Science marches on

"Want close friends?" the headline asked. "Log off the Internet." And, what, dump 148,000 of my closest friends? The problem, according to a study, is that it was "imperative to know somebody face-to-face to form the tightest bonds." Well, sure, it's also imperative to have face-to-face contact to tell if someone has bad breath.

But on the Internet, everybody has good breath. (At least so far.) And everybody is good-looking.

Which is important, because according to this headline about another groundbreaking study, "Men Want Hot Women, Study Confirms." The study gathered men and women together for a round of so-called speed dating -- periods of three to seven minutes, which is actually a bit longer than many of today's long-term relationships. (True speed dating would be more like three to five seconds, maybe not so long for the guys.) After tabulating the surveys, scientists released the shocking results: Men favored attractive women.

As a result of this study, scientists have laid the groundwork for further research that could lead to the discovery of, well, absolutely nothing.

"It leads nowhere," said one researcher, "but we did meet some nice women." (OK, that one I made up.) Also on the science front, we have good news for long-term real estate investors: "Earth Might Survive Sun's Explosion." Things look brighter already, don't they? And they're going to get really, really bright.

According to The New York Times, in about 5 billion years, the sun will swell into an enormous red giant -- sort of like John Goodman.

In fact, the sun will grow large enough to swallow the two inner planets, Mercury and Venus, but, according astronomer Roberto Silvotti,not the Earth -- as was previously predicted.

So our real estate holdings will remain intact, though -- and this is, unfortunately, something of a downside -- Silvotti also predicts the complete extinction of life as we know it, meaning the buyer's market is likely to continue, irrespective of what the subprime market looks like 5 billion years from now.

And the future holds more good news, though people are going to have to be a little more patient with this one.

In about 250 billion years -- as the Rolling Stones near their final tour -- the universe will have expanded so much that we'll only be able to observe a few neighboring stars and galaxies. Everything else will be too far away.

But, according to theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University, there will be a dramatic and important upside.

With no distant galaxies to emit cosmic rays, Krauss said -- and this is a real quote -- "There will be almost no static on their TV screens." That's right, in the year 5,000,002,007 we'll be to say goodbye to high cable-TV bills! So yes, we'll be all alone in a cold and unimaginably vast universe, but we will have excellent TV reception (and 250 billion years' worth of stuff on Tivo).

Besides, if you need friends in this universe you can always go online.

Write to Don Flood in care of King Features Weekly Service, P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475, or send e-mails to dflood287@comcast.net.