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It was Big News earlier this year when an organic solar cell broke the 2% efficiency barrier (though it's still below 2% for sunlight.) And that's with a material specifically engineered to be an efficient solar cell.

This stuff, optimized to shine light rather than absorb it, is probably considerably less efficient. Maybe by an order of magnitude even. Combine that with the impracticality of charging your laptop even with commercial solar cells, and you've got a non-starter. Perhaps after several more generations of research this will have some use, but not now.

it could wipe out caffeinated coffee.

Before you flame or down-mod me as being anti-GM or anti-futurist, review the facts and double-check the counter claims and rebuttals.

Strange timing. The latest issue of Scientific American has an article that discusses the Drake equation, specifically the L quantity which is the lifetime of communicating civilizations.

An interesting aspect of the argument is that L decreases as societies become more technologically advanced (on Earth, at least). Whether this is the case after a certain "threshold" for technology is less clear, though, but it certainly seems plausible that at any given time there may be a species capable of communicating with no one else to talk to.

Read 15 Answers to Creationist Nonesense in this month's Scientific American.

Augmented Reality: A New Way of Seeing

Unfortunately, it will be a while before the technology becomes inexpensive and readily available:

MEMS the Word

Of course, you could always take a Gameboy outside, you really need full sunlight or equivalent to play it.

When I was a kid, playing outside sucked, but then I did grow up very near the Urban Deathmaze which may have colored my thinking.... (Please note, Urban Deathmaze is meant with the utmost affection, I love New York! Heck, I remember when my Mom took me to the great electronic games expo there, they had Vectrex's!)

Besides, Video Tape is so much more dangerous than video games, there is this one tape making the rounds in Japan that will kill you seven days after you watch it...

'The problem with Lomborg's conclusion is that the scientists themselves disavow it.'

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F3D4 7-C6D2-1CEB-93F6809EC5880000

Naughty, naughty.
See Lombords rebuttal at: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000001E 0-157B-1CD4-B4A8809EC588EEDF

Funny, how a scientific publication uses 11 pages in attacking the book but only allows a one page rebuttal.
This is what convinced me to cancel my subscription to sciam.

Also see the Economists' review: http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID =965718

The arresting thing about Scientific American's coverage, however, was not this barrage of ineffective rejoinders but the editor's notion of what was going on: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist," he announced.

That is amazing. Mr Lomborg's targets are green scare-mongers and their credulous servants in the media. He uses the findings of scientists to press his case. How can using science to criticise the Kyoto agreement, to show that the world's forests are not disappearing, to demonstrate that the planet's supplies of energy and food will suffice indefinitely, and the rest, constitute an attack on science? If that is so, the scholars whose work supports those positions are presumably attacking science too, and had better stand in line for a pie in the face.

--
Karma to spare...

What!? You mean <i></i> is not an irony tag?

Eloquently put. From the newspapers and TV here, one would think that the health care system is a failure, the American system is wonderful, and that everyone supports going to an American-style system. I figure that the companies that own the media just want a chunk of that GDP.

Alright then, though questions. Let's see.

Do you think it is possible that "The Knowlege Tree" in the garden of eden may have been an actually metafor for knowlege itslef, i.e. christanity didn't want us to question our exsitance, and we are paying in suffering for trying to find out? That is why we lost the bliss of living in Eden? (Man, did that one get me in trouble in CCD class) If not, what does that mean, don't tell me God just really really liked them apples.

You say logic is important to you. How logical is it that when Jesus and friends went into the un-human bareing desert, with no or little food, and it just rained fish? I think it is more likeing that that the "manna" was really man. They cut up the courpes of the people that died form stavation and such, and served them to the sourvivors. Do you think that is more logical? (A friend and I used to say to each other "Jesus says you smell like fish." We thought that was funny.)

If all of the humans on earth come from two ansestors, Adam and Eve, then wouldn't there be a lot of imbreeding and genetic problems resulting from that? Why would the church have a stance against inbreeding if that was the case? I thought I heard somewhere that Adam and Eve only had girls, does that mean that Adam had sex with one of his daughters?

I have read in an oldern, non "translated to the common language" bible that Noah sacurficed some animals to God after landing. What do you think of that?

