This is funny — a new site called www.talktoaliens.com now offers intergalactic long-distance telephone service. Simply dial their toll number and record your message. They will then beam it towards a region of high-density stars on a common frequency in the hopes of reaching any intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations that be may listening.… Read More “Now You Can Place Phone Calls to Aliens”
Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have proposed a new approach to making objects invisible, by tuning special materials such that they cancel the scattering of light. The technology has a few drawbacks — it only works for specific wavelengths of light at various scales — but it’s a start.… Read More “Invisibility Shield Proposed”
A group of respected mainstream scientists are forming a venture to commercialize a device that can generate a gravity-like force that they call "AC Gravity" — an interesting project.
I was fortunate enough to wander across this amazing online Flash presentation that reveals the hidden meaning of the film, "2001." It’s a thoroughly engaging, brilliantly produced, fascinating production — one of the best uses of Flash animation that I’ve ever seen.… Read More “An Incredible Flash Production — Must See!”
The New York Times has published a wonderful and fascinating set of mini-essays by leading scientists about their beliefs in the unknkown and unexplained — from consciousness, to God, to life on other worlds, and the existence of true love. There are some terrific thoughts in it — one of thoses rare articles that breaks through stereotypes and opens the door to new paradigms.… Read More “Scientists Discuss their Beliefs in the Unknown”
Frank Drake, the originator of the present-day radio-telescope-driven search for extraterrestrial intelligence — has written an editorial suggesting that his famous Drake Equation may need an update. In short, he believes his equation should be changed because there may be a lot more intelligent life out there than has been previously suggested.
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!
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 planet.… Read More “What Lies Beneath Lake Vostok?”
A Chinese satellite rudely crash-landed in a villager’s house. The villagers were unhurt but the house was demolished in the freak accident. The homeowner was quoted as speculating that perhaps this indicated they would have good luck in the coming year…yeah, like maybe a new house will fall from the sky too?
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 degrade significantly over long periods of time and (b) to be found by humans when we reached a suitable level of technological development, and (d) to go with each of us wherever we went on earth and beyond.… Read More “Messages in DNA: You Saw it Here First”
Traces of ammonia have been detected in Mars’ atmosphere. This is a probable sign of life. Read more here
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 equivalent sets of stars, etc.?… Read More “Another Crazy Idea: Pattern-Matching The Cosmos”
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 similarities in nature.… Read More “Russia's Best Kept Secret”
Here’s an interesting article on another theory that suggests our universe is just an experiment in someone’s lab.
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 on Mexican TV.… Read More “Historic Event: Mexican Air Force Releases UFO Images…”
This is a very good article on the physics of scale-free networks such as the Web.
Lately I have been getting increasingly interested in graph theory and also in knot theory. There is a similarity between networks and knots and it should be possible to do a mapping such that the theorems and algorithms of knot theory could be translated to apply to network topologies.… Read More “The Physics of the Web”
Methane has been detected on Mars, which may indicate the presence of bacteria.
NASA prepares to test its Hyper-X jet — a plane that can fly up to 7 times the speed of sound. Future passenger jets based on the technology could go from New York to London in less than 2 hours.
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.… Read More “We've Already Sent Life to Mars, It Turns Out…”
Good news for American Express customers — you can now use those extra points from your Membership Awards Program to fly to SPACE!!!!!. Full sub-orbital flight only costs a mere 20,000,000 points! That’s NOTHING — all you have to do is purchase a single skyscraper, or an F-18 fighter jet, or 2,000,000 movie tickets, and you’ve got yourself a ticket to space!
This informative article discusses the growing evidence for liquid water on Mars. It seems that the Mars Rover team is doing everything it can to avoid making any claims until they are 100% certain. Because if there is water that means there could be life too.
Josh Kirschenbaum submitted this interesting link to some cool images from NASA of water balloons bursting in microgravity. Your tax dollars at work!
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 and interesting…
… Read More “Social Networks, Physics, Civilizations — Do they All Obey the Same Underlying Rules?”————
From: Nova Spivack
To: Howard Bloom
Subject: Re: Graph Automata — Is the Universe Similar to a Social Network?
Hello all, I have been thinking about the general problems of social networks on the Internet. It occurs to me that these issues are closely related to digital physics. For more on digital physics see the work of Ed Fredkin, Stephen Wolfram, Norman Margolus, Tomasso Toffoli, and other pioneers of the field of cellular automata.… Read More “Graph Automata — What Can Social Networks Teach us About Underlying Physical Laws?”
An article claims that Bush’s Moon initiative may be motivated by the lunar presence of Helium-3, a better source of fuel for nuclear reactors that just happens to be abundant on the Moon but virtually absent on Earth. The article proposes that whomever has space supremacy controls the near-earth Helium-3 supply and therefore has future energy supremacy as we move towards increasing reliance on nuclear power.… Read More “The Big Secret? Is it all About Helium-3?”
Paul Davies has put forth an interesting proposal for a one-way trip to Mar as the most cost-effective way to establish a permanent human presence on Mars. It’s a smart and novel idea.
I just read an interesting article about new images from the surface of Venus … yes, Venus, not Mars! The Soviets sent a number of probes to Venus, several of which actually managed to land on the surface and send back photos.… Read More “New Images from Surface of VENUS!”
A group of climatologists met recently in England to discuss how to save the Earth from global warming. Rather than actually doing something to stop the emission of greenhouse gasses — they proposed a giant space shield and a bunch of other insane ideas.… Read More “Scientists Discuss How to Save Earth”
I admit it. I’m a total sucker for things like this. If the Bush Administration commits to sending a manned mission to Mars, or even just putting a permanent base on the Moon, it would definitely be a point in their favor in my mind.… Read More “Bush's Mars Initiative”
Here’s a wildly unexpected proposal that just popped into my brain: Humanity should intentionally contaminate Mars with Earth lifeforms — as soon as possible! The benefits vastly outweigh any concerns to the contrary. Indeed, it may be the smartest thing our species ever does.… Read More “Humans Should Intentionally Seed Life on Mars. Why We Must Start Now.”