Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Monday, April 23, 2012
All in a day’s work: Design and print your own robot
Full Article:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/print-your-own-robots-0403.html
MIT is leading an ambitious new project to reinvent how robots are designed and produced. Funded by a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the project will aim to develop a desktop technology that would make it possible for the average person to design, customize and print a specialized robot in a matter of hours.
“This research envisions a whole new way of thinking about the design and manufacturing of robots, and could have a profound impact on society,” says MIT Professor Daniela Rus, leader of the project and a principal investigator at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “We believe that it has the potential to transform manufacturing and to democratize access to robots.”
“Our goal is to develop technology that enables anyone to manufacture their own customized robot. This is truly a game changer,” says Professor Vijay Kumar, who is leading the team from the University of Pennsylvania. “It could allow for the rapid design and manufacture of customized goods, and change the way we teach science and technology in high schools.”
The five-year project, called “An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines,” brings together a team of researchers from MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, and is funded as part of the NSF’s “Expeditions in Computing” program.
It currently takes years to produce, program and design a functioning robot, and is an extremely expensive process, involving hardware and software design, machine learning and vision, and advanced programming techniques. The new project would automate the process of producing functional 3-D devices and allow individuals to design and build functional robots from materials as easily accessible as a sheet of paper.
“Our vision is to develop an end-to-end process; specifically, a compiler for building physical machines that starts with a high level of specification of function, and delivers a programmable machine for that function using simple printing processes,” Rus says.
Researchers hope to create a platform that would allow an individual to identify a household problem that needs assistance; then head to a local printing store to select a blueprint, from a library of robotic designs; and then customize an easy-to-use robotic device that could solve the problem. Within 24 hours, the robot would be printed, assembled, fully programmed and ready for action...
We all crave it, but can you stand the silence?
Full Article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124581/The-worlds-quietest-place-chamber-Orfield-Laboratories.html
They say silence is golden – but there’s a room in the U.S that’s so quiet it becomes unbearable after a short time.
The longest that anyone has survived in the ‘anechoic chamber’ at Orfield Laboratories in South Minneapolis is just 45 minutes.
It’s 99.99 per cent sound absorbent and holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s quietest place, but stay there too long and you may start hallucinating.
The Anechoic Test Chamber at Orfield Laboratories was deemed the quietest place on Earth in 2004 - a record it still holds to this day
It achieves its ultra-quietness by virtue of 3.3-foot-thick fiberglass acoustic wedges, double walls of insulated steel and foot-thick concrete.
The company’s founder and president, Steven Orfield, told MailOnline: ‘We challenge people to sit in the chamber in the dark - one reporter stayed in there for 45 minutes.
‘When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You'll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly.
‘In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.’
And this is a very disorientating experience. Mr Orfield explained that it’s so disconcerting that sitting down is a must.
He said: ‘How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk. In the anechnoic chamber, you don't have any cues. You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and manoeuvre. If you're in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair.’
The chamber is used by companies all over America – including Nasa, which puts their astronauts to the test in there, floating in a water-filled container, to see ‘how long it takes before hallucinations take place and whether they could work through it’.
As Mr Orfield explains, space is like one giant anechoic chamber, so it’s crucial that astronauts are able to stay focussed.
The chamber is also used by a multitude of manufacturers, which test how loud their products are...
Did T. Rex Have Feathers?
Full Article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46954385/ns/technology_and_science-science
The discovery of a giant meat-eating dinosaur sporting a downy coat has some scientists reimagining the look of Tyrannosaurus rex.
With a killer jaw and sharp claws, T. rex has long been depicted in movies and popular culture as having scaly skin. But the discovery of an earlier relative suggests the king of dinosaurs may have had a softer side.
The evidence comes from the unearthing of a new tyrannosaur species in northeastern China that lived 60 million years before T. rex. The fossil record preserved remains of fluffy down, making it the largest feathered dinosaur ever found.
If a T. rex relative had feathers, why not T. rex? Scientists said the evidence is trending in that direction.
"People need to start changing their image of T. rex," said Luis Chiappe, director of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who was not part of the discovery team.
Much smaller dinosaurs with primitive feathers have been excavated in recent years, but this is the first direct sign of a huge, shaggy dinosaur. Scientists have long debated whether gigantic dinosaurs lost their feathers the bigger they got or were just not as extensively covered.
The new tyrannosaur species, Yutyrannus huali, is described in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Its name is a blend of Latin and Mandarin, which translates to "beautiful feathered tyrant."
Cannabis Science to Film Specialty Documentary
Political Activist Filmmaker Kevin Booth Retained by Cannabis Science to Film Specialty Documentary
DENVER, Mar 19, 2012
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/political-activist-filmmaker-kevin-booth-retained-by-cannabis-science-to-film-specialty-documentary-2012-03-19
Cannabis Science, Inc. a pioneering U.S. biotech company developing pharmaceutical cannabis (marijuana) products, is thrilled to announce that the company has retained filmmaker Kevin Booth to collaborate on a documentary researching cannabis as a medicine and the truth behind the science of marijuana.
Many people know Kevin Booth’s work with the late comedian, Bill Hicks. Kevin produced most of Bill’s CDs and videos that led to the comedian’s own HBO specials and multiple appearances on David Letterman. The story of Kevin’s seventeen-year friendship and working partnership with Bill Hicks was recently explored in a feature length BBC documentary that just ended a year long run of festivals and theatrical screenings. After Bill’s death from pancreatic cancer in 1994, Kevin’s filmmaking took on a political turn and he produced documentaries with talk show host Alex Jones about the incident in Waco, Texas, the American two-party political system, and 9/11. In 2005, Kevin traveled to the UK in order to promote his book titled “Agent of Evolution” about his friendship with Bill Hicks - published by Harper Collins.
Several of Kevin’s family members died as a result of alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical use. In 2003 Kevin began investigating the drug war in the United States and produced the documentary “American Drug War: The Last White Hope.” In his investigations, he discovered the United States government considers marijuana more dangerous than crack cocaine or crystal meth. Kevin sought to separate fact from fiction by traveling across the United States, documenting the “fallout” from the War on Drugs and seeking possible solutions and alternatives that have worked elsewhere. Kevin has toured the country, showing his film and lecturing at universities in hope of sparking a meaningful debate. “American Drug War” won best feature documentary at several film festivals from coast to coast and aired continuously on the Showtime network between 2008-2010. During this same time the film was also broadcasted on major networks in Canada, Australia, Poland, Lebanon and South Africa. Kevin recently returned from filming in Juarez Mexico for the follow up to “American Drug War" and is aiming for the sequel’s release later this year.
Kevin Booth’s body of work also include “How Weed Won the West" (a light hearted and humorous look into the California Cannabis culture) “Bill Hicks - Sane Man”, multiple music videos, feature length comedy concerts of Bill Hicks, Fear Factor’s Joe Rogan and groundbreaking comic Doug Stanhope. Kevin’s production of the Hick’s CD “Rant in E Minor” was recently awarded the 11th best comedy album of all time by Spin magazine competing against Bill Cosby, Chris Rock, Lenny Bruce, Rodney Dangerfield, Eddie Murphy, Sam Kinison, Woody Allen, George Carlin and Richard Pryor just to mention a few. Kevin’s audio productions “Rant in E Minor”, “Arizona Bay” and “Marble Head Johnson” all contain music written and performed by Kevin Booth and Bill Hick who first started playing music together in a high school punk-rock band named STRESS.
Today Kevin runs Sacred Cow Productions dba SCP Enterprises and self distributes through his own sites including SacredCow.com, AmericanDrugWar.com and Amazon. Several of his titles can be found distributed through Warner Brothers and Gravitas VOD that has now broken Booth’s work into the Latin market on both Netflix and ITUNES.
As previously announced, Cannabis Science has begun pre-production of its documentary, in which prohibition of marijuana, medicinal benefits of the plant, and international medical marijuana programs will be explored. Booth’s interests and demonstrated experience will be a true asset to Cannabis Science’s endeavors. The documentary will expose audience members to the subject of medical marijuana so that they may gain a better understanding of the research, science, and planning that goes into running Cannabis Science, one of the top marijuana research companies. The documentary will teach viewers about the medicinal benefits for a wide variety of conditions and show them that prohibition is unnecessary. This is clearly a topic for which Kevin Booth will provide great assistance, and Cannabis Science is excited to begin this project.
About Cannabis Science, Inc.
Cannabis Science, Inc. is at the forefront of pharmaceutical grade medical marijuana research and development. Our formulations will address the needs of patients choosing to use concentrated cannabis extracts to treat their ailments. Eventually, all Americans will have access to a safe and effective FDA approved medicine regardless of which state they live in. To maintain that marijuana is a dangerous, addictive drug with no medical value is scientifically absurd. Cannabis medicines, with no effective lethal dose, are far safer than aspirin, acetaminophen, and most other OTC drugs that kill thousands of Americans every year.
The Company works with world authorities on phytocannabinoid science targeting critical illnesses, and adheres to scientific methodologies to develop, produce and commercialize phytocannabinoid-based pharmaceutical products. In sum, we are dedicated to the creation of cannabis-based medicines, both with and without psychoactive properties, to treat disease and the symptoms of disease, as well as for general health maintenance.