I don't know how the universe is created, we are too primative of a species right now to find out, but the easy answser of the bible is quit unlogical. There are millions, possible more, plants, why spend a whole "day" on earth? It is also mathmatically logical that life exsits on other plants, why not mention that in the bible? Why is there no mention of the Dinosars (oh, please please awnser that one, my imdiate family took my grandpa on my dad's side to a Dino dig near our house, and afterwards he said 'that's great, but you know it's all fake. I thought that was funny.)

Why should one want to go to heaven? There will just be people better then me there. I like to paint, but I won't get attention when Picso and Rembrant are up there. I would feel worthless.

What do you think that people have to do to get into heaven, and why do you think that is fair/logical/understandable? What about the perfect person that dosn't believe and the rottenest person that does. Who gets in?

Does God grant wishes or help out his followers? Does he for his nonfollowers? Why/why not.

If life begins at conception, at which part of conception does it begain at? Conception is not an event, it is a process involving many steps. If any one the steps goes wrong, the mother naturally aborts the cells during her next period. This happens a lot even if the process goes right. Why does God do this? Why is He killing babies? He does make the baby, right? He is making a mistake in the process of making the baby? I thought God didn't make mistakes.

Why did god let do thouse things (let satan do thouse things if you fall for the motern version of the text) to Job just to prove a bet with the devil? Doesn't god have better things to do then make wagers with the devel?

If evolution donsn't exsist, then why do we constinally find neanderthal skulls and bones? Don't say it is a conspiricy (there have been some fakes made for attention, yes) because the scientists are too busy producing Dinasour bones to be doing that too.

If God is perfect, why is there bad stuff in the world, stuff that is out of human control? Why can't he just perfectly get rid of it and that devel guy too. Is the devel stronger or equal in power to God?

If I follow God, what's in it for me, besdies his magical after life and three wishes?

When Jesus died on the cross, where did he go?

Why does pictures and statues always so Jesus with nails in his hands, when obviously nails in the palms would not support the weight of a body?

Is it possible that Jesus just fained on the cross from a lack of water? I read in the bible that he asked for water, which is kind of strange request since when someone is in that position they should almost imedatly choke to death, like a hanging.

Why did the roman guard need to cut Jesus with a soward to make sure he was dead? From history I read that this is not common. Why would they do that to a guy who's was claming to be the son of god, and not the rapists/murders in the crosses beside him. Is it really more important ot make sure taht someone who thinks they are chosen by god is really dead next to a rapist/killer? Well, see my pervious post I guess.

If Jesus forgave the apposile (forogot his name) for touching his wondes because he didn't belive, why should I convert when I am a nonbeliver? When we meet, he should forgive me right away just like that apposile guy.

Why does one have to go to church once a week? What's up with that? Just because our creator reasted for a day, I can't rest on the couch watching Football, and I have to go worship him?

Why does god hurt the inocent people and babies with diseases? Is he really less powerful then evil? If he is less powerful then evil, shouldn't we worship evil for forgiveness?

That tight roper anology, what evidence do you have that Jesus/god exstists and helps? (By the way, useing anologies is like spreeding jelly on toliet paper)

If you enjoy hell, think people who like S&M, does god put you in heaven? Wouldn't that piss off the people in heaven, having thouse types around? Then does it become their hell so they have to go somewhere else?

What percent (about of course) of people who lived when to heaven? Did only people after Jesus' time go? What about people that are living now, percent wise?

I heard that "Jesus died for our sins" but I never heard "Jesus died for the sins of the people that belive in him". Doesn't that mean that I'm a-ok for the afterlife?

How could you find it logical that a little wafer craker could be the body of Jesus?

Why does gossiping with a priest, at least for catholics, get rid of my sins?

If the wine is truly the blood of Jesus, wouldn't that be a little gross, drinking blood? Catholics do take both literally, the cracker and the jin.

Why didn't Jesus save himself and use his superhuman powers and make the romans understand? Like some Yoda mind trick or something.

Does god like it that we are making impovments in medicine and chaning the aveage life span of 45, when Jesus was around, to 80 today? What about fucking with genes and stuff?

Why did Jesus decent into heaven after he rose from the dead? Why didn't he continue to do his goodness on earth? What good can he do in heaven, it's already perfect there. I would have a little more faith in him if he was around earth 2000 years after he was born. Maybe he dosn't want people following him?

