Directed links for emerging technologies, transhumanism, transgenics, biotechnology, astronomy, UFOs, conspiracies, paranormal and other miscellania that may have eschatological implications....
Using a process called paleo-experimental evolution, Georgia Tech researchers have resurrected a 500-million-year-old gene from bacteria and inserted it into modern-day Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. This bacterium has now been growing for more than 1,000 generations, giving the scientists a front row seat to observe evolution in action.
“We think that this process will allow us to address several long standing questions in evolutionary and molecular biology,” said Betül Kacar, a NASA astrobiology postdoctoral fellow in Georgia Tech’s NASA Center for Ribosomal Origins and Evolution. “Among them, we want to know if an organism’s history limits its future and if evolution always leads to a single, defined point or whether evolution has multiple solutions to a given problem.”
Neuroscientist Kenneth Hayworth, 41, recently of Harvard and a veteran of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, believes that he can live forever, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "The human race is on a beeline to mind uploading: We will preserve a brain, slice it up, simulate it on a computer, and hook it up to a robot body." Hayworth wants his 100 billion neurons and more than 100 trillion synapses to be encased in a block of transparent, amber-colored resin—before he dies of natural causes. Why? Because Hayworth believes that he can live forever.
"If your body stops functioning, it starts to eat itself," Hayworth says, "so you have to shut down the enzymes that destroy the tissue." If all goes according to plan, I'll be a perfect fossil." Then one day, not too long from now, his consciousness will be revived on a computer. By 2110, Hayworth predicts, mind uploading—the transfer of a biological brain to a silicon-based operating system—will be as common as laser eye surgery is today.
The emergence of new drone technologies have captured the public’s imagination, as well as sparked controversy, especially since the arrival of the US Navy’s show-stealing X-47B drone. With its triangular shape, non-existent tail, and sleek, almost saucerian look, the aircraft succeeds in resembling classic descriptions of flying saucers dating all the way back to the 1940s.
As a journalist, one never wants to spend too much time discussing his or her own experiences, opting instead to present a fair, unbiased perspective on such subjects. However, my purpose here is hardly to dissect the controversies surrounding drone use in military operations, border patrol operations, or even surveillance in urban areas. Rather, my reason for addressing the drones on a personal note has to do with my own recent observation of some variety of small, controlled aircraft for which, at present, remains unidentified… and quite perplexing.
Read More: http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2012/07/attack-of-the-drones-mysterious-uavs-in-our-skies/
Friday night's spectacular pyrotechnics display of the most watched opening ceremony in summer Olympics history attracted more than the eyes of over 40 million people. A clearly seen unidentified flying object was videotaped making its way over London's Olympic stadium. Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/29/ufo-over-olympics-opening_n_1716887.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Beyond any shadow of doubt, the most famous of all the many mysteries of Death Valley, in California’s Mojave Desert, are its rolling stones – and, no, I’m not talking here about Mick and Keith. For decades, astounded visitors to the valley – and particularly so in the vicinity of an 850-feet high hillside of dolomite on the southern side of its Racetrack Playa – have come across large stones and rocks that appear to have moved across the desert floor of their own free will and under some perceived, but poorly understood, magical power.
Such scenarios and beliefs have gained a great deal of weight by the fact that, behind the same stones and rocks, grooves and tracks are always found – sometimes extending for hundreds of feet, and occasionally even displaying evidence of the rocks having actually flipped over during the course of their curious travels across the harsh lands of Death Valley.
Read more: http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2012/07/the-other-rolling-stones/
Stephen Hawking has launched the most powerful shared-memory supercomputer in Europe, the COSMOS supercomputer, manufactured by SGI and the first system of its kind. Hawking says will open up new windows on the universe.
During the launch, which is part of the Numerical Cosmology 2012 workshop at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge, Hawking said, “We have made spectacular advances in cosmology and particle physics recently.” “Cosmology is now a precision science, so we need machines like COSMOS to reach out and touch the real universe, to investigate whether our mathematical models are correct."
