C'mon everyone, this is a news for (mainly) tech nerds into hardware/software not wetware (sorry biologists).
We should be demanding progress on that mosquito vaporizing laser demonstrated at TED by Paul Allen's company. It seemed remarkably free of "side effects" and would not put a dent in the overall mosquito population (at least not until the "Star Wars" space based global anti-mosquito laser netwok is set up). They claimed that they could manufacture it (in quantity) for $50.
I had Dengue fever last year and I'd buy one for ten times the price (I know that won't work for the developing world but hey, what can I say? I'm selfish and one less food source available for mosquitos the better for everyone).
Anyone out there know how to get this thing "kickstarted"? How much would Paul Allen ask for the rights?
I wonder how they "genetically modified" their mosquitos? Did they use a viral vector? In TFA they didn't say.
There was a book a while ago called "The White Plague" and then the movie "Children of Men" in which a virus(?) is unleashed that made WOMEN sterile. I guess this is their way of doing the same thing; they (might) use viruses to change the male Mosquitos which would THEN create flightless (unable to breed) female mosquitos.
Now with the recent revelation that scientists have made a very lethal virus (50%! fatality rate) by making Avian Flu H5N1 more transmissible (the previous "problem" was that it didn't spread human to human; fixed that) it doesn't seem that far fetched that what they did to mosquitos could be done to us.
All said, I'd rather "die" by not reproducing than from a horrible virus but I've got to ask: Is this the answer to the Fermi paradox?
I believe there was a science fiction story that once something like this:
Some super space aliens/God came to earth and after seeing what Man had done to the planet gathered up all the animals and asked:
"If two of you will say that Man was good to you, I will spare him, otherwise he will be made extinct like he has done to so many of you."
The dog, stood next to his master, loyal in his hour of need. The cat on the other hand merely licked his paws and sauntered away.
"Is there no-one else who will vouch for Man?". Just silence. Finally, the mosquito came, remembering all the juicy meals it had sucked from that soft, hairless flesh.
THAT SAID I REALLY HATE THE BUGGERS. (I live in Vietnam and I had Dengue fever last year, horrific.) Where, oh where is that mosquito vaporizing laser demonstrated at TED? Can't someone buy the patent rights fom Paul Allen and develop it already?!
Thanks for not thoroughly trashing me. I didnt realize they weren't on public airwaves. I got confused when I saw the local Fox affiliate (which IS broadcast I think) and thought it was tied to the Fox cable news network (it isn't is it?).
Anyway, my only excuse is I've been out of the country for 5 years and I'm at my uncle's place. He's got his A/V setup as a mishmash of satellite, cable (and terrestrial?) and I'm not sure where I'm getting ech feed from.
Definitely the restrictions on what he has to say are much less if he's on satellite/cable. Sorry to all of you right-wingers out there! In this case I'M the one who's definitely less informed!;)
Like Kurzweil and Co., he's a nut. But a smart nut!
Who said that all progress comes the crazy ones (or something vaguely like that). So maybe they're right (and I'm hoping for it). But (unlike him, lacking a legacy) I wouldn't bet my retirement fund on it.
Look, it's bad enough that Fox News is owned by a man who allegedly changed his nationality to get around foreign ownership laws of media outlets (how come the Aussies and Brits don't have those laws? That way he'd only influence ONE country's media).
But aren't there laws in the U.S. against the blatant use of the public airwaves to push a particular viewpoint or even "hatemongering" (just as one example: look at the number of times Fox accidentally spelled "Obama", "Osama" and mentioned his middle name "Hussein")? For a detailed look at this bias watch the documentary "Outfoxed".
Even if you were to claim that this is protected free speech (yes but not using public spectrum! Use a satellite like Howard Stern!) couldn't there be a case made for shutting the network down for the public interest? Several recent studies have shown that Fox viewers are not only less informed than viewers of other network/media, but they are less informed than people who WATCHED NOTHING AT ALL (don't know exactly the comparisons, google it).
Until then I didn't know that ignorance could be a negative value. Wow.
Of course, if there is any proof to the allegations that his company spied on Americans, perhaps some form of justice will be done.
I understand that when Tim Berners-Lee was coming up with a language to put his web pages together he almost decided to use HyperCard (I don't know why he didn't, anyone?).
Now imagine a world where HyperCard (available on Macs only) had been used as the development language for the WWW. Then maybe Apple would've kept selling their (then) overpriced Macs for a few more years and Scully would've held onto his job a few more years (do I have the years right?). Steve would've retired early, being embittered by his inability to retake control of Apple... (but I hope he got to see his doctor earlier!)... and the world would've been very different.
