What Is Cosmology?

Cosmos==the universe seen as a well-ordered whole.
Cosmology==the science of the origin and development of the universe. 

Cosmology is the branch of astronomy involving the origin and evolution of the universe, from the Big Bang to today and on into the future. According to NASA, the definition of cosmology is “the scientific study of the large scale properties of the universe as a whole.”

Cosmologists puzzle over exotic concepts like string theory, dark matter and dark energy and whether there is one universe or many (sometimes called the multiverse). While other aspects astronomy deal with individual objects and phenomena or collections of objects, cosmology spans the entire universe from birth to death, with a boatload of mysteries at every stage.

The Creation is in Need of Allah

By Dr. Saleh as-Saleh,

"Man always looks for what benefits him and what protects him from harm. However, to accomplish this, man must be able to realize what is harmful. He must then know whom he should need, trust, and love so that he can attain what is beneficial as well as to feel good about his choice. He also must know the proper and good approach that would make him achieve this goal. This latter condition requires that man:

Know about harm

What ways can be used to drive harm away?

Certainly, man can have no better guidance than that which comes from the One Who had perfected everything, and the One who Has no deficiency in Himself and in His Attributes. The One Who is Ever-Living and Who does not die. There can be no One better than the One Who Has no need for anything; the One Who is rich; the Giver; the One who, after all, controls man's soul. Man is so poor to Him. He is Allah, the True and only God. Man can bring harm to himself if he seeks other than Allah for help. Allah is the One Who can help man drive away any harm for it cannot occur without His Will and His Power.

1.Allah (swt) sent down His Books and chose His Messengers to guide man to:

2.Know His Lord as He (swt) had explained about Himself, and

3.Seek Him Alone while living in accordance with His plan

Knowing Allah's Names and Attributes liberates man from worshiping any form of creation because creation is weak and is in need of The Creator, Allah. The knowledge about Allah leads man to know that he is created to live according to Allah's way as revealed to the last Messenger Muhammad . This Revelation contains a complete code of life. Everything that is beneficial or harmful is established so that man can centre his life around this Revelation. If man commits wrong and knows that Allah is Oft-Forgiving he would turn to Him and to Him alone seeking His forgiveness:

"Know, therefore, that there is no God Who deserves to be worshiped except Allah; and ask forgiveness for your sins."
(Qur'an, 47:19)

It is wrong to think or believe that Allah created other 'gods' besides Him so that man turns to them for help; loves them or fear them, etc. He is the same God of all nations. He does not order that people should make of stars, sun, fire, Jesus, Moses, etc. gods besides Him. He (Most Exalted) cannot be 'contradictory'. He has one way (religion) that calls man to surrender his will only to Him. He warned that if man (even Muhammad would take partners with Him, then his work will fail and will be among losers:

"And verily, it had been revealed to you (O Muhammad ) as has been revealed to those before you. If you join others in worship with Allah (then) surely (all) your deeds will be in vain and you will certainly be among the losers. Nay! But worship Allah and be among grateful." (Qur'an, 39:65-66)

Let us know what Muhammad, the man-Prophet, who knew Allah best, used to say:

"O Allah, I seek refuge in You for Your Pleasure and against Your Wrath, and in Your Forgiveness and against Your Punishment and in You from You, I cannot Praise You as You can Praise Yourself." (Muslim, Abu Dawood, at-Tirmidhi, ibn Majah)

"I have surrendered myself to You, I have directed my face to You, I have entrusted my affairs to You, I have compelled my back to refuge in You, in want and in fright of You, there is no resort nor survival from You except (in turning) to You. I have faith in Your book (i.e. the Qur'an) which You brought down and in the Prophet (Muhammad) you have sent." (Al-Bukhari, Muslim)

When we read in the Qur'an that:

"Whatever of Mercy (i.e. of good), Allah may grant to mankind, none can withhold it, and whatever He may withhold, none can grant it thereafter. And He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise." (Qur'an, 35:2)

And when we read that:

"If Allah touches you with hurt, there is none can remove it but He; and if He intends any good for you, there is one who can repel His favour which He causes it to reach whomsoever of His slaves He will, and He is the Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." (Qur'an, 10:117)

We should be motivated to return to Him Alone at times of ease and at times of hardship.

