The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded. Photo: GETTY

The scientist has claimed that no divine force was needed to explain why the Universe was formed.

In his latest book, The Grand Design, an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times, Hawking said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”

He added: “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”

In A Brief History of Time, Prof Hawking’s most famous work, he did not dismiss the possibility that God had a hand in the creation of the world.

He wrote in the 1988 book: “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God.”

In his new book he rejects Sir Isaac Newton’s theory that the Universe did not spontaneously begin to form but was set in motion by God.

In June this year Prof Hawking told a Channel 4 series that he didn’t believe that a “personal” God existed. He told Genius of Britain: “The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can’t understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second. If you like, you can call the laws of science ‘God’, but it wouldn’t be a personal God that you could meet, and ask questions.”

Until his retirement last year Prof Hawking was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post previously held by Newton.

The book, co-written by American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, is published on September 9.

When plants are damaged, they emit a fragrance called green leaf volatiles, or G.L.V.’s. Most people have gotten a whiff of it — it is the smell of freshly cut grass.

But in the case of at least one type of wild tobacco plant found in the Great Basin desert of southwest Utah, it is an actual distress call. When the plant is attacked, the call triggers the arrival of bugs that act as little firefighters, according to a new study in the journal Science.

It works like this: when tobacco hornworm caterpillars start munching on the plant, their saliva interacts with the G.L.V.’s, causing a chemical change to the G.L.V. compounds.

This new compound attracts the arrival of insects known as true bugs that prey on hornworm eggs and larvae, thereby preventing further damage to the plant.

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations needs to revise the way it manages its assessments of climate change, with the scientists involved more open to alternative views, more transparent about possible conflicts of interest and more careful to avoid making policy prescriptions, an independent review panel said Monday.

The review panel also recommended that the senior officials involved in producing the periodic assessments serve in their voluntary positions for only one report — a statement interpreted to suggest that the current chairman of the climate panel,Rajendra K. Pachauri, step down.  http://goo.gl/einK

New high-speed, low-cost water purifying nanofilter developed

As their name suggests, most existing water purifying filters clean the water by physically trapping or filtering out bacteria. Stanford researchers have now developed a new kind of water purifying filter that isn’t really a filter at all. Instead of trapping bacteria, the new filter actually lets them pass right through. But, by the time they emerge from the filter they have been killed by an electrical field running through it. Not only is the new filter more than 80,000 times faster than existing filters, it is also low-cost, has no moving parts and uses very little power, which should make it particularly attractive for use in the developing world where it is needed most. Read More

“Hammered”

But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that – for reasons that aren’t entirely clear – abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one’s risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers’ mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers. But why would abstaining from alcohol lead to a shorter life? It’s true that those who abstain from alcohol tend to be from lower socioeconomic classes, since drinking can be expensive. And people of lower socioeconomic status have more life stressors – job and child-care worries that might not only keep them from the bottle but also cause stress-related illnesses over long periods. (They also don’t get the stress-reducing benefits of a drink or two after work.)

But even after controlling for nearly all imaginable variables – socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on – the researchers (a six-member team led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas at Austin) found that over a 20-year period, mortality rates were highest for those who had never been drinkers, second-highest for heavy drinkers and lowest for moderate drinkers. The sample of those who were studied included individuals between ages 55 and 65 who had had any kind of outpatient care in the previous three years. The 1,824 participants were followed for 20 years. One drawback of the sample: a disproportionate number, 63%, were men. Just over 69% of the never-drinkers died during the 20 years, 60% of the heavy drinkers died and only 41% of moderate drinkers died.

These are remarkable statistics. Even though heavy drinking is associated with higher risk for cirrhosis and several types of cancer (particularly cancers in the mouth and esophagus), heavy drinkers are less likely to die than people who have never drunk.

Swimsense monitors your aquatic workout

Joggers and cyclists have all kinds of technological wizardry at their fingertips – or wrists – to let them no how they’re performing. Now there’s an easy way for swimmers to keep track of their aquatic exertions in the form of the Swimsense from FINIS. This watch-sized device is worn on the wrist and uses motion sensing technology to automatically detect and record the number of laps swum, total distance, calories burned, lap time, pace, and stroke count… it can even differentiate between backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle and butterfly. Read More

Personally I’m sick of the bullcrap and fake numbers that have come out of Washington for decades. With this latest group it began immediately with the notion of “created or saved” jobs. Then came the trickle-down stimulus bill that trickled into yacht payments and bonuses. So look at these charts.

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

And if you don’t like this, then read another depressing article here.