(got to get back into my parallel universe time travel transport! Now to try killing Hitler!)
Well this news is very depressing, it shows that when the singularity comes (the ability to REALLY control matter at the atomic level)* the potential for abuse may overwhelm the benefits.
Perhaps, if the world could get its act together (highly unlikely, they can't even save the euro), a UN agency A.R.M. (I forget what it stands for, go ask Larry Niven) could be put into place to keep certain technologies under control. I guess it would be like MIB but focused on humans not Aliens.
*I think a bioengineered virus qualifies as one of mankind's first crude attempt at a self-replicating nano-assembler.
I always wondered whether or not recovering this would be viable, but I wasn't sure since I know next to nothing about nuclear physics if this plutonium (Pu) could be used to make a bomb. Still, I guess it could be used for a dirty bomb.
When Cassini was launched I figured that (if the plutonium was the right kind), Saddam Hussein (remember him?) might be very interested in getting a hold of the 70(!) lbs. of Pu on board. Cassini was scheduled to do a flyby (gravitational assist) using the earth, passing overhead at an altitude of 800 miles I think, and it would be easy to redirect it so that it would instead impact the earth almost anywhere, say for example the Iraqi desert. Since the RTGs carrying the plutonium were specifically designed to handle the most horrific accidents like an explosion on launch or reentry, I figured that all Saddam had to do was get control of Cassini.
He (or rather his minions) wouldn't need to control Cassini for a long period of time. All that would have to be done would be to make the appropriate course correction WHILE USING UP ALL THE FUEL. Then even if NASA (or most likely by then the CIA) wrested control back of Cassini, they could only watch helplessly while Cassini plummeted back to earth into Saddams greedy little hands (and into a James Bond like action movie as MI-6 tried to recover it).
I actually knew the senior flight control engineer on Cassini at the time and asked him if anyone had offered him a couple of million dollars to make this happen. He laughed and said of course not and there were safeguards to prevent this from happening but then told me not to tell anyone about this idea. (Maybe he was afraid of someone making him an offer he couldn't refuse). Now that Cassini is safe orbiting Saturn, New Horizons is out of the inner solar system and MSL is on its way to Mars I guess it's okay to talk about it now! (All these probes have plutonium filled RTGs).
Anyway, the other point that the summary makes is that with undersea technology now getting robust and cheap enough for non-governments to afford it, there are other nuclear prizes in the deep sea. Like what about the Thresher which even if it wasn't carrying nuclear warheads, certainly had a huge amount of nuclear fuel in its reactor? Or even more to the point how bout the nuclear sub the CIA tried to lift in the 70s using Howard Hughes and the Glomar Challenger as a cover? That sub WAS carrying nuclear warheads and that was the part of the sub they were unable to recover. (There are lots of other nukes lost at sea, I'm sure Google or Wikipedia can enlighten you).
So if Al-Qaeeda starts developing undersea technology, you know what they're after. Or maybe they'll just use it to smuggle drugs like the south american drug cartels are doing.
Doesn't this make you think of the weapons the aliens (the "Prawns", what a great name) used in Distrcit 9? What a cool (and terrifying) weapon, caused the people to EXPLODE upon being shot at (presumably from the instant vaporization of all the water in their bodies).
Would this device cause the same thing to happen if it could be used at a weapon? I heard that some scientists had figured out how to direct lightning bolts using (relatively) low powered lasers to create an ionized pathway in the air. So using a laser with this could possibly make a "lightning gun", no? Even if this weapon was large and bulky I think the psychological effects would be huge if it were used in something like crowd control!
Is it true that District 9 was made on a very low budget. If so, the special effects were excellent, the aliens and other CG elements looked completely believable and well integrated (correct movement, lighting, shadows, etc.).
How to make the world's funniest joke funnier
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The Science of Humor
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· Score: 4, Insightful
According to the article the world's funniest joke is 102 words long. Also, it is claimed that jokes 103 words long are the "funniest" length. Finally jokes with the word "duck" in them also are funnier.
Therefore change "there were two hunters..." to:
"there were two DUCK hunters..."
(Not only have you now included the word "duck" but you've know made the joke the optimal length! Did I really have to explain that?)
I guess what made this amazing photo possible was that rather than using an occluding disk or filter, he found a very similar star (the article says getting the same color was critical) and subtracted it (digitally?) from the image.
