NewScientist Link to this article:
Michael Brooks presents thirteen of the most perplexing. Cracking any one of them could yield profound truths.
1.
Axis of evil
Radiation left from the big bang is still glowing in the sky – in a mysterious and controversial pattern
2.
Dark flow
Something unseeable and far bigger than anything in the known universe is hauling a group of galaxies towards it at inexplicable speed
3.
Eocene hothouse
Tens of millions of years ago, the average temperature at the poles was 15 or 20 °C. Now let's talk about climate change
4.
Fly-by anomalies
Space probes using Earth's gravity to get a slingshot speed boost are moving faster than they should. Call in dark matter
5.
Hybrid life
The fusion of two distinct evolutionary lines is not supposed to work – but the seas are teeming with chimeras that prove it can
6.
Morgellons disease
Fatigue? Do you feel insects under your skin? Seen any strange fibres sprouting from your body? Then you've got a disease that's not supposed to exist
7.
The Bloop
During 1997, US undersea monitoring equipment heard a series of sounds far louder than any whale song. They were never heard again
8.
Antimatter mystery
The big bang should have created matter and antimatter in equal amounts – so why didn't the universe disappear in a puff of self-annihilation?
9.
The lithium problem
The universe only contains a third as much lithium as it's supposed to
10
MAGIC results
High-energy radiation from a gamma-ray burst reached Earth 4 minutes later than the lower-energy rays. That's not how Einstein said it would be
11.
The elusive monopole
Why do magnetic poles always come paired as north and south, never alone?
12.
Noise from the edge of the universe
Are dud signals from a gravitational wave detector evidence that the universe is a holographic projection?
13.
The nocebo effect
How a diagnosis of terminal illness can come true – even if it's wrong.
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