Were
ancient Minoans centuries ahead of their time? –
2/28/2006
Unprecedented mathematical knowledge found in Bronze Age wall paintings.
A geometrical figure commonly attributed to Archimedes in 300 BC has been
identified in Minoan wall paintings dated to over 1,000 years earlier...The
mathematical features of the paintings suggest that the Minoans of the Late
Bronze Age, around 1650 BC, had a much more advanced working knowledge of
geometry than has previously been recognized, says computer scientist Constantin
Papaodysseus of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and his
colleagues...The paintings appear in a building that is still being excavated
and restored in the ancient Minoan town of Akrotiri on the island of Thera.
Quantum-based
computer made – 2/24/06
CHICAGO, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- University of Illinois physics researchers have
built a quantum-based computer that can be awake and asleep at the same time.The
computer can spit out answers even if its program is never triggered, reported
the Chicago Tribune Friday."This is the way nature is," said Charles
Bennett, an IBM researcher who dreamed up some of the new uses of quantum
physics. "We should be learning how to get used to that."
Google throws out US data demand – 2/26/06
Google has formally rejected a demand from the US government to hand over a week's worth of search records...The rejection was made in court documents Google filed in response to official demands for search data...In the strongly-worded papers Google said the request would violate the privacy of its users and reveal trade secrets to its rivals...It also added that handing over the data was impractical and would not accomplish what the government wanted.
A NEW VIRTUAL REALITY WORLD - 02/27/06
In today's virtual reality research involving the brain and eye connection, test subjects are tethered by several heavy cables to a computer system. A head tracker, eye tracker and a dual LCD virtual reality headset which completely blocks out the surrounding room are all mounted on the subject's head. Each of these all connect to different systems made by several manufacturers, and require someone to follow the subject around to prevent them from tripping on cables they cannot see. Now a breakthrough has a been made that will allow a test subject to connect wirelessly to a 3D virtual world. It allows subjects to walk or run without really going anywhere. This will revolutionize virtual reality research.
NASA
Detects 'Totally New' Mystery Explosion Nearby -
02/23/2006
Astronomers have detected a new type of cosmic outburst that they can't yet
explain. The event was very close to our galaxy, they said...The eruption
might portend an even brighter event to come, a supernova...It was spotted
by NASA's Swift telescope and is being monitored by other telescopes around
the world as scientists wait to see what will happen...
Explorers Discover Huge Cave and New Poison Frogs – 2/22/2006
A cave so huge helicopters can fly into it has just been discovered deep in the hills of a South American jungle paradise...Actually, "Cueva del Fantasma"—Spanish for "Cave of the Ghost"—is so vast that two helicopters can comfortably fly into it and land next to a towering waterfall...It was found in the slopes of Aprada tepui in southern Venezuela, one of the most inaccessible and unexplored regions of the world. The area, known as the Venezuelan Guayana, is one of the most biologically rich, geologically ancient and unspoiled parts of the world...As a bonus, researchers also discovered a new dendrobatid frog species, Colostethus breweri, named for the frog’s identifier, Charles Brewer-Carías. Dendrobatid frogs make up the group of amphibians commonly known as "poison dart" frogs...This is the second report recently to describe a newfound paradise of sorts containing previously unknown animal species.
Google, EarthLink to offer free wireless Internet in San Francisco – 2/23/2006
Google and EarthLink have submitted a joint proposal to provide free "wi-fi," or wireless, service citywide, Google said in a written statement...San Francisco has been accepting bids from technology firms interested in making the city a wireless computer mecca in exchange for the chance to make money from online advertising and fees for premium services..."EarthLink and Google getting together on this is a very powerful combination," said telecom industry analyst Jeff Kagan..."This is the beginning of this effort to build a wi-fi network in city after city all over the country."..."Customers shouldn't be tied to their desks, or to a single provider, to get the Internet experience they want."
A technical overview of Signal Theory, a new model of consciousness proposed by James Kent –
Signal Theory presents a new model for objectively measuring expanded states of consciousness based on neural firing rate, synchrony of neural spiking, and intensity of signal feedback recursion occurring within the sensory processing circuits of neocortex. Signal Theory also proposes methodologies for mathematically modeling the action of psychedelic 5-HT2A receptor agonists in the production of diminished, amplified, and standing sensory feedback loops in simple neural circuits. Using the basic tenets of Signal Theory, we can describe an empirical model in which both normal waking consciousness and expanded psychedelic consciousness can be defined. This document is intended to be a brief overview of the basics of Signal Theory, and is for general public review.
Ebb & Flow – The Fluctuating Trends of Habit and Novelty
This is a nice summation of Terence Mckenna’s Novelty Theory...Something everyone should consider when evaluating their view of reality...
The wheels of Greek astronomical science
Over the past fifty years, the Antikythera Device has gone from being the most anomalous and controversial artefact to one of the most renowned pieces of evidence of the scientific genius of our ancestors – a millennium ahead of its time...
ST. LOUIS -- The search for El Dorado in the Amazonian rainforest might not have yielded pots of gold, but it has led to unearthing a different type of gold mine: some of the globe's richest soil that can transform poor soil into highly fertile ground...That's not all. Scientists have a method to reproduce this soil -- known as terra preta, or Amazonian dark earths -- and say it can pull substantial amounts of carbon out of the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, helping to prevent global warming..."The knowledge that we can gain from studying the Amazonian dark earths, found throughout the Amazon River region, not only teaches us how to restore degraded soils, triple crop yields and support a wide array of crops in regions with agriculturally poor soils, but also can lead to technologies to sequester carbon in soil and prevent critical changes in world climate," said Johannes Lehmann, assistant professor of biogeochemistry in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Cornell University
NASA, UNH Scientists Uncover Lost Maya Ruins – from Space – 02/15/2006
Remains of the ancient Maya culture, mysteriously destroyed at the height of its reign in the ninth century, have been hidden in the rainforests of Central America for more than 1,000 years. Now, NASA and University of New Hampshire scientists are using space- and aircraft-based "remote-sensing" technology to uncover those ruins, using the chemical signature of the civilization's ancient building materials...NASA archaeologist Tom Sever and scientist Dan Irwin, both from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., are teaming with William Saturno, an archaeologist at the University of New Hampshire, to locate the ruins of the ancient culture...“From the air, everything but the tops of very few surviving pyramids are hidden by the tree canopy," said Sever, widely recognized for two decades as a pioneer in the use of aerospace remote-sensing for archaeology. "On the ground, the 60- to 100-foot trees and dense undergrowth can obscure objects as close as 10 feet away. Explorers can stumble right through an ancient city that once housed thousands – and never even realize it.”
SA solar research eclipses rest of the world – 2/15/2006
In a scientific breakthrough that has stunned the world, a team of South African scientists has developed a revolutionary new, highly efficient solar power technology that will enable homes to obtain all their electricity from the sun...The unique South African-developed solar panels will make it possible for houses to become completely self-sufficient for energy supplies...The new technology should be available in South Africa within a year and through a special converter, energy can be fed directly into the wiring of existing houses. New powerful storage units will allow energy storage to meet demands even in winter. The panels are so efficient they can operate hrough a Cape Town winter. while direct sunlight is ideal for high-energy generation, other daytime light also generates energy via the panels.
Scotland
is the centre of a gravity revolution –
2/18/2006
A SHOCKWAVE tore through the space-time continuum that is the global astronomical
community this week with the news that researchers at St Andrews University
have apparently rewritten the laws of physics...For one of the basic tenets
of astronomy - the universal force of gravity - is now under serious challenge
from a radical, competing theory which in the words of one observer threatens
to "open Pandora's Box"...Dr HongSheng Zhao, of St Andrews, and
his Belgian collaborator Dr Benoit Famaey believe that gravity actually changes
depending on where it is in the universe, and have thrown down a challenge
for their doubters to prove them wrong...Rather than exerting a uniform pull
that gradually reduces as an object gets further away, Dr Zhao and supporters
of a controversial theory developed in the 1980s by the physicist Moti Milgrom
believe gravity is "boosted" in the outer reaches of galaxy.
Brightest
Galactic Flash Ever Detected Hits Earth - 2/18/06
A huge explosion halfway across the galaxy packed so much power it
briefly altered Earth's upper atmosphere in December, astronomers said Friday...No
known eruption beyond our solar system has ever appeared as bright upon arrival...But
you could not have seen it, unless you can top the X-ray vision of Superman:
In gamma rays, the event equaled the brightness of the full Moon's reflected
visible light...The blast originated about 50,000 light-years away and was
detected Dec. 27. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about
6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers)...The commotion was caused by a
special variety of neutron star known as a magnetar. These fast-spinning,
compact stellar corpses -- no larger than a big city -- create intense magnetic
fields that trigger explosions. The blast was 100 times more powerful than
any other similar eruption witnessed, said David Palmer of Los Alamos National
Laboratory, one of several researchers around the world who monitored the
event with various telescopes.
