Collisions of understanding. Author and scientist Ken Croswell writes about galaxy collisions in a recent blog on kencroswell.com in which he theorizes that such collisions “seem to be agents of cosmic socialism.” A new study, he says, finds that these collisions cause galactic regions rich in oxygen, iron, and even gold to mix with those that are impoverished, thereby making the rich poorer and the poor richer.” “In astronomy, any element heavier than helium is called a metal, so while your chemist friends certainly don't consider oxygen a metal, astronomers do,” says Croswell... Read more [...]