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News Briefs 14-05-2010

“It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions.”

  • Massive black hole mysteriously flung from galaxy.
  • Meanwhile, Jupiter loses one of its stripes.
  • UFOs and Eisenhower.
  • Aliens and the Voyager 2 spacecraft?
  • Pre-dinosaur predator unearthed.
  • Another mass extinction of lizards looms on the horizon.
  • Fossil discovery resolves questions about ancient extinctions.
  • Is the drought in China a glimpse into the rest of the globe’s future?
  • 140 year-old Boltzmann Equation has finally been solved.
  • Variations in silver indicate water was present during the Earth’s ‘birth’.
  • A new way to store energy?
  • The first water samples have been taken from the North Pole.
  • Life on earth, courtesy of one single-celled organism.
  • Scientists create spiderbots that walk on DNA.
  • The first solar sail is about to set… sail.
  • Protecting steel, one cigarette butt at a time.
  • Saving the world, one forest at a time.
  • Will the planet be too hot for humans in the year 2300?
  • A hole in space.
  • Stem cells behave differently in space – the future of celestial procreation has a future.
  • Inspired by the open source model, millions of users are being tapped for a massively crowd-sourced prediction site.
  • A starry night in Iguacu.
  • Recent entangled, spooky light discoveries may lead to faster computers.
  • What if the key to unlocking the mysteries of human sexuality was… naked mole rats?
  • The Star Wars Saga (original trilogy), in stop motion lego animation.

Thanks to Kat and Moezilla!

Quote of the Day:

“I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything…”

T.H. Huxley

  1. Voyager 2
    33 years old
    8.6 billion miles from Earth

    No aliens necessary to screw up transmissions. Nevertheless, it’s nothng short of a technological miracle Voyager 2 tranmitted successfully for as long as it has at the distances it has.

    Sigh. This is a project from the glory days before NASA became a moribund black hole for taxpayer funds.

    1. 33 years old – and still ticking
      Couldn’t agree more. In many ways, Voyager 2 is one of the most successful missions NASA has conducted. Amazing to see what NASA *was* capable of…

      1. Voyager 2 and Hausdorf
        I wouldn’t believe a word Hausdorf says, after the Dropa Disc hoax he’s pushed for over a decade. Funny how the article calls him an ‘expert’.

        1. today…
          today I say this on twitter:

          Twitter Message from NASA JPL a.k.a NASAJPL
          sent on Tue May 18 00:14:26 +0000 2010

          Voyager 2 diagnosis: One flip of a bit in onboard computer caused garbled data. Bit reset scheduled. http://bit.ly/9ILlE8

          of course it might have been an alien who knew to knock over exactly that bit.

  2. Solar sails
    I <3 the concept of solar sails. They still have the problem, however, of needing a ride in a booster rocket to reach orbit.

    Maybe there could be a concept of a solar sail consisting of several layers, like an onion, and that could first take a closed shape, so you could fill it with a light gas. In short, first the sail will act as a balloon, reach a good altitude —probably use a light booster to get reach a higher altitude— and then the micrometic-thick sail would ‘peel off’ the main core and continue the rest of the journey with the aid of the sun’s photons or at first using a powerful Earth-based laser —kind of like an inverted flower bud opening.

      1. Tron is the shiznit!
        Everybody laughs at Tron now, but back in the day it was a very avant-garde film, and it sure inspired a lot of people in so many different fields.

        I do hope they don’t screw up the sequel 🙂

    1. recycling
      Actually I would use a separate balloon that lifts up the launcher to, oh lets say 30,000 meters or something. Then bring the balloon back down and use it for the next launch. It’s not particularly useful where the solar sail is going. Requirements for the material of a balloon containing helium or (better) hydrogen is probably different from that of a solar sail.

