First artificial life 'within months'
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 7:48pm BST 28/06/2007
Scientists could create the first new form of artificial life within months after a landmark breakthrough in which they turned one bacteria into another.
In a development that has triggered unease and excitement in equal measure, scientists took the whole genetic makeup - or genome - of a bacterial cell and transplanted it into a closely related species.
This then began to grow and multiply in the lab, turning into the first species in the process.
The team that carried out the first “species transplant” says it plans within months to do the same thing with a synthetic genome made from scratch in the laboratory.
If that experiment worked, it would mark the creation of a synthetic lifeform.
6.27.2007
god that makes my head hurt
Michael Shermer’s
Out of Body Experiment
Michael Shermer travels to Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada, to strap on the “God Helmet” in neuroscientist Michael Persinger’s lab that duplicates out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, alien abductions, and other paranormal phenomena.
6.22.2007
359 years to admit their crime
On June 22 1633 Galileo was Ordered to Recant Scientific Views.When he was almost 70 years old,
Galileo was summoned to Rome, tried by the Inquisition, and forced to "abjure, curse, and detest" his work that stated that the sun was the center of the universe. He complied, but was nonetheless convicted on "grave suspicion of heresy" and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1992, Pope John Paul II established a commission that ultimately issued an apology. it only took the them 359 years to admit Galileo was right about the earth and sun. how long before they come clean about the God Delusion as symptom of holy madness
Galileo was summoned to Rome, tried by the Inquisition, and forced to "abjure, curse, and detest" his work that stated that the sun was the center of the universe. He complied, but was nonetheless convicted on "grave suspicion of heresy" and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1992, Pope John Paul II established a commission that ultimately issued an apology. it only took the them 359 years to admit Galileo was right about the earth and sun. how long before they come clean about the God Delusion as symptom of holy madness
6.06.2007
Steam Trek
Steam Trek is a 1994 Star Trek fan video that recasts the voyages of the Enterprise as a late Victorian silent "moving picture" with great, Voyage to the Moon-style graphics and hilarious slates for dialog.
6.04.2007
Dr Strangelove meets the Terminator
Robo-Snipers, "Auto Kill Zones" to Protect Israeli Borders
By Noah Shachtman June 04, 2007 | 12:04:55
For years and years, the Israeli military has been trying to figure out a way to keep Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip from crossing over into Israel proper. The latest tactic: create a set of "automated kill zones" by networking together remote-controlled machine guns, ground sensors, and drones along the 60-kilometer border.
Defense News' Barbara Opall-Rome reports that "initial deployment plans for the See-Shoot system call for mounting a 0.5-caliber automated machine gun in each of several pillboxes interspersed along the Gaza border fence."
Connected via fiber optics to a remote operator station and a command-and-control center, each machine gun-mounted station serves as a type of robotic sniper, capable of enforcing a nearly 1,500-meter-deep no-go zone.
The IDF’s [Israeli Defense Forces] Southern Command is also considering adding Gill/Spike anti-tank missiles to extend the no-go zones to several kilometers, defense and industry sources here said.
The guns will be based on the Samson Remote Control Weapons Station. And the pillboxes are supposed to be positioned "at intervals of some hundreds of meters along the border, " Jane's Defence Weekly observes. They'll be "protected and secured (alarms, sensors and steel doors) and feature retractable armored covers that protect the weapon station when not in use."
Once IDF sensors locate a potential target, the operator can cue Sentry Tech to verify or engage the target through its own electro-optic (EO) day/night sensor package. The sensor-acquired information is transferred to the electro-optic package of the weapon station, which slews to the target, enabling the operator to locate and track the target... Each Sentry Tech can cover another in the event of a system failure and a single [center] can control up to 15 weapon stations."
The idea, ultimately, is to have a "closed-loop" system -- no human intervention required.
the more things change....
LA Times: Hippies-turned-homeowners vs. Punks in Haight-Ashbury
The Los Angeles Times reports on San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, where some former hippies-turned-homeowners aren't thrilled with the panhandling punks on the street. As Coop points out, there are some great quotes in here:
(Arthur) Evans, 64, says (the punks) should get help, clean up or go home...