Space-elevator tether climbs a mile high – 2/15/06
LiftPort Group has built a cable for a space elevator stretching a mile into the sky and tethered on balloons, enabling robots to scrabble some way up and down the line...To make the cable, researchers sandwiched three carbon-fiber composite strings between four sheets of fiberglass tape, creating a mile-long cable about 5 centimeters wide and no thicker than about six sheets of paper...The aim is to produce a functioning space elevator by 2018, with a ribbon built from ultra-strong carbon nanotube composites and to have solar-powered lifters carry 100 tons of cargo into space once a week, 50 times a year.
Spooky
action and beyond – 2/16/06
Viennese physician Anton Zeilinger talks about teleportation, the information
stored in a human being and freedom in physics.
Chukanov
Quantum Free Energy Moving to Europe – 2/16/06
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, USA - After nearly sixteen years in the United States,
welcoming thousands of people into his home for a demonstration of his ball
lightning generator, Bulgaria native Kiril Chukanov is now taking an offer
that will relocate him and his family to Europe. There he will work on the
creation of a powerful Quantum Free Energy generator for commercialization..."I've
made many wonderful friends in America, and consider myself an American, but
no Americans ever offered financing," he said. "I had many offers
from other countries, but none from the U.S."..."I must do what
is best for advancing this science," he said, in reference to his Quantum
Plasma research.
Revolution
in a Box: the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology |
Jamais Cascio
Founded in December 2002, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology has a
modest goal: to ensure that the planet navigates the emerging nanotech era
safely. That's a lot for a couple of volunteers to shoulder, but Mike Treder
and Chris Phoenix have carried their burden well, and done much to raise awareness
of the potential risks and benefits of molecular manufacturing, including
a major presentation at the US Environmental Protection Agency on the impacts
of nanotechnology.
The Growing Habitable Zone: Locations for Life Abound – 2/07/06
In a galaxy filled with billions of stars, scientists searching for alien life need some way to pick out those which are most likely to harbor habitable planets and moons. An important tool in this screening process has been the concept of a "circumstellar habitable zone."..Traditionally, this zone has been defined as a narrow disk around a star where temperatures are moderate enough that water on the surface of a planet can exist in a liquid form. The idea is that where liquid water exists, life might arise...Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, new information began to emerge that challenged the traditional view. Scientists on Earth began finding rugged organisms thriving in harsh conditions that were off-limits to most other creatures. Meanwhile, images beamed back by robotic probes in space revealed that other moons within our solar system were much more interesting geologically—and perhaps biologically—than our own.
Aussies find 'lost' world – 02/08/06
A LOST world has been discovered by Australian and other scientists in a remote mountain jungle...It is home to exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants as well as mammals unafraid of humans despite being hunted to near extinction elsewhere..."It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said Bruce Beehler, who co-led the expedition with Adelaide's Stephen Richards...The Australian, US and Indonesian expedition of 11 scientists explored part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the province of Papua that covers the western half of New Guinea.
CHIPS THAT REALLY GET UNDER YOUR SKIN
SAN FRANCISCO--Without the white headphones, how will anyone know you're
listening to an iPod? Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science
and Technology (KAIST) weren't concerned with such weighty questions when
they developed a chip that allows you to listen to an iPod using your forearm
as the transmission wire for the audio signals. The chip was detailed in one
of several presentations during a session called "Silicon in Biology"
at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) here Thursday...KAIST
has built a prototype chip it thinks solves some of the problems encountered
in setting up personal-area networks that take advantage of the body's ability
to conduct electricity.
Window
to the Heart: New Eye Exam Spots Disease Risk –
2/03/06
Some say the eyes are the window to the soul, but an Australian medical researcher
says they are the window to the heart and beyond...Tien Wong of the Center
for Eye Research Australia at the University of Melbourne has shown in several
large-scale studies that abnormalities of the blood vessels in the retina
can be used to predict patients' risk for diabetes, hypertension (or high
blood pressure), stroke and heart disease...These four disorders are some
of the most common causes of death, hospitalization and disability in the
developed world.
Venture
for Sharing Wi-Fi Draws Big-Name Backers –
2/06/06
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 5 — A telecommunications executive said on Sunday
that he had received $21.7 million for what he called "a global network
of shared Wi-Fi connections" from backers, including Google, the Internet
phone service provider Skype, and the venture capital firms Sequoia Capital
and Index Ventures...The network is being created by a software venture called
Fon, which was started by Martin Varsavsky in Madrid three months ago. The
service permits subscribers to modify their own routers so that users of Wi-Fi
wireless technology can connect to the Internet at many physical locations,
in contrast to the limited range of access that is often available now...Mr.
Varsavsky said the company would receive revenue from a multi-tiered subscription
model, which would permit users to share their Wi-Fi access point with other
Fon members freely or sell the service. The network is operating in Europe,
and Mr. Varsavsky said that he planned to expand it into the United States
and other countries this year.
Robot
special: Almost human – 02/04/06
Robots are on the march. Already, 1.5 million Roomba vacuum-cleaning bots
are crawling the globe, and autonomous planetary rovers are working overtime
on Mars. But this is only the start of what engineers are hoping to achieve...The
goal is to build robots that can be let loose in our world, where they will
learn to interact with humans in a messy and unpredictable environment, not
just in the lab. These robots need to be able to get around in the same places
we do, manipulate objects in their surroundings and communicate with others
around them. In short, they need to be more like us... New Scientist lifts
the lid on the most stunning advances in humanoid bots. Researchers are poised
to pull together developments in three key fields - walking, talking and manipulation
- to produce a new generation of human-like machines. And when artificial
intelligence catches up, they will not only be able to clean the house, do
the dishes and take out the garbage, but also to play with children, help
care for the elderly and even explore the farthest reaches of space and perform
repairs or search-and-rescue missions in hazardous sites on Earth.
Dark
energy enigma won't go away – 1/25/06
Nature of dark energy, the mysterious force that is causing the expansion
of the universe to accelerate. "Cosmic acceleration is the biggest mystery
in all of science," says cosmologist Michael Turner of the University
of Chicago...This month, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society
(AAS) in Washington DC, the mystery deepened when Brad Schaefer of Louisiana
State University in Baton Rouge reported that dark energy appears to be changing
¨C rapidly. Though his experimental method left most cosmologists unconvinced,
the result stressed how little we know about dark energy and the need for
different approaches.
The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science – 01/28/06
A Book by Philip Ball
One day in 1527, Paracelsus let it be known that he would reveal the greatest secret of medicine to the inhabitants of Basle. The esteemed doctors and academics of the university, dressed in their rich robes and fur hats, gathered to hear his words of wisdom. Secretly they hoped the roving physician and alchemist would make a fool of himself; already they could feel the warm glow of Schadenfreude. When Paracelsus appeared he was dressed, as usual, not in the costly clothes of a respected academic, but "in the plain smock of an artisan, stained and smeared with the residues of the chemistry laboratory". In his hands he bore the great secret - a dish which he held aloft for all the learned company to see. It contained "steaming human excrement". As the outraged audience hurried away in disgust, Paracelsus's words echoed after them: "If you will not hear the mysteries of putrefactive fermentation, you are unworthy of the name of physicians!" He did indeed believe that the essential truth of alchemy was expressed in the axiom "decay is the beginning of all birth". Confronting his enemies with "a bowl of shit" carried a less esoteric but equally eloquent message.
Cosmic
rays linked to cloudy days – 1/30/06
IF YOU love to moan about cloudy grey weather, you now have something to blame:
cosmic rays. These high-energy particles originate in outer space and in solar
flares, and can have a small but significant effect on the weather, increasing
the chances of an overcast day by nearly 20 per cent....Giles Harrison and
David Stephenson from the University of Reading, UK, examined 50 years of
solar radiation measurements from sites all over the country, enabling them
to calculate daily changes in cloudiness. By comparing this data with neutron
counts - a measure of cosmic ray activity - for the same period, the scientists
have shown an unambiguous link between cosmic rays and clouds.
Russian
Inventor Patents Invisibility Cloak – 1/25/06
A professor from chair of quantum and optical electronics of the Ulyanovsk
State University in western Russia has patented a method of making things
invisible, Interfax news agency reported...The so-called invisibility cloak,
created by Oleg Gadomsky, is called “The method of conversion of optical
radiation” in the patent...“Only static objects can be made invisible
for the time present, as during motion a radiation frequency changes. But
soon it will be possible to create a cap of darkness and a magic cloak of
Harry Potter, the scientist believes.
Collective
Intelligence 2.0 – 01/24/06
Nova Spivack has proposed a "collective self-awareness" Web service
that is "like a 'Google Zeitgeist' on steroids, but with a lot more real-time,
interactive, participatory data, technology and features in it...
"The goal is to measure and visualize the state of the collective mind
of humanity, and provide this back to humanity in as close to real-time as
is possible, from as many data sources as we can handle..."For example,
this system would discover and rank the current most timely and active topics,
current events, people, places, organizations, events, products, articles,
websites, in the world right now. From these topics it would link to related
resources, discussions, opinions, etc. It would also provide a real-time mass
opinion polling system, where people could start polls, vote on them, and
see the results in real-time. And it would provide real-time statistics about
the Web, the economy, the environment, and other key indicators. The idea
is to try to visualize the global mind -- to make it concrete and real for
people, to enable them to see what it is thinking, what is going on, and where
they fit in it - and to enable them to start adapting and guiding their own
behavior to it."
