NYT slideshow of 17th Century English Embroidery.

For those who are bored - why not read about what happened before the Big Bang?

Seeing Beyond the Big Bang

Looking at the inflation era is itself extraordinary, but there is also the possibility that the perturbation the scientists introduced into the inflation picture is an imprint from whatever came before inflation. This is heady stuff, but it’s clear that Kamionkowski isn’t alone in thinking that we can perhaps glimpse some of these early mechanisms.

For a new paper by Jean-Luc Lehners and Paul Steinhardt (both at Princeton) looks first at cyclic universe models in which the universe undergoes periods of expansion and contraction, with a big crunch followed by a big bang marking the transition between the two, and then goes on to posit a ‘phoenix universe’ in which a tiny part of the universe survives the cataclysmic cycling but manages to become the basis for everything in the next universe. Steinhardt has been a major player in so-called ‘ekpyrotic universe’ models (a term meaning ‘out of the fire’), which offer alternatives to standard inflation.

I was in favor of the pear ginger upside down cake. I guess I can't be envious.

Sumi, thanks for that embroidery link--the jacket and gloves are both stunning!!

I vote that Barb post recipes for all these things.

Why stick with one dessert? We will be ten, and will likely have at least four kinds of dessert: Carrot cake, some kind of pie, brownies, and a variety of cookies...and possibly an ice cream cake.

I was not able to get the ingredients yesterday for the cake I'd planned for my Mom's Birthday. So I made what I did have ingredients for, an upside down Peach Torte, which came out well.

I just realized I'm about to have the most time off I've ever had while employed. And for only five vacation days! Bananas.

The temperature's gone up three whole degrees in the past two hours--we're up to 5 above zero!!

Darn it, I'm still at only 2 above.