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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Al Gore Wrong Again
Post Date: 2007-11-18 20:15:41 by farmfriend
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Al Gore Wrong Again Posted by ReasonMcLucus at 05:54 on 16 Nov 2007 On October 14, 1997, Vice President Al Gore said, “For those who argue that global warming is already changing the world’s climate, this year’s El Nino weather front is more than enough evidence”, the audience was told by Gore. In the next day, a report by the San Francisco Chronicle said: “Gore links El Nino to Global Warming”. The Vice President stated at the summit that growing frequency of El Nino episodes could be connected to the gradual heating of the atmosphere caused by emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Ten years later residents in Argentina and Brazil are ...
Colossus loses code-cracking race
Post Date: 2007-11-18 17:26:01 by robin
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Colossus loses code-cracking race By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website Bletchley's code-breaking effort shortened the war by many months A closer look at the Colossus computer An amateur cryptographer has beaten Colossus in a code-cracking challenge set up to mark the end of a project to rebuild the pioneering computer. The competition saw Colossus return to code-cracking duties for the first time in more than 60 years. The team using Colossus managed to decipher the message just after lunch on 16 November. But before that effort began Bonn-based amateur Joachim Schuth revealed he ...
New vending machine can identify minors
Post Date: 2007-11-17 16:11:48 by robin
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A cigarette vending machine that can tell adults from minors by determining their approximate ages based on bone structure, wrinkles and the way their skin sags went on sale Monday. People wishing to buy cigarettes have to look at a facial recognition camera in the upper section of the machine and press a button. In about three seconds, the machine determines whether the person is 20 years old--the legal age to buy cigarettes--or above. The purchase will be allowed if the machine is satisfied. When it is difficult to determine whether people around the age of 20 are adults, they must insert a driver's license into a reader to make a purchase. They will not be able to buy cigarettes ...
Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks This Weekend
Post Date: 2007-11-17 09:30:35 by robin
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This weekend brings us the return of the famous Leonid Meteor Shower, a meteor display that in recent years has brought great anticipation and excitement to skywatchers around the world. While the Leonids have been spectacular in years past, this year a modest display is expected. Solely from the standpoint of viewing circumstances, this will be a favorable year to look for these meteors, since the Moon will be at first quarter phase and will have set in the West long before the constellation Leo (from where the meteors get their name) has climbed high in the sky. What they are The Leonid meteors are debris shed into space by the Tempel-Tuttle comet, which swings through the inner ...
Tired of high oil/gas prices? Salt water burns
Post Date: 2007-11-14 20:36:59 by Itisa1mosttoolate
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Click for Full Text!
UFOs are no joke, group says
Post Date: 2007-11-13 22:41:59 by kiki
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WASHINGTON (AFP) - UFOs may be fodder for comedians but there was no joking Monday when a group of former pilots recounted seeing strange phenomena in the sky and demanded the US government reopen an investigation into unidentified flying objects. Several pilots offered dramatic accounts of witnessing UFOs -- including a transparent flying disc and a triangular craft with mysterious markings -- as they insisted their questions needed to be taken seriously more than 30 years after the US file was closed. "We want the US government to stop perpetuating the myth that all UFOs can be explained away in down-to-earth, conventional terms," said Fife Symington, former governor of ...
Climate change - Is CO2 the cause?
Post Date: 2007-11-13 20:28:33 by Horse
11 Comments
Poster Comment:This is a serialiazation of a videotaped lecture by Professor Bob Carter on the scientific nonsense used to justify Global Warming. I have not anything this good. Too bad he was not put on PBS. These videos are under 10 minutes each. Please watch at least one of these videos before posting a criticism.
Comet Holmes Bigger Than The Sun
Post Date: 2007-11-13 09:08:17 by angle
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Summary Formerly, the Sun was the largest object in the Solar System. Now, comet 17P/Holmes holds that distinction. Spectacular outbursting comet 17P/Holmes exploded in size and brightness on October 24. It continues to expand and is now the largest single object in the Solar system, being bigger than the Sun (see Figure). The diameter of the tenuous dust atmosphere of the comet was measured at 1.4 million kilometers (0.9 million miles) on 2007 November 9 by Rachel Stevenson, Jan Kleyna and Pedro Lacerda of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. They used observations from a wide-field camera on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), one of the few professional instruments ...