And when we read that:

"If Allah helps you none can overcome you, and if He forsakes you, who is there, after Him, that can help you. And in Allah (alone) let believers put their trust." (Qur'an, 3:160)

The Qur'an, therefore, leads man to a true liberation from any false attachment. It brings peace to the heart. It helps the believer against hypocrisy and all forms of dishonesty. Imagine, for example, a believer facing a problem at work. He sees wrong and faces unlawful practices. He does not fear rejecting what is wrong. He knows that the job is only a means to gain his sustenance. While he may be unable to correct what is wrong, he knows well that Allah is the One Who provides. If he leaves his job for the sake of Allah, Allah will give him a better one. Allah (SW) said:

"And whosoever fears Allah and keeps his duty to Him. He will make a way for him to get out (from) every (difficulty), and He will provide him from
(sources) he could never imagine." (Qur'an, 65:2-3)

The above texts, necessitates that man must depend upon Allah (SW) asking Him Alone for assistance. It also requires that man must love Allah and worship Him Alone to gain His pleasure and His help. Is it not true that the people who consider this life as the "Final Goal" end up worshiping many things in it? You see them so careful about "having it all". They torture themselves: pain, difficulty, and constant worry, keeping their hands in the banks for loan after loan to keep up with the "demands of development". They are under the constant threat of foreclosure. They constantly see poverty in front of their eyes. The Prophet (saw) said:

"Allah says: 'Son of Adam: Fill your time with My worship and I will fill your heart with richness, and end off your poverty. But if you don't, I would make your hands fully busy (i.e. in worldly affairs) and I would not end off your poverty.'" (At-Tirmidhi said that it is a good hadeeth)

Our purpose of existence on earth is more meaningful than being slaves to worldly gains. There can be no meaningful life better than that prescribed by our Creator Allah. Every act done according to Allah's way is an act of worship. Man is the beneficiary and Allah is in no need:

"O mankind! It is you who stand in need of Allah ,but Allah is Rich (Free of all wants and needs), Worthy of All Praise." (Qur'an, 35:15)

Scientists find quicker, more sustainable way to produce hydrogen fuel

A new method will allow researchers to make larger-than-ever quantities of hydrogen from water, and can be powered by renewable energy sources.

Scientists in Scotland have just taken a huge step towards producing clean hydrogen fuel in a sustainable way.

Unlike fossil fuels, hydrogen gas can be burned to generate electricity without producing toxic emissions. It’s produced easily from water through a process known as electrolysis, which uses electricity to break the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen, to release them as gas.

But, and this is a big but, the problem is where that electricity comes from - current methods are driven by the burning of fossil fuels, which sort of defeats the whole point of making hydrogen fuel in the first place.

This new method, however, developed by chemists from the University of Glasgow in Scotland, is 30 times faster than the current technique, and also requires a far lower energy load, so that it can be powered by renewable energy sources such as solar or wind. The process is reported in this week’s edition of Science.

The most advanced method of hydrogen production at the moment is known as proton exchange membrane electrolysers (PEMEs). As a University of Glasgow press releaseexplains: “PEMEs require precious metal catalysts to be held in high-pressure containers and subjected to high densities of electric current, which can be difficult to reliably achieve from fluctuating renewable sources.”

This new method, on the other hand, allows larger-than-ever quantities of hydrogen gas to be produced at atmospheric pressure and using lower power loads, such as those generated by renewable power sources.

Even more impressive, it also stores the hydrogen in a carbon-free liquid, which solves some of the safety issues which have so far limited the use of hydrogen fuel.

It does this by using a “liquid sponge” to lock up the protons and the electrons that have the potential to create hydrogen. The “sponge” is a metal oxide that starts off yellow and then turns blue as it's loaded up with this potential to create hydrogen.

"What you do is just turn on the electricity and you split water and you produce this liquid,” Lee Cronin, the leader of the team, told Ken Macdonald from BBC News Scotland. 

"When you want to produce the hydrogen, you don't have to add any more electricity. You just pour this over a catalyst and out comes the hydrogen. And it comes out 30 times faster than the equivalent commercial device."

The method can also help engineers use renewable energy more efficiently. Electricity generated from solar and wind farms is currently difficult to capture, but this breakthrough will allow that electricity to be used immediately to generate hydrogen gas from water, which is much easier to store and transport.

