Could it be, however, that conventional science is just as mistaken as the Bible stories? There is a great deal of archeological evidence that the history of life on earth might be far different than what current geological and anthropological texts tell us.
(Via Chapel Perilous.)
We argue that the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provides a stupendous opportunity for the Creator of universe our (assuming one exists) to have sent a message to its occupants, using known physics. Our work does not support the Intelligent Design movement in any way whatsoever, but asks, and attempts to answer, the entirely scientific question of what the medium and message might be IF there was actually a message. The medium for the message is unique. We elaborate on this observation, noting that it requires only careful adjustment of the fundamental Lagrangian, but no direct intervention in the subsequent evolution of the universe.
The engineers behind the project hope the robots will eventually be used to construct colossal solar panels for satellites that will transmit solar energy back to Earth. The satellites could reflect and concentrate the Sun's rays to a receiving station on Earth or perhaps beam energy down in the form of microwaves.
(Via KurzweilAI.net.)
III.5.1 (House of Pascius Hermes; left of the door); 7716: To the one defecating here. Beware of the curse. If you look down on this curse, may you have an angry Jupiter for an enemy.
(Via Capital of Nasty.)
"Many people don't realize we are committed right now to a significant amount of global warming and sea level rise because of the greenhouse gases we have already put into the atmosphere," says researcher Gerald Meehl. "Even if we stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, the climate will continue to warm, and there will be proportionately even more sea level rise." But that doesn’t mean we shouldn't act. "The longer we wait, the more climate change we are committed to in the future."
Remember the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind?" Remember when the government teams set up a landing zone for the "visitors" and how Army Special Forces personnel assisted with covert logistics? Remember how 12 people in red jumpsuits were transported to the LZ for boarding? The entries on serpo.org allege that this is based on fact.
(Via The Anomalist.)
A large object has been found beyond Pluto travelling in an orbit tilted by 47 degrees to most other bodies in the solar system. Astronomers are at a loss to explain why the object's orbit is so off-kilter while being almost circular.
Nasa has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.
And, scientists insist, there is actually very little time left to decide.
"Detecting this concentration of microbes is within the ability of state-of-the-art instruments, if they could be flown to Mars and if the lander could drop down at a place where Mars orbiters have found the methane concentration highest," Price said. "There are oodles of craters on Mars from meteorites and small asteroids colliding with Mars and churning up material from a suitable depth, so if you looked around the rim of a crater and scooped up some dirt, you might find them if you land where the methane oozing out of the interior is highest."
A new Gallup survey released today finds that four decades after the "God Is Dead" controversy was first noted, Americans retain a strong belief in a higher power. Some 94% think God exists.
Only 5% feel God "does not exist" -- and even most of them "are not sure" of that. Exactly 1% are certain there is no God.
Conducted by scientists working with the 52 member organizations of the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE -- www.zeroextinction.org), the study identifies 794 species threatened with imminent extinction, each of which is in need of urgent conservation action at a single remaining site on Earth.
One of the biggest obstacles to communication with xtians [. . .] is the fact that xtians say one thing, but mean another.
ESA has confirmed the principle of a new space thruster that may ultimately give much more thrust than today's electric propulsion techniques. The concept is an ingenious one, inspired by the northern and southern aurorae, the glows in the sky that signal increased solar activity.
"Tetrahedra are used extensively in architecture and engineering because their structure is simple but very strong, making them ideal for use in DNA nanostructures," says Turberfield. "These atomically precise nanostructures are ideal building blocks for nanofabrication and can be produced cheaply in large quantities -- all you have to do is mix the components together."
(Via KurzweilAI.net.)
The United States has 413 satellites in space snooping for the government, checking on the weather and relaying the latest pop music, a new database says. That's more than the 382 the rest of the world has spinning above the Earth. The inventory, developed by the Union of Concerned Scientists and released Wednesday, provides details on some of the Pentagon's most secret satellites, which may gather images in the dark or take high- resolution pictures from 12,000 miles away.
Virgin Galactic, the British company created by entrepreneur Richard Branson to send tourists into space, and New Mexico announced an agreement Tuesday for the state to build a $225 million spaceport.
Virgin Galactic also revealed that up to 38,000 people from 126 countries have paid a deposit for a seat on one of its manned commercial flights, including a core group of 100 "founders" who have paid the initial $200,000 cost of a flight upfront. Virgin Galactic is planning to begin flights in late 2008 or early 2009.
