Admiral, there be whales here!

This picture was recently taken by a NASA satellite:

There's been numerous weak attempts to explain it away through the use of proton impacts on the camera's sensor, but I think those of us who are faithful know the real explanation. Look at the blip. Now, look below:

Don't see it? Maybe from a different angle:

Here's what NASA is really trying to hide: Star Trek IV is all true. The whole thing is true, and someone just pulled a slingshot maneuver to come back to 2012 because some galactically important non-sentient species on Earth has gone extinct in the future. I find it fascinating that they even did it in a B'rel-class Bird of Prey. Star Trek has been spoon feeding us truth for decades to prepare for the eventual first contact. Good thinking there government conspiracy.

"But John," you say, "Why isn't there a bright trail of light following the ship in the photo? There's clearly a visible trail of particles following the Bounty in that glorious scene from the movie!"

It's not a comet. Ice isn't burning off. There's no reason for the trail other than Hollywood bling.

So, I give you proof that the truth is out there. You're welcome, America.

(All images blatantly ripped off the internet.)

Human survival depends on space exploration, says Stephen Hawking

From the Winnipeg Free Press:

TORONTO - Stephen Hawking says the colonization of outer space is key to the survival of humankind, predicting it will be difficult for the world's inhabitants "to avoid disaster in the next hundred years."

The renowned astrophysicist explores some of the most remarkable advancements in technology and health with the new U.K.-Canadian series "Brave New World With Stephen Hawking," debuting Saturday on Discovery World HD.

 Before its premiere, he discussed the earth's most pressing concerns in an email interview with The Canadian Press from Cambridge, England, declaring space exploration to be humankind's most urgent mission.

 "We are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history," said Hawking, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, leaving him almost completely paralyzed and unable to speak.

 "Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million.

Pretty much what the nerds have been saying for years. If only Hawking played football, maybe people would listen.

Source Article

A Laser to Give the Universe a Hernia?

Think back to 2008, when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was about to be switched on for the first time. Remember all those "micro-black hole," "spacetime-ripping," "stranglet-creating" doomsday headlines?

Although much of the hype was complete nonsense, those pesky physicists are at it again; they want to build a laser so powerful that it will literally rip spacetime apart. 

The headlines write themselves.

What's more, by giving spacetime a hernia, it is hoped that theorized "ghost particles" may spill from the fissure, providing evidence for the hypothesis that extra-dimensions exist and the vacuum of space isn't a vacuum at all -- it is in fact buzzing with virtual particles.

Such a laser could also help in understanding the nature of dark matter, the "missing" mass that is thought to pervade the entire observable Universe.

Big "Frickin' Laser Beams"

As we all know, all good megalomaniac plans for world domination start with lasers (not necessarily attached to sharks' heads). But the lasers planned by the Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility, known as "ELI," would concentrate 200 petawatts of power -- that's 100,000 times the world's energy production -- and fire it at a single point for less than a trillionth of a second.

The combined power of 10 separate lasers would be focused down to a very small volume, creating conditions more extreme than in the center of our sun. It is hoped (yes, hoped) that this immense energy will punch a hole through the fabric of spacetime itself, heralding a new era of exotic physics discovery.

No one sees an issue with this? Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but we only have one planet, and no feasible way to escape it if we somehow manage to destroy it, and we're trying to, on our only planets surface, rip apart the fabric of existence itself just to see what happens?

I totally appreciate the curiosity and search for knowledge, but maybe this isn't the best experiment to try. Seriously people. This is tried a lot in science fiction. Many, many variations on a theme. And in every variation, it goes completely wrong. And do you know why? Because it's a terrible idea. Never mind how cool this many super powerful lasers is on the surface, it's a bad idea past the awesome 'splosion factor.


And people wonder why the public defunds science.

That said, if we do destroy the planet, I hope this monstrosity makes the Death Star sound, and we go out Alderaan style. I might forgive them if that's how it plays out.


Source Article

Frozen Puck Hovers Over Track Using “Quantum Levitation”

This is beyond awesome.



When do I get my own hover car?

Researchers at the school of physics and astronomy at Tel Aviv University have created a track around which a superconductor can float, thanks to the phenomenon of “quantum levitation".

This levitation effect is explained by the Meissner effect, which describes how, when a material makes the transition from its normal to its superconducting state, it actively excludes magnetic fields from its interior, leaving only a thin layer on its surface.

Source Article.

Gamers succeed where scientists fail

Gamers have solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade. The gamers achieved their discovery by playing Foldit, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules.

After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, they called in the Foldit players. The scientists challenged the gamers to produce an accurate model of the enzyme. They did it in only three weeks.

Source Article

Scientists using a widely distributed game as a think tank for solving real life problems? Stargate Universe called it.

Interestingly, if you too would like to fold proteins for science, foldit beta is available here. Going to check it out myself when I have a chance. While I doubt it'll be the next Call of Duty installment, I'm glad someone is actually putting this idea into practice. Now if they'd only take it that one final step and capitalize on the most detail oriented and obsessive gamers there are, MMO players...