Forward Looking Statements
This Press Release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934. A statement containing works such as "anticipate," "seek," intend," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "project," "plan," or similar phrases may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Some or all of the events or results anticipated by these forward-looking statements may not occur. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include the future U.S. and global economies, the impact of competition, and the Company's reliance on existing regulations regarding the use and development of cannabis-based drugs. Cannabis Science, Inc. does not undertake any duty nor does it intend to update the results of these forward-looking statements.
SOURCE: Cannabis Science Inc.
Dr. Robert J. Melamede, 1-888-889-0888
President & CEO
CannabisScience.com
info@cannabisscience.com
Robert Kane, 1-561-234-6929 Investor Relations Management rkane@cannabisscience.com info@cannabisscience.com
Quest To Find The Essence Of Humanity...
Billionaire Paul Allen Pours $500 Million Into Quest To Find The Essence Of Humanity In The Brain
Full Article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/03/21/billionaire-paul-g-allen-donates-300-million-in-brain-research-to-understand-what-makes-us-human
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is donating $300 million of his $14 billion fortune in his eponymous Allen Institute for Brain Science to fund new projects to map and observe the human brain and, in Allen’s words, “to one day understand the essence of what makes us human.” That brings the total amount Allen has invested in the Institute to $500 million.
The announcement was made at a press conference today in Seattle and in a commentary in Nature, one of the world’s best scientific journals, written by Christof Koch, the Institute’s Chief Scientific Officer, and R. Clay Reid of Harvard Medical School. They lay out a way of doing brain research that involves optogenetics, a kind of deep stimulation of the brain using light, connectomics, the study of connections in the brain, and brain observatories, ways of monitoring what happens in the brain in real time. Right now, because the mouse is smaller and simpler, much of the early efforts focus on the mouse brain. One of Allen’s new efforts is to map the visual connections between the brain and the mouse. There, mice have perhaps 2 million neurons involved in vision, compared to 5 billion such cells for humans.
“If you start out as a programmer, as I did in high school, the brain works in a completely different fashion than computers do,” Allen said, calling the effort “fascinating” and “noting that he’s been touched by neurodegenerative diseases” — his mother has Alzheimer’s. On the call he noted that while it’s possible to teach a student — a human brain — to program a computer in a matter of years, a computer can’t learn to function like a human brain even given a lifetime of opportunity. “”You can’t create an artificial intelligence,” Allen said, “unless you know how the real thing works.”
Captain Michio and the World of Tomorrow
Full Article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203960804577239852155894014.html
By 2020, the word "computer" will have vanished from the English language, physicist Michio Kaku predicts. Every 18 months, computer power doubles, he notes, so in eight years, a microchip will cost only a penny. Instead of one chip inside a desktop, we'll have millions of chips in all our possessions: furniture, cars, appliances, clothes. Chips will become so ubiquitous that "we won't say the word 'computer,'" prophesies Mr. Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York. "We'll simply turn things on."
Mr. Kaku, who is 65, enjoys making predictions. In his latest book, "Physics of the Future," which Anchor released in paperback in February, he predicts driverless cars by 2020 and synthetic organs by 2030. If his forecasts sound strange, Mr. Kaku understands the skepticism. "If you could meet your grandkids as elderly citizens in the year 2100," he offers, "you would view them as being, basically, Greek gods." Nonetheless, he says, "that's where we're headed," —and he worries that the U.S. will fall behind in this technological onrush.
To comprehend the world we're entering, consider another word that will disappear soon: "tumor." "We will have DNA chips inside our toilet, which will sample some of our blood and urine and tell us if we have cancer maybe 10 years before a tumor forms," Mr. Kaku says. When you need to see a doctor, you'll talk to a wall in your home, and "an animated, artificially intelligent doctor will appear." You'll scan your body with a hand-held MRI machine, the "Robodoc" will analyze the results, and you'll receive "a diagnosis that is 99 percent accurate."
In this "augmented reality," as Mr. Kaku calls it, the Internet will be in your contact lens. "You will blink, and you will go online," he says. "That's going to change everything." Students will look up the answers to tests while taking them. Actors will cheat from their scripts while performing onstage. Foreigners will translate their conversations with natives instantly. Job-seekers will identify "who to suck up to at any cocktail party" surreptitiously. And President Obama "will never have to have teleprompters in front of him," he jokes.
Although these gadgets seem light years away, Mr. Kaku insists that they're "coming very, very fast." The military already has a prototype of the contact lens called "Land Warrior." In 2010, he tried out the device while filming a special for the Science channel, on which he appears regularly. The Land Warrior is a helmet with an eyepiece that allows the wearer to see the entire battlefield. "You see friendly forces, enemy forces, artillery, aircraft, everything," Mr. Kaku says, "just by flicking it down right over your eye."
Encyclopedia Britannica to stop printing books
Full Article:
http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/13/technology/encyclopedia-britannica-books
Here's news that is both big and unsurprising. The Britannica, which was the standard bearer for encyclopedias in the pre-Internet era (no offense to the World Book Encyclopedia) has announced it will stop printing them and focus solely on digital editions. For more information on the history of this highly influential series, please visit Wikipedia...
FDA admits that vaccines still contain mercury
FDA admits in court case that vaccines still contain mercury
Ethan A. Huff
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Full Article:
http://www.naturalnews.com/035432_vaccines_mercury_court_case.html
It is a common myth today that the vaccines administered to children no longer contain the toxic additive thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative linked to causing permanent neurological damage. But a recent federal case involving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has revealed that, contrary to this widely-held belief, thimerosal is actually still present in many batch vaccines, including in the annual influenza vaccine that is now administered to children as young as six months old.
Filed by a citizen-backed coalition advocating vaccine safety, the lawsuit against the FDA alleged that the agency's continued endorsement and approval of thimerosal as a vaccine additive is a serious public health threat, especially since safer alternatives already exist and are widely used voluntarily by many vaccine manufacturers. But Judge Brett Kavanaugh, siding with antiquated pseudoscience, decided that thimerosal is not a health threat, and that those who wish to avoid it can simply choose thimerosal-free alternatives...
The fact that Judge Kavanaugh refused to hear the case is tragic in and of itself, as thimerosal, which is composed of 50 percent mercury, has been proven to cause serious health damage. But what may be even worse is the fact that many people falsely believe that thimerosal is not even included in vaccines anymore, which is leading them to blindly allow them to be administered to their children. And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the FDA have continued to provide dubious and misleading information on the subject, which the mainstream media has been complicit in spreading over the years.
But the FDA explains, in no uncertain terms, directly on its website that thimerosal is still added to certain vaccines. For this reason alone, it is crucial that parents who choose to vaccinate their children ask for an ingredients list for each and every vaccine before allowing them to be administered to their children...
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Collapse of Mayan Civilization Traced to Dry Spells
Charles Choi
23 February 2012
http://www.livescience.com/18624-collapse-mayan-civilization-climate-change.html
The collapse of the ancient Mayan civilization may have been linked to relatively modest dry spells, researchers now say.
The ancient Mayan empire once stretched across an area about the size of Texas, with cities and fields occupying what is now southern Mexico and northern Central America, including the countries of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. The height of the Mayan empire, known as the Classic period, reached from approximately A.D. 250 to at least A.D. 900.
The ancient Maya had what was arguably the most advanced civilization in the Americas. For instance, they made dramatic breakthroughs in astronomy that helped them very accurately predict where the moon and other planets would be in the sky centuries in the future. They also left behind many books and stone inscriptions regarding the stories of their gods and the history of their divine kings and queens.
For unknown reasons, the ancient Mayan civilization then disintegrated more than a millennium ago. The number of people declined catastrophically to a fraction of the empire's former size, and the ruins of its great cities are now largely overgrown by jungle.
Scientists have long drawn connections between the slow decline of the ancient Maya, which took about two centuries, "to climate change, and especially to drought," said researcher Martín Medina-Elizalde at the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico. "No sound estimates had been made about the severity of this drought, but some have suggested extreme scenarios."
To see how much rainfall the ancient Maya saw before the demise of their civilization, the researchers combined the four most detailed records of past climate changes known regarding the civilization's collapse — three from nearby lakes and one from a stalagmite, a mineral formation that grows upward from a cave floor. This helped develop a model of "the region's balance between evaporation and rainfall," Medina-Elizalde said.
The scientists found that rainfall in the region decreased episodically for periods as long as a decade at a time.
"Our results show rather modest rainfall reductions between times when the Classic Maya civilization flourished and its collapse between 800 to 950," said researcher Eelco Rohling, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Southampton in England. "These reductions amount to only 25 to 40 percent in annual rainfall, but they were large enough for evaporation to become dominant over rainfall, and open water availability was rapidly reduced. The data suggest that the main cause was a decrease in summer storm activity."
The timing of these dry spells might help explain why modest reductions in rainfall still may have helped cause the demise of a well-established civilization.
"Summer was the main season for cultivation and replenishment of Maya freshwater storage systems and there are no rivers in the Yucatan lowlands," Rohling said.