The COSMOS supercomputer is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council DiRAC High Performance Computing facility, a national service for UK cosmologists, astronomers and particle physicists, as well as non-academic users.
According to a Technical Report prepared by the Air Force’s flying saucer study, Project Grudge, in August 1949: “Upon eliminating several additional incidents due to vagueness and duplication, there remain 228 incidents, which are considered in this report. Thirty of these could not be explained, because there was found to be insufficient evidence on which to base a conclusion.” Arguably, however, the most important and intriguing entry in the document appears in the Recommendations section. It’s one that many UFO researchers have not appreciated the significance of. It states: “That Psychological Warfare Division and other governmental agencies interested in psychological warfare be informed of the results of this study.”
The Department of Defense’s definition of psychological warfare is: “The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives.”
Read More: http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2012/07/the-aztec-ufo-and-psy-ops/
In 2004, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft — a probe that flies by Titan as it orbits Saturn — penetrated Titan’s orange haze, providing scientists with their first detailed images of the surface. Radar images revealed an icy terrain carved out over millions of years by rivers of liquid methane, similar to how rivers of water have etched into Earth’s rocky continents. The image above from the Cassini mission show river networks draining into lakes in Titan's north polar region.
While images of Titan have revealed its present landscape, very little is known about its geologic past. Now researchers at MIT and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville have analyzed images of Titan’s river networks and determined that in some regions, rivers have created surprisingly little erosion. The researchers say there are two possible explanations: either erosion on Titan is extremely slow, or some other recent phenomena may have wiped out older riverbeds and landforms.
Einstein’s theory of general relativity explains gravity as a curvature in space-time. But the theory starts from the assumption that any local patch of space-time looks flat, Temple said. But mathematicians at UC Davis "...show that space-time cannot be locally flat at a point where two shock waves collide,” said Blake Temple, professor of mathematics at UC Davis. “This is a new kind of singularity in general relativity.”
A singularity is a patch of space-time that cannot be made to look flat in any coordinate system, Temple said. One example of a singularity is inside a black hole, where the curvature of space becomes extreme.
Read More: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2012/07/new-singularity-in-space-time-found.html
Edinburgh University’s upcoming free course, “Introduction to Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life” will open up an exciting new era in the study of extraterrestrial life. According to Jeff Haywood, vice principal of the University of Edinburgh, the number of students for the online course is potentially 100,000 or more. The course reflects the ever increasing global awareness of the possibility of extraterrestrial life and its societal implications.
Over two thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks wondered if other worlds were habitable. In the coming years this question will be experimentally tested. This course is an introduction to astrobiology. It explores the origin and evolution of life on the Earth and its potential to exist elsewhere. Astrobiology addresses compelling questions of wide interest such as: How did life originate on the Earth? Is this an inevitable process and is life common across the Universe? Astrobiology is an interdisciplinary science that bridges fields as diverse as astrophysics, biology, geosciences and chemistry.
A Russian entrepreneur who heads a hi-tech research project called 'Avatar' has contacted billionaires to offer them immortality.
Itskov claims he will personally oversee their immortality process, in exchange for an undisclosed fee.
Itskov, a media entrepreneur, claims to have hired 30 scientists to reach this goal - and aims to transplant a human brain into a robot body within 10 years.
'You have the ability to finance the extension of your own life up to immortality. Our civilization has come very close to the creation of such technologies: it's not a science fiction fantasy. It is in your power to make sure that this goal will be achieved in your lifetime,' says Itskov in a letter delivered to billionaires listed in Forbes magazine.
Eternal life? Iskov, a media entrepreneur, claims to have hired 30 scientists to reach this goal - and aims to transplant a human brain into a robot body within 10 years
He has contacted a list of billionaires with a proposal for funding his quest for immortality - which Itskov refers to as 'cybernetic immortality' and the 'artificial body'.
The initiative is opening its San Francisco office this summer, and will be launching a social media project connecting scientists around the world.
'The 2045 team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality,' says Itskov's official site.
