemical compounds in the plant.

If a bug isn’t around to immediately receive the message, the study shows another insect can leave a ‘voicemail’ message in the soil itself, through various soil fungi, by leaving specific remains in the soil after eating from the plant.

In the Netherlands Institute of Ecology greenhouse, plants and plant-feeding insects are put together to assess their ability to store 'voicemail messages' in the soil. (Photo: Olga Kostenko/NIOO-KNAW)

Unlike our own ‘voicemail’ messages which disappear at a push of a button, these warning messages live on to serve future generations of insects.  Any new plants that happen to grow on the same spot, according to the research, can grab these same signals from the soil and again communicate the message to other insects.

The messages left in the soil can be rather specific . The new plant could warn bugs that its predecessor suffered from conditions that could be harmful to insects.

In their experiments, the researchers grew ragwort plants in a greenhouse and then left the plants open to threatening insects, such as leaf-eating caterpillars or root-feeding beetle larvae.  They later replaced those plants by growing new ones in the same soil and again the plants were left open to the hungry insects.

“What we discovered is that the composition of fungi in the soil changed greatly and depended on whether the insect had been feeding on roots or leaves,” explains researcher and study author, Olga Kostenko. “These changes in fungal community, in turn, affected the growth and chemistry of the next batch of plants and therefore the insects on those plants.”

The researchers are working to find an answer to how long the warning messages remain in the soil and just how widespread this occurrence is throughout nature.

Do you ever wish you could take a pill that would erase a really traumatic memory or at least help take the emotional pain away?

A recent study suggests researchers might be on to something like that.

The team from the Centre for Studies on Human Stress at the University of Montreal says the drug metyrapone could help those suffering from conditions such as Post-traumatic stress disorder.

On the “Science World” radio program this weekend, we talk with the study’s lead author, Marie-France Marin.

She tells us that metyrapone doesn’t actually eliminate the memory, but it does reduce the brain’s ability to re-record the negative emotions associated with bad memories.

Listen to the interview here… 

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Other stories we cover on the “Science World” radio program this week include:

• A somber anniversary as AIDS hits the 30-year mark
• World health experts now say cell phones might cause cancer
• China rejects Google claims that hackers in that country spied on email accounts
• How technology is helping to improve access to health care in Senegal
• Who would win a chess match in an Earth versus Space contest

Mouse and keyboard… that’s how most of us interact with our computer. You either click at or type in your data.  We’ve pretty much have gotten used to operating our PC’s and other like devices this way… for some its become second nature.  But, how about a new way interact with that computer? Can you imagine being able to operate a computer or some sort of robotic device by just thinking about it?  Well, it could be a reality sooner than you realize.

For the last 10 to 15 years, scientists from around the world have been hard at work on  a new form of technology called the Brain Computer Interface (BCI).  The BCI is a piece of equipment designed to oversee and interpret the electrical impulses of the user’s thoughts. It then converts that information into some kind of machine control – which in turn, can operate those computers and robotic devices.

A number of experiments conducted over the past several years have produced results – in both animal and human subjects - where such machine control is accomplished with brain signals alone.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have adapted brain-computer interfaces like the one shown above to listen to regions of the brain that control speech. The development may help restore capabilities lost to brain injury or disability. (Photo: Eric Leuthardt, MD)

According to a new study published in the Institute of Physics Journal of Neural Engineering, researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, recently demonstrated that humans can control a cursor on a computer screen using words spoken out loud and in their head. This could lead to the development of a variety of applications for those who may have limited physical ability but also those who lost their speech through brain injury.

Scientists found that by directly connecting a patient’s brain to a computer via a technique called electrocortiography (ECoG) – which involves placing electrodes directly onto a patient’s brain – the computer could be controlled with up to 90 percent accuracy, even when no prior training was given.

The trials involved patients sitting in front of a screen and trying to move a cursor toward a target using predefined words that were associated with specific directions. For instance, saying or thinking of the word “Ah” would move the cursor right.

The researchers hope that, at some point in the future, they can permanently insert implants into a patient’s brain to help restore functionality and, even more impressively, read someone’s mind.

“This is one of the earliest examples, to a very, very small extent, of what is called ‘reading minds’ — detecting what people are saying to themselves in their internal dialogue,” says the study’s lead author, Dr. Eric C Leuthardt from the Washington University School of Medicine. “We want to see if we cannot just detect when you’re saying ‘dog,’ ‘tree’, ‘tool’ or some other word, but also learn what the pure idea of that looks like in your mind. It’s exciting and a little scary to think of reading minds, but it has incredible potential for people who can’t communicate or are suffering from other disabilities.”

Watch a video featuring Dr. Leuthardt on this topic – “The Emerging World of ECoG Neuroprosthetics”