It appeared to Rohling that the ancient Maya had become reliant on continuous rainfall supplies, and had stretched the capacity of their farmlands to a fine limit based on normal levels of rain. "Then, even a rather subtle climatic change was enough to create serious problems," he told LiveScience. "Societal disruptions and abandonment of cities are likely consequences of critical water shortages, especially because there seems to have been a rapid repetition of multiyear droughts."
Rohling emphasized they are not saying that climate ended the ancient Mayan civilization. "We are documenting that there was a reduction in rainfall, and that reservoirs of water were evaporating," he said. This may in turn have led to societal unrest or diseases or both, "which are more likely to explain the actual collapse of society."
The scientists noted that the droughts they saw during the demise of the ancient Mayan civilization were similar in severity to those projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the near future in the same region. [10 Surprising Results of Global Warming]
"There are differences too, but the warning is clear — what seems like a minor reduction in water availability may lead to important, long-lasting problems," Medina-Elizalde said. "This problem is not unique to the Yucatan Peninsula, but applies to all regions in similar settings where evaporation is high. Today, we have the benefit of awareness, and we should act accordingly."
The scientists detailed their findings in the Feb. 24 issue of the journal Science.
23 February 2012
http://www.livescience.com/18624-collapse-mayan-civilization-climate-change.html
The collapse of the ancient Mayan civilization may have been linked to relatively modest dry spells, researchers now say.
The ancient Mayan empire once stretched across an area about the size of Texas, with cities and fields occupying what is now southern Mexico and northern Central America, including the countries of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. The height of the Mayan empire, known as the Classic period, reached from approximately A.D. 250 to at least A.D. 900.
The ancient Maya had what was arguably the most advanced civilization in the Americas. For instance, they made dramatic breakthroughs in astronomy that helped them very accurately predict where the moon and other planets would be in the sky centuries in the future. They also left behind many books and stone inscriptions regarding the stories of their gods and the history of their divine kings and queens.
For unknown reasons, the ancient Mayan civilization then disintegrated more than a millennium ago. The number of people declined catastrophically to a fraction of the empire's former size, and the ruins of its great cities are now largely overgrown by jungle.
Scientists have long drawn connections between the slow decline of the ancient Maya, which took about two centuries, "to climate change, and especially to drought," said researcher Martín Medina-Elizalde at the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico. "No sound estimates had been made about the severity of this drought, but some have suggested extreme scenarios."
To see how much rainfall the ancient Maya saw before the demise of their civilization, the researchers combined the four most detailed records of past climate changes known regarding the civilization's collapse — three from nearby lakes and one from a stalagmite, a mineral formation that grows upward from a cave floor. This helped develop a model of "the region's balance between evaporation and rainfall," Medina-Elizalde said.
The scientists found that rainfall in the region decreased episodically for periods as long as a decade at a time.
"Our results show rather modest rainfall reductions between times when the Classic Maya civilization flourished and its collapse between 800 to 950," said researcher Eelco Rohling, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Southampton in England. "These reductions amount to only 25 to 40 percent in annual rainfall, but they were large enough for evaporation to become dominant over rainfall, and open water availability was rapidly reduced. The data suggest that the main cause was a decrease in summer storm activity."
The timing of these dry spells might help explain why modest reductions in rainfall still may have helped cause the demise of a well-established civilization.
"Summer was the main season for cultivation and replenishment of Maya freshwater storage systems and there are no rivers in the Yucatan lowlands," Rohling said.
It appeared to Rohling that the ancient Maya had become reliant on continuous rainfall supplies, and had stretched the capacity of their farmlands to a fine limit based on normal levels of rain. "Then, even a rather subtle climatic change was enough to create serious problems," he told LiveScience. "Societal disruptions and abandonment of cities are likely consequences of critical water shortages, especially because there seems to have been a rapid repetition of multiyear droughts."
Rohling emphasized they are not saying that climate ended the ancient Mayan civilization. "We are documenting that there was a reduction in rainfall, and that reservoirs of water were evaporating," he said. This may in turn have led to societal unrest or diseases or both, "which are more likely to explain the actual collapse of society."
The scientists noted that the droughts they saw during the demise of the ancient Mayan civilization were similar in severity to those projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the near future in the same region. [10 Surprising Results of Global Warming]
"There are differences too, but the warning is clear — what seems like a minor reduction in water availability may lead to important, long-lasting problems," Medina-Elizalde said. "This problem is not unique to the Yucatan Peninsula, but applies to all regions in similar settings where evaporation is high. Today, we have the benefit of awareness, and we should act accordingly."
The scientists detailed their findings in the Feb. 24 issue of the journal Science.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Mind-reading program translates brain activity into words
Ian Sample
Tuesday 31 January 2012
Full Article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/31/mind-reading-program-brain-words
Scientists have picked up fragments of people's thoughts by decoding the brain activity caused by words that they hear.
The remarkable feat has given researchers fresh insight into how the brain processes language, and raises the tantalising prospect of devices that can return speech to the speechless.
Though in its infancy, the work paves the way for brain implants that could monitor a person's thoughts and speak words and sentences as they imagine them.
Such devices could transform the lives of thousands of people who lose the ability to speak as a result of a stroke or other medical conditions.
Experiments on 15 patients in the US showed that a computer could decipher their brain activity and play back words they heard, though at times the words were difficult to recognise.
"This is exciting in terms of the basic science of how the brain decodes what we hear," said Robert Knight, a senior member of the team and director of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Potentially, the technique could be used to develop an implantable prosthetic device to aid speaking, and for some patients that would be wonderful. The next step is to test whether we can decode a word when a person imagines it. That might sound spooky, but this could really help patients. Perhaps in 10 years it will be as common as grandmother getting a new hip," Knight said...
Tuesday 31 January 2012
Full Article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/31/mind-reading-program-brain-words
Scientists have picked up fragments of people's thoughts by decoding the brain activity caused by words that they hear.
The remarkable feat has given researchers fresh insight into how the brain processes language, and raises the tantalising prospect of devices that can return speech to the speechless.
Though in its infancy, the work paves the way for brain implants that could monitor a person's thoughts and speak words and sentences as they imagine them.
Such devices could transform the lives of thousands of people who lose the ability to speak as a result of a stroke or other medical conditions.
Experiments on 15 patients in the US showed that a computer could decipher their brain activity and play back words they heard, though at times the words were difficult to recognise.
"This is exciting in terms of the basic science of how the brain decodes what we hear," said Robert Knight, a senior member of the team and director of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Potentially, the technique could be used to develop an implantable prosthetic device to aid speaking, and for some patients that would be wonderful. The next step is to test whether we can decode a word when a person imagines it. That might sound spooky, but this could really help patients. Perhaps in 10 years it will be as common as grandmother getting a new hip," Knight said...
Thursday, December 1, 2011
10 outlandish things the 'scientific' controllers have in mind for you
10 outlandish things the 'scientific' controllers have in mind for you in the near future
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
http://www.naturalnews.com/034229_science_cyborgs.html
What corporate-driven "science" has in mind for the future of humanity is far different from the dreamy utopian landscape that's been portrayed by the mainstream media. To hear the corporate-run media tell it, science is always "good" for humanity. Scientific achievements are always called "advances" and not "setbacks," even though many of them have proven to be disastrous for humanity (atomic bombs, for example, or GMOs).
While pure science is, indeed, a necessary component of any civilization which seeks to expand its understanding of the universe, what we see dominating the landscape today isn't pure science but corporate-driven "science" that only seeks to accelerate corporate profits, not human understanding. And with that corporate-slanted science comes a whole new era of truly terrifying technologies that we may soon see become reality in our world.
Here, I've compiled a list of ten future technologies that might be used to strip away your freedoms and enslave you to the corporate globalist masters, all under the label of "science."
#1) Organ harvesting from genetically modified, patented pigs
Need a replacement heart or lung? No worries, mate! Monsanto will grow you a new one using a genetically modified, trans-species pig (patent pending) that was raised on GMO animal feed and subjected to organ harvesting while it was still alive in order to keep the organs "fresh."
Your government-approved, Medicare-funded transplant will be handled by one of the top U.S. hospitals, which are, even today, deeply engaged in black market organ trafficking and illegal transplantations.
#2) "Behavioral vaccines" that rewire your brain to eliminate dissent
Disobedience is a disease! And the "cure" for disobedience (or Oppositional Defiance Disorder, as they call it) will be a new "vaccine" that biologically rewires your brain to make you more socially acceptable to the controllers.
It will be called a "behavioral vaccine" even though, in reality, it's just a chemical lobotomy. This technology will be a cornerstone of the global police state, which will have no tolerance for independent thinking or critical thought of any kind, especially against the state.
#3) Centralized, remote monitoring of all your health statistics and vital signs by the police state
Think your medical records are really private? Think again: Even now, the U.S. government maintains a secret centralized bank of blood taken from children at birth. In the near future, citizens will be implanted with biometric monitoring chips that relay information back to the government about your pulse, respiration, and the presence of either illegal drugs or legalized pharmaceuticals (which are often the very same chemicals as illegal drugs, just re-branded as a medication).
