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News Briefs 21-07-2010

By Rick MGon

Thank you for holding onto your potatoes.

  • Lunar elevator could be built in a decade. Composing the muzak might take longer.
  • UFOs feel the need, the need for speed. Scientology pun in there somewhere.
  • Planet with comet-like tail could be common. Earth lost its tail when we evolved.
  • The Bad Astronomer explains why you’ll never meet an alien. Why would an alien want to meet him?
  • What the world will do if aliens call. No, the people in power would conduct a global conspiracy of obfuscation & lies so that the public never learns the real nature of extraterrestrial contact — you heard me, Scully.
  • America’s top secret world is so huge, no one can keep track of it — and that’s the way aha aha they like it aha aha.
  • U.S. State Dept’s new website debunking conspiracy theories. They now have the woo chart next to this poster in the staff kitchen.
  • TED talk with Julian Assange: why the world needs WikiLeaks.
  • EU holds summit with atheists & freemasons. Is this summit a molehill?
  • Zahi Hawass dismisses claims he’s anti-Semitic… then takes down the statement. You’ll have to take his word for it. Good as gold, right?
  • Remarkable notes & pics from Howard Carter’s Tutankhamun excavations.
  • Incredible archaeological finds in Turkey tarnished by petty bickering of experts.
  • Photo gallery of the tomb beneath El Diablo in Guatemala.
  • The Loris lives! World-first photos of Sri Lankan primate believed extinct.
  • Nick Redfern chats with Darklore contributor Richard Freeman about Japanese monsters & folklore (Amazon US & UK).
  • Hair of the Yeren — Chinese Bigfoot, not a traditional cure for hangovers.
  • Wrap your crypto-craniums around the case of the sinister skull.
  • Cargo ship denied dock due to spider swarm. Stevedores scream like girls.
  • Stressed cats relax when played meditation music. R Carlos Nakai works for me.

Thanks Greg, Kat, & Miguel.

Quote of the Day:

“I know other astronauts share my feelings… we know the government is sitting on hard evidence of UFOs.”

~ Col. Gordon Cooper, Astronaut

Rick MG
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6 Comments

  3. Asstronomer missed out on 99.997 percent of the point

    We humans, clever as we are, have only just dipped our toes into space travel. And it took a long time for us to get here. Face it, we’re newcomers: For the vast majority of time the Earth has existed, life hasn’t had too much brainpower.
    …
    That’s a tiny ratio: Humans missed out on 99.997 percent of the time Earth has been inhabited!
    …
    The point here is that this will probably hold true anywhere we look for life in the universe. When we finally travel to other stars and find Earth-like planets, the chances are pretty good that most of them will have simple life on them. […] It’ll be a rare planet indeed that even has something resembling animals, and rarer one yet with anything near our technological level.
    ***
    “Astronomer explains why you’ll probably never meet an alien”
    http://blastr.com/2010/07/science-columnastronomer-explains-why-youll-probably-never-meet-an-alien.php

    This is all quite logical from the standpoint of our toe-dipping perspective and limited science here in the early 21st century. But some good (if not oft-repeated) examples would be how sure mankind once was that the earth was flat… or that heavier-than-air machines would never fly. (With that latter surety only a little over a hundred years ago!)

    The lesson we never seem to grasp in any age, is that we are never going to know enough about what we don’t know, to make something not worth knowing. Following this, the example would be the mainstream assumption that no spacefaring alien civilization lives close enough to us to have ventured here, so therefore there’s no sense looking for them to be flitting about in our skies (sigh) nor should we ever expect to find them – if and when – NASA ever gets more than a few coins to rub together to sally further than low Earth orbit.

    Ignorance is not only bliss, but it is the cutting edge of science. What we don’t know, can’t come back to prove how little we knew or how gawdawfully arrogant we are to follow the prescribed assumptions of those so comfortably preaching from a point of a very mediocre toe-dipping.

    (Now, THAT was all quite worth holding them taters!)

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