Why didn't Jesus write any of the bible, or any other writtings, by himself? Was he inliterate?

Why did it take so many authors to write the bible? You probably belive that god wrote it through this people, then why didn't he just choose a prolific writter, like the Steven King of 0AD, and just tell him what to write?

Why does that bible controdict itself in many places? Just do a google search on "bible controdictions" if you need evidence. Did god mess up? Isn't he perfect? If it was the writter's fault, why didn't he chouse better ones? If it was their fault, does that means that the writters could interpreate how they wanted too? Wouldn't this open a very large can of worms?

If god does good things for his followers, why does he help the non-folowers? Is that a repeat question?

What does God think of computers and that we are/are going to make/ ones that are smarter then humans in many ways. Humans are his prized work right? Arn't we fucking with him by saying we could do better?

If no one belive in god, would there be any motivation for people to go on buses and blow each other up or slam jets into sky scrapers? The bombers/pilots arn't doing to for polical reason, they are doing it for their god. Osama Bin-Laden is doing it for polical reason. If there was no god, he would have had to learn to fly himself.

Well, I should get back to work. That was a nice long and fun break though. I'm studying some mammography images of breast cancer and trying to use some software to have it detect cancer spots useing histograms and graphifical data. Aww, the life a BioChemist, the church's worst enemey :-) . (We were the ones that truely disproved creatism)

If you check the sidebar, it mentions Dr. Podkletnov. This is different.

"Even if Chiao's contraption works, it wouldn't allow the generation of antigravity fields, as Russian materials scientist Eugene Podkletnov, then at Tampere University of Technology in Finland, controversially claimed to have observed in 1992 (see link ). Antigravity requires canceling out a powerful, static gravitoelectric field, yet superconductors have no effect on such fields."

"Even if Chiao's contraption works, it wouldn't allow the generation of antigravity fields, as Russian materials scientist Eugene Podkletnov, then at Tampere University of Technology in Finland, controversially claimed to have observed in 1992 (see link ). Antigravity requires canceling out a powerful, static gravitoelectric field, yet superconductors have no effect on such fields."

There was the report in 1996 about the crating of antigravity using spinning superconducting disks, also reported in SciAm (a followup report can be found here. It basically debunks the original claim, saying that the original paper has been withdrawn by it's authors, and oter physicists are very skeptical. But I wonder if this might have something to do with it (probably not).

Good. Take your holier-than-thou attitude, hop on your environment saving bicycle, and ride off into the sunset.

does Hawkeye still do the SA shows?

Yes, he does.

...in the past thinking like this has resulted in things like Ada.

Yes, this is true. Ada was devised as the result of 4 groups competing against each other, and the best of em (though opinions vary) selected as the Mandated Language for the DOD.

The whole process is described thusly:

The driving concern of the HOLWG was to assure that the design was guided by a responsible principle investigator, and to preclude "design by committee". On the other hand, picking a single contractor to do the job and trusting to luck would have been imprudent. The procurement was through multiple competitive contracts, with the best products to be selected for continuation to full rigorous definition and developmental implementation.

And it was a disaster from the Defence Contractor's viewpoint. Firms fell over themselves trying to get exemptions from using it, ANYTHING was better. Because Ada had

• Objects
• Exceptions
• Generics (templates)
• Multiple-threading/Tasking
• Strong Typing

So yes, had compatibility been mandated in the past, we might all have systems far more reliable and robust. But Microsoft wouldn't have $40 Billion and a number of tame Congresscritters.

We (the intelligent life) are here and not on another planet because this planet is uniquely suited to us.

An elegant statement of the Weak Anthropic principle.

