Friday, May 31, 2002

Einstein Might Be Wrong?

"The International Space Station will have ultra-sensitive clocks on board, and it is a good place to test the theory," said Dr. Alan Kostelecky, professor of physics at Indiana University, Bloomington. "By comparing extremely precise clocks that can operate under zero gravity, minuscule changes in the ticking rate might be found as the spacecraft moves around Earth." This would violate Einsteins theory, which says there should be no change if different clocks in the same gravity environment are compared. "Finding such changes would cause an upheaval in the science community and revolutionize our thinking about the fundamental structure of space and time," he added. "It would lead to insight about how our universe formed and how nature operates."
http://www.cosmiverse.com/news/space/space05310204.html

Thursday, May 30, 2002

Current Read: What Remains To Be Discovered

The origin of life. The beginning and end of the universe. The workings of the brain. These are the big questions, the ones scientists and nonscientists alike love to ponder and that give deeper meaning to our quest for knowledge. John Maddox, former longtime editor of Nature, has endeavored to outline our progress, and, more importantly, our goals in these and other fields of study. What Remains to Be Discovered details the past, present, and possible future of science in three sections: "Matter," "Life," and "Our World." The authors broad, multidisciplinary grasp of science is apparent as he guides us effortlessly through the work of scientists from ancient times to the present. Having first shown us an up-to-date map of scientific knowledge, he then emphasizes the large blank spaces still remaining and suggests where explorers might best continue their efforts. From natural selection to the luminiferous ether, each question answered has provoked many, often more difficult, challenges for a new generation of researchers. Maddox hints at what our future textbooks will say, but is also careful to remind us that the history of science is full of surprises. Well do well to remember that as we enter the 21st century.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/068482292X/reviews/qid=1022781425/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-3718555-0235260

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

Time Is Actually Money

A mathematical formula calculated by a British university professor has found that time actually is money. According to the equation, the average British minute is worth just over 10 pence (15 cents) to men and eight pence (12 cents) to women. The formula is: V=(W((100-t)/100))/C, where V is the value of an hour, W is a persons hourly wage, t is the tax rate and C is the local cost of living.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/05/29/time.money/index.html

Cool Sattelite Pics Of US Sub Base

Naval Submarine Base New London is the Navys first Submarine Base. In 1868 in effort to help the Navy transition from sail to steam, the State of Connecticut gave the land SUBASE is now located to the Navy. It was not until 1872 that two brick buildings and a "T" shaped pier were built and the site officially declared a Navy Yard. This new yard was primarily used as a coaling station by Atlantic Fleet small craft. On October 13,1915, the monitor Ozark, A tender, and 4 submarines that accompanied her arrived at SUBASE. Future submarines and tenders followed and in 1916 the Navy established it as a submarine base. Following World War I the Navy established schools and training facilities at SUBASE. Today the Naval Submarine Base New London (SUBASE NLON), located on the east side of Thames River in Groton, CT, proudly claims its motto to be "The First and Finest." All submariners in todays Navy will be stationed here for training and perhaps a tour onboard a fast attack submarine or with a pre-commissioning crew while their new submarine is under construction. The base occupies more than 500 acres, supports twenty one attack submarines, and the Navys nuclear research deep submersible NR-1, the Navys Submarine School, the Naval Submarine Support Facility, the Submarine force Tactical Development Group - Commander Submarine Development Squadron 12, and the housing and support facilities for 10,000 active duty and civilian workers and their families.
http://cryptome.org/navsub-eyeball.htm

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

More On Mars Ice

"The subsurface ice detected by the Odyssey instruments represents only the tip of an iceberg frozen under ground," Jim Bell of Cornell University, wrote in a commentary in Science. Spacecraft sent to Mars in the 1970s probably missed the ice by just a few inches, Boyton said. "The interesting thing is, it looks like the Viking 2 lander actually landed in a region that we think probably had the same ice beneath it," he said. "If they could have dug down a meter deep instead of 10 to 20 cm they could have found this ice. Isnt that interesting? They were probably right on top of it all the time and never had the slightest idea it was there."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52822,00.html