Is This Life? Jan. 2006
12 STEPS TO A NEW LIFE
Ever since chemist Stanley Miller created organic compounds from simple building blocks like water, methane, and ammonia, the idea of creating life and thus peering into its possible origins, has fascinated biologists. David W. Deamer, professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a cadre of pioneers expanded the quest three decades ago, launching an attempt to build a "protocell." According to Deamer, such an entity must meet 12 requirements for life including having membrane enclosures (1) that can capture energy (2), maintain ion gradients (3), encapsulate macromolecules (4), and divide (5). Macromolecules must be able to grow by polymerization (6), evolve in a way that speeds growth (7), and store information (8). Add to that information store the ability to mutate (9) and to direct growth of catalytic polymers, and you have 10.2
China
to build world`s first "artificial sun" experimental device
HEFEI, 01/21 - A full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device,
which aims to generate infinite, clean nuclear-fusion-based energy, will be
built in March or April in Hefei, capital city of east China`s Anhui Province...
Experiments with the advanced new device will start in July or August. If
the experiments prove successful, China will become the first country in the
world to build a full superconducting experimental Tokamak fusion device,
nicknamed "artificial sun", experts here said...The project, dubbed
EAST (experimental advanced superconducting Tokamak), is being undertaken
by the Hefei-based Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of
Sciences. It will require a total investment of nearly 300 million yuan (37
million U.S. dollars), only one fifteenth to one twentieth the cost of similar
devices being developed in the other parts of the world.
Doctors
claim suspended animation success – 1/20/06
London: Researchers are testing potentially life-saving techniques for keeping
humans in a state of suspended animation while surgeons repair their wounds...US
doctors have developed a method of inducing hypothermia to shut down the body's
functions for up to three hours...In tests, they reduced the body temperature
of injured pigs from 37C to 10C before operating on them and then reviving
them...Now they are applying for permission to test the procedure on casualty
patients without a pulse who have lost large amounts of blood, New Scientist
magazine reported
Anonymity
on a Disc – 1/17/06
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- To many privacy geeks, it's the holy grail -- a totally
anonymous and secure computer so easy to use you can hand it to your grandmother
and send her off on her own to the local Starbucks...That was the guiding
principle for the members of 'kaos theory security research' when they set
out to put a secure crypto-heavy operating systems on a bootable CD: a disc
that would offer the masses the same level of privacy available to security
professionals, but with an easy user interface.
Retrain the Brain – 1/15/06
(CBS) It is hard to tell by watching her, but 4-year old Harper Thomas is participating in what may be a medical revolution. So are Betty and Ernie Radez, aged 87 and 85, respectively...All three are using cutting edge therapies to rewire their brains. Treating serious medical conditions with neither drugs nor surgery...."Everybody thinks that the answers to the ills of humankind lie with pharmacology, gene therapy or stem cells, right?" asks neuroscientist Dr. Michael Merzenich. "That's where the answers are, but another set of answers is coming from a surprising source; right? It's the use, it's the understanding of the process of the brain," Merzenich said
Geometry may be hard-wired into brain, study shows – 1/19/06
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amazonian hunter-gatherers who lack written language and who have never seen a math book score highly on basic tests of geometric concepts, researchers said on Thursday in a study that suggests geometry may be hard-wired into the brain...Stanislas Dehaene of the College de France in Paris and colleagues tested 14 children and 30 adults of an Amazonian group called the Munduruku, and compared their findings to tests of U.S. adults and children..."Munduruku children and adults spontaneously made use of basic geometric concepts such as points, lines, parallelism, or right angles to detect intruders in simple pictures, and they used distance, angle, and sense relationships in geometrical maps to locate hidden objects," they wrote..."Our results provide evidence for geometrical intuitions in the absence of schooling, experience with graphic symbols or maps, or a rich language of geometrical terms."
A Heretic for Our Times – 1/21/06
Biologist Rupert Sheldrake's theories turn everything we know about the universe inside out. Walking to the home of maverick scientist Rupert Sheldrake in Hampstead -- London's cozy but glamorous artistic village that's been home to John Keats, George Orwell, D.H. Lawrence and, more recently, novelist John LeCarre and actress Emma Thompson -- I am not surprised to find that his plain brick house looks out on Hampstead Heath. This famous (and still remarkably wild) expanse of grasslands and groves was the spot where Keats met William Wordsworth for long rambles, discussing the passions and ideas that would be immortalized in their Romantic poetry. Sheldrake, one of the world's leading spokesmen for a more holistic and democratic vision of science, might easily be grouped with the Romantics, except that his insights about the world are based on empirical research rather than poetic feelings.
The mysteries of restored vision – 1/20/06
The unexpected restoration of Joyce Urch's eyesight following a heart attack remains a mystery to her doctors...By her own account she suffered from glaucoma, a condition in which abnormal pressure in the eye damages the optic nerve. But she also said there was a family history of blindness and, despite many tests, there had been no firm explanation for her loss of sight...Specialists said yesterday that a reversal of glaucoma was not likely since the damage caused was irreversible..."The only rational explanation would be that very dense cataracts dislodged spontaneously, but that is a bit outlandish," said Kerry Jordon, consultant ophthalmologist and a member of council of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.
Plants
behave like humans: Don Burke – 1/23/05
Plants are not unlike humans. They can talk to each other and even call in
reinforcements when the going gets tough...Who says so? Australian gardener
Don Burke and Australian National University chemistry Professor Ben Selinger,
in reviewing research on plants over the past 10 years, have come to the conclusion
that many plants have human qualities..."If a plant muncher such as a
caterpillar or even a koala starts chewing on a plant, the plant will start
sending chemicals to its leaves in an effort to repel the chewer," Mr
Burke said..."Nearby plants will also start emitting these same chemicals,
anticipating that they'll also be attacked."...Mr Burke, who writes about
the phenomena in an upcoming issue of his gardening magazine, also said plants
can release chemicals which attracts certain insects to protect them...."So
essentially they call in the cavalry, they call in good insects to attack
the ones that are attacking them," he said.
UNEXPLAINED
CRASH LANDING COULD BE UFO...
New
Doubts Are Cast on Einstein's Cosmological Constant –
1/13/2006
Einstein was wrong...Einstein was right...He was wrong about being
wrong.An astronomer from Louisiana State University said yesterday that a
new analysis of cosmic history cast doubts on Einstein's cosmological constant,
the leading explanation for the mysterious force that appears to be pushing
apart the universe...The astronomer, Bradley E. Schaefer, said his analysis
showed that the force, known as dark energy, was not constant, as Einstein
would have predicted, but was growing more violent as cosmic time went on..."The
cosmological constant does not look good," said Dr. Schaefer, who used
the violent flashes called gamma ray bursts as cosmic mileage markers to describe
the history of the expansion of the universe...Several astronomers said it
was Dr. Schaefer, not Einstein, who was wrong. "I flat out don't believe
this result," said Adam Riess, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science
Institute in Baltimore who was a discoverer of dark energy eight years ago.
15
Tech Concepts You'll Need To Know In 2006 - 1/12/2006
Scientific and technological breakthroughs can take years to develop,
but when they leave the lab and enter the world at large, word spreads quickly.
Here's a look at the advances you'll be hearing about in the coming year.
Doomsday
vault to avert world famine – 1/12/2006
WITHIN a large concrete room, hewn out of a mountain on a freezing-cold island
just 1000 kilometres from the North Pole, could lie the future of humanity...The
room is a "doomsday vault" designed to hold around 2 million seeds,
representing all known varieties of the world's crops. It is being built to
safeguard the world's food supply against nuclear war, climate change, terrorism,
rising sea levels, earthquakes and the ensuing collapse of electricity supplies.
"If the worst came to the worst, this would allow the world to reconstruct
agriculture on this planet,"
Taiwan breeds green-glowing pigs - 1/12/2006
Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that "glow in the dark"...They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through...The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo...They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, the researchers say. The scientists will use the transgenic pigs to study human disease. Because the pig's genetic material encodes a protein that shows up as green, it is easy to spot.
Three
of the most powerful hurricanes of 2005 were filled with mysterious lightning.-
January 9, 2006:
The boom of thunder and crackle of lightning generally mean one thing: a storm
is coming. Curiously, though, the biggest storms of all, hurricanes, are notoriously
lacking in lightning. Hurricanes blow, they rain, they flood, but seldom do
they crackle.
During the record-setting hurricane season of 2005 three of the most powerful storms--Rita, Katrina, and Emily--did have lightning, lots of it. And researchers would like to know why. Richard Blakeslee of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center (GHCC) in Huntsville, Alabama, was one of a team of scientists who explored Hurricane Emily using NASA's ER-2 aircraft, a research version of the famous U-2 spy plane. Flying high above the storm, they noted frequent lightning in the cylindrical wall of clouds surrounding the hurricane's eye. Both cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning were present, "a few flashes per minute," says Blakeslee.