What does it feel like to fly over planet Earth?

Video description:

"A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Fransisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line) and the stars of our galaxy."

Life-like cells are made of metal - life - 14 September 2011 - New Scientist

Life-like cells are made of metal - life - 14 September 2011 - New Scientist

Could living things that evolved from metals be clunking about somewhere in the universe? Perhaps. In a lab in Glasgow, UK, one man is intent on proving that metal-based life is possible.

He has managed to build cell-like bubbles from giant metal-containing molecules and has given them some life-like properties. He now hopes to induce them to evolve into fully inorganic self-replicating entities.

Ok, really? Does no one else on the planet read science fiction? Grey goo scenario anyone?

Colonel Jack O'Neil wouldn't be pleased.

UK scientists call for new agency to oversee experiments mixing human and animal cells

Get your hands off me you damn, dirty apes!

LONDON — British scientists say a new expert body should be formed to regulate experiments mixing animal and human DNA to make sure no medical or ethical boundaries are crossed.

In a report issued on Friday, scientists at the nation’s Academy of Medical Sciences said a government organization is needed to advise whether certain tests on animals that use human DNA should be pursued.

[snip]

Among experimentation that might spark concern are those where human brain cells might change animal brains, those that could lead to the fertilization of human eggs in animals and any modifications of animals that might create attributes considered uniquely human, like facial features, skin or speech. 

Source.

And ok. Maybe I'm being a bit dramatic. Maybe I'm not. I'm just saying, the great monkey/human wars may be upon us. And I, for one, won't welcome our overlords.

Internet Use Affects Memory

I had an interesting discussion with a professor about two years ago regarding our living in the information age. I don't even remember how it came up, but I postulated that rote memorization of facts is falling by the wayside as a result of the easy access of information at our fingertips. Why do I need to memorize my Greek lute tunings? If I ever need to know them, I'll be able to look them up on the fly. They're not something I need to know on a regular basis, but if I do, I have Google, encyclopedias (both wiki, and paid), online scholarly journals, old textbooks (looking at you, Grout), etc, etc. The information is stored in a very accessible manner, and gone are the days when needing to know something minute meant six hours in a library digging through books hoping against hope you'll find the answer you need. Information has truly become populist in accessibility.

Furthermore, anything you do need to recall quickly and on a regular basis, you will be able to because of repetition. If you use the information on a regular basis, you'll retain it. That's how our minds work. If not, you know where to find it. We won't become a society of inane robots who don't recall anything, rather we'll simply use our minds more efficiently, retaining that which is vital, which access to those facts that are less so.

And while clearly alien to this professor's experience, I could tell he didn't entirely disagree. Not sure he totally agreed with my viewpoint, but there was clearly some honest consideration of truth in my prediction.

Well, while I was blowing hot air about it, apparently scientists were actually researching it.

Abstract from study:

The advent of the Internet, with sophisticated algorithmic search engines, has made accessing information as easy as lifting a finger. No longer do we have to make costly efforts to find the things we want. We can "Google" the old classmate, find articles online, or look up the actor who was on the tip of our tongue. The results of four studies suggest that when faced with difficult questions, people are primed to think about computers and that when people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself and enhanced recall instead for where to access it. The Internet has become a primary form of external or transactive memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves.

And from the NY Times article where I first encountered this bit of info:

The scientists, led by  Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia, wondered whether  people were more likely to remember information that could be easily retrieved from a computer, just as students are more likely to recall facts they believe will be on a test.

Dr. Sparrow and her collaborators, Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard and Jenny Liu of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, staged four different memory experiments. In one, participants typed 40 bits of trivia — for example, “an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain” — into a computer. Half of the subjects believed the information would be saved in the computer; the other half believed the items they typed would be erased. 

The subjects were significantly more likely to remember information if they thought they would not be able to find it later. “Participants did not make the effort to remember when they thought they could later look up the trivia statement they had read,” the authors write. 

A second experiment was aimed at determining whether computer accessibility affects precisely what we remember. “If asked the question whether there are any countries with only one color in their flag, for example,” the researchers wrote, “do we think about flags — or immediately think to go online to find out?”

In this case, participants were asked to remember both the trivia statement itself and which of five computer folders it was saved in. The researchers were surprised to find that people seemed better able to recall the folder. 

“That kind of blew my mind,” Dr. Sparrow said in an interview. 

The argument being made is that teachers might now start focusing more on broad concepts and synthesis than facts in their teaching style. (Which I think is something they should be doing anyway, but no one asks me.) Whether or not this will affect educational philosophy, I imagine we won't know for another decade or two, given how slowly these gears tend to grind.

An Artificial Sun on Earth

Article here.

I have to say, while the potential is exciting for cheap renewable energy and the possibility of controlled fusion, at the same time, I'm hesitant. I saw Spiderman 2. I know how this can end.

There are some experiments I am very wary of conducting on Earth. We only have one planet.... lets try not to destroy it, shall we?