Monday, May 27, 2002

Faces From The Ice Age

What could be the oldest lifelike drawings of human faces have been uncovered in a cave in southern France. The images were first recognised over 50 years ago, but were then lost after doubts were cast on their authenticity. Now, one German scientist, Dr Michael Rappenglueck, of Munich University, says it is time the pictures were reassessed. And there could be other surprises awaiting archaeologists, he believes, when they look not at the walls of prehistoric painted caves, but at the floor.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2012000/2012385.stm

Sunday, May 26, 2002

Oceans Of Ice on Mars

Water-ice has been found in vast quantities just below the surface across great swathes of the planet Mars. The finding by the American space agency (Nasa) is undoubtedly one of the most important made about the Red Planet. It solves one of its deepest mysteries, points the way for manned exploration and reignites the question of whether life may exist on the planet. Insiders suggest that, partly as a result of this finding, Nasa may now commit itself to a manned landing within 20 years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2009000/2009318.stm

Thursday, May 23, 2002

Oldest Cosmic Images

New images of the early universe -- a time before galaxies, stars or planets -- show the cosmic hot spots that eventually evolved into all matter and energy, scientists reported on Thursday. The pictures, made by a scientific instrument called the Cosmic Background Imager on a desolate Andean plateau in Chile, are the most detailed images of the oldest light ever emitted, researcher said at a news conference.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52763,00.html

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

BBC Doctor Who Site

Just stumbled across this site... looks like the cult of Doctor Who is still going strong. There are rumblings of a new movie, too...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/

The Psychopathology of Time

According to fundamental laws of physics, time is just another coordinate -- hash marks along a line with scarcely a preferred direction or flow. Yet the mind perceives time as an irreversible stream, moving from past to future, experienced in the present. Manipulating time may make for good science fiction, but its hardly conceivable to those unfortunates who dont have a Tardis or an H.G. Wells secret recipe. How can science bridge the gaping gulf between these two versions of time? This week, about 50 scientists gather in the Slovakian town of Tatranska Lomnica for a four-day workshop to explore this issue. Addressing psychological, mathematical, physical and "borderline" research, the event is a crossroads of disciplines and paradigms.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52703,00.html

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

The Galactic Center Radio Arc

What causes this unusual structure near the center of our Galaxy? The long parallel rays slanting across the top of the above radio image are known collectively as the Galactic Center Radio Arc and jut straight out from the Galactic plane. The Radio Arc is connected to the Galactic center by strange curving filaments known as the Arches. The bright radio structure at the bottom right likely surrounds a black hole at the Galactic center and is known as Sagittarius A*. One origin hypothesis holds that the Radio Arc and the Arches have their geometry because they contain hot plasma flowing along lines of constant magnetic field. Recent images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory appear to show this plasma colliding with a nearby cloud of cold gas.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020521.html

Monday, May 20, 2002

QA on Wolframs Book On Chaos/Biology/Mathmatics/Computation...

Almost all the science thats been done for the past three hundred or so years has been based in the end on the idea that things in our universe somehow follow rules that can be represented by traditional mathematical equations. The basic idea that underlies A New Kind of Science is that thats much too restrictive, and that in fact one should consider the vastly more general kinds of rules that can be embodied, for example, in computer programs.What started my work on A New Kind of Science are the discoveries I made about what simple computer programs can do. One might have thought that if a program was simple it should only do simple things. But amazingly enough, that isnt even close to correct. And in fact what Ive discovered is that some of the very simplest imaginable computer programs can do things as complex as anything in our whole universe. Its this point that seems to be the secret thats used all over nature to produce the complex and intricate things we see. And understanding this point seems to be the key to a whole new way of thinking about a lot of very fundamental questions in science and elsewhere. And thats what I develop in A New Kind of Science.
http://www.wolframscience.com/qanda/

CD Copy Protection Hacked With A Magic Marker

Technology buffs have cracked music publishing giant Sony Musics elaborate disc copy-protection technology with a decidedly low-tech method: scribbling around the rim of a disk with a felt-tip marker. Internet newsgroups have been circulating news of the discovery for the past week, and in typical newsgroup style, users have pilloried Sony for deploying "hi-tech" copy protection that can be defeated by paying a visit to a stationery store. "I wonder what type of copy protection will come next?" one posting on alt.music.prince read. "Maybe theyll ban markers."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52665,00.html