These chips will be used by the government to enforce people taking their medications. They will also be used to locate and arrest those who smoke a little pot or take addictive substances without a prescription.
But most importantly, these chips will be used to monitor nutritional levels and make sure no one attains a high level of vitamin D, for example, which promotes clear thinking and strong cognitive function (http://www.naturalnews.com/029190_v...). Under scientific dictatorship, the sheeple must be kept in a state of chronic nutritional deficiency in order to be easily controlled. This will all be sold to the public as a way for the government to monitor their "safety" because, the government will claim, "Too much vitamin D can be dangerous!" So they will set the upper safety limits to the lower threshold of cognitive awakening, making sure that everyone remains in a mental stupor as they live out their state-run lives.
#4) The total secrecy of all food ingredients, sources and places of origin
As the food industry is increasingly invaded by junk science (GMOs, anyone?), efforts will increase to hide all the chemical ingredients in food products and rename dangerous-sounding chemicals into nice-sounding chemicals.
The Corn Refiners Association is already trying to rename "High Fructose Corn Syrup" to "corn sugar." (http://www.naturalnews.com/029748_h...) Aspartame is now going to be called "AminoSweet," and MSG has been renamed things like "yeast extract" or "Torula yeast powder."
But it's going to get far worse as fraudulent science accelerates food industry deceptions. Expect to see preservatives like "sodium benzoate" renamed as things like, "Freshiness crystals." Or "artificial colors" might be described as "Fortified with pretty colors."
Above all, the food industry wants to hide where its foods come from, how they are made, and what's in them, because all three of those categories are bad news for your health.
#5) The complete criminalization of home-produced foods and medicines, forcing total reliance on factory food production
Speaking of food, corrupt "scientists" will soon insist that growing your own food is extremely dangerous because you might grow e.coli in your garden! With such absurd justifications, home gardening will be completely outlawed in many towns, and those who try to secretly grow tomatoes will be arrested and imprisoned as if they were heroin smugglers.
The idea of all this is to make the population completely dependent on centralized factory food production, in the same way the population is currently dependent on centralized electricity and centralized fossil fuels. This will all be justified with the help of "scientists" who claim that factory-produced food is safer for you because it's all pasteurized, irradiated and fumigated.
#6) The unleashing of a global bioweapon pandemic through seasonal flu shots
Whereas vaccines were once intended to prevent disease, they are now being increasingly weaponized and engineered to spread disease, which is why most of the people who get the flu each winter are the very same people who routinely take flu shots.
In the near future, as the globalists decide the world population has reached its upper tolerable limit, a live "population control" virus will be engineered right into the vaccines, followed by an aggressive vaccine push that even offers to pay people to receive flu shots. (Get a flu shot, earn $25!)
The whole scheme, of course, is nothing more than a population control measure designed to eliminate all the lower-IQ people on the planet who are stupid enough to allow themselves to be injected with biological weapons packaged and sold as vaccines. Effectively, it's really a eugenics program that the globalists believe will save the human race from the rise of stupidity (no matter what the cost in human suffering).
#7) Total government control over your reproduction and the genetic code of your "offspring"
Copulating with the person of your choice and producing your own "random" offspring will no longer be allowed under the scientific police state. Reproduction must be carefully controlled through licensing and regulation to make sure that no unexpected results occur.
Before having children, parents will need to apply to the government for permission to reproduce, at which point they will be genetically and cognitively profiled, then granted a reproduction classification status that must be strictly followed to avoid imprisonment.
People who show rebellious tendencies and speak out against the state will be denied reproduction "privileges." Only the most obedient, white-skinned, do-gooder mind slaves will be granted reproduction privileges, and they will gladly copulate and raise yet more babies to be sacrificed to the state as the next generation of mind slaves.
#8) Wireless brain implants that can be remotely activated by law enforcement to make entire crowds of people passive
The future of "science" involves all sorts of electronics implanted into the human body. One of the most convenient ones will be the "pacification chip" that will be forced upon citizens along with "money chips" that they use to pay for everything (cash will be outlawed, and using cash will be seen as a terrorist activity).
The pacification chip can be remotely activated by the government through cell tower bursts -- or through hand-held units issued to police and law enforcement commanders -- to instantly pacify large crowds of protesters or rioters. Are the students protesting about free speech again? Activate the pacification chip, and they'll all lay down on the lawn and daydream for a while.
Are revolutionaries marching on the capitol and trying to overthrow the government? Activate the pacification chip, and your tyrannical dictatorship is safe!
Such chips may also be used to "excite" the brain at times when it is also politically useful. For example, when another terrorist attack is staged on U.S. soil, the "excitation chips" can be activated across the population to get people riled up and calling for war! (And that's the whole point of false flag attacks, of course.)
#9) The genetic engineering and breeding of obedient super soldiers
In the far future, battlefield soldiers will actually be humanoid-shaped robots equipped with firearms and body armor. Think "Terminator" model T-1000. That's still a ways off, of course, given the incredible complexity of mobile power, robotic actuation technologies, vision recognition systems and artificial intelligence.
In the mean time, the most powerful nations of the world will pour R&D money into growing genetically modified super soldiers who are secretly birthed, raised and trained to be as robotic as possible. These super soldiers will be genetically engineered with peak performance attributes (high blood oxygenation, large body frames, etc.) combined with small brains that can only process enough information to follow orders but never question them.
They will also be outfitted with numerous electronic implants, making them more cyborg than human. They will have vision implants attached to their retinas, for example, GPS chips wired to their brains, comm equipment wired into their ears, and built-in pain medication dispensers that flood their bodies with stimulant chemicals so they can keep fighting even after an arm gets blown off, for example.
#10) The electromagnetic activation of metals and nano-crystals injected into you through vaccines
Here's a new one most people haven't thought about: In addition to vaccines being used to spread infectious disease, they can also be used to inject humans with nano-crystals that are sized and tuned to resonate at certain frequencies, much like a radio crystal tunes in to a specific radio band.
Such nano-crystals may lie dormant in the bodies of the general public for years or even decades, but at some point the government can take over the radio towers with an "emergency" national transmission that broadcasts an activation signal at precisely the right wavelength to excite the nano-crystals already in peoples' bodies. The results could be anything from mass insanity to massive outbreaks of violence (rioting, etc.) or just tens of millions of people instantly dropping dead. Any of those outcomes could then be exploited by the government to sell a cover story of a "terrorist attack" that requires even more government control over the population.
It could all be done in the name of "science"
Remember, this collection of 10 points is about possible future technologies that exemplify the abuse of science to empower tyrannical governments and corrupt industries. Thankfully, these ten examples have not come true yet, but several are well on their way to become reality in just the next few years.
Real science has an important role to play in any society, but I believe that science should serve the interests of the People, not the self-serving controllers who run globalist corporations and national governments. When science is used to dominate and enslave people rather than setting them free, it is a violation of one of the most fundamental truths throughout the universe: only through freedom (the freedom of ideas, freedom of questioning, freedom of discussion) can true understanding of our universe be achieved.
NaturalNews salutes the real scientists out there who pursue the betterment of human civilization without punching a clock for all the evil corporations which abuse science for their own nefarious purposes.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
http://www.naturalnews.com/034229_science_cyborgs.html
What corporate-driven "science" has in mind for the future of humanity is far different from the dreamy utopian landscape that's been portrayed by the mainstream media. To hear the corporate-run media tell it, science is always "good" for humanity. Scientific achievements are always called "advances" and not "setbacks," even though many of them have proven to be disastrous for humanity (atomic bombs, for example, or GMOs).
While pure science is, indeed, a necessary component of any civilization which seeks to expand its understanding of the universe, what we see dominating the landscape today isn't pure science but corporate-driven "science" that only seeks to accelerate corporate profits, not human understanding. And with that corporate-slanted science comes a whole new era of truly terrifying technologies that we may soon see become reality in our world.
Here, I've compiled a list of ten future technologies that might be used to strip away your freedoms and enslave you to the corporate globalist masters, all under the label of "science."
#1) Organ harvesting from genetically modified, patented pigs
Need a replacement heart or lung? No worries, mate! Monsanto will grow you a new one using a genetically modified, trans-species pig (patent pending) that was raised on GMO animal feed and subjected to organ harvesting while it was still alive in order to keep the organs "fresh."
Your government-approved, Medicare-funded transplant will be handled by one of the top U.S. hospitals, which are, even today, deeply engaged in black market organ trafficking and illegal transplantations.
#2) "Behavioral vaccines" that rewire your brain to eliminate dissent
Disobedience is a disease! And the "cure" for disobedience (or Oppositional Defiance Disorder, as they call it) will be a new "vaccine" that biologically rewires your brain to make you more socially acceptable to the controllers.
It will be called a "behavioral vaccine" even though, in reality, it's just a chemical lobotomy. This technology will be a cornerstone of the global police state, which will have no tolerance for independent thinking or critical thought of any kind, especially against the state.
