Plus: The Universe’s Largest Water Supply and How Quantum Levitation Works.

The Biggest Water Supply in the Universe
Astronomers recently discovered the largest (and most distant) reservoir of water in the universe orbiting a gigantic black hole, known as a quasar, 12 billion light-years away. Pacific Ocean, eat your heart out.

Scientists studied the quasar, referred to as APM 08279+5255, and discovered water vapor occupying a gaseous region spanning hundreds of light-years around the black hole. According to NASA, the cosmic reservoir contains 140 trillion times all the water in Earth’s oceans. Moreover, it holds roughly 4,000 times as much water as there is in our entire galaxy.

“The water is in its gaseous, vapor form, and it’s distributed over hundreds of light-years, with an average temperature of just minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit and an average density 300 trillion times less than that of Earth’s atmosphere,” science and sci-fi blog io9 reports. “That may sound kind of unimpressive, but it’s all about perspective — this particular cosmic reservoir is about five times hotter and 10 to 100 times denser than the water reserves you find in the Milky Way and other galaxies.”

The quasar is so distant from our planet that scientists are capable of observing it when the universe was only 1.6 billion years old, a remarkably early time for the presence of water.

“Astronomers are hoping to use the find to study how large quantities of water in the young universe may have acted as efficient coolants of the interstellar medium — the thin gas and dust that exists between stars — possibly affecting star formation and the evolution of galaxies such as our Milky Way,” National Geographic explains.

Here’s an artist’s rendering of what the space reservoir looks like:

NASA/ESA“>
Image Credit: NASA/ESA

Why Time Slows When You’re Bored
Everyone gets bored at work from time to time because we all have to deal with mundane or repetitive tasks occasionally. But why do these boring activities seem to drag on so long, while exciting work passes by in a flash? New research suggests that the slowdown in time has more to do with the individual than with the work itself.

A team of researchers recently found that a person’s sense of entitlement influences his or her degree of boredom and perception of time when performing certain tasks. According to BNET, study participants who had a higher sense of entitlement perceived relatively mundane activities as lasting much longer than they actually did. They also thought the activities lasted longer than the less-entitled participants thought they did. It’s important to note that in this case, “entitlement” is not connected to wealth or material resources, but to expectations.

“For example, an entitled student expects that he ‘deserves’ an ‘A’ regardless of whether he studied for the test. An entitled employee expects that she should get extra vacation days regardless of whether she worked overtime or not,” the University of Michigan explains. “The research suggests that these students and employees more generally perceive their time as valuable and so are more likely to perceive time as wasted or dragging while doing tasks that do not benefit themselves.”

According to the study, highly entitled people not only thought that dull tasks took longer, but also rated them considerably more boring than the control groups. However, no link was found between entitlement and the perception of fun. The researchers established the entitled group by exposing some participants to entitled messages prior to performing their task.

“[P]articipants subliminally exposed to entitled words thought dull tasks were less interesting, thought they took longer to complete and walked away faster when leaving the laboratory,” the paper’s abstract notes. “Like most resources, time is a resource valued more by entitled individuals. A time-entitlement link provides novel insight into mechanisms underlying self-focus and prosocial dynamics.”

It’s Not Magic, It’s Quantum Levitation
It may look like a magic trick, but the little disk levitating on its own in the video below is actually the product of a scientific phenomenon. Researchers from Tel-Aviv University recently demonstrated the results of their Quantum Levitation project: an object that stays suspended in midair and whose orientation can be manipulated.

The technology relies on a thin disk of sapphire coated in yttrium barium copper oxide, which is cooled to -300° Fahrenheit in a liquid nitrogen bath. The process creates a superconductor, which conducts electricity without resistance and no energy loss. When placed near a series of magnets, the disk appears to float within the magnetic field. The effect is caused by the combination of magnetism and superconductivity, as the two fields repel each other.

However, the process also generates a flux tube that causes the disk to appear fixed in mid-air, neither bobbing nor hovering. The disk can also be made to move along a track, and can be accelerated or slowed down.

“Don’t plan on jumping on the ‘quantum levitation train’ to shorten your daily commute any time soon,” CNN’s Light Years blog notes. “Until scientists can figure out a way to have a superconductor at a temperature other than negative 300, the idea is not yet practical. Maybe someday…”

Have a great weekend, folks.