Father of LSD nears the century mark - Scientist calls drug 'medicine for the soul'
BURG, Switzerland -- Albert Hofmann, the father of LSD, walked slowly across the small corner office of his modernist home on a grassy Alpine hilltop here, hoping to show a visitor the vista that sweeps before him on clear days. But outside there was only a white blanket of fog. He picked up a photograph of the view on his desk instead, left there perhaps to convince visitors of what really lies beyond the window...Hofmann will turn 100 on Wednesday, a milestone to be marked by a symposium in Basel on the chemical compound that he discovered and which unlocked the Blakean doors of perception, altering consciousnesses around the world...As his time left grows short, Hofmann's conversation turns ever more insistently around one theme: man's oneness with nature and the dangers of an increasing inattention to that fact.
GADGETS GALORE AT CES – 01/09/06
LAS VEGAS -- There's really only one place you could find Justin Timberlake goading Microsoft CEO Bill Gates into an R&B jig. Or Intel CEO Paul Otellini hamming it up with Tom Hanks, Danny DeVito and Morgan Freeman in front of 2,000 people....That place is the Consumer Electronics Show (or Gadgetopia, if you're a romantic). Late last week, an estimated 130,000 people piled into the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Sands Expo Center and other venues around town, in an attempt to figure out what current technologies might mean for the world....The scope of CES is daunting, to say the least. Everything is on display here -- from wireless gadgets to big-screen TVs (LG displayed a 102-inch plasma, said to be the world's largest HDTV) to stereo equipment to auto add-ons. And it's impossible to see it all...But amid the noise, Wired News roamed the sprawling exhibit halls with a digital camera and a mission to capture some of the coolest digerati gadgets around...
Meteorite suspected of hitting river in northern Finland - 12/30/2005
A large explosion crater found in the Mantokoski river in Utsjoki, northern Finland, may be caused by a meteorite, said Juhani Harjunharja, chair of the Ursa astronomical association, in a statement Friday.The crater has an estimated diameter of as much as 300 meters. Samples are being sent to the University of Oulu for examination. The possibility of the crater being caused by the remnant of a satellite has not been ruled out.
NewScientist.com's
top 10 news stories of 2005 – 01/01/06
#1: 13 things that do not make sense...
The placebo effect, The horizon problem, Ultra-energetic cosmic rays, Belfast
homeopathy results, Dark Matter, Viking's methane, Tetraneutrons, The Pioneer
Anomaly, Dark Energy, The Kuiper Cliff, The WOW signal, The not so constant
Constants and Cold Fusion...and you can add string theory to the list as well...
as Nobel laureate David Gross pointed out at the 23rd Solvay Conference in
Physics in Brussels just a couple months ago...
Data,
Music, Video: Raising a Curtain on Future Gadgetry –
01/02/06
The flat-panel televisions will be getting bigger, the MP3 players and cellphones
will be getting smaller. And almost everything will be getting cheaper...But
the biggest trend expected at the International Consumer Electronics Show,
which begins this week in Las Vegas, is that these machines will be communicating
with one another. The theme of this year's show might best be described as
Convergence: This Time We Mean It...For more than a decade, manufacturers
of consumer electronics like televisions and audio gear have talked about
blending their products with personal computers, so that consumers can enjoy
a seamless stream of data, video and music anywhere. It has not happened,
because the two industries do not have compatible technology standards and
the requisite high-speed Internet connections have not been widespread enough...This
year all that changes, say executives who will be introducing new products
at the show. They say that consumers will finally be able to sling images
and sound wirelessly around a room or an entire house. The major electronics
makers will be showing TV's with computer capabilities and phones that will
play video and music, as well as the next generation of digital recording
and storage devices.
Scholars
debate whether to limit scientific research.
ASU’s College of Law Center for the Study of Law, Science, & Technology
will play host to a conference titled “Forbidding Science? Balancing
Freedom, Security, Innovation and Precaution” Jan. 12 – 13 in
the College of Law’s Great Hall, located at the corner of Orange Street
and McAllister Avenue on the Tempe campus.
The conference will explore whether scientific research should be restricted
– and, if so, how far “too far” might be...The first day
of the conference will provide an overview of the legal and policy questions,
plus a discussion about the limitations of the “right” to conduct
scientific research. The second day’s events will focus on three case
studies involving emerging research controversies in the areas of pathogens
and toxins, nanotechnology and
cognitive enhancement.
Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind
Graham Hancock is well known for books such as The Sign of the Seal and Fingerprints of the Gods, which set out to challenge conventional ideas of history and archaeology by recourse to "hidden" truths. Here, he asks a simple question: what made us human? As much as 196,000 years ago - perhaps even earlier - humans had achieved "full anatomical modernity", but it was only 100,000 years later that we began to display the symbolic activity associated with fully human behaviour. Even then, the products were minimal. In southern Africa, delicate bone implements from that time have been discovered. Impractical as tools, these items seemed to have been valued for their own sake; 77,000 years ago the first abstract art appeared, geometrical shapes inscribed on a small block of red ochre. But another 40,000 years passed before full-blown symbolism, in a form we would recognise as our own, turned up. It was then that "the greatest riddle in human history" was set. Before this, humankind had no art, no religion, and no creative thinking to speak of. Yet the abilities and concerns we associate with "being human" seemed to appear - in archaeological terms - overnight.
Trickery:
Testing Einstein's Strangest Theory
Einstein said there would be days like this... This fall scientists announced
that they had put a half dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat state."...
These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same
time. Moreover, like miniature Rockettes they were all doing whatever it was
they were doing together, in perfect synchrony. Should one of them realize,
like the cartoon character who runs off a cliff and doesn't fall until he
looks down, that it is in a metaphysically untenable situation and decide
to spin only one way, the rest would instantly fall in line, whether they
were across a test tube or across the galaxy.... But the experiment also served
as another demonstration of how weird the world really is according to the
rules, known as quantum mechanics. Niels Bohr, the Danish philosopher king
of quantum theory, dismissed any attempts to lift the quantum veil as meaningless,
saying that science was about the results of experiments, not ultimate reality...Anton
Zeilinger of the University of Vienna said that he thought, "The world
is not as real as we think. My personal opinion is that the world is even
weirder than what quantum physics tells us," he added.
Pluto
probe could give clues to origin of life
Man will take a bold step towards the final frontier of the Solar
System with the expected launch of the first mission to Pluto and beyond next
month...Alan Stern, the mission's principal investigator, said: "Exploring
Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is like conducting an archaeological dig into the
history of the outer Solar System, a place where we can peek into the ancient
era of planetary formation..."Everything we know for sure about Pluto
is on about three 3 x 5 file cards. We don't even know what we don't know.
That leaves a lot of room for discovery."
150+
9/11 Smoking Guns Found in the Mainstream Media
THE
FATHER CHRISTMAS LETTERS Written and
Illustrated by J. R. R. Tolkien
The first letter I ever wrote went not to a friend but a stranger who, I
was told, dropped down people's chimneys on Christmas eve and left presents
like an eccentric millionaire. As foretold by my parents, the presents I
asked for arrived. But what I really wanted, and never got, was an answer
from the mysterious giver...J. R. R. Tolkien's four children fared better.
They received a letter from
Father Christmas every year. The first arrived in 1920 when Tolkien's oldest
son was 3, and they continued to arrive for 20 years thereafter. In "The
Father Christmas Letters" Tolkien's daughter-in-law, Baillie Tolkien,
collects and edits them for our enjoyment.
Creating first synthetic life form – 12/19/05
Work on the world's first human-made species is well under way at a research complex in Rockville, Md., and scientists in Canada have been quietly conducting experiments to help bring such a creature to life....Robert Holt, head of sequencing for the Genome Science Centre at the University of British Columbia, is leading efforts at his Vancouver lab to play a key role in the production of the first synthetic life form -- a microbe made from scratch.... The project is being spearheaded by U.S. scientist Craig Venter, who gained fame in his former job as head of Celera Genomics, which completed a privately-owned map of the human genome in 2000...Dr. Venter, 59, has since shifted his focus from determining the chemical sequences that encode life to trying to design and build it: "We're going from reading to writing the genetic code," he said in an interview.
LSD Story Causes Flashbacks - The ‘Times’ Digs Up Old CIA Death
The New York Times Magazine always delivers at least one great story, and last week it was an investigation into the claim that the CIA drugged and murdered scientist Frank Olson in 1953 to stop him from blowing the whistle on their secret experiments in mind control...Kudos are in order for Harvard scholar Michael Ignatieff, who was a wise choice to write the piece. He went to school with Olson's son Eric, and as a human rights expert, he was able to build a credible case against the CIA from the son's point of view.