“The potential for reliable hydrogen production from renewable sources is huge. The sun, for example, provides more energy in a single hour of sunlight than the entire world’s population uses in a year. If we can tap and store even a fraction of that in the coming years and decrease our reliance on fossil fuels it will be a tremendously important step to slowing climate change,”said Cronin in the press release.

Researchers create the first untethered soft robot, test it in snow and fire, and run it over with a car

The world’s first free-walking “soft robot” is extremely resilient.

Image: Harvard University

Developers from Harvard University in the US have created the first “soft robot” - a fleshy-looking quadruped that can stand up and walk away from its creators.

That might sound scary, but, trust us, in reality it's even creepier, as you can see in the video below, which shows it crawling around the lab like a headless posessed doll, and surviving being burnt and run over. 

But once you get past the ick-factor, the research represents a huge step forward in robot design.

Soft robots have been developed in the past, but they all had to be tethered in order to move. This new model, however, carries everything it needs to operate, including micro-compressors, control systems and batteries, on its back, as the developers explain in the journal Soft Robotics.

“Earlier versions of soft robots were all tethered, which works fine in some applications, but what we wanted to do was challenge people’s concept of what a robot has to look like,” Michael Tolley, a research associate in materials science and mechanical engineering at Harvard’s awesomely-named Wyss Institute for Bioligically Inspired Engineering, told Peter Reuell, a staff writer for the Harvard Gazette.

“We think the reason people have settled on using metal and rigid materials for robots is because they’re easier to model and control. This work is very inspired by nature, and we wanted to demonstrate that soft materials can also be the basis for robots.”

This soft robot, which looks kind of like Gumby, is also much larger than previous tethered designs - it measures more than half a metre in length and can carry as much as 3.4 kilograms (7.5 pounds) on its rubbery back.

To give the robot so much strength, the developers had to do more than scale up previous models, they had to redesign how it moved.

The Harvard Gazette explains: “Giving the untethered robot the strength needed to carry mechanical components meant air pressures as high as 16 pounds per square inch (psi), more than double the seven psi used by many earlier robot designs. To deal with the increased pressure, the robot had to be made of tougher stuff.”

The material they eventually chose is a composite silicone rubber, which is made from stiff rubber filled with hollow glass microsphere to keep the robot’s weight down. The bottom is made from Kevlar fabric to ensure it's tough and lightweight.

This means that the robot was also super robust. The researchers tested it in snow, submerged it in water, walked it through flames and even ran it over with a car. “After each experiment, it emerged unscathed,” Reuell writes for the Harvard Gazette.

The team is now working on making the robots faster and outfitting them with sensors. But they ultimately hope that these soft robots will transform the way robots are used and thought of.

“One of the things that limit our imagination is that factory robots are very large and scary and dangerous to be around,” said Tolley. “As a lay person, you can’t just walk into a factory where industrial robots are working. But a soft system is inherently less dangerous, so you can start to interact with it more, and I think that opens up many more opportunities.”

'Electronic skin' detects breast cancer

This new e-skin could drastically improve patients' chances of survival.

Image: Nguyen and Saraf, 2014/American Chemical Society

Screening for breast cancer is a relatively clumsy process of feeling around for lumps. MRI, mammograms and ultrasounds can improve accuracy but they are too expensive to be used during every check-up. 

Now, biomolecular engineers Ravi Saraf and Chieu Van Nguyen from the University of Nebraska in the US have devised a new way of detecting the disease. They've created an 'electronic skin' that could 'feel' through tissue and locate small lumps.

To test their design the scientists created an artifical breast from silicone and embedded tumour-like objects into it. Using the same pressure as would be applied during a manual exam, they were able to image lumps that were only 5 millimetres wide and 20 millimetres deep.

The 'skin' consists of a thin-film tactile device, which is made up of layers of gold nanoparticles, cadmium sulfide nanoparticles and polymers.

The devise measures the local deformation of the tactile film through contact pressure with breast tissue, in much the same way that a manual examiner would with their hands.

The study was published in the journal American Chemical Society Applied Materials & Interfaces last month. 

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women and early detection saves lives.

Mammography, which uses x-rays to examine human breast tissue, is unreliable, particularly for women with dense breast tissue. In most medical examinations doctors generally miss lumps that are smaller than 21 millimetres long. 

Finding lumps that are less than half that size improves survival chances by a whopping 94 per cent.