#3) Centralized, remote monitoring of all your health statistics and vital signs by the police state
Think your medical records are really private? Think again: Even now, the U.S. government maintains a secret centralized bank of blood taken from children at birth. In the near future, citizens will be implanted with biometric monitoring chips that relay information back to the government about your pulse, respiration, and the presence of either illegal drugs or legalized pharmaceuticals (which are often the very same chemicals as illegal drugs, just re-branded as a medication).
These chips will be used by the government to enforce people taking their medications. They will also be used to locate and arrest those who smoke a little pot or take addictive substances without a prescription.
But most importantly, these chips will be used to monitor nutritional levels and make sure no one attains a high level of vitamin D, for example, which promotes clear thinking and strong cognitive function (http://www.naturalnews.com/029190_v...). Under scientific dictatorship, the sheeple must be kept in a state of chronic nutritional deficiency in order to be easily controlled. This will all be sold to the public as a way for the government to monitor their "safety" because, the government will claim, "Too much vitamin D can be dangerous!" So they will set the upper safety limits to the lower threshold of cognitive awakening, making sure that everyone remains in a mental stupor as they live out their state-run lives.
#4) The total secrecy of all food ingredients, sources and places of origin
As the food industry is increasingly invaded by junk science (GMOs, anyone?), efforts will increase to hide all the chemical ingredients in food products and rename dangerous-sounding chemicals into nice-sounding chemicals.
The Corn Refiners Association is already trying to rename "High Fructose Corn Syrup" to "corn sugar." (http://www.naturalnews.com/029748_h...) Aspartame is now going to be called "AminoSweet," and MSG has been renamed things like "yeast extract" or "Torula yeast powder."
But it's going to get far worse as fraudulent science accelerates food industry deceptions. Expect to see preservatives like "sodium benzoate" renamed as things like, "Freshiness crystals." Or "artificial colors" might be described as "Fortified with pretty colors."
Above all, the food industry wants to hide where its foods come from, how they are made, and what's in them, because all three of those categories are bad news for your health.
#5) The complete criminalization of home-produced foods and medicines, forcing total reliance on factory food production
Speaking of food, corrupt "scientists" will soon insist that growing your own food is extremely dangerous because you might grow e.coli in your garden! With such absurd justifications, home gardening will be completely outlawed in many towns, and those who try to secretly grow tomatoes will be arrested and imprisoned as if they were heroin smugglers.
The idea of all this is to make the population completely dependent on centralized factory food production, in the same way the population is currently dependent on centralized electricity and centralized fossil fuels. This will all be justified with the help of "scientists" who claim that factory-produced food is safer for you because it's all pasteurized, irradiated and fumigated.
#6) The unleashing of a global bioweapon pandemic through seasonal flu shots
Whereas vaccines were once intended to prevent disease, they are now being increasingly weaponized and engineered to spread disease, which is why most of the people who get the flu each winter are the very same people who routinely take flu shots.
In the near future, as the globalists decide the world population has reached its upper tolerable limit, a live "population control" virus will be engineered right into the vaccines, followed by an aggressive vaccine push that even offers to pay people to receive flu shots. (Get a flu shot, earn $25!)
The whole scheme, of course, is nothing more than a population control measure designed to eliminate all the lower-IQ people on the planet who are stupid enough to allow themselves to be injected with biological weapons packaged and sold as vaccines. Effectively, it's really a eugenics program that the globalists believe will save the human race from the rise of stupidity (no matter what the cost in human suffering).
#7) Total government control over your reproduction and the genetic code of your "offspring"
Copulating with the person of your choice and producing your own "random" offspring will no longer be allowed under the scientific police state. Reproduction must be carefully controlled through licensing and regulation to make sure that no unexpected results occur.
Before having children, parents will need to apply to the government for permission to reproduce, at which point they will be genetically and cognitively profiled, then granted a reproduction classification status that must be strictly followed to avoid imprisonment.
People who show rebellious tendencies and speak out against the state will be denied reproduction "privileges." Only the most obedient, white-skinned, do-gooder mind slaves will be granted reproduction privileges, and they will gladly copulate and raise yet more babies to be sacrificed to the state as the next generation of mind slaves.
#8) Wireless brain implants that can be remotely activated by law enforcement to make entire crowds of people passive
The future of "science" involves all sorts of electronics implanted into the human body. One of the most convenient ones will be the "pacification chip" that will be forced upon citizens along with "money chips" that they use to pay for everything (cash will be outlawed, and using cash will be seen as a terrorist activity).
The pacification chip can be remotely activated by the government through cell tower bursts -- or through hand-held units issued to police and law enforcement commanders -- to instantly pacify large crowds of protesters or rioters. Are the students protesting about free speech again? Activate the pacification chip, and they'll all lay down on the lawn and daydream for a while.
Are revolutionaries marching on the capitol and trying to overthrow the government? Activate the pacification chip, and your tyrannical dictatorship is safe!
Such chips may also be used to "excite" the brain at times when it is also politically useful. For example, when another terrorist attack is staged on U.S. soil, the "excitation chips" can be activated across the population to get people riled up and calling for war! (And that's the whole point of false flag attacks, of course.)
#9) The genetic engineering and breeding of obedient super soldiers
In the far future, battlefield soldiers will actually be humanoid-shaped robots equipped with firearms and body armor. Think "Terminator" model T-1000. That's still a ways off, of course, given the incredible complexity of mobile power, robotic actuation technologies, vision recognition systems and artificial intelligence.
In the mean time, the most powerful nations of the world will pour R&D money into growing genetically modified super soldiers who are secretly birthed, raised and trained to be as robotic as possible. These super soldiers will be genetically engineered with peak performance attributes (high blood oxygenation, large body frames, etc.) combined with small brains that can only process enough information to follow orders but never question them.
They will also be outfitted with numerous electronic implants, making them more cyborg than human. They will have vision implants attached to their retinas, for example, GPS chips wired to their brains, comm equipment wired into their ears, and built-in pain medication dispensers that flood their bodies with stimulant chemicals so they can keep fighting even after an arm gets blown off, for example.
#10) The electromagnetic activation of metals and nano-crystals injected into you through vaccines
Here's a new one most people haven't thought about: In addition to vaccines being used to spread infectious disease, they can also be used to inject humans with nano-crystals that are sized and tuned to resonate at certain frequencies, much like a radio crystal tunes in to a specific radio band.
Such nano-crystals may lie dormant in the bodies of the general public for years or even decades, but at some point the government can take over the radio towers with an "emergency" national transmission that broadcasts an activation signal at precisely the right wavelength to excite the nano-crystals already in peoples' bodies. The results could be anything from mass insanity to massive outbreaks of violence (rioting, etc.) or just tens of millions of people instantly dropping dead. Any of those outcomes could then be exploited by the government to sell a cover story of a "terrorist attack" that requires even more government control over the population.
It could all be done in the name of "science"
Remember, this collection of 10 points is about possible future technologies that exemplify the abuse of science to empower tyrannical governments and corrupt industries. Thankfully, these ten examples have not come true yet, but several are well on their way to become reality in just the next few years.
Real science has an important role to play in any society, but I believe that science should serve the interests of the People, not the self-serving controllers who run globalist corporations and national governments. When science is used to dominate and enslave people rather than setting them free, it is a violation of one of the most fundamental truths throughout the universe: only through freedom (the freedom of ideas, freedom of questioning, freedom of discussion) can true understanding of our universe be achieved.
NaturalNews salutes the real scientists out there who pursue the betterment of human civilization without punching a clock for all the evil corporations which abuse science for their own nefarious purposes.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
The Case for Parallel Universes
Why the multiverse, crazy as it sounds, is a solid scientific idea
In the August issue of Scientific American, cosmologist George Ellis describes why he's skeptical about the concept of parallel universes. Here, multiverse proponents Alexander Vilenkin? and Max Tegmark? offer counterpoints, explaining why the multiverse would account for so many features of our universe—and how it might be tested:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=multiverse-the-case-for-parallel-universe
In the August issue of Scientific American, cosmologist George Ellis describes why he's skeptical about the concept of parallel universes. Here, multiverse proponents Alexander Vilenkin? and Max Tegmark? offer counterpoints, explaining why the multiverse would account for so many features of our universe—and how it might be tested:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=multiverse-the-case-for-parallel-universe
Rainforest Fungus Makes Diesel Fuel
From Mongabay.com:
A fungus recently discovered in the Patagonian rainforest has shocked biologists and environmentalists: the fungus produces gas almost identical to diesel. In a paper announcing the discovery in Microbiology, scientists state that they believe the fungus, called Gliocladium roseum, could become an incredibly efficient green energy source.
"This is the only organism that has ever been shown to produce such an important combination of fuel substances," said Professor Gary Strobel from Montana State University.
Gliocladium roseum makes a variety of molecules of hydrogen and carbon like those found in diesel. The scientists have named Gliocladium roseu's fuel myco-diesel. The researchers found that when grown in a lab the fungus produced myco-diesel even closer to diesel used in cars...
Rainforest fungus generates biodiesel, may drive energy of the future
Jeremy Hance
November 4, 2008
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1104-hance_biodiesel.html
A fungus recently discovered in the Patagonian rainforest has shocked biologists and environmentalists: the fungus produces gas almost identical to diesel. In a paper announcing the discovery in Microbiology, scientists state that they believe the fungus, called Gliocladium roseum, could become an incredibly efficient green energy source.