Can this be used by much bigger telescopes? Considering that they have hundreds of times more light gathering capabilities and, I would imagine, vastly more sophisticated sensors, we could be finding exo-earths by the bucketful. Maybe we could even be seeing the lights from alien civilizations on the night side of those worlds! (It would help if they used lamps that had some sort of unusual spectral characteristic).
Is Echelon, which was operated by the "five eyes" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUSCANNZUKUS) still in operation? Is Palantir tied into it? Presumably that would give it a lot more data to work with.
Anyway, I'd be much more concerned with making sure the data matched with the right person. For example, remember how many spellings there were for Colonel Qaddafi, and he presumably wasn't trying to mask his identity! (At the U.N.: "I'm sorry Mr. Qaddafi but we don't have you down as speaking to the general assembly now, we have someone by the name of Khaddafi".)
I wonder if the recently announced initiative to collect the biometrics data for EVERY living Afghani (which will then be given to the U.S.) was "encouraged" by the U.S. for this reason. I doubt that the Indian effort to do the same for 1.2 BILLION(!) Indians had anything to do with the U.S. (but you never know, both countries ARE U.S. allies). I guess we'll know if other U.S. "allies" in the middle east (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq?) follow suit. THEN these systems could begin to really track down terrorists (who by and large come from that part of the world).
I'm very impressed by the voice recognition capabilities of Siri (and presumably other products like it). Its ability to UNDERSTAND what you are asking for of course has a lot of room for improvement.
Is that just a matter of time though? When will the simpler types of these jobs be eliminated? What about us slashdot posters, will I have to worry about being replaced by Siri 2.0? (ok maybe Siri 3.0).
"DARPA’s mission is to prevent technological surprise for the United States and to create technological surprise for its adversaries."
It's the closest thing we've got to a science fiction agency or MIB (the first good movie at least). Too bad I'm not smart enough to work there. (The company I was at did get its basic technology for image compression fom DARPA, now that technology and variations on it, are used in movie theaters around the world.)
Returning to the subject: their goal seems crazy ambitious (defeat 3.5 billion years of bacterial evolution?). Still, I heard of a project at MIT where researchers had shown (in mice) a technique which would defeat just about ALL virusis (they tried it on dengue, influenza, H1N1). So who knows? Still, gotta be just a teensy bit worried because a good bio-offense (weapon) depends on a good bio-defense.
Upon reading some other posts I realize that maybe you are not as literal minded as I am (scientists tend to also be very literal minded).
I hope you'll agree that simple life is likely in the cosmos. That may not be what you meant.
Complex life, like Peter Ward said, may be very rare (though I think he's backed off a bit if only because, as he says, simple life may be everywhere). I hope he's wrong but what can I say? Reasonable people may disagree.
INTELLIGENT life, detectable (one way or the other including visits) over light years is something else entirely. Many scientists seem to be concerned about the "Fermi Paradox". Again, I'm hoping one day (soon!) we'll be picking up an unambiguous extra-solar signal but really who knows? On the flip side (and almost contradictorily) I doubt we've been visited yet.
Re:Amazing considering this doesn't include Kepler
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Exoplanet Count Tops 700
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Look, my friends said it is very very likely not that it was 100% sure (they are scientists after all!). I mean that's a very reasonable stance to take considering that there are about a 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and about a trillion stars in the OBSERVABLE universe (the actual universe is likely to be MUCH larger, maybe infinite). Considering the large proportion of stars that seem to have planets and the billions of years they've been around it, doesn't it seem very VERY likely that life would have started more than once?
Flip a coin several trillion times. What's the chance that it won't come up heads more than once?
Of course I've read "Rare Earth" AND his other book "Life, But not as we know it" in which he says life could've arisen not just on earth but on Mars, Europa, Enceladus and maybe THREE TIMES on Titan! So while he is (rightfully) concerned that COMPLEX life is "rare" (but not impossible) he also seems to think that (simple) alien life is present almost everywhere!
Also, my chemist friend is in the geological sciences dept. of his university and works with experts in the fields of extremeophiles. As for the others, please realize that science is not a vacuum, at least not at the level that they practice it and they follow major developments in other fields both directly and indirectly; they, to varying degrees, have an excellent idea as to what's going on. (My computational linguist friend probably knows the details of the transit studies, he's the kind of guy who learned a difficult Asian language on his spare time while raising a couple kids while developing algorithms so sophisticated he has to give the state dept. one month advance notice before leaving the country).
Actually I'm beginning to think that the people who claim that their educated brethren say that we are unique have their own, belief based, agenda to push. Whatever.