(Via Mondolithic Sketchbook.)
They behave as a swarm. They relate to each other using very simple rules, but that produces a great deal of flexibility in their collective behavior that enables them to meet the demands of unpredictable and hazardous terrain. The ultimate product that we're envisioning is a fleet of these little guys being sent to some promising landing site, exiting from the lander and then making their way over to some subsurface or other hazardous terrain, where they deploy themselves as a network. They create a cellular communication network, on a node-to-node basis.
(Via KurzweilAI.net.)
People at the scene on that December night in 1965 didn't need much prompting to be curious. A detachment from the U.S. military didn't often show up at a woods fire in rural Kecksburg, or rural anywhere for that matter.
Soldiers cordoned off the site and not only refused to answer questions but, according to witnesses, threatened those who were persistent in seeking an answer. Sometime later, the military declared the object to be a meteor.
Today, spokesmen for NASA describe the fallen object as a failed Russian satellite that fell back into the atmosphere and began burning up before it landed.
(Via The Anomalist.)
Now a new scientific explanation is gaining traction. "It may be that LTPs are caused by sunlight reflecting off rising plumes of electrostatically lofted lunar dust," Olhoeft suggests.
All this matters to NASA because, by 2018 or so, astronauts are returning to the Moon. Unlike Apollo astronauts, who never experienced lunar sunrise, the next explorers are going to establish a permanent outpost. They'll be there in the morning when the storm sweeps by.
The public is invited to listen and participate in a discussion by legal and artificial intelligence experts on the rights of "transhumans" -- defined by the Terasem Movement as "conscious entities who have or who aspire to have human rights, regardless of being of flesh, electronics or a bioelectronic combination."
A place so barren that NASA uses it as a model for the Martian environment, Chile’s Atacama desert gets rain maybe once a decade. In 2003, scientists reported that the driest Atacama soils were sterile.
Not so, reports a team of Arizona scientists. Bleak though it may be, microbial life lurks beneath the arid surface of the Atacama’s absolute desert. "We found life, we can culture it, and we can extract and look at its DNA," said Raina Maier, a professor of soil, water and environmental science at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The work from her team contradicts last year’s widely reported study that asserted the "Mars-like soils" of the Atacama’s core were the equivalent of the "dry limit of microbial life."
Philosophers and former politicians will soon join an elite group of scientists whose job it is to work out how to respond to signals from extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Professor Paul Davies, of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney, who heads the group, says a call from ET would raise profound issues that require consideration from more than "a bunch of gung ho scientists".
Officials in at least two nations now suspect the avian flu bug has mutated into a virus that is being transmitted from human to human – a development world health authorities have estimated could result in the deaths of tens of millions.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the disease is spreading so rapidly, particularly in the capital of Jakarta, some health officials strongly suspect the long-dreaded mutation has already occurred.
"There are just too many people who have it," said one doctor. "In many cases, it is difficult to establish any contact with birds."
If confirmed, the 40,000-year-old marks would have debunked accepted theories of human migration into the Americas.
But the ash has now been dated to 1.3 million years ago - more than a million years before modern humans evolved.
Relatives of our species living at this time were not capable of making the journey to the Americas, experts say.
A message has been posted to several radical Islamist - or jihadi - websites announcing a competition to design a new site for a militant group in Iraq.
The prize offered is the chance to fire missiles remote-controlled by computer at a US military base in Iraq.
(Via Everything Isn't Under Control.)
The United States will this week face intense lobbying in an effort to force concrete action from the Bush administration over climate change when ministers from around the world meet at a United Nations summit in Canada. A failure to obtain some concession from the US would lead to further condemnation of both President George Bush and Tony Blair, who has said he believes a legally-binding commitment is achievable.
Called the Planetary Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Challenge, the competition may lead to the development of planes that can explore and collect samples from steep canyon walls on Mars or zoom close to intriguing features on other bodies with an atmosphere, such as Saturn's moon Titan.
"There's a whole range of biblical scriptures simply bursting with eroticism," said Stefan Wiest, the 32-year-old photographer who took the titillating pictures.
Mirecki had referred to religious conservatives as "fundies," and said a course describing intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." He has apologized for those comments.
Join the Posthuman Blues Geographical Matrix!