FWIW my current worldview is

• Life "as we know it" is a lot more common in our region than we think. Due to exobiology as per the Hoyle Wickramasinghe hypothesis. Even if the hypothesis is wrong and life requires a clay matrix to develop DNA, and even though the latest news on Martian Meteors looks like they didn't contain fossil bugs, the mechanism for propagating life pretty much anywhere near where it develops is sound. Bacteria are hardy beasts, and can survive in space quite well. With the latest news on the water on Mars, the odds of life there approach certainty.
• That's the good news. The Bad news is that the step from procaryotes to eucaryotes, that is, going from single-cell to multi-celled organisms is a big one, and probably only a fraction of one percent of life origins ever make it.
• But it's worse than that. Technology requires colonies of multicellular organisms. These can be as complex as as the Portugese Man-O-War which although it looks like a jellyfish is actually a colony of 4 different polyps, more like a multi-species anthill or coral reef than anything else. Or they can be as simple as the US Congress, an organism whose intellect is less than any of its constituent members. In any case, some multicellular genusses may remain in pre-school, and never develop anything as complex as an ant farm. The development of such complexity may require a stable double-planet system, rare as hen's teeth. Earth and its moon would be considered a double planet system if we didn't live on one of em.
• It's worse still. The Dinosaurs were terrifically successful for megayears, but had they landed on the Moon, we'd almost certainly know it. So it's possible to have complex organisms, complex societies (herds), but still no technology for Sagans. Closer to home, Dolphins are unlikely to ever develop a technology. You may need to periodocally hit the planetary reset button with a meteor or super-volcano. But not too hard - or you've got to rebuild from procaryotes again. And not too soft, you only have a limited amount of time before the star you're around goes Ploof.
• Finally, there's the "Goldilocks Zone" that's the subject of the original article. Star too close to galactic centre = bad. Star too far out = bad. And then within that torus, star in spiral arm centre = bad. Don't be too near a supernova. So the quicker you can develop a multi-stellar population, the better. Which reduces the odds even further.

Though we could start right now with Chimpanzees and Gorillas. They'd be considered primitive but undoubtedly intelligent species if they came from another planet. History will judge us harshly if we don't start granting sub-human rights to sub-humans.

Which means that we'd better get our ethics up to scratch.

Regardless, lets say that a exact Earth analogs occur around one out of a billion stars. That still leaves 100 Earth analogs in the Milky Way alone.

Well, okay, let's assume that one out of a billion stars has an Earth like planet. Only about 1 out of 100 of those would be in what he considers a "habitable" zone of the galaxy. I've espoused on this several times here on Slashdot, and since I get to have my soapbox here, I'll do it again. Again I point to this article, that I think makes excellent points about why there's no other "intelligent" life in this galaxy.

I don't think that there's no other intelligent life out there, I just think that it averages 1 per galaxy tops. I think the chances of two intelligent species evolving in the same galaxy are incredibly slim, basically on the premise that, before a second species will have the opportunity, their planet will already be colonized.

And as I'll say over and over again, I very well may be wrong, just as anyone else who espouses on this topic. Working with a statistical sample population of 1 (us), makes it very hard to put statistics, let alone facts, on any of this.

This is an old article, but apparently they never got any further on the subject:
http://www.sciam.com/askexpert/computers/computers 2.html
I suppose that if one can get mirrors to move fast (9ms to be faster than normal harddrives) and accurate, wich is probably just what they already can with normal hardrive heads moving much faster (the average access time from harddisk drives is determined by the speed the disk spins, not the speed of the heads), the only problem left is getting the data-density up..

What about Pluto/Charon?
Not to mention all the KBOs.

What about Pluto/Charon?
Not to mention all the KBOs.

From Scientific American:

According to Lieutenant Commander Roderick Fraser, who was the chief engineer on board the ship at the time of the incident, the fault was with certain applications that were developed by CAE Electronics in Leesburg, Va. As Harvey McKelvey, former director of navy programs for CAE, admits, "If you want to put a stick in anybody's eye, it should be in ours." But McKelvey adds that the crash would not have happened if the navy had been using a production version of the CAE software, which he asserts has safeguards to prevent the type of failure that occurred.

One problem with all of this is separating fact from hype when it comes to nanotechnology.

The money may come in, but the market has to correct sometime.

I predict a "nanotechnology" version of the web economy bullshit generator in the not-so-near future!

Dot-con business plans were hard enough to understand; I can only imagine how bad these nanotech ones are read...

Not really that much of a spread of technologies, mostly just small-scale molecular/DNA computing and quantum computing. If you ask me the real front runners for next gen computing are RSFQ, spintronics, and massively parallel "quasi-processors" / reconfigurable computers (such as RAW and "smart memory"). More the kind of thing you'll see on your desktop 5-10 years from now rather than in the lab and still needing another decade to fully develop.

I seemed to have answered my own question, the article i was refering to was the Ultra Wide Band. Additionally, this article seemed interesting.