When Kepler's planets are confirmed (I guess when it sees 3 or more transits), I think this total will more than double.
Also, I don't know where the AC above is coming from but the scientists I know (tenured theoretical chemist who worked under a Nobel laureate, computational linguist who's father won a fields medal, A.I. expert funded by DARPA and prominent computer graphics researcher with 9 patents) all think it is very VERY likely there is life out there. (Are the AC's acquaintances in the "hard" sciences?).
After all, "it would be a tremendous waste of space!"*
*don't know if I paraphrased that right but if you saw the movie you'll know
Build a standalone DVD drive with a USB/Memorycard slot.
When the user pops in a DVD-ROM, the drive copies an image of the disk onto the memory card. When the memory card is popped into a computer, an exact copy of the disk shows up!
Of course this would have problems with copy protected media but for software installs it could be useful. Most importantly it is simple enough that your grandmother could use it.
Then if it is, then transmitting our DNA via high powered radio telescopes would be far cheaper than a space program. Next would be including DNA samples on anything leaving the solar system (pioneer, voyager, new horizon).
If it's our cultural heritage, we've been beaming a (lopsided) collection out into space for the last 100 years. We've even sent some physical artifacts.
If it's the survival of our MINDS that we're concerned with, well rather than build space ships capable of crossing the interstellar void (which'll likely take centuries) maybe it would be faster to figure out how to convert them into code and beam THAT.
Of course this assumes that there is someone out there on the receiving end. I don't think that's too unlikely a hypothesis but reasonable people might disagree. So let's get listening! (And maybe we'll figure out the answer to the Fermi Paradox).
(By the way, I'm all for a VERY aggressive space program, it's just that maybe we shouldn't think survival is the best reason for it!)
Thanks for the info; not knowing where to look (and not having a background in structural engineering) I was wondering if you calculated the feasibility of using aerogels or this new substance? I mean if you think about it, isn't this structure just like a kilometers large structure but reduced in every dimension by a thousand or so? (The metal "beams" are just nanometers thick).
But I know I'm being very optimistic. I, in fact, just saw a video where this substance was easily deformed so maybe its strength ain't so great.:(
A big 30,000 warhead designed to blow up things DEEP underground might even do a better job if delivered at hypersonic speeds, think "rods from god". (It'll have to be redisgned to take the much higher impact speed but that's what engineers are for!) The fact that it is delivered on a (much) more expensive booster is mitigated by the fact that you don't need to use a B-2 to deliver it. This gives you two advantages: 1) the (admittedly low) risk of human crew loss (and loss of a $2B bomber) goes to zero and 2) you can now attack IN DAYLIGHT (B-2s lose their stealth advantage because they are not invisible to visible light, just radar and have low infrared profiles. So I figure any Iranian fighter pilot could easily shoot down the subsonic aircraft during the day).
Paradoxically they may NOT be as good a first strike weapon as a B-2 bomber against a great power because presumably Russia (and China?) can detect missile launches anywhere in the world more easily than a stealthy B-2. Against some country like Iran or North Korea however, they give the commander in Chief the ability to hit a target very quickly, with almost zero chance of interception, with the power of redirection (or abort) and during daylight (which would be very useful if you want to KILL all THE high value PEOPLE working there). Combined with a MOP you can go after even the deep ultra-high value targets although in order to do so you'd probably need to develop a new heavily solid fuel launcher (the old minuteman and MX don't have the throw weight and liquid fueled rockets aren't exactly things you can launch on a moment's notice).
Slashdot Mirror
C'mon everyone, this is a news for (mainly) tech nerds into hardware/software not wetware (sorry biologists).
We should be demanding progress on that mosquito vaporizing laser demonstrated at TED by Paul Allen's company. It seemed remarkably free of "side effects" and would not put a dent in the overall mosquito population (at least not until the "Star Wars" space based global anti-mosquito laser netwok is set up). They claimed that they could manufacture it (in quantity) for $50.
I had Dengue fever last year and I'd buy one for ten times the price (I know that won't work for the developing world but hey, what can I say? I'm selfish and one less food source available for mosquitos the better for everyone).
Anyone out there know how to get this thing "kickstarted"? How much would Paul Allen ask for the rights?
I wonder how they "genetically modified" their mosquitos? Did they use a viral vector? In TFA they didn't say.
There was a book a while ago called "The White Plague" and then the movie "Children of Men" in which a virus(?) is unleashed that made WOMEN sterile. I guess this is their way of doing the same thing; they (might) use viruses to change the male Mosquitos which would THEN create flightless (unable to breed) female mosquitos.