Your Brain Is Wireless

Human consciousness is actually wireless communication between the cells of your brain, according to a professor of molecular genetics at the University of Surrey in Great Britain. Pulling together research from neuroscience, psychology, physics and biology, Johnjoe McFadden has proposed a radical answer to questions that have vexed philosophers and scientists since Platos time and, more recently, those on a quest for artificial intelligence: What is consciousness? How does the brain create intelligent thoughts? Do we have free will? If proven correct, McFaddens theory could turn philosophy on its head, revolutionize neuroscience, and bring us a step closer to creating lifelike artificial intelligence. "It gives a physical theory of consciousness that can be tested," he said. "If we can understand it, we can improve it, change it, and even create artificial consciousness."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52674,00.html

Wireds Top 20 Sci-Fi Movies

When it comes to the big screen, theres no fighting the future - seven of the top ten grossing films of all time traffic in imagined worlds and fantastic frontiers. But what makes a truly great sci-fi flick isnt just popcorn appeal; its how well a world is conceived, developed, and realized. Wireds team of serious science fiction fans - led by Josh Calder, who rates films in depth at Futuristmovies.com - determined our rankings by three calibrating factors: a films power to enthrall and excite (Adrenaline), how well it presents a scenario for the future (Vision), and whether the science behind the fiction holds up (Precision).
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/scifi.html

Friday, May 17, 2002

U.S. Protests Mexi-Canadian Overpass

After nearly nine years of construction, the Mexi-Canadian Overpass, the controversial $4.3 trillion highway overpass linking Guadalupe and Winnipeg, was finally completed last week, drawing harsh criticism from U.S. citizens and officials alike. Above: Chrétien and Fox at the official unveiling. "If youre a Mexican who regularly commutes to Canada, or vice-versa, this is great. But what about all of us poor Americans caught in the middle?" said Dallas resident Tom Hitchner, one of an estimated 850,000 U.S. citizens forced to evacuate their homes to make room for concrete supports for the 1,600-mile, 18-lane overpass. "For Mexico and Canada to do this without any concern for all the Americans whose lives this affects, well, the arrogance is just unbelievable."
http://www.theonion.com/onion3818/mexi-canadian_overpass.html

Thursday, May 16, 2002

The Case for the Empire

Make no mistake, as emperor, Palpatine is a dictator--but a relatively benign one, like Pinochet. Its a dictatorship people can do business with. They collect taxes and patrol the skies. They try to stop organized crime (in the form of the smuggling rings run by the Hutts). The Empire has virtually no effect on the daily life of the average, law-abiding citizen. Also, unlike the divine-right Jedi, the Empire is a meritocracy. The Empire runs academies throughout the galaxy (Han Solo begins his career at an Imperial academy), and those who show promise are promoted, often rapidly. In "The Empire Strikes Back" Captain Piett is quickly promoted to admiral when his predecessor "falls down on the job."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/248ipzbt.asp

Culprit Caught in Gamma Ray Burst Mystery

Careful observations of gamma-ray burst GRB 011121 have uncovered remnants of the exploded star, whose signature was buried in the bright, fading embers. Now, for the first time, two compelling tell-tale signatures of the massive star were observed. As explained by Kulkarni, who is the McArthur Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences at Caltech and the head of the international team that made this discovery, "With these observations we have tied this gamma-ray burst to an exploding star. I am absolutely delighted that nature provided us with such a clean answer."
http://www.cosmiverse.com/news/space/space05170204.html

Friday, May 10, 2002

Humans Insist They Are Smarter Than Rice

Word that genetic researchers have discovered a cell of rice contains more genes than a human cell has caused widespread outrage as people across the globe attempt to prove that humans are easily as smart as a grain of rice. In Edmonton, Canada, 34-year-old Alan Snigget was one of many average humans who devised intelligence tests to discredit the implication that rice is more evolved. The postal worker began by taping a grain of rice to a brick wall ? "but lightly, so it could move if it had to" ? then hopping behind the wheel of his 1994 Dodge pickup truck. After honking several times to give fair warning, Snigget drove at high speed directly into the rice. According to eyewitnesses, however, the rice never moved. Said one Edmonton police officer who observed the scene: "Stupid rice."
http://www.satirewire.com/news/april02/rice.shtml

Thursday, May 9, 2002

Why Its Not Cool To Be Cool... Or Something...