Ministers drop objection to mixed embryos
Post Date: 2007-11-13 09:02:09 by angle
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Plans to ban the creation of 'human-animal' embryos by mixing sperm and eggs from different species have been dropped by ministers in a rethink of fertility laws. Under new proposals, scientists will be able to create any type of hybrid embryo for research, provided it is approved by the fertility regulator, the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. The move represents a final climbdown by the government, which has steadily pulled back from its position in a white paper in December that sought an all-out ban on the creation of embryos made by fusing human and animal cells. In a draft fertility bill published in May, the government said it would permit ...
Former pilots and officials call for new U.S. UFO probe
Post Date: 2007-11-12 17:36:00 by Brian S
7 Comments
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich may have been ridiculed for saying he had seen a UFO, but for some former military pilots and other observers, unidentified flying objects are no laughing matter. An international panel of two dozen former pilots and government officials called on the U.S. government on Monday to reopen its generation-old UFO investigation as a matter of safety and security given continuing reports about flying discs, glowing spheres and other strange sightings. "Especially after the attacks of 9/11, it is no longer satisfactory to ignore radar returns ... which cannot be associated with performances of existing aircraft and ...
In DNA Era, New Worries About Prejudice
Post Date: 2007-11-11 12:38:25 by Ada
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When scientists first decoded the human genome in 2000, they were quick to portray it as proof of humankind’s remarkable similarity. The DNA of any two people, they emphasized, is at least 99 percent identical. Minute Genetic Differences Can Mean a Lot But new research is exploring the remaining fraction to explain differences between people of different continental origins. Scientists, for instance, have recently identified small changes in DNA that account for the pale skin of Europeans, the tendency of Asians to sweat less and West Africans’ resistance to certain diseases. At the same time, genetic information is slipping out of the laboratory and into everyday life, ...
Climate change by Jupiter
Post Date: 2007-11-11 12:27:57 by farmfriend
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Climate change by Jupiter Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post Published: Saturday, November 10, 2007 The alignment of the planets, and especially that of Jupiter and Saturn, control the climate on Earth. So explained Rhodes Fairbridge of Columbia University, a giant in science over much of the last century whose accomplishments are perhaps unsurpassed for their breadth, depth, and volume. This one man authored or co-authored 100 scientific books and more than 1,000 scientific papers, he edited the Benchmarks in Geology series (more than 90 volumes in print) and was general editor of the Encyclopaedias of the Earth Sciences. He edited eight major encyclopedias of specialized scientific ...
Pentagon Forecast: Cloudy, 80% Chance of Riots
Post Date: 2007-11-10 20:42:22 by robin
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The Pentagon is paying Lockheed Martin to try to predict insurgencies and civil unrest like the weather. It's part of a larger military effort to blend forecasting software with social science that has some counterinsurgency experts cringing. Lockheed recently won a $1.3 million, 15-month contract from the Defense Department to help develop the "Integrated Crises Early Warning System, or ICEWS. The program will "let military commanders anticipate and respond to worldwide political crises and predict events of interest and stability of countries of interest with greater than 80 percent accuracy," the company claims. "Rebellions, insurgencies, ethnic/religious ...
Frozen vault saves crops for mankind
Post Date: 2007-11-10 19:46:08 by robin
1 Comments
Engineers last week finished work on one of the world's most ambitious conservation projects: a doomsday vault carved into a frozen mountainside in the archipelago of Svalbard, a few hundred miles from the North Pole. Over the next few weeks, the huge cavern - backed by the Norwegian government and the Gates Foundation - will be filled with more than a million types of seed and will be officially opened in February next year. 'This will be the last refuge for the world's crops,' said Cary Fowler, of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is building the vault. 'There are seed banks in various countries round the globe, but several have been destroyed or ...
Scientists Chart Record Rise In Yellowstone Caldera
Post Date: 2007-11-09 13:35:22 by Brian S
2 Comments
The floor of Yellowstone National Park's gigantic volcano has been rising at a record rate in recent years, probably due to an underground blob of molten rock more than 14 times the size of Billings, according to a new study. The Yellowstone caldera rose nearly 3 inches a year for the past three years, faster than anyone has ever recorded. "These are rates three times (greater) than previous historic rates," said University of Utah seismologist Bob Smith, a lead author of the study to be published in the journal Science today. But that rapid rising isn't an indication of an imminent volcanic eruption or hydrothermal explosion at Yellowstone, he said. It appears in line ...