"This is the only organism that has ever been shown to produce such an important combination of fuel substances," said Professor Gary Strobel from Montana State University.
Gliocladium roseum makes a variety of molecules of hydrogen and carbon like those found in diesel. The scientists have named Gliocladium roseu's fuel myco-diesel. The researchers found that when grown in a lab the fungus produced myco-diesel even closer to diesel used in cars...
Rainforest fungus generates biodiesel, may drive energy of the future
Jeremy Hance
November 4, 2008
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1104-hance_biodiesel.html
Friday, November 18, 2011
Cryptid Sea Dogs
Loren Coleman, Cryptomundo.com
November 3rd, 2011
Full Article:
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/seadogs-12
Fortean cryptozoo researcher Richard Muirhead once discovered the following “Sea Dogs” encounter, which he called “one of the strangest animal stories from Hong Kong” he had ever found:
From the Hong Kong Telegraph Extra, April 17, 1914 p.1,
Another animal story is going the rounds in yachting circles just now. Some animal-certainly it was not of the order of fishes, says our informant-which is thought to be a seal was seen between the Soko Group [these islands south of Lantau island. Cheung Chau is to the west-south-west of Hong Kong] and Cheung Chau Island on Monday [April 13, 1914] afternoon. Seen by the Telegraph, the gentleman who saw the animals, which he is of the opinion were seals, put the number that he actually saw at about eighteen, all making in one direction.
His attention was first called to them by his sailing boy on his yacht who remarked on the number of “sea-dogs” or “sea-pigs” that being the translation of the Chinese term,that there were in the water. Our informant looked but could see little at first because the animals were only just breaking water with their noses to obtain air, this being accompanied by a hissing noise. Then a small one jumped into the air and it was at once seen that, whatever they were, the passers by were not fish. Further confirmation was to be found when one of them broke water and raised his head so that he could be easily seen. His face was not unlike that of a cat with drooping whiskers over the mouth. He then dived and showed a large portion of his back as he went down;in fact,roughly speaking, five feet of his body was exposed. In all there were four persons who saw these animals – two Chinese and two Europeans and they are all convinced that they were of the nature of seals. That night the yacht was anchored in the locality and the hissing could be heard all night. However after passing Adamastor Rock [location unfound] no further traces of them were seen.
In answer to a query as to whether they were not porpoises, our informant said they were not. They had not the colour of the porpoise, but were black, as black as the Chinese pig.
Continuing, he informed us that if indeed they were what he suspected them to be, it would be a serious look out for the fisheries near Cheung Chau, for seals were voracious devourers of fish and could make sore havoc in the fishing grounds there. A question as to whether seals would be found in this latitude drew the response that the yachtsman had known of them as far south as California. [This is a rather obtuse statement. California is around 40 degrees North, Hong Kong is about the same latitude as the Tropic of Cancer i.e. c.22 N-R.]
There certainly appears to be a seal native to the latitude of California. It is spoken of in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, as is (sic) a sea lion. There is the California or Eared Seals and the Macrohinus a species of which, the M. Lenoina, also found on the Californian coast, tending to show that the appearance of some member or other of the seal family in these regions should not be impossible for geographical reasons.
Jon Downes noted when this was posted in 2010: “There are four species of seal known from China, but all are confined to northern waters.”
Yes, “Sea Dogs” are part of the cryptozoological literature and they all cannot easily be explained away as “just seals.”
November 3rd, 2011
Full Article:
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/seadogs-12
Fortean cryptozoo researcher Richard Muirhead once discovered the following “Sea Dogs” encounter, which he called “one of the strangest animal stories from Hong Kong” he had ever found:
From the Hong Kong Telegraph Extra, April 17, 1914 p.1,
Another animal story is going the rounds in yachting circles just now. Some animal-certainly it was not of the order of fishes, says our informant-which is thought to be a seal was seen between the Soko Group [these islands south of Lantau island. Cheung Chau is to the west-south-west of Hong Kong] and Cheung Chau Island on Monday [April 13, 1914] afternoon. Seen by the Telegraph, the gentleman who saw the animals, which he is of the opinion were seals, put the number that he actually saw at about eighteen, all making in one direction.
His attention was first called to them by his sailing boy on his yacht who remarked on the number of “sea-dogs” or “sea-pigs” that being the translation of the Chinese term,that there were in the water. Our informant looked but could see little at first because the animals were only just breaking water with their noses to obtain air, this being accompanied by a hissing noise. Then a small one jumped into the air and it was at once seen that, whatever they were, the passers by were not fish. Further confirmation was to be found when one of them broke water and raised his head so that he could be easily seen. His face was not unlike that of a cat with drooping whiskers over the mouth. He then dived and showed a large portion of his back as he went down;in fact,roughly speaking, five feet of his body was exposed. In all there were four persons who saw these animals – two Chinese and two Europeans and they are all convinced that they were of the nature of seals. That night the yacht was anchored in the locality and the hissing could be heard all night. However after passing Adamastor Rock [location unfound] no further traces of them were seen.
In answer to a query as to whether they were not porpoises, our informant said they were not. They had not the colour of the porpoise, but were black, as black as the Chinese pig.
Continuing, he informed us that if indeed they were what he suspected them to be, it would be a serious look out for the fisheries near Cheung Chau, for seals were voracious devourers of fish and could make sore havoc in the fishing grounds there. A question as to whether seals would be found in this latitude drew the response that the yachtsman had known of them as far south as California. [This is a rather obtuse statement. California is around 40 degrees North, Hong Kong is about the same latitude as the Tropic of Cancer i.e. c.22 N-R.]
There certainly appears to be a seal native to the latitude of California. It is spoken of in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, as is (sic) a sea lion. There is the California or Eared Seals and the Macrohinus a species of which, the M. Lenoina, also found on the Californian coast, tending to show that the appearance of some member or other of the seal family in these regions should not be impossible for geographical reasons.
Jon Downes noted when this was posted in 2010: “There are four species of seal known from China, but all are confined to northern waters.”
Yes, “Sea Dogs” are part of the cryptozoological literature and they all cannot easily be explained away as “just seals.”
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Translation algorithms used to crack centuries-old secret code
Mark Brown, wired.co.uk 10-25-11
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/10/translation-algorithms-used-to-crack-centuries-old-secret-code.ars
Computer scientists from Sweden and the United States have applied modern-day, statistical translation techniques—the sort that are used in Google Translate—to decode a 250-year old secret message.
The original document, nicknamed the Copiale Cipher, was written in the late 18th century and found in the East Berlin Academy after the Cold War. It's since been kept in a private collection, and the 105-page, slightly yellowed tome has withheld its secrets ever since.
But this year, University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering computer scientist Kevin Knight—an expert in translation, not so much in cryptography—and colleagues Beáta Megyesi and Christiane Schaefer of Uppsala University in Sweden, tracked down the document, transcribed a machine-readable version and set to work cracking the centuries-old code.
The book's pages—bound in gold and green brocade paper—contained about 75,000 characters in very neat handwriting. Outside of two words—an owner's mark ("Philipp 1866") and a note in the end of the last page ("Copiales 3")—the rest was encoded.
Some of the letters were obviously Roman and others were plainly Greek, while the rest were abstract symbols and doodles.
At first, Knight and his team isolated the Roman and Greek characters, figuring that they might be the real message, and attacked it with a home-made translation project. Eighty different languages and many hours later, and nothing happened. "It took quite a long time and resulted in complete failure," says Knight.
The team realized that the known characters were just there to mislead. So they booted them out and looked at the symbols. They theorized that abstract symbols with similar shapes might represent the same letter, or groups of letters. They tested this with different languages, and when German was used, some meaningful words emerged—"Ceremonies of Initiation," followed by "Secret Section."
A little computation later and a good chunk of the book had been decoded and transcribed. The document revealed the rituals and political leanings of a German secret society, and one that had a strange obsession with eyeballs, plucking eyebrows, eye surgery and ophthalmology. You can read the entire, weird, manifesto in English here:
http://stp.lingfil.uu.se/~bea/copiale/copiale-translation.txt
Buoyant from his success, Knight is now planning on using his techniques and programs to tackle other codes including ones from the Zodiac Killer, a Northern Californian serial murderer from the '60s; "Kryptos," an encrypted message carved into a granite sculpture on the grounds of CIA headquarters; and the Voynich Manuscript, a medieval document that has baffled professional cryptographers for decades.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/10/translation-algorithms-used-to-crack-centuries-old-secret-code.ars
Computer scientists from Sweden and the United States have applied modern-day, statistical translation techniques—the sort that are used in Google Translate—to decode a 250-year old secret message.
The original document, nicknamed the Copiale Cipher, was written in the late 18th century and found in the East Berlin Academy after the Cold War. It's since been kept in a private collection, and the 105-page, slightly yellowed tome has withheld its secrets ever since.
