The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality by Richard Panek
( Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 288 pages, $26.00, January, 2011)
Reviewed by Dr. Fred Bortz
expansion
NIST telescope calibration may help explain mystery of universe’s expansion
Is the expansion of the universe accelerating for some unknown reason? This is one of the mysteries plaguing astrophysics, and somewhere in distant galaxies are yet-unseen supernovae that may hold the key. Now, thanks to a telescope calibrated…
Scientists decipher 3 billion-year-old genomic fossils
About 580 million years ago, life on Earth began a rapid period of change called the Cambrian Explosion, a period defined by the birth of new life forms over many millions of years that ultimately helped bring about the modern diversity of ani…
Tropical forests slashed for farmland
Global agricultural expansion cut a wide swath through tropical forests during the 1980s and 1990s. Over half a million square miles of new farmland — an area roughly the size of Alaska — was created in the developing world between 1980 and 200…