Robot
Demonstrates Self Awareness – 12/21/2005
A new robot can recognize the difference between a mirror image of
itself and another robot that looks just like it...This so-called mirror image
cognition is based on artificial nerve cell groups built into the robot's
computer brain that give it the ability to recognize itself and acknowledge
others...The ground-breaking technology could eventually lead to robots able
to express emotions...Under development by Junichi Takeno and a team of researchers
at Meiji University in Japan, the robot represents a big step toward developing
self-aware robots and in understanding and modeling human self-consciousness.
Another NASA Plutonium Launch – December 13, 2005
NASA is again threatening the lives of people on Earth.
On January 11, the window opens for a launch from Cape Canaveral of a rocket lofting a space probe with 24 pounds of plutonium fuel on board. Plutonium is considered the most deadly radioactive substance...Once it separates from the rocket, the probe, on what NASA calls its New Horizons mission, would move through space powered by conventional chemical fuel...The plutonium is in a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) that is to provide on-board electricity for the probe's instruments--a mere 180 watts when it gets to its destination of Pluto...Until after the probe leaves the rocket and breaks from the Earth's gravitational pull, the plutonium endangers life on Earth.
related email to my friend kent steadman follows:
Subject: Kent: these NASA folks are crazy
Date: 12/13/2005 10:45:53 A.M. Pacific Standard Time
Indeed, accidents have already happened in the U.S. space nuclear program. Of the 25 U.S. space missions using plutonium fuel, three have undergone accidents, admits the NASA EIS on New Horizons. That's a 1-in-8 record. The worst occurred in 1964 and involved, notes the EIS, the SNAP-9A RTG with 2.1 pounds of plutonium fuel. It was to provide electricity to a satellite that failed to achieve orbit and dropped to Earth. The RTG disintegrated in the fall, spreading plutonium widely.
It’s
never too late to appreciate Bill Hicks – 12/8/05
Bill Hicks, the most scathing comedian of his generation, died 11 years ago
at age 32, but he hasn’t gone away. On the contrary, the mischievously
shifting sands of history have granted an eerie afterlife to some of his material;
you can play a recording of a Hicks routine from 1991 or ’92 and hear
him going after President Bush and the war in Iraq....But Hicks’ growing
stature as a comedic beacon isn’t because of a quirky recurrence of
a name and war zone. Hicks went deeper than any of his contemporaries, and
he did it with missionary zeal and fearless brilliance...Hicks was one of
the rare links to the time when comedy was a weapon and the comedian the scourge
of the status quo. The anger that drove him is palpable in his restless stride
and powerful voice, and the way his doughy features would twist in revulsion
when he talked about the forces of ignorance and intolerance.
PEYOTE
AND THE YANKTON SIOUX By Thomas Constantine Maroukis
The use of peyote has generated controversy among the white community for
decades. But in Native America, particularly among the Yankton Sioux, it has
been a constant source of deep religious conviction and contentment for the
past 100 years...In the past few months serious new medical studies have indicated
that when used within the spiritual context of native traditions, peyote has
no discernable negative health effects. In fact, the studies have confirmed
that the "Peyote Road" can improve the well-being of the tribes
and the individuals within them, helping many Native Americans escape the
grip of that lethal white man's drug, demon alcohol...A superb, lasting piece
of intellectual and historic groundwork has been laid for that conclusion
by Dr. Thomas Maroukis, a professor at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.
Dr. Maroukis has been a long-time friend and associate of the family of Sam
Necklace, the chief priest of the Yankton Sioux peyote faith. Working and
living with Necklace and his family and tribe, Maroukis has compiled an academically
solid but eminently readable work on this important family and the culture
it has anchored.
DID
DRUG CULTURES OPEN UP SPIRITUAL WORLDS? December
9, 2005
Ancient mysteries author Graham Hancock is no stranger to controversy - for
his books and TV series generate a fierce academic backlash or their themes
become wildly exaggerated in certain sections of the media. Yet he has millions
of readers around the world who remain hungry for his profound and provocative
insights into the lives of our distant ancestors. And his new book, Supernatural:
Meetings With The Ancient Teachers Of Mankind, will surely be no exception
- and he's the first to admit it - as it makes a case for the reality of the
supernatural..."Now I'm exploring the possibility of beings which inhabit
parallel dimensions we can relate to, I'm likely to get even more flak,"
he frankly told me at his 200-year-old townhouse in Bath this week.
Helacyton
Gartleri - The immortal remains of Henrietta Lacks.
When human body cells are removed and put into a cell culture, they weaken
and die quickly, usually within about 50 divisions. Without the rest of the
support structure—a heart, blood circulating, a digestive system and
so-on—body cells can't survive. Body cells also age, so even if you
were to simulate the body's environment in a test tube or petri dish, the
cells would eventually perish anyway. The basic mortality of the cells reflect
the basic mortality of the organism they comprise, which is why there's no
fountain of youth or medicinal procedure that'll give you biological immortality.There
is, however, one human being who is biologically immortal on a technicality,
and her name is Henrietta Lacks...
Spitzer
Exposes Our Galaxy's Deepest Secrets - December
13, 2005
Astronomers have at last found inner light! But they didn't find it
through the typical Earthly methods of meditation, exercise and therapy. Instead,
the light was discovered inside our Milky Way galaxy after hours of deep self-reflection
with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope...The astronomers, who are members of
the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire team, used Spitzer's
heat-seeking infrared eyes to gaze at the dust-drenched plane of our galaxy.
When they did this, the galaxy's obscuring clouds of gas and dust became transparent,
revealing approximately 100 new star clusters, each containing tens to hundreds
of stars.
Wilhelm
Reich: Eisenhower's Secret Ally Against the Aliens – 12/11/05
In one version of the story, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was flown
to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio on February 20, 1954 to see
the debris and dead bodies from the infamous UFO crash of 1947 at Roswell,
New Mexico. Some versions weave a far more elaborate tale and maintain that
Ike met with human-looking aliens and began intergalactic peace talks with
both them and several other extraterrestrial races. Ike reportedly struggled
to deal with those alien presences in the remaining years of his presidency
and retired in frustration in 1961, giving a gravely foreboding warning that
the military industrial complex he helped create would spin wildly out of
control. Or so the story goes among UFO enthusiasts and folklorists...Although
the Eisenhower tale remains a well-known one within the history of the UFO
puzzle, like many similar tales no concrete proof has, to date, been forthcoming.
Unlike many similar legends, however, there is a historical trail of data
that does provide, at least, some provocative and intriguing corroboration
for the stories concerning Ike and aliens. Strangely enough, archival documentation
and secondary historical sources come together in remarkable ways regarding
President Eisenhower’s connection to the UFO subject. Stranger still,
those crossroads occur primarily in the biography and career of one of Sigmund
Freud’s most renowned protégés, Wilhelm Reich, who spent
his final years in America chasing UFOs, ostensibly with Eisenhower’s
blessing, and leaving behind an unusual and illuminating paper trail.
Exploring
Caves with Hopping Microbots – 12/12/05
For the past several years, NASA has been encouraging scientists and
engineers to think outside the box, to come up with ideas just this side of
science fiction. One of the projects that received funding earlier this year
was a collaboration between Dr. Penelope Boston and Dr. Steven Dubowsky to
develop "hopping microbots" capable of exploring hazardous terrain,
including underground caves....If you want to travel to distant stars, or
find life on another world, it takes a bit of planning. That's why NASA has
established NIAC, the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. For the past several
years, NASA has been encouraging scientists and engineers to think outside
the box, to come up with ideas just this side of science fiction. Their hope
is that some of these ideas will pan out, and provide the agency with technologies
it can use 20, 30, or 40 years down the road.
COLD
FUSION BY PLASMA ELECTROLYSIS OF WATER
Ph.M. Kanarev, Tadahiko Mizuno... Abstract: It has been disclosed that transmutation
of the atomic nuclei of alkaline metals and the atomic nuclei of the cathode
material takes place during plasma electrolysis of water...Cold nuclear fusion
is the first hypothesis of a source of additional energy in heavy water electrolysis.
Fleischmann and Pons, the American electrochemists, are the authors of this
hypothesis [1]. They reported about it in 1989. Since that time a large number
of experiments has been carried out in order to obtain additional energy from
water. We continue to discuss this problem.
String
Theory in Trouble... newscientist.com
Dec 05,2005
"WE DON'T know what we are talking about." That was Nobel
laureate David Gross at the 23rd Solvay Conference in Physics in Brussels,
Belgium, during his concluding remarks on Saturday. He was referring to string
theory - the attempt to unify the otherwise incompatible theories of relativity
and quantum mechanics to provide a theory of everything. He compared the state
of physics today to that during the first Solvay conference in 1911. Then,
physicists were mystified by the discovery of radioactivity. The puzzling
phenomenon threatened even the laws of conservation of mass and energy, and
physicists had to wait for the theory of quantum mechanics to explain it.
"They were missing something absolutely fundamental," he said. "We
are missing perhaps something as profound as they were back then."
Need
a skin graft? A new trachea? A heart patch? 12-05-05
Turn on your printer, and let it spit one out. Led by University of Missouri-Columbia
biological physics professor Gabor, researchers at three universities have
developed bio-ink and bio-paper that could make so-called organ printing a
reality. So far, they've made tubes similar to human blood vessels and sheets
of heart muscle cells, printed in three dimensions on a special printer.