But this year, University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering computer scientist Kevin Knight—an expert in translation, not so much in cryptography—and colleagues Beáta Megyesi and Christiane Schaefer of Uppsala University in Sweden, tracked down the document, transcribed a machine-readable version and set to work cracking the centuries-old code.
The book's pages—bound in gold and green brocade paper—contained about 75,000 characters in very neat handwriting. Outside of two words—an owner's mark ("Philipp 1866") and a note in the end of the last page ("Copiales 3")—the rest was encoded.
Some of the letters were obviously Roman and others were plainly Greek, while the rest were abstract symbols and doodles.
At first, Knight and his team isolated the Roman and Greek characters, figuring that they might be the real message, and attacked it with a home-made translation project. Eighty different languages and many hours later, and nothing happened. "It took quite a long time and resulted in complete failure," says Knight.
The team realized that the known characters were just there to mislead. So they booted them out and looked at the symbols. They theorized that abstract symbols with similar shapes might represent the same letter, or groups of letters. They tested this with different languages, and when German was used, some meaningful words emerged—"Ceremonies of Initiation," followed by "Secret Section."
A little computation later and a good chunk of the book had been decoded and transcribed. The document revealed the rituals and political leanings of a German secret society, and one that had a strange obsession with eyeballs, plucking eyebrows, eye surgery and ophthalmology. You can read the entire, weird, manifesto in English here:
http://stp.lingfil.uu.se/~bea/copiale/copiale-translation.txt
Buoyant from his success, Knight is now planning on using his techniques and programs to tackle other codes including ones from the Zodiac Killer, a Northern Californian serial murderer from the '60s; "Kryptos," an encrypted message carved into a granite sculpture on the grounds of CIA headquarters; and the Voynich Manuscript, a medieval document that has baffled professional cryptographers for decades.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
The woman who never forgets anything
Hollywood star Marilu Henner's awesome memory is changing our understanding of the brain
David Derbyshire
4th October 2011
To read the full story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2044538/Hollywood-star-Marilu-Henners-memory-changing-understanding-brain.html
A good memory is essential for any aspiring actress struggling with her lines. But in the case of Marilu Henner - a Broadway star who rose to fame in the 1970s sitcom Taxi - her memory isn’t just good, it’s incredible. For her, the past is simply unforgettable.
Give her any date from the past 40 years and she can instantly tell you the day of the week, what she was wearing, what the weather was like and what was on TV.
If that isn’t impressive enough, the 59-year-old Hollywood star, who most recently appeared on British TV screens in Celebrity Apprentice, can even recall with complete clarity events that happened when she was just 18 months old.
Marilu Henner is one of a handful of people with a rare condition called hyperthymesia, or ‘superior autobiographical memory’ - the ability to remember everything that happened on every day of their lives.
Their cases don’t just highlight the incredible power of the mind. They are also shaking some of the basic understanding about the nature of memory and what the limits of the brain really are.
Henner regards her supercharged memory as a gift.
‘It was never a trauma for me - it was just who I was,’ she says. ‘I was very good at remembering things: I was the family historian. People would come to me and ask me stuff, and it was never a problem.’
Her earliest memory is playing with her older brother in her family’s Chicago home aged one and a half. This has stunned scientists, who had assumed that it was virtually impossible to recall events before the age of two.
And that’s just the start. Most people can remember about 250 faces during a lifetime: Henner remembers thousands.
It is impossible for most of us to imagine what it is like to have a memory of every single day. She describes sifting through memories as ‘looking for a scene on a DVD before me.
‘In a second I’m back there, looking through my own eyes at the scene as I saw it in 1980 or whenever.’
Hyperthymesia (hyper means excessive while thymesia means memory in Greek) is a new concept in psychology. It was first identified in 2006 by a team of researchers at the University of California...
Lair of Ancient 'Kraken' Sea Monster Possibly Discovered
Jeanna Bryner
October 10, 2011
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/10/10/lair-ancient-kraken-sea-monster-possibly-discovered/
A giant sea monster, the likes of the mythological kraken, may have swum Earth's ancient oceans, snagging what was thought to be the sea's top predators — school bus-size ichthyosaurs with fearsome teeth.
The kraken, which would've been nearly 100 feet (30 meters) long, or twice the size of the colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis, likely drowned or broke the necks of the ichthyosaurs before dragging the corpses to its lair, akin to an octopus's midden, according to study researcher Mark McMenamin, a paleontologist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
There is no direct evidence for the beast, though McMenamin suggests that's because it was soft-bodied and didn't stand the test of time; even so, to make a firm case for its existence one would want to find more direct evidence.
McMenamin is scheduled to present his work Monday (Oct. 10) at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis.
Cause of death
Evidence for the kraken and its gruesome attacks comes from markings on the bones of the remains of nine 45-foot (14 meter) ichthyosaurs of the species Shonisaurus popularis, which lived during the Triassic, a period that lasted from 248 million to 206 million years ago. The beasts were the Triassic version of today's predatory giant squid-eating sperm whales.
Mark McMenamin, a paleontologist at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts was interested in solving a long-standing puzzle over the cause of death of the S. popularis individuals at the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada. An expert on the site, Charles Lewis Camp of U.C. Berkeley, suggested in the 1950s that the ichthyosaurs succumbed to an accidental stranding or a toxic plankton bloom. However, nobody has been able to prove the beasts died in shallow water, and recent work on the rocks around the fossils suggests they died in a deepwater environment, McMenamin said.
"I was aware that anytime there is controversy about depth, there is probably something interesting going on," McMenamin said. And when he and his daughter arrived at the park, they were struck by the remains' strangeness, particularly "a very odd configuration of bones."
A giant sea monster, the likes of the mythological kraken, may have taken out ichthyosaurs the size of school buses, arranging their vertebrae in curious linear patterns with nearly geometric patterns.
The etching on the bones suggested the shonisaurs were not all killed and buried at the same time, he said. It also looked like the bones had been purposefully rearranged, likely carried to the "kraken's lair" after they had been killed. A similar behavior has been seen in modern octopus.
The markings and rearrangement of the S. popularis bones suggests an octopus-like creature (like a kraken) either drowned the ichthyosaurs or broke their necks, according to McMenamin.
The arranged vertebrae also seemed to resemble the pattern of sucker disks on a cephalopod's tentacle, with each vertebra strongly resembling a sucker made by a member of the Coleoidea, which includes octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and their relatives. The researchers suggest this pattern reveals a self-portrait of the mysterious beast.
The perfect crime?
Next, McMenamin wondered if an octopus-like creature could realistically have taken out the huge swimming predatory reptiles. Evidence is in their favor, it seems. Video taken by staff at the Seattle Aquarium showed that a large octopus in one of their large tanks had been killing the sharks. [On the Brink: A Gallery of Wild Sharks]
"We think that this cephalopod in the Triassic was doing the same thing," McMenamin said. More supporting evidence: There were many more broken ribs seen in the shonisaur fossils than would seem accidental, as well as evidence of twisted necks.
"It was either drowning them or breaking their necks," McMenamin said.
So where did this kraken go? Since octopuses are mostly soft-bodied they don't fossilize well and scientists wouldn't expect to find their remains from so long ago. Only their beaks, or mouthparts, are hard and the chances of those being preserved nearby are very low, according to the researchers.
Though his case is circumstantial, and likely to draw skepticism from other scientists, McMenamin said: "We're ready for this. We have a very good case."
Real-life Jedi: Pushing the limits of mind control
The inner workings of the brain can now be read using low cost hardware
Katia Moskvitch
Technology reporter, BBC News
9 October 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15200386
You don't have to be a Jedi to make things move with your mind.
Granted, we may not be able to lift a spaceship out of a swamp like Yoda does in The Empire Strikes Back, but it is possible to steer a model car, drive a wheelchair and control a robotic exoskeleton with just your thoughts.
"The first thing is to clear your mind…to think of nothing," says Ed Jellard; a young man with the quirky title of senior inventor.
We are standing in a testing room at IBM's Emerging Technologies lab in Winchester, England.
On my head is a strange headset that looks like a black plastic squid. Its 14 tendrils, each capped with a moistened electrode, are supposed to detect specific brain signals.
In front of us is a computer screen, displaying an image of a floating cube.
As I think about pushing it, the cube responds by drifting into the distance.
Admittedly, the system needed a fair bit of pre-training to achieve this single task. But it has, nonetheless, learned to associate a specific thought pattern with a particular movement.
The headset, which was developed by Australian company Emotiv for the games industry, has been around for some time. But it is only now that companies such as IBM are beginning to harness the wealth of data that it can provide.
Using software developed in-house, researchers have linked the Emotiv to devices such as a model car, a light switch and a television.
Control signals come from two main sources; electroencephalography (EEG) measurements of brain activity, and readings of nerve impulses as they travel outwards to the muscles.
Restoring Movement
New techniques for processing such information are enabling sophisticated real world applications.
Already the team has used the system to help a patient with locked-in syndrome, whose healthy, active mind became trapped in a motionless body following a stroke.
"We linked the headset to the IBM middleware, and when he pushed the cube on the screen, that behaved like a click of the mouse - so he was able to use the computer," explained IBM's Kevin Brown.