Okay, time to get to the point: Its harder than ever these days to stay cool in our one-hit wonder world, where there are so many possibilities being thrust upon us. Marketers, advertisers, PR agencies, publishers, politicians, corporations, sports owners and webmasters are constantly trying to figure out not only how to build hype around something, but also to keep it. As theyve found, building a loyal following for any extended period of time is an absolute bitch to do. The cool market is super-saturated. Because of technology -- the multi-channel universe, the web, email, instant messaging, cellphones -- culture moves faster than it ever has, and its hard to keep up with Whats Hot and Whats Not (are those lists still cool?). By the time you find out somethings killer, tight, mint or dope, its pretty much had its day. Cool things get 15 seconds these days, not 15 minutes.
http://www.shift.com/content/web/18/1.html

Wednesday, May 8, 2002

Mathematical Methods for Homeland Spying

The amount of data relevant to home land defense is massive,distributed and growing rapidly through the addition of high volumedata streams and feeds. This presents fundamentally new mathematicalchallenges. These relate to: 1) the real time and near real timedetection of significant events in high volume data streams; 2) theforensic analysis of massive amounts of archived data to uncoverpatterns and events of interest; and 3) the mining of distributeddata, which for a variety of reasons will never be centrallywarehoused. To complicate matters further, homeland defense mustconcern itself with a variety of different data types, including,signals, text, images, transaction data, streaming media, web data,and computer to computer traffic.
http://cryptome.org/math-spy.htm

Monday, May 6, 2002

Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy... Online

It is also the story of a book, a book called The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy - not an Earth book, never published on Earth, and until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or heard of by any Earthman. Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book. in fact it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor - of which no Earthman had ever heard either. Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphids trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of Gods Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway? In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hikers Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Dont Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. But the story of this terrible, stupid Thursday, the story of its extraordinary consequences, and the story of how these consequences are inextricably intertwined with this remarkable book begins very simply. It begins with a house.
http://www.cse.iitb.ernet.in:8000/proxy/stuff/etc/HitchHikersGuide/guide.html

Sunday, May 5, 2002

The Epic Of Gilgamesh

This edition provides a prose rendering of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the cycle of poems preserved on clay tablets surviving from ancient Mesopotamia of the third millennium B.C. One of the best and most important pieces of epic poetry from human history, predating even Homers Iliad by roughly 1,500 years, the Gilgamesh epic tells of the various adventures of that hero-king, including his quest for immortality, and an account of a great flood similar in many details to the Old Testaments story of Noah. The translator also provides an interesting and useful introduction explaining much about the historical context of the poem and the archeological discovery of the tablets.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/014044100X/qid=1083876698/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3394161-3320161?v=glance&s=books

Aristotles Politics

Intellectually stimulating work describes the ideal state and ponders how it can bring about the most desirable life for its citizens. Both heavily influenced by and critical of Plato?s Republic and Laws, Politics is the distillation of a lifetime of thought and observation. The great Benjamin Jowett translation.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140444211/ref=pd_sim_books_1/102-3394161-3320161?v=glance&s=books

Platos Republic

"Must we not acknowledge...that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the State; and that from the individual they pass into the State?"
nuff said.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486411214/qid=1083876515/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-3394161-3320161

The Matrix Reloads

This much we know: in parts two and three, Neo must persuade the omnipotent machines to set his people free. The action-packed part two takes place primarily in the gleaming world of the Matrix, while the more serious-minded part three is set in the scorched real world. In the sequels, we will also visit the vast underground city of Zion, inhabited by the few hundred thousand humans who have managed to escape cyberimprisonment. Laurence Fishburne (as the sage Morpheus) and Carrie-Anne Moss (as Neos love interest, Trinity) are also back. This time theyre joined by Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe, another rebel and a former lover of Morpheus, and Nona Gaye (daughter of Marvin). Gaye stepped in to replace R.-and-B. singer Aaliyah, who had been cast in the role of Zee, a resident of Zion, before she died in a plane crash last year. Gloria Foster, who played the wise old Oracle in the original, also died in September, at age 64, after she shot her scenes for part two. What about part three? Thanks to a quick rewrite on the script, the Oracle will be back, but in a different form.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101020513-235417,00.html#