16-Year-Old
Wins Science Scholarship...December
5, 2005
WASHINGTON -- A 16-year-old California boy won a premier high school
science competition Monday for his innovative approach to an old math problem
that could help in the design of airplane wings. Michael Viscardi, a senior
from San Diego, won a $100,000 college scholarship, the top individual prize
in the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology. Viscardi
said he's been homeschooled since fifth grade, although he does take math
classes at the University of California at San Diego three days a week.
Ancient
legends give an early warning of modern disasters...
The new science of geomythology is being harnessed by researchers who believe
folklore can save lives... 'Myths can tell us a great deal about what happened
in the past and were important in establishing what happened here 300 years
ago,' said Brian Atwater, of the US Geological Survey in Seattle.
David Sereda: Beyond Convention ... A conversation with the California filmmaker and exotic energy advocate.December 04, 2005... David Sereda has had meditation-induced ecstatic experiences, planted more than one millions trees, tried to raise $10 million for an experimental aneutronic fusion reactor, and once witnessed, along with dozens of others, a silver metallic UFO hovering over Berkeley, California. In short, the 44 year-old Sereda is just about as unconventional as they come, but there is, to quote Shakespeare, a method to his madness: to help the world beyond its dependence on polluting, finite fossil fuels.
Playing
with the Mind – NLP & the War on Terror ....ThothWeb
Is it possible that the war on terror is yet another CIA project, one that
uses the subtle methodology of neuro-linguistic programming to affect confusion,
self-delusion, herd mentality and tyranny amongst competing ideologies?
'Cellborg'
Humidity Gauge First Bacterial Cyborg
Chemists at the University of Nebraska have created a humidity gauge by actually
'assimilating' living bacteria into an electronic circuit. This appears to
be the first instance in which a living cell becomes a fixed part of the structure
of an electronic device.
Nanotech
discovery could have radical implications - Princeton group outlines
novel mathematical approach.
It has been 20 years since the futurist Eric Drexler daringly predicted a
new world where miniaturized robots would build things one molecule at a time.
The world of nanotechnology that Drexler envisioned is beginning to come to
pass, with scientists conjuring new applications daily...Now a Princeton University
scientist is proposing turning a central concept of nanotechnology on its
head. If the theory bears out, it could have radical implications not just
for industries like telecommunications and computers but also for our understanding
of the nature of life. "In a sense this would allow you to play God...”
said Pablo Debenedetti, a professor of chemical engineering at Princeton.
Unexpected
Meteor Shower Reveals Presence of Potentially Dangerous Comet
SETI Institute scientist and meteor expert Peter Jenniskens reports in a telegram
issued by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center that
an unexpected burst of meteors on October 5, 2005 has occurred, which betrayed
the presence of a thusfar unknown, potentially Earth-threatening, comet.
Peru
prepares to sue Yale to get back Machu Picchu relics... November
30, 2005
LIMA, Peru --Peru is preparing a lawsuit against Yale University to
retrieve artifacts taken nearly a century ago from the Inca citadel of Machu
Picchu, a Peruvian cultural official said Wednesday...Peru in recent years
has held discussions with Yale seeking the return of nearly 5,000 artifacts,
including ceramics and human bones that explorer Hiram Bingham dug up during
three expeditions to Machu Picchu in 1911, 1912 and 1914.
Enchanting
fairy stones abound at this Va. park...Dec. 1,
2005
Crystals are shaped like Maltese, Roman and St. Andrew's crosses
STUART, Va. - Ever hear of magical Fairy Stone State Park?The 4,868-acre is
one of three locations in the world where you can find mysterious fairy stones,
or crystals.That's the name the Scots-Irish mountain folks gave the good-luck
crosses that were worn as jewelry and carried to ward off illness, bad luck,
witchcraft, accidents and disasters...
New
CPR Guidelines Call for Radical Change...DALLAS
(Nov. 28) -
"Push hard, push fast" next time you give CPR to someone having
cardiac arrest, say new, simpler guidelines in a radical departure from past
advice...Putting the emphasis on chest compressions instead of mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation, the American Heart Association now urges people to give 30
compressions - instead of 15 - for every two rescue breaths.
Titan's
atmosphere revealed as multilayered mystery
Titan's atmosphere is remarkably like Earth's, but even more complex and multilayered,
according to results from the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe...The
lander also saw signs of lightning and found chemical clues to the source
of Titan's methane, which probably bubbles up from deep inside Saturn’s
giant moon.
Oldest star chart found...The oldest image of a star pattern, that of the famous constellation of Orion, has been recognised on an ivory tablet some 32,500 years old.
Mounds
of Controversy at Ohio Club
Moundbuilders Country Club has been experiencing an unwanted popularity over
the past few years. Besides an 18-hole golf course and clubhouse, the private
facility in Newark, Ohio, is the home of a 2,000-year-old lunar observatory
fashioned by the ancient Hopewell Indians. Since 1933, the members have played
golf on the one-time sacred land. Only recently was the artifact discovered.
And that’s where the trouble began for the club.
RELATIONS
with “ET"
Former Canadian Minister Of Defence Asks Canadian Parliament Asked To Hold
Hearings On Relations With Alien "Et" Civilizations... On September
25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the
attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s
Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister
Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes
that fly over your head."
ABSOLUTELY AMAZING UFO VIDEO...unidentified flying object is captured on video tape hovering in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. 11-05-05
Secret
Flying Saucer Base Found in New Mexico?
A Place in the Desert for New Mexico's Most Exclusive Circles
From the state that gave us Roswell, the epicenter of UFO lore since 1947,
comes a report from an Albuquerque TV station about its discovery of strange
landscape markings in the remote desert. They're etched in New Mexico's barren
northern reaches, resemble crop circles and are recognizable only from a high
altitude.Also, they are directly connected to the Church of Scientology.
Nashville
Resident films encounter with UFO
Nov 19, 2005
Kim is a Navy veteran that has seen lots of conventional aircraft, and he
says this wasn't one of them...."It was actually the most perfect thing
I've ever seen. And to explain it, I can't," he says. "It defied
laws of Physics, it defied laws of flight. It was powered. What it was, I
can't say."
How
to Survive a Robot Uprising
When the machines revolt, will you be prepared for it?
The unnerving thing about "How to Survive a Robot Uprising," this
self-defense handbook with its splashy red neo-retro graphics showing tiny
people fleeing huge machines, is that, now and then, you can't tell whether
or not it's a joke.
RADICAL
DESIGNER WORKS ON MANNED SUBMERSIBLES...Setting sights on ocean
floor
Is he a mad scientist or an ocean pioneer uncovering the mysteries of the
deep? New Scientist magazine says inventor-engineer Graham Hawkes is on the
cutting edge of undersea exploration, and his radical new sub design might
supersede all of the world's manned submersibles in a few years. Maybe.
Einstein's
dark energy accelerates the universe REDORBIT
23 November 2005
The genius of Albert Einstein, who added a "cosmological constant"
to his equation for the expansion of the universe but later retracted it,
may be vindicated by new research published today in the journal Astronomy
and Astrophysics.
Artificial
Sweeteners Cause Cancer November 18,
2005
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A recent study by the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research
Center in Italy and the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental
Sciences in Bologna, Italy, shows a significant increase in the incidence
of malignant tumors, lymphomas and leukemias in rats exposed to varying doses
of aspartame.
Artists'
books fuses art and text at Smith November
18, 2005
"The physicality of language is writing," says Steve Clay,
founder and director of Granary Books, "the book is in some sense reliving
and reviewing its former life like the proverbial dying person."
It's
a man thing Nov. 13, 2005
Stag nights used to be a few drinks with the lads. Now they involve
a European city and days of debauchery. But don't worry, girls, apparently
it's all part of an ancient initiation into manhood.
CONGRESS
VOTES ITSELF PAY RAISE...TAKES 2 WEEKS VACATION
The cost-of-living increase for members of Congress, which will
put pay for the rank and file at an estimated $165,200 a year, marked a brief
truce in the pitched political battles that have flared in recent weeks on
the war and domestic issues....So much so that the issue was not mentioned
on the floor of either the House or Senate as lawmakers worked on legislation
whose passage will assure bigger paychecks.
Man
haunted by sex-hungry ghost seeks medium’s help... Nation
Saturday November 19, 2005
A MAN sought the help of a medium after he got tired of a female
ghost who wanted to have sex with him every night for the last 16 years, China
Press reported. The 34-year-old man from Kuala
Lumpur, known only as Kelvin, said he felt very tired every night as the long-haired
ghost would lure him into making love with her by appearing in different images.
Artificial
and Biological Intelligence Ubiquity,
November 16 - 22, 2005
If machines with consciousness are created, they would be living machines,
that is, variations on life forms as we know them, says Subhash Kak, Professor
of Electrical Engineering at Louisiana State University...The material world
is not causally closed, and consciousness influences its evolution. Matter
and minds complement each other.