Many commercial mind control technologies are designed to restore physical ability to those who have lost it.
At Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), researchers have applied brain-computer interface technology to create thought-controlled wheelchairs and telepresence robots.
"A disabled patient who can't move can instead navigate such a robot around his house to participate in the social life of the family," explains the team leader, Professor Jose del Millan.
"To do that, a helmet detects the intention of some physical movement and translates it into action."
Japanese company Cyberdyne is helping people who cannot walk to regain mobility by dressing them in a full-body robotic suit called Hal.
Just as some of IBM's readings come from nerve impulses, rather than brain waves, Cyberdyne uses tiny sensors on the limbs to measure the subject's intention to move, even if the physical act is impossible.
The robot body responds by moving its arms or legs. Webcams and computer screens enabling the user to pilot their machine and communicate with friends and family through their proxy body.
Outside the healthcare field, another implementation, being developed by EPFL in partnership with car maker Nissan, is an intelligent vehicle that can use brainwave data.
Supported by numerous external sensors and cameras, brain wave sensors read what the driver is planning to do next.
Having anticipated their intentions, the car takes over, eliminating the need for tedious and time consuming physical movement.
For those who prefer pedal power, Toyota is working with Saatchi & Saatchi, Parlee Cycles and DeepLocal to develop a bicycle which can shift gear based on its rider's thoughts.
Suits and microchips
Headsets and helmets offer cheap, easy-to-use ways of tapping into the mind. But there are other, more invasive techniques being developed.
At Brown Institute for Brain Science in the US, scientists are busy inserting chips right into the human brain.
The technology, dubbed BrainGate, sends mental commands directly to a PC.
Subjects still have to be physically "plugged" into a computer via cables coming out of their heads, in a setup reminiscent of the film The Matrix. However, the team is now working on miniaturising the chips and making them wireless.
BrainGate is developing ways of using the output to control a computer cursor, on-screen keyboard, and even manipulate robotic arms.
After testing it on monkeys, the scientists have now started human trials. Lead researcher Prof John Donoghue hopes that one day, his groundbreaking research will help people with spinal cord injuries or locked-in syndrome to walk again just by thinking of moving their limbs.
Robot warriors?
But extracting information from the brain, be it by internal or external sensors, is only part of the story.
Much of the current research effort is looking at how to efficiently process and utilise the vast streams of data that the brain produces.
Turning analogue thoughts into digital information links human beings directly to electronic information networks, such as the internet. The brain becomes becomes yet another sensor to be analysed and interrogated.
And as techniques for crunching that output get more sophisticated, the technology it drives will move beyond simple device control.
"People like data," said IBM's Ed Jellard. "So if you can see patterns of data, the geekier people will be very interested to see what is going on in their brain and how it is changing over time.
"I would be interest to know if my brain is getting stronger and if I have more intense thoughts. Things like that could be useful."
While it is possible to translate brain waves into machine processable data, there remains something unique and special about those signals that rocket around inside our skulls.
They are not the same as lasers in a fibre optic cable or electrons in a microprocessor, and tapping the mind will raise philosophical and ethical questions, according to Prof Noel Sharkey.
"Once the military get a hold of it, they will push it very hard," he explains.
"At the moment they are filling the airspace in Afghanistan with drones that only one person can control - but if they get the helmets well enough developed, they'll be able to control a number of planes or robot warriors directly with their thoughts."
There are also questions about what form cyber crime would take in the age of the wired mind?
"Imagine some kind of a wireless computer device in your head that you'll use for mind control - what if people hacked into that, what could they do to you and your property?," continues Prof Sharkey.
"And what if you are forced to wear a device and someone controls you with his thoughts, making you do things?..."
The possibilities, both positive and negative, are literally mind boggling.
U.S. Scientist Patents Time Machine
BeforeItsNews.com Tuesday, October 11, 2011
To read the full story:
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1216/437/U.S._Scientist_Patents_Time_Machine.html
To view the Time Machine Patent:
http://www.konformist.com/2011/timemachine.pdf
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20060073976.pdf
The patent for a time machine has been filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office by one Dr. Marvin B. Pohlman of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Who is Marvin B. Pohlman?
An American scientist, Marvin B. Pohlman is a man of many talents—and a very busy man.
According to his bio he's the Director of Governance, Risk and Compliance product strategy for a major Bay area enterprise software company. Despite the demands of his career, he's also managed to author three text books on IT governance and security.
In whatever spare time such a man has left, he found enough of it to invent a time machine.
At first glance, such a thing might be too fantastic a notion to believe, yet Pohlman does hold a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics, an MBA from Lexington Business School, and a PhD in computer science from Trinity University.
He's also a member of Portland Mensa, and is a Licensed Professional Engineer, Certified Information Systems Auditor, Certified Information Security Manager and Certified Information Systems security professional.
Perhaps he invented the time machine because he discovered he hasn't enough time to squeeze in everything he wants to accomplish?
A time traveler literally has all the time in the world
Regardless of why he invented it, he has.
From an abstract associated with the patent, Pohlman explains:
"The method employs sinusoidal oscillations of electrical bombardment on the surface of one Kerr type singularity in close proximity to a second Kerr type singularity in such a method to take advantage of the Lense-Thirring effect, to simulate the effect of two point masses on nearly radial orbits in a 2+1 dimensional anti-de Sitter space resulting in creation of circular timelike geodesics conforming to the van Stockum under the Van Den Broeck modification of the Alcubierre geometry (Van Den Broeck 1999) permitting topology change from one spacelike boundary to the other in accordance with Geroch's theorem (Geroch 1967) resulting in a method for the formation of Godel-type geodesically complete spacetime envelopes complete with closed timelike curves."
If you think this is all a big joke, take a look at the patent filing here:
http://www.konformist.com/2011/timemachine.pdf
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20060073976.pdf
What you're looking at may not last much longer in full public view. If the finished product works the U.S. military will grab it, wipe all references to it, and plunge it into another one of their deep, dark black projects.
As you can imagine, some familiar with the patent filing are skeptical...
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Is Our Universe a Hologram?
In 1982 a Litttle Known but Epic Event Occured at the University of Paris
September 29, 2011
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/09/is-our-universe-a-hologram-in-1982-a-litttle-known-but-epic-event-occured-at-the-university-of-paris.html
What if our existence is a holographic projection of another, flat version of you living on a two-dimensional "surface" at the edge of this universe? In other words, are we real, or are we quantum interactions on the edges of the universe - and is that just as real anyway?
Whether we actually live in a hologram is being hotly debated, but it is now becoming clear that looking at phenomena through a holographic lens could be key to solving some of the most perplexing problems in physics, including the physics that reigned before the big bang, what gives particles mass, a theory of quantum gravity.
In 1982 a litttle known but epic event occured at the University of Paris, where a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the Daily Show. In fact, unless you are a physicist you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though increasing numbers of experts believe his discovery may change the face of science.
Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart.
Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with increasingly elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's findings.
University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram. Bohm was involved in the early development of the holonomic model of the functioning of the brain, a model for human cognition that is drastically different from conventionally accepted ideas. Bohm developed the theory that the brain operates in a manner similar to a hologram, in accordance with quantum mathematical principles and the characteristics of wave patterns.
To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand that a hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams conflate) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.
In a recent collaboration between Fermilab scientists and hundreds of meters of laser may have found the very pixels of reality, grains of spacetime one tenth of a femtometer across.
The GEO600 system is armed with six hundred meters of laser tube, which sounds like enough to equip an entire Star War, but these lasers are for detection, not destruction. GEO600's length means it can measure changes of one part in six hundred million, accurate enough to detect even the tiniest ripples in space time - assuming it isn't thrown off by somebody sneezing within a hundred meters or the wrong types of cloud overhead (seriously). The problem with such an incredibly sensitive device is just that - it's incredibly sensitive.
The interferometer staff constantly battle against unwanted aberration, and were struggling against a particularly persistent signal when Fermilab Professor Craig Hogan suggested the problem wasn't with their equipment but with reality itself. The quantum limit of reality, the Planck length, occurs at a far smaller length scale than their signal - but according to Hogan, this literal ultimate limit of tininess might be scaled up because we're all holograms. Obviously.
The idea is that all of our spatial dimensions can be represented by a 'surface' with one less dimension, just like a 3D hologram can be built out of information in 2D foils. The foils in our case are the edges of the observable universe, where quantum fluctuations at the Planck scale are 'scaled up' into the ripples observed by the GEO600 team. We'd like to remind you that although we're talking about "The GEO600 Laser Team probing the edge of reality", this is not a movie.
What does this mean for you? In everyday action, nothing much - we're afraid that a fundamentally holographic nature doesn't allow you to travel around playing guitar and fighting crime (no matter what 80s cartoons may have taught you.) Whether reality is as you see it, or you're the representation of interactions on a surface at the edge of the universe, getting run over by a truck (or a representation thereof) will still kill you.
In intellectual terms, though, this should raise so many fascinating questions you'll never need TV again. While in the extreme earliest stages, with far more work to go before anyone can draw any conclusions, this is some of the most mind-bending metaphysical science you'll ever see.
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