Well, golly. I was gonna go and write a long entry on how observing the Universe probably won’t really change its lifespan, as breathlessly reported in a New Scientist article, but then Pamela went and did a fine job writing it up, so I’ll just let you go read her stuff.
I’ll add to her comments that this isn’t the first time New Scientist has exaggerated (to put it very kindly) the truth to make a splashy headline. I have friends who write for them, and I know that in general it’s a pretty good mag. But geez, they need to lighten up on the hyperbole. The last thing we need is to burn out potential audiences with over-the-top rhetoric like that, especially when it’s based on such marginal results.