BBC Horizon's Super-String Theory M-Theory Origin of the Universe
Post Date: 2007-11-07 19:44:21 by Zipporah
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BBC Horizon's Super-String Theory M-Theory Origin of the UniversAdd to My Profile | More Videos
8yr old Twins Invent Wedgie Proof Underwear
Post Date: 2007-11-07 08:16:00 by gengis gandhi
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Methane Blast
Post Date: 2007-11-06 20:18:12 by farmfriend
4 Comments
Methane Blast May 4, 2007: On January 16, 2007, a dazzling blue flame blasted across the sands of the Mojave desert. In many respects, it looked like an ordinary rocket engine test, but this was different. While most NASA rockets are powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen or solid chemicals, "we were testing a methane engine," says project manager Terri Tramel of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Click on the image to play the movie: See the link for the movie The main engine, built and fired by the NASA contractor team Alliant Techsystems/XCOR Aerospace, is still in an early stage of development and isn't ready for space. But if the technology proves itself, ...
Hotter weather, fewer deaths
Post Date: 2007-11-06 20:09:14 by farmfriend
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Hotter weather, fewer deaths Man-made global warming will take thousands of lives. It will save many more Bjorn Lomborg, National Post Published: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 What will happen over the coming century, with temperatures rising? The standard story is that our world will become a very unpleasant one. Famously, the chief scientific advisor to the British government, Sir David King, even envisions that an ice-free "Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked." Nearly all discussions of the future impacts of global warming use the 2003 heat wave in Europe as their prime example. In Al ...
Motorhead Messiah
Post Date: 2007-11-05 06:47:05 by YertleTurtle
7 Comments
“Check it out. It's actually a jet engine," says Johnathan Goodwin, with a low whistle. "This thing is gonna be even cooler than I thought." We're hunched on the floor of Goodwin's gleaming workshop in Wichita, Kansas, surrounded by the shards of a wooden packing crate. Inside the wreckage sits his latest toy--a 1985-issue turbine engine originally designed for the military. It can spin at a blistering 60,000 rpm and burn almost any fuel. And Goodwin has some startling plans for this esoteric piece of hardware: He's going to use it to create the most fuel-efficient Hummer in history. Goodwin, a 37-year-old who looks like Kevin Costner with better hair, ...
Devices Enforce Silence of Cellphones, Illegally
Post Date: 2007-11-05 01:21:19 by Ferret Mike
2 Comments
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone. “She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal. Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius. “She kept ...
Ice age comet theory causes big bang
Post Date: 2007-11-03 13:37:40 by robin
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Some say it hit U.S. 13,000 years ago Overhunting. Abrupt climate change. Disease. Scientists have cited those and other theories in their decades-old debate about why mammoths, mastodons, sloths, saber-toothed cats, camels, horses and other large creatures disappeared from North America at the end of the last ice age. Now a research group that includes two University of Oregon scientists is proposing a more dramatic cause for the extinctions: A 3-mile-wide comet or asteroid exploded over Canada or slammed into the continent about 13,000 years ago. The researchers say the impact also may have wiped out or fragmented the prehistoric Clovis people who flourished in North America at the ...
50 years later, supporters promote discredited scientist's work
Post Date: 2007-11-03 10:18:32 by Indrid Cold
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RANGELEY, Maine --It was 50 years ago that physician-scientist Wilhelm Reich, best known for his discovery of a purported cosmic life force associated with sexual orgasm, died in federal prison, his books burned and his equipment destroyed by the government. Ridiculed at the time, the European-born psychiatrist is today largely forgotten and his work on what he called orgone energy remains outside the scientific mainstream. But a small number of scientists and other believers are working to advance his studies -- and resurrect his reputation. "Personally, I think it's going to be a long time before all of his work is understood and recognized," said Reich's ...
Time' names iPhone 'invention of the year
Post Date: 2007-11-02 12:23:42 by a vast rightwing conspirator
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November 1, 2007 12:42 PM PDT'Time' names iPhone 'invention of the year'Posted by Tom Krazit And lo, it was foretold in the fall of 2007, that a mobile telephone would lead humanity out of the New Dark Ages and into a better future free from roaming charges and buttons. Time, which likes to anoint things, has named Apple's iPhone the "Invention of the Year," following such recent IotYs like YouTube and SpaceShipOne. The number one reason why the iPhone is Time's Invention of the Year? "It's pretty." Further: "An example: look at what happens when you put the iPhone into 'airplane' mode (i.e., no cell service, ...
Lab creates 'long-distance mouse'
Post Date: 2007-11-02 11:20:19 by robin
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Lab creates 'long-distance mouse' The modified mice: They were also found to be aggressive A genetically modified "supermouse" which can run twice as far as a normal rodent has been created by scientists working in the US. It also lives longer, and breeds later in life compared with its standard laboratory cousin. The research has been conducted at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Details of the scientists' new transgenic animals are published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The mice were produced to study the biochemistry at play in metabolism and could aid the understanding of human health and disease. ...
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