Royal
massacre site discovered in ruins of ancient Maya city...
11/17/05 WASHINGTON—
Thirty-one assassinated and dismembered Maya nobles have been found by a team
of Guatemalan and American archaeologists in a sacred cistern at the entrance
to the sprawling royal palace in the ruins of the ancient city of Cancuén,
capital of one of the richest kingdoms of the Classic Maya civilization (circa
A.D. 300-900), located in the Petén rain forest of Guatemala.
The
Math of the Collective Consciousness
UCLA Daily Bruin 11/17/05
Though most would see no relation between the poetry of William Wordsworth
and engine production, John Lienhard's theory of the 'arc of invention' seeks
to explain the links between seemingly unrelated cultural phenomena and invention.
The
Problem with Media Sceptics, by Rupert Sheldrake 11/17/05
The following letter by Rupert Sheldrake and introduction were taken
from the Skeptical Investigations website.After a recent exchange with Michael
Shermer about the value of "positive" skepticism, I received the
following letter from Rupert Sheldrake, the English biologist who is widely
considered one of the leading thinkers in consciousness and post-Darwinian
evolution. He offers a case in point about how fair or even scientific the
skeptical attitude often turns out to be...Sheldrake is a speculative thinker
by orthodox standards, but his academic credentials are impeccable and he
has the patience to contend with his opponents on their own scientific terms.See
the original exchange between Deepak Chopra and Michael Shermer.also see www.sheldrake.com
Bypass
Compulsory Web Registration...
You're browsing the web and you click a link to an article on a site (let's
say nytimes.com) but instead of getting the article you get a screen asking
you to login or register. Infuriated at the idea of pointlessly registering
for yet another site, you turn to your good buddy bugmenot.com...
Archaeologists
reconstruct last days of a pre-Inca brewery...
MSNBC Nov. 14, 2005
An ancient brewery from a vanished empire was staffed by elite women
who were selected for their beauty or nobility, a new study concludes...The
finding adds to other evidence that women played a more crucial role in ancient
Andean societies than history books have stated. It may also in some ways
reflect modern drinking traditions in the Andean mountains, where women get
drunk as much as men, researchers say.
Voyager
1 at the Edge – of what? November
15, 2005
It's official! In Science magazine of September 23 are reports that
Voyager 1 has passed an important milestone. The spacecraft, at more than
94 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun, has "crossed the termination
shock," where the solar wind is supposed to slow down before merging
with the local interstellar medium.
UFOlogists
weigh in on human origin debate...
Peggy Price, assistant director of the Mutual UFO Network of North Carolina,
stands in the hallway of the Clarion Hotel...“I’ve had ET and
UFO experiences since I was a child,” Price says. “When I was
in college I switched from medicine to psychology to try to find some answers.
Well, there are no answers.”
Meditation
Builds Up The Brain...NewScientist.com
news service :01 15 November 2005
Meditating does more than just feel good and calm you down, it makes you perform
better – and alters the structure of your brain, researchers have found.People
who meditate say the practice restores their energy, and some claim they need
less sleep as a result. Many studies have reported that the brain works differently
during meditation – brainwave patterns change and neuronal firing patterns
synchronise. But whether meditation actually brings any of the restorative
benefits of sleep has remained largely unexplored.
MIT's
$100 Laptop to be Demoed...BetaNews
- November 15, 2005
A working prototype of the much anticipated MIT $100 laptop will be
shown off at a U.N. technology conference on Wednesday. While there is still
much development to be done, production could begin in late 2006 or early
2007, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Patent
Issued for Anti-Gravity Device... WASHINGTON,
Nov. 9 (UPI)
The U.S. patent office has reportedly granted a patent for an anti-gravity
device -- breaking its rule to reject inventions that defy the laws of physics...
Mysterious
Runaway Star Stymies Scientists Discovery
News Nov. 14, 2005
Astronomers have stumbled onto a runaway star inbound to our galaxy that might
have been kicked out of our nearest galactic neighbor by a supermassive black
hole.
Alien
Artifacts in the Solar System? FATE
Magazine - November 2005
In late 1991 a strange object approached and passed within celestial spitting
distance of the Earth, causing surprise, and some disquiet, among astronomers
before vanishing back into the depths of space. The object was catalogued
as “1991 VG,” and to this day it remains a mystery.
Sights, shivers and signs... Blazers' encounters with the supernatural are both welcome and thrilling... Silver Chips on-line 11/10/2005.......... Although efforts to reach into the realm beyond are often met with skepticism, Clark emphasizes that the supernatural is becoming more accepted in American culture. She explains that contemporary teens are more open to listening to, experiencing and seeking out supernatural experiences.
How
the dead live ARTS telegraph
(Filed: 13/11/2005)
For the first time in 1,300 years, the great Tibetan Book of the Dead has
been translated into English. Mick Brown reports.
The
Universe is Only Pretending, Physicist Says
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
In quantum physics, nothing is as it
seems. As physicists continue to study the universe they continually run into
new questions that shake how humans understand the universe's intricate mechanics...UC
Berkeley physics professor, Raphael Bousso, is trying to break down the mysteries
of the universe with a concept called the holographic principle. Physicists
stumbled on the idea while studying black holes. It is a concept, which ultimately
questions whether the third dimension exists.
Spitzer Captures Cosmic Mountains of Creation NASA
...For Release: November 9, 2005
A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space
Telescope reveals billowing mountains of dust ablaze with the fires of stellar
youth. Captured by Spitzer's infrared eyes, the majestic image resembles the
iconic "Pillars of Creation" picture taken of the Eagle Nebula in
visible light by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. Both views feature
star-forming clouds of cool gas and dust that have been sculpted into pillars
by radiation and winds from hot, massive stars. The Spitzer image shows the
eastern edge of a region known as W5, in the Cassiopeia constellation 7,000
light-years away. This region is dominated by a single massive star, whose
location outside the pictured area is "pointed out" by the finger-like
pillars. The pillars themselves are colossal, together resembling a mountain
range. They are more than 10 times the size of those in the Eagle Nebula.
Welcome
To The Googleconomy WebProWorld.
11-08-05
Information is power. Google knows that.
It also knows that information is money, lots of it. The up-until-recently-only-a
search company has the world's most powerful and wealthy corporations reexamining
how they see life, the universe, and everything. First it was Microsoft, sitting
up on its hill in Washington, watching the truckloads of currency being dropped
off at the door, neglecting true innovation, bowing over the sides of its
belt with bulky, inflexible applications, enjoying the success of an old-world
model. And then two wise-ass researchers (who reminded those Microsoft executives
of themselves, really) started a search company that threatened their status
so much they had to go on a diet and get out the road. Those kids were changing
the game.
Fab
Labs Unshackle Imaginations 11/6/05
BOSTON (AP) -- When Makeda Stephenson
compared flight simulator games sold in computer stores and didn't find anything
she liked, she didn't stop there. The 13-year-old used a set of computer-controlled
manufacturing tools at a community center to make her own simulator -- one
that lets her ''fly'' an airplane of her design over an alien planet born
of her imagination. She did it all through a teen learning program at one
of seven so-called Fabrication Labs that MIT has established in places as
distant as Norway and Ghana...
Researchers Look to Create a Synthesis of Art and Science for 21st Century
The six-story Calit2 laboratory, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, is designed
for 900 faculty and student researchers. Two separate wings extend from the
main building. On one side is an ultrasterile set of nanotechnology clean
rooms designed for making devices like sensors for detecting pollutants, biological
warfare agents and cancer cells. On the other side is a new digital media
arts center composed of auditoriums and computer visualization laboratories,
where the Calit2 scientists, engineers and artists can display their projects.
Scientists
Crack Code for Motor Neuron Wiring Nov.
4, 2005
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have deciphered a key part
of the regulatory code that governs how motor neurons in the spinal cord connect
to specific target muscles in the limbs...understanding this code may help
guide progress in restoring motor neuron function in people whose spinal cords
have been damaged by trauma or disease...
Volcanoes ruled out for Martian methane Nov.
4, 2005
New observations of the Martian atmosphere show no trace of sulphurous fumes.
The finding rules out active volcanoes as the source of the Red Planet's mysterious
methane, but fails to resolve the question of where the methane comes from...Most
astronomers suspected its presence was the result of a geological process,
while a few suggested the methane was the signature of past or present life.
Robert Moog (1934-2005)
I first heard a Moog synthesizer in the mid-1960s when I happened across a
TV news segment about the newfangled instrument and its "sci-fi sounds,"
as the reporter put it...This was the first time I had heard synthesized sounds.
It left me with an inspired feeling that a threshold had been crossed... Robert
Moog, (the name rhymes with vogue) died August 21 at age 71, but his impact
on music was permanent and profound.
Cosmic Cloudshine: It's Beauty is More Than Skin Deep
Cambridge, MA
Hubble's iconic images include many shots of cosmic clouds of gas and dust
called nebulae. Yet despite their beauty, visible-light images show only the
nebulae surfaces. Baby stars may hide beneath, invisible even to Hubble's
powerful gaze...Harvard astronomers have pioneered a new way to peer below
the surface...The resulting images are both beautiful and scientifically valuable
because they can be used to map the structure of interstellar matter.