"I used to be a hippie. I wore beads and grew my hair long," he said. "But my generation had something these kids do not: a standard of civilized behavior...."
"I'm sick of stepping over gangs of kids, only to be told 'Die, yuppie!' A lot of us were flower children, but we grew up," said Robert Shadoian, 58, a retired family therapist. "There are responsibilities in this world you have to meet. You can't be drugged out 24/7 and expect the world to take care of you."
(Carolyn) Mckenna said she was tired of being criticized for the "crime" of owning a home. "Haight-Ashbury is not synonymous with anarchy," she said. "It's not fair to homeowners with their entire net worth tied up here. I'd be disingenuous if I said I wasn't worried about property values."
The Los Angeles Times reports on San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, where some former hippies-turned-homeowners aren't thrilled with the panhandling punks on the street. As Coop points out, there are some great quotes in here:
(Arthur) Evans, 64, says (the punks) should get help, clean up or go home...
"I used to be a hippie. I wore beads and grew my hair long," he said. "But my generation had something these kids do not: a standard of civilized behavior...."
"I'm sick of stepping over gangs of kids, only to be told 'Die, yuppie!' A lot of us were flower children, but we grew up," said Robert Shadoian, 58, a retired family therapist. "There are responsibilities in this world you have to meet. You can't be drugged out 24/7 and expect the world to take care of you."
(Carolyn) Mckenna said she was tired of being criticized for the "crime" of owning a home. "Haight-Ashbury is not synonymous with anarchy," she said. "It's not fair to homeowners with their entire net worth tied up here. I'd be disingenuous if I said I wasn't worried about property values."
A fuel cell that will run off the fat from your ass
"A new kind of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell has been developed that can consume any kind of fuel, from hydrogen to bio-diesel; it is over two times more efficient than traditional generators. Acumentrics is attempting to market the technology to off-grid applications (like National Parks) and also for home use as personal Combined Heat and Power plants that are extremely efficient (half as carbon-intensive as grid power.)"
6.03.2007
Like we didnt see that comming
For the first time, the Bush administration is beginning publicly to discuss basing U.S. troops in Iraq for years, even decades to come, a subject so fraught with political land mines that officials are tiptoeing around the inevitable questions about what the long-term mission would be there.
6.02.2007
now stick that American Spirit in your pipe and smoke it
Tobacco's radiation dose far higher than leaves at Chernobyl
If nothing else, this should worry smokers: the radiation dose from radium and polonium found naturally in tobacco can be a thousand times more than that from the caesium-137 taken up by the leaves from the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Constantin Papastefanou from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece measured radioactivity in tobacco leaves from across the country and calculated the average radiation dose that would be received by people smoking 30 cigarettes a day. He found that the dose from natural radionuclides was 251 microsieverts a year, compared with 0.199 from Chernobyl fallout in the leaves (Radiation Protection Dosimetry, vol 123, p 68).
Though the radiation dose from smoking was only 10 per cent of the average dose anyone receives from all natural sources, Papastefanou argues that it is an increased risk. "Many scientists believe that cancer deaths among smokers are due to the radioactive content of tobacco leaves and not to nicotine and tar," he says
If nothing else, this should worry smokers: the radiation dose from radium and polonium found naturally in tobacco can be a thousand times more than that from the caesium-137 taken up by the leaves from the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Constantin Papastefanou from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece measured radioactivity in tobacco leaves from across the country and calculated the average radiation dose that would be received by people smoking 30 cigarettes a day. He found that the dose from natural radionuclides was 251 microsieverts a year, compared with 0.199 from Chernobyl fallout in the leaves (Radiation Protection Dosimetry, vol 123, p 68).
Though the radiation dose from smoking was only 10 per cent of the average dose anyone receives from all natural sources, Papastefanou argues that it is an increased risk. "Many scientists believe that cancer deaths among smokers are due to the radioactive content of tobacco leaves and not to nicotine and tar," he says
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