-dk

Another advanced technology which may replace ilicon in the near term is spintronics. These devices have one advantage over nanotube transistors in that they may easily implement quantum computing...

Its true Mars is a bad destination if your interested in mining. And its true that it would not return as much new technology as earlier space programs (though saying without Apollo we wouldn't have computers is a bit much.)

However, it would give a much needed purpose to NASA and provide important scientific research about Mars.

And its my belief that theres needs to be a self-sustaining human settlement outside of Earth under the "don't put all your eggs in one basket" theory. This would be a step in that direction.

Robert Zubrin has proposed a, what I believe to be, a better idea. An execellent introduction to his "Mars Direct" plan can be found here at his Scientific American article.

While this bill throws puts on emphasis on "reusable," that isn't necesary or the necesarily the cheapest. Mars Direct launchs several space craft to the Martian surface - the only one without redunancy is the one with people in it. The trick of it is that it is one of the pods uses the atmosphere of Mars to produce the necesary fuel for the trip back - an obvious advantage.

Probably the biggest advantage is that it is a 10 year program, using technology we have around right now. The rocket boosters proposed are not off-the-shelf but they are off-the-abandoned-rocket-parts and uses 30 year old 'technology'. Having a 10 year interval between starting and results, such as the Apollo program, is very important. The program proposed in the bill not only has unnecesary research, but its 20 year program is unrealistic - programs simply can't go on the long.

A problem with Mars Direct is that it uses nuclear energy. I don't have much of a problem with nuclear energy when its on another planet, but it makes it politically more difficult. I think its use stems from Zubrin nuclear engineering background and from his unwillingness to consider advances in technology that will be obtained by the time a Mars program actually starts. I think the latter is overall a good tactic for Zubrin, as it fends off accusations of science fiction.

Much of the same technology used to go to Mars could be used to go the moon (though obviously fuel can't be made on the Moon, but that isn't as much as an issue). Returning to the moon has merit, especially when it comes to radio astronomy - the far side of the moon is the unique position of probably being one of the only plces within a few light years of being free from human radio interferance.

Spintronics could mean the end of booting your computer. From the article:

More sophisticated storage technologies based on spintronics are already at an advanced stage: in the next few years, MRAM (magnetic random-access memory), a new type of computer memory, will go on the market. MRAMs would retain their state even when the power was turned off, but unlike present forms of nonvolatile memory, they would have switching rates and rewritability challenging those of conventional RAM.

Think about what this means! You will be able to turn off your MRAM computer and when you turn it back on, you won't have to boot it. The computer (its memory) would be in the state in which you left it. Think of how nice that'll be!

Of course, when Windows crashed everyday, you'd still have to boot it.

The April issue of Scientific American even has an article on "The Science of Bad Breath" by Mel Rosenberg

This sounds similar to this australian attempt: check this article and this (better) article.

Summary: 2 guys in spacesuits taking a giant helium balloon to 40km. In the vacum of space, they'll descend at 1600-1800 kph (994-1118 mph), becoming the first man to break the sound barrier unaided (that's cool!). Plenty of video taken for marketing opportunities.

The funny thing is that both of these ballons claim to be going to the "edge of space" at 40km, but the traditional definition (and the one used for the X-prize) is 100km. By that standard, I guess I have beach-front property!

Take this article from Scientific American for example Watching Wrestling Linked to Violent Behavior . Other studies have found simmilar results. Kids are like monkeys. Monkey see, monkey do.

No not at all new.

There have been theories about cyclic expansions and contractions lasting say a 100 billion years. But these theories were killed by the realisation that there was not enough mass in the universe to reverse the contraction.

Also there is a class of theories, which I guess this theory belongs to where the universe reproduces itself. Scientific American had an article on this about 10 years ago. About how after a very long period of time the universe could spontaneously generate a new big bang withough contraction.

In fact, an update on the original article can be found here .

As you can see this looks a lot like the current theory at first sight, but they are quite different since the latest one involves 'branes'.

From the Tap Room.

From Scientific American.

And one from Science News.

Now really, how would any of this classify you ask? It is accessible to students (at least I recall accessing a fair amount of it), it changed the way people think (at least about beer, and your eyes are opened to the wonderous presence of physics in everyday life), and if all else fails, you can usually drink your experimental supplies, which would be a damn risky proposition in many other experimental situations....