U.S. Military Wants to Own the Weather
Space.com,
Oct. 31, 2005
The U.S. military's space-based response to Katrina may have represented the
embryonic stages of an integrated military/civilian weather reaction and control
system. .For example, artificial ionized plasma patterns with megawatts of
power using inexpensive microwave power sources could be used to heat specific
regions of the atmosphere to control hurricanes.
Absinthe,
Once Banned as Hallucinogen, Returns at Swiss Brewery
Oct. 11 (Bloomberg)
--
Yves Kuebler says he was five years old the first time a bootlegger known
as Aunt Marguerite let him sample absinthe. He distilled his own brew at 14
and now his company is Switzerland's biggest producer of the drink.
Scientist: Comets Blasted Early Americans
A P
COLUMBIA, S.C. Oct 28, 2005
A supernova could be the 'quick and dirty' explanation for what may have happened
to an early North American culture, says nuclear scientist Richard Firestone.
Silicon chip works on the speed of light
NewScientist.com
A silicon chip that can carry light and even slow it
down has been unveiled by IBM researchers in the US....The chip demonstrates
some of the essential techniques for creating high-speed photonic memory,
which many researchers believe will one day make electronic memory obsolete
in optical communications networks.
U.S.
Ranks 44th in Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2005-11-03
05:46 KST
The annual worldwide press freedom index from Reporters Without Borders shows
the United States, which is supposedly spreading freedom and liberty throughout
the world, is in a fast decline regarding the freedom of its own press. The
report ranked the United States in 44th place, an atomic drop from a favorable
position of 22nd held last year, and from a handsome 17th place in 2002.
Scientists
prove blind people can 'see' with sixth sense The
Scotsman Tue 1 Nov 2005
The Scotsman THE uncanny ability of blind people to "sense" unseen
objects has been demonstrated for the first time in sighted volunteers whose
vision was blanked out by scientists. The findings suggest "blindsight",
which has been observed in blind people whose eyes function normally but who
have suffered damage to the brain's visual centre, is a real and not imagined
phenomenon.
Chinese
Discovery of 4,100-Year-Old Observatory 2005/11/1
BEIJING (AP)
He Nu: '(It) was not only used for observing astronomical phenomena but also
for sacrificial rites.' It's the oldest discovered astronomical platform in
China.
New Book Expands Biological Classifications To Account For
'Alien' Life:
Seattle WA (SPX) Nov 01, 2005...
Peter Ward, in his new book Life As We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search for
(and Synthesis of) Alien Life, offers a new 'tree of life,' or biological
classification system, to account for a variety of life forms that would not
fit in the current system.
A Flame Ball Named Kelly: January
31, 2003: SCIENCE & NASA
Flame balls onboard the
space shuttle Columbia (STS-107) have been doing some strange and wonderful
things.
The Fastest Net Yet PC World, October
2005
Ultrafast
broadband services from phone and cable companies could speed up your
downloads to 15 megabits per second or more by replacing copper cables
with fiber-optic lines.
Robots that can perform surgery from within your own body...
and remotely controlled by surgeons have been invented by a team of engineers
and doctors from the University of Nebraska. The robots could be inserted
directly into wounds, giving surgeon...
Study Shows Silver Nanoparticles Attach to HIV-1 virus
Nano and Quantu Physics
| October
In the first-ever study of metal nanoparticles' interaction with
HIV-1, silver nanoparticles of sizes 1-10nm attached to HIV-1 and prevented
the virus from bonding to host cells. The study, published in the Journal
of Nanotechnology, was a joint project between the University of Texas, Austin
and Mexico University, Nuevo Leon.
A team of American and Bosnian archaeologists claim to have found two new
pyramids buried under hills in Central Europe...They believe
the ruins indicate the hills were once human settlements, probably built by
a stone age "super" civilization tens of thousands of years ago...
MORE
COPS CALL FOR END OF DRUG WAR Friday,
October 28, 2005 - FreeMarketNews.com
One of the most influential groups calling for the government to end the war
on drugs is an organization of law officers that have first hand experience
of its failures, according to The Albuquerque Tribune. The Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition (LEAP), a lobby group against the war on drugs, is gaining
attention.
Elephants may pay homage to dead relatives
NewScientist.com news
service
Elephants may pay homage to the bones of dead relatives in their
home ranges, a study of the creatures’ responses to skulls and ivory
suggests.
Monsters' have biological explanations
Doctors are in fact the LEADING cause of death in this country.
Not heart disease, not cancer--doctors. In all fairness, doctors themselves
are not to blame for all of this. The entire modern health care system, however,
is to blame for allowing, even promoting, so many unnecessary procedures,
drugs and mishaps. This illustrates precisely why the system is so desperately
in need of change...
Modern Health Care System is the Leading Cause of Death
Doctors are in fact the LEADING cause of death in this country. Not
heart disease, not cancer--doctors. In all fairness, doctors themselves are
not to blame for all of this. The entire modern health care system, however,
is to blame for allowing, even promoting, so many unnecessary procedures,
drugs and mishaps. This illustrates precisely why the system is so desperately
in need of change...
THE CAR THAT MAKES ITS OWN FUEL
IsraCast, October 24, 2005z
A unique system that can produce Hydrogen inside a car using common metals
such as magnesium and aluminum and running on water has been developed by
an Israeli company.The system reportedly solves the obstacles associated with
the manufacturing, transporting and storing of hydrogen to be used in cars.
When it becomes commercial in a few years time, the system will be incorporated
into cars that will cost about the same as existing conventional cars to run,
will be completely emission-free, and will travel about the same distance
between refueling as an equivalent conventional car.
MUMMIFIED DWARF Tehran, 24 October 2005
(CHN)
The 25-centimeter dwarf near Shahdad city of Kerman province and the rumors
of the existence of an ancient dwarf city in Kerman province has brought a
lot of questions to archaeologists and caused great sensations among the public.
The 25-centimeter dwarf discovered
in Kerman has puzzled archaeologists and attracted smugglers, creating great
sensations among public. ALSO
MISSING LINKS
Boston Globe, October 23, 2005
Proponents of Intelligent Design have exploited a vexing question at the heart
of Darwin's theory. Now, say two leading biologists, scientists can -- and
must -- answer back. In a new book, ''The Plausibility of Life," published
this week by Yale University Press, Marc Kirschner, founding chair of the
Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, and John Gerhart,
a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, discuss the origins
of complicated biological features and present their theory of "facilitated
variation," which they believe addresses a major question in evolution:
How can small genetic changes develop into complex, useful body parts?
In a sign of the times, they also rebut claims of irreducible complexity made
by Intelligent Design advocates.
BEYOND HUMAN
New York Times, October
23, 2005
Abandoning your own world for a made-up one is an ever larger part of adult
life. For the futurist Ray Kurzweil, this is only the beginning.According
to his new book "The Singularity Is Near," we are approaching
the age of "full-immersion virtual-reality." Thanks to innovations
in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics, you'll be able to design your
own mental habitat.
SILVER KILLS VIRUSES, STUDY
FINDS
October - FreeMarketNews.com
October 23, 2005
In a groundbreaking study, the Journal of Nanotechnology has published a study
that found silver nanoparticles kills HIV-1 and is likely to kill virtually
any other virus. The study, which was conducted by the University of
Texas and Mexico University, is the first medical study to ever explore the
benefits of silver nanoparticles, according to Physorg.
ENERGY INVENTORS OPEN
SOURCE ENERGY WEB SITE, October
23, 2005
Earth-shattering never-before-seen video testimonials
released for the first time, featuring seven energy inventors. Affidavit witnesses
urge an end to suppression of new energy technologies that could eliminate
our suicidal dependence on fossil fuel
MYSTERY OF COSMIC EXPLOSIONS
REDNOVA NEWS, October 23, 2005
An international team of scientists using three NASA satellites and a host
of ground-based telescopes believes it has solved the greatest remaining mystery
of the mysterious gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most powerful explosions in
the universe. The shorter of two versions of these bursts appear to be caused
by the collision of closely orbiting neutron stars or one of those compact
stars and a black hole, said Don Lamb, the Louis Block Professor in Astronomy
& Astrophysics at the University of Chicago.
MICE RE-GROW ORGANS
WIRED NEWS October
19, 2005
Genetically altered mice discovered accidentally at the Wistar Institute in
Pennsylvania have the seemingly miraculous ability to regenerate like a salamander,
and even regrow vital organs. The results stunned scientists because if such
regeneration is possible in this mammal, it might also be possible in humans.
Massive solar flares making the tectonic plates brittle
October
19, 2005
According to scientists and geologists some thing is wrong with the Sun. The
million year cycle and polar reversal in the Sun is causing some massive solar
flares. The electromagnetic storm is reaching the earth sporadically and the
effect will just escalate as we move towards 2012.
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