      1. Yeah
        Yeah, that’s why I thought of using different layers in the balloon. The internal would be capable of withstanding the pressure produced by the gas, and the external would be the actual solar sail. Maybe separating them at final stage by use of some sort of electric current induction? Or maybe not, since that way the sail could be accidentally triggered if the balloon comes across a thunder storm…

        What I wish is that, since engineers are coming up with such an exotic idea as a solar sail, they should also try to come up with exotic ideas to put the sail in orbit, instead of relying on the old rockets. Going all the way with the thinking-outside-the-box mentality —the full Monty, god-dammit! 😉

        I remember that some years ago Carl Sagan’s widow try to launch a solar sail using a Russian rocket launched from a nuclear submarine. Rocket exploded and the sail bought the farm without ever proving whether it actually sailed or not :-/

        1. I have had no respect for
          I have had no respect for Randi ever since he undertook to debunk some of the most compelling 911 false flag op evidence. His debunkings are nearly all ludicrous and “grasping” in the extreme – very unprofessional especially coming from a professional magician. Much of the 911 false flag operation was quite obviously what the magician calls “misdirection.” Both Randi and Penn and Teller are magicians who should be the first people to see through the machinations of the 911 op, but who instead have become prominent “debunkers” which leads me to think that these guys are, in fact, running interference for the bad guys. The bad guys would be the people against evolving human “awareness” in all its manifestations.

          1. False Flag
            Folks who believe that 9/11 was a false flag lose all credibility in my book. In fact, I am of a firm belief that these sorts of folks are entirely the product of couples whose family trees don’t have any forks.

            I’d compare them to trailer trash, but that would be a knock to trailer trash, and they’re good people.

            9/11 was entirely done by Islamists intent on furthering their war of aggression against western civilization. They’ve been at it for 14 centuries now. Islam is at war with anything NOT named Islam. You can’t reason with them, anymore than you could reason with Nazis that Jews were good people.

            I disagree with much of Randi’s work, but in this case, he’s absolutely right, and those who think that someone else than islamists conducted that attack are absolutely wrong.

          2. flag waving
            a simple, “I don’t agree with the false flag theory”, would of been enough without resorting to insults and name calling. This seems to be typical of closed minded skeptics.
            The evidence speaks for itself.
            But, you do have to look at the evidence first. And I mean really look at it.

        2. I like the idea
          Float into the stratosphere, burn into orbit, and “blossom” into sail. Maybe the main body could be designed as a dirigible and float using some of the reactants for the thrust stage. At a sufficient altitude, the reactant condenses, mixes, and ignites. Afterwards, the shell either opens or directly sheds a sail folded like an origami work once it picks up the solar wind.

          It has a truly elegant quality. Someone really should do it.

          1. Gracias

            It has a truly elegant quality. Someone really should do it.

            Thanks 🙂 If only we could find a way to emulate the biological approach of plants to spread around, with subtlety and elegance, instead of using crude means of wasteful burning of energy.

          2. Hmm….
            Sort of like “Skynet”? I believe that the problem’s inherent with AI were addressed in the “Terminator” films.

            Personally, I’m happy with a lesser intelligent machine. Just in case. 🙂

  3. Virus Alert!!!
    I just followed the link to the Voyager 2 story at Phenomenica. Seemed like an interesting website so to check it out further I clicked on the Home link at the top toolbar. It took me to the home page where the story about the US Explorer traces asteroid appeared and more below – but that is all I saw before my AVG Virus Alert came on and another window opened saying infection blocked and something about a “…tookkit virus” or something. I didn’t copy it – rather I closed the window and got the hell of the website and am grateful I have AVG. This is not DailyGrail’s problem nor do I blame them – just alerting others out there of the potential threat – this may have been a false alarm by AVG or not – I don’t know. But be careful at that website…

    1. virus
      Hi Greg H, it’s not the site, maybe unlucky to encounter a bot cruising for opened ports. If you have windows update enabled, you have several ports opened that allow many virus’s in. This is why our antivirus is so important. I have all those ports closed and never get any attacks. I am using AVG as well, but it more or less has no job.

      PS. disableing auto.update will not close those ports. Also port 445 is open by default and will stay open even after you disable printer and file shareing. You should close this port. Google for all your answers on how to do this.

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