Nova Spivack – Minding the Planet

If you are interested in alternative energy, here’s something new to look at — a new magnetic motor based on ideas that originated with Nikola Tesla. The makers claim it is an "economical solution for the world’s power and energy needs." Well, we’ve heard that before, but it’s good to keep an open mind — [...]

Here’s an interesting speculation. Assume for the moment that our universe is in fact a simulation running on a vast computing system created a race of beings that is far more advanced than we can presently imagine. The next logical question would be, “Why would an advanced civilization want or need to undertake such a [...]

It’s official, the US Air Force has looked seriously at teleportation. This recently released Air Force report details the history of teleportation science, the present state-of-the-art, as well as several new directions for research and an extensive bibliography. Fascinating reading!

New research has found that running a mild electric current through your brain can significantly boost your verbal skills, with no side-effects, as far as anyone knows so far. Very interesting. It appears to decrease the firing threshold of neurons in the path of the current. This research was applied mainly to the frontal lobe [...]

Deep beneath the South Pole ice-cap is a strange fresh water lake — Lake Vostok. Lake Vostok is the subject of intense speculation, debate and strange conspiracy rumors. Because it hasn’t been exposed to our atmosphere since at least the last ice-age, it may contain ancient microorganisms that do not exist anywhere else on our [...]

Ok, just got back from seeing Primer – a very cool new indie sci-fi flick that you probably haven’t heard about yet, but will. If you liked the film, Pi, or you like your sci-fi with a double shot of science, then you are going to LOVE Primer. There are several things about this film [...]

This meme is spreading rapidly across the Net. Someone figured out that the latest Kryptonite U-Locks can be picked in under 30 seconds, using an ordinary ballpoint pen! Yikes. Bikers beware.

All you consumer marketers out there — there’s a new fad in the tradition of breakdancing and skateboarding that’s going to be big called Parkour. Parkour is gaining traction around the world and will soon become mainstream. It involves death-defying acrobatic stunts on the street, parts of buildings, and various landmarks. Here are some videos [...]

Following up on my earlier post about storing messages in DNA it might be interesting to explore ways to encode large volumes of data directly into parts of the human body. Messing with DNA is risky — it may be safer to store data in other parts of the human body (with the one potential [...]

In August of 2003, I posted an article that suggested the SETI folks ought to look at our own DNA to see if there happens to be a hidden message from aliens in there waiting to be discovered. Putting a message in human DNA, particularly in the junk DNA regions, is guaranteed (a) not to [...]

Note: This experiment is now finished. GoMeme 2.0 — Copy This GoMeme From This Line to The End of this article, and paste into your blog. Then follow the instructions below to fill it out for your site. Steal This Post!!!! This is a GoMeme– a new way to spread an idea along social networks. [...]

This posting is the FAQ and introduction for a new, improved, second-generation meme experiment that is designed to spread faster and more broadly than the first meme experiment. We call this kind of meme a “GoMeme” (pronounced Go-Meem), because it is a meme that is designed to Go. The actual GoMeme, which you can add [...]

The US Army has developed a new way to enable soldiers to carry less water. They have created rehydratable food rations that come in a wrapping that is actually a sophisticated semi-permeable membrane. So to rehydrate the food, soldiers can simply pee on it, or even pour dirty water on it if that’s all that [...]

A consumer-grade VTOL Skycar is almost ready for mass production. I want one.

I just received the following internal release from a company that starts alternative energy companies (Magnetic Power, Inc., which I am an investor in). MPI has a number of interesting alternative energy devices under development. My investment was in their superconducting project (ROOTS) — which focuses on room temperature superconducing polymers. But anyway, the article [...]

Has anyone ever done a computer analysis of all known stars seen from Earth, to detect if there are any groups of stars that are identical (or linearly transformed) in different parts of the sky? For example, have they looked for identical sets, mirror image sets of stars, flipped image sets, slightly drifted but nearly [...]

Is it possible to send messages backwards in time? This may actually be a testable hypothesis today. Here is a possible way to test it. Let’s assume this is possible and that at some point in time in the future, humans on earth develop this technology. We can test whether or not this actually will [...]

Here is a fantastic article on the futuristic physics of Dr. Nikolai A. Kozyrev, the Tesla of Russia. Kozyrev’s theories are only now beginning to be understood. He made fundamental proposals related to zero-point energy (the energy of the quantum vacuum) as well as gravity and “anti-gravity” propulsion, as well as hidden reasons for various [...]

Draft 1.1 for Review (integrates some fixes from readers) Nova Spivack (www.mindingtheplanet.net) INTRODUCTION This article presents some thoughts about the future of intelligence on Earth. In particular, I discuss the similarities between the Internet and the brain, and how I believe the emerging Semantic Web will make this similarity even greater. DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE The Semantic [...]

This is a funny article about a virtual reality church on the Internet in which worshipers can participate as avatars in a simulated church service. Unfortunately, some people have been logging in as …. you guessed it… Satan!

The Mexican Air Force has released information about a recent UFO encounter. It is unclear as to why this information was released to the public but it appears to be the real thing. The story was confirmed by the Mexican military, and was reported by Reuters and CNN among other reputable sources and was aired [...]

I have been thinking a lot recently about the distribution of prime numbers — in particular, I’ve been trying to figure out if there is a way to predict the sequence of gap sizes between primes. But anyway, in the course of that investigation I came across a really cool site about number spirals in [...]

Of course I’ve been tracking this one for nearly a year already, but now that mainstream press is discussing this I guess it’s ok to post it here without you all thinking I’m a wacko. The fact is that there are serious rumblings and changes taking place at Yellowstone and nobody knows what could happen [...]

This evening I had an interesting idea for a new way to look for patterns in the distribution of numbers such as the prime numbers and the digits of Pi. In a nutshell I propose that there may be patterns in these number sequences that might not be evident to a computer but could be [...]

It turns out that we’ve already sent life to Mars, and it may be still living there, according to a researcher who has studied the decontamination methods used by NASA. Only our early Viking landers were fully heat sterilized. Subsequent missions have most likely been contaminated with bacteria from Earth. This, in my opinion, is [...]

Erik T. Ray is a creative genius, in the classical sense of the word. I first heard about him when I was studying CS at Oberlin College. Many of my classmates were obsessed with something called The Lambda Expressway — an amazing and bizarre serial novel in the tradition of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, [...]

This just in from a reader… Hi, you should check out www.nyctalktome.com – a couple folks who went around NYC for a year sitting with a big sign that proclaimed “Talk To Me” in front of them. They have some amazing stories, some nice newspaper/tv appearances with more info, and are currently writing a book [...]

As I’ve said all along, “The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth.” Here’s more proof. A Michigan couple has just named their new baby as if it were a software upgrade. Read the article. Jon Blake Cusack, from Holland, Michigan, told local newspapers the US practice of adding “Junior” or “II” after a boy’s name was [...]

Dear Spammers, If you want to send me spam and have me actually look at it, please try to keep the following helpful hints in mind: – Never send me a message with a blank subject line or only “Re:” or “(no subject),” “hi there” or “Free” + [anything] in the subject line. I don’t [...]

I am having an interesting conversation with Howard Bloom, author, memeticist, historian, scientist, and social theorist. We have been discussing network models of the universe and the underlying “metapatterns” that seem to unfold at every level of scale. Below is my reply to his recent note, followed by his note which is extremely well written [...]