Tron 2.0: The Game

We had the chance to take an early look at Tron 2.0, the upcoming first-person action game from Monolith and Disney Interactive. Tron 2.0 will be an action game inspired by the events in the classic 1982 motion picture, and the games story will actually follow the plot of the movie. Programmer Allan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitners character in the movie) has advanced to a senior engineering position at the company that had created the evil Master Control Program 20 years ago, and he uncovers a secret plot on the part of the company to abuse a new form of technology. Bradleys son Jet becomes involved in the plot and eventually ends up on the other side, traveling through the world of Tron as a program.
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2863821,00.html

Scientist Splits Atom, Finds Toy Prize Inside

Science noted that it was the first prize found inside an atom since Allison Wyatt of Cambridge University discovered a magic puzzle toy in a lithium atom in February. For Lumiere, it was the first time in his 15-year, atom-splitting career that he has come across anything more than the normal protons, gluons, and quarks. "I know that over at MIT, Hendricks has amassed an entire collection of little gewgaws ? spinning tops, decoder rings, stickers," he said. "He is so lucky. I hate him."
http://www.satirewire.com/news/may02/prizes.shtml

Friday, May 3, 2002

Current Read: Eye to Eye : The Quest for the New Paradigm

In "Eye to Eye," Ken Wilber applies his spectrum of consciousness model to epistemology. Each of the realms in the spectrum (grossly simplified as body, mind, spirit,) according to Wilber, can be investigated in accordance with its own nature, or with the appropriate "eye." That is, the "eye of flesh," the "eye of mind," and the "eye of contemplation." Investigation of one realm with the eye of another produces, at best, a limited, or representational, understanding (as Kant pointed out with respect to the eye of mind), and at worst, what Wilber calls "category error." Attempting to investigate the realm of spirit, for example, with the "eye of flesh," that is, the eye that perceives only sensory phenomena, will not yield real knowledge of the realm of spirit, which is not disclosed to sensory perception. This results in errors like "empirical" science, which purports to recognize only sensory phenomena, declaring the realm of spirit to be nonexistent or at least non-verifiable, because it cant be "seen." Well, it cant be seen unless you look with the right "eye." Wilber explains why it is critical that the proper "eye," and the corresponding modes of investigation and verification, are used to investigate, and establish validity claims in, the various realms in the spectrum of consciousness. More importantly, he says that all these realms can indeed be known, and that the validity of such knowledge can be tested and verified by the same "scientific" method now applied to the material and rational realms, provided the proper eye, and the proper verification protocols, are used. This consitutes nothing less than a breakthrough in the logjam of modern epistemology.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/157062741X/customer-reviews/qid=1020468983/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-4891815-5926353

Thursday, May 2, 2002

The Most Beautiful Experiment in Physics

So what makes for beauty in science? In A Mathematicians Apology, G H Hardy proposes that the essential criteria for beauty in his field are unexpectedness, inevitability and economy - although he also mentions that depth, or how fundamental a proof is, is relevant. Im also fond of those passages in Michael Faradays The Chemical History of a Candle, in which he says that a candles beauty is not prettiness of colour or shape, but rather something else: "Not the best-looking thing, but the best-acting thing." In Faradays eyes, a candle taps all of the known laws of the universe. The heat of the flame melts the wax and draws up currents of air to cool the wax at the periphery, thus creating a cup for the molten wax, which remains horizontal thanks to gravity - "the same force of gravity which holds worlds together". Capillary action draws the melted wax up the wick from cup to flame, while the flames heat triggers a chemical reaction in the wax that sustains the flame.
http://physicsweb.org/article/world/15/5/2

Cues To Using Human Genome May Lie In Distant Past

Clues for using the sequence of the human genome to diagnose and treat diseases may lie in our distant past, says a University of Florida professor.The human genome contains 3 billion letters of DNA sequence and as many as 100,000 genes. Buried within this enormous pile of data is information about why people get sick and what might be done to keep them healthy. Finding this information, however, has proved difficult, with the result that the human genome project has not yet proved to be the medical windfall that was long anticipated.
http://unisci.com/stories/20022/0503022.htm

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