Though not particularly revolutionary, creating a cloud chamber and seeing the paths of radioactive particles is really quite amazing the first time you see it.

We did this experiement during A-Level physics, with small chambers using dry ice, alcohol and some of the small alpha and beta sources that schools are allowed to use.

A quick google seach will turn up lots of instructions for making your own, for example :

• some instructions from cornell
• or an article from Scientific America

Of course, no one has ever died as a result of the Coriolis effect, but the rotational frame of reference one of the scientists refers to sounds like the rocket that missed its landing point in the original link.

Oxygen (the gas we use when we breathe) is actually a posionous gas that life on earth has evolved to reley on. If oxygen is breathed at very low pressure it can kill you.

Yes - this is called suffocation. What (I think) you are trying to say is that oxygen can cause central nervous system toxicity at high pressures.

Life on this planet has evolved to the appropiate temperature, which ranges from penguins and polar bears is constant freezing conditions, to certain lizards and scorpions who survive in boiling dessert conditions.

I've never had a lizard or a scorpion in any dessert I've ever eaten. Oh - you mean desert...

I still don't know what the point of this fact is.

The building blocks of life on this planet are Amino Acids and proteins. These can be created from methane(Carbon and Hydrogeon), Hydrogeon-Cyanide(Carbon, Hyrdrogeon and Nitrogeon), Ammonia(Nitrogeon and Hydrogeon) and Water (Hydrogeon and oxygeon) which can be found on many planets.

Proteins are built of amino-acids, so proteins aren't really a building block per se. Amino Acids are one of the building blocks of life on this planet, and the constituents of amino acids are certainly ubiquitious. Nucleic acids are another key building block. But why do you assume that other life elsewhere uses proteins and amino-acids? I'd expect other life to be based on carbon chemistry (being the only element that forms chains with itself) but there is a huge range of chemistry available it would be extraordinary if it was DNA and amino-acid based. (Extraordinary for one of two reason: either life can only follow the DNA path, which would be very interesting; or it can follow other paths, but hasn't, which implies some common origin - possibly some panspermia type mechanism, or some sort of catalytic prelife process that tilts the odds vastly in favour of amino-acid/DNA organisms).

So what a lot of astornomers are looking for at the monent is planets, so at alter point that they can study these to see if they have the required elements to create/support any life, the chances of finding another planet with the same temperature range and air composition of earth is highly improbable.

Indeed, the presence of an oxygen containing atmosphere is a very strong indicator or life (the converse is not true - life existed on earth for millions of years before blue-green algae started starting polluting the place with nasty oxygen).

The temperature range is not that important - have a look at extremophiles in general and (my favourites) tardigrades in particular to have some idea of the flexibility of life. Remember these are organisms which developed on one planet.

High density magnetic storage for the purposes of building very large storage systems will hopefully soon be replaced by optical hollographic crystal storage. Once these systems reach production it will be possible to store hundreds of billions of bytes of data, transfer them at a rate of a billion or more bits per second and select a randomly chosen data element in 100 microseconds or less.

This will pretty much make all the obtuse magnetic data bricks and high density RDRAM obsolete! I would image that IBM knows this, but wants to make 32TB data storage systems a reality today and for now, only has magnetic disks at thier disposal.

Avoiding Interference

(1) He considers himself a genius.

(2) He regards his colleagues, without exception, as ignorant blockheads....

(3) He believes himself unjustly persecuted and discriminated against. The recognized societies refuse to let him lecture. The journals reject his papers and either ignore his books or assign them to "enemies" for review. It is all part of a dastardly plot. It never occurs to the crank that this opposition may be due to error in his work....

(4) He has strong compulsions to focus his attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories. When Newton was the outstanding name in physics, eccentric works in that science were violently anti-Newton. Today, with Einstein the father-symbol of authority, a crank theory of physics is likely to attack Einstein....

(5) He often has a tendency to write in a complex jargon, in many cases making use of terms and phrases he himself has coined.

Let's just assume that a planet just like Earth[TM] is the only way to get intelligent life.
Add all of the extra pessimistic factors described in the article to the Drake equation. Put in reasonable values for everything. If you get an answer greater than one the Fermi Paradox means that finding intelligent life (or it finding you) is still likely, if you manage to keep a civilization around long enough.

