Referring to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7440217.stm, it seems that WMAP data on fluctuations in the microwave background can be interpreted such that "our" "universe" "bubbled off" from a previous "universe". It would also imply that Big Bangs can occur in vast empty spaces. Though I am no physics specialist nor philosopher, such a concept makes very much sense. Why should we be in the "only" "universe" ... And it is a much more "optimistic" than the state described in "The End of Cosmology?", Scientific American, March 2008, where 100 trillion years from now all will be dark.

Mmm but I still like my physically-impossible model where the "other side" of a black hole is a big bang ... and that the singularity is nothing else than the gravity from the "other side" concentrated on one point or small area

The anisotropy of the anisotropy. Intriguingly, this WMAP cold spot is centered on the VLA's discovery of a 'cosmic void.' I wonder if a bubble collision wiped out the galaxies that were present in that region?

Alternatively, it's interesting that the coldest and hottest spots in the CMB correspond to the Milky Way's plane, so perhaps the aniostropy merely comes from dust extinction...