If you have a large enough rock, the compression and radioactivity in the core will kept the core molten. This combined with the spin of the planet will generate as rotating mass of metal. This, with other factors, is generally enough to get a magnetic field going. So, with a big enough planet, you get the whole deal, magnetic field, gravity, sustained atmosphere, etc.

Yes, the core is radioactive to some degree.

I suspect that part of the problem with Mars is that the core cooled down, shutting down plate techtonics before it really had a chance to get going well.

If Mars took, say, 4 billion years to cool down, since the Earth is roughly twice the diameter, it will take about 8 times as long to cool off. We have plenty of time.

google shows you don't need .NET but can just as well use Java to make use of XML web services

Of course anybody who has any background knowledge of web services knows that pretty much any language with text manipulation can be used to create web services. The point of .NET is not that it is the only way of creating web services but rather it makes creating them a lot easier; WSDL, DISCO, SOAP, etc. are abstracted away to make the developing web services easier. Yon don't need to know the bare protocol to start coding (of course it always helps).

WSDL offers no advantages over Corba. The only difference is the use of XML...

The use of XML is an advantage. XML is easy to use, and is an open standard. Although binary specs are slightly more efficient in transfer time and space requirements, this is becoming more and more negligible. More important is a developer's time. It is a lot easier to use and debug and text-based spec like XML than a binary spec.

The only justification for XML web services is that MSFT hates Corba

Maybe before you spout worthless anti-msft drivel you should research the origins of Web Services. Check out this article by Tim Berners-Lee for a quick intro.

No migration happens because photons have 0 rest mass, and therefore don't have intertia.

Ahh, yes... a very common mistake by the non-physicist. It seems to make sense that something that has zero rest mass cannot possibly have inertia. This is, however, completely wrong. The problem is that massless particals travel at the speed of light, which is where some interesting things happen in the equations. We start out with the general equation:
E^2 = m^2*c^4+p^2*c^2

Substituting 0 for m, we can solve for p = E/c. It's well known that photons carry energy, and thus they must carry momentum. (There are other methods of deriving this, however I will not get into them... pretty much all waves carry momentum, one way or another).

How else would projects like the Astronomical Society's Solar Sail function?

As for this being the primary reason that optronics are better than electronics, I'm not entirely sure... definately massless particals are in general better for things like this (where you want maximum information carried for a minimum amount of energy, in a minimum amount of time). Photons typically propagate faster than electronic signals, and optical circuits usually have a much higher bandwitdth due to frequency-level multiplexing.

Also, it is possible to use physical properties of photons to compute fast fourier transforms, which are especially important for digital signal processing. Not to mention the amazingly fast access times of ultra-huge holographic databases.

Dislaimer: I'm not a physicist, but I'm studying to become one.

-Justin

This is an abstract of what looks like a comparable study done with dolphins. Most of the original classification of species was done using fairly gross comparisons - almost to the level of "are they basically the same shape?" (sympatric morphotypes). What Heyning's group is doing is to compare the DNA sequence of a elements from a mitochondrial gene, cytochrome b, isolated from different dolphins or whales. Mitochondrial DNA is unique, in that it does not mix with nuclear DNA and is only transmitted to offspring from the mother, not the father. This means that since different species do not interbreed, species specific differences in mitochondrial DNA sequences will be more pronounced than in the more "typical" gene sequence. By grouping individual animals by mitochondrial DNA sequences, they can then use this to go back and identify subtle differences in physiology that you otherwise couldn't do with the small subpopulation of beached whales.

A similar approach has been used to analyze human evolution, among other things.

The HETE-1 was supposed to look for gamma ray bursts. If you haven't heard about these events, they are believed to emanate from explosions so powerful that they produce more energy in a matter of seconds than the sun will emit in its entire 10 billion years of life.

The cool thing is that astronomers have almost no idea what could be causing these enormous bursts.

Check out http://www.sciam.com/0797issue/0797fishman.html for more information.

Another good overview, a little more recent, from Scientific American.

There's an explanation of why stopping light could lead to advances in quantum computing here.

There's also some news about it here at Harvard's site. Also, there's an article here in Scientific American about this.

Didn't this all happen last year, too? Why is it just news now?

It didn't say why the North Pole is moving (unless I missed it). It's because of solar wind, correct?