Now with the recent revelation that scientists have made a very lethal virus (50%! fatality rate) by making Avian Flu H5N1 more transmissible (the previous "problem" was that it didn't spread human to human; fixed that) it doesn't seem that far fetched that what they did to mosquitos could be done to us.
All said, I'd rather "die" by not reproducing than from a horrible virus but I've got to ask: Is this the answer to the Fermi paradox?
I believe there was a science fiction story that once something like this:
Some super space aliens/God came to earth and after seeing what Man had done to the planet gathered up all the animals and asked:
"If two of you will say that Man was good to you, I will spare him, otherwise he will be made extinct like he has done to so many of you."
The dog, stood next to his master, loyal in his hour of need. The cat on the other hand merely licked his paws and sauntered away.
"Is there no-one else who will vouch for Man?". Just silence. Finally, the mosquito came, remembering all the juicy meals it had sucked from that soft, hairless flesh.
THAT SAID I REALLY HATE THE BUGGERS. (I live in Vietnam and I had Dengue fever last year, horrific.) Where, oh where is that mosquito vaporizing laser demonstrated at TED? Can't someone buy the patent rights fom Paul Allen and develop it already?!
Thanks for not thoroughly trashing me. I didnt realize they weren't on public airwaves. I got confused when I saw the local Fox affiliate (which IS broadcast I think) and thought it was tied to the Fox cable news network (it isn't is it?).
Anyway, my only excuse is I've been out of the country for 5 years and I'm at my uncle's place. He's got his A/V setup as a mishmash of satellite, cable (and terrestrial?) and I'm not sure where I'm getting ech feed from.
Definitely the restrictions on what he has to say are much less if he's on satellite/cable. Sorry to all of you right-wingers out there! In this case I'M the one who's definitely less informed! ;)
Like Kurzweil and Co., he's a nut. But a smart nut!
Who said that all progress comes the crazy ones (or something vaguely like that). So maybe they're right (and I'm hoping for it). But (unlike him, lacking a legacy) I wouldn't bet my retirement fund on it.
Look, it's bad enough that Fox News is owned by a man who allegedly changed his nationality to get around foreign ownership laws of media outlets (how come the Aussies and Brits don't have those laws? That way he'd only influence ONE country's media).
But aren't there laws in the U.S. against the blatant use of the public airwaves to push a particular viewpoint or even "hatemongering" (just as one example: look at the number of times Fox accidentally spelled "Obama", "Osama" and mentioned his middle name "Hussein")? For a detailed look at this bias watch the documentary "Outfoxed".
Even if you were to claim that this is protected free speech (yes but not using public spectrum! Use a satellite like Howard Stern!) couldn't there be a case made for shutting the network down for the public interest? Several recent studies have shown that Fox viewers are not only less informed than viewers of other network/media, but they are less informed than people who WATCHED NOTHING AT ALL (don't know exactly the comparisons, google it).
Until then I didn't know that ignorance could be a negative value. Wow.
Of course, if there is any proof to the allegations that his company spied on Americans, perhaps some form of justice will be done.
I understand that when Tim Berners-Lee was coming up with a language to put his web pages together he almost decided to use HyperCard (I don't know why he didn't, anyone?).
Now imagine a world where HyperCard (available on Macs only) had been used as the development language for the WWW. Then maybe Apple would've kept selling their (then) overpriced Macs for a few more years and Scully would've held onto his job a few more years (do I have the years right?). Steve would've retired early, being embittered by his inability to retake control of Apple... (but I hope he got to see his doctor earlier!) ... and the world would've been very different.
(got to get back into my parallel universe time travel transport! Now to try killing Hitler!)
Well this news is very depressing, it shows that when the singularity comes (the ability to REALLY control matter at the atomic level)* the potential for abuse may overwhelm the benefits.
Perhaps, if the world could get its act together (highly unlikely, they can't even save the euro), a UN agency A.R.M. (I forget what it stands for, go ask Larry Niven) could be put into place to keep certain technologies under control. I guess it would be like MIB but focused on humans not Aliens.
*I think a bioengineered virus qualifies as one of mankind's first crude attempt at a self-replicating nano-assembler.
I always wondered whether or not recovering this would be viable, but I wasn't sure since I know next to nothing about nuclear physics if this plutonium (Pu) could be used to make a bomb. Still, I guess it could be used for a dirty bomb.
When Cassini was launched I figured that (if the plutonium was the right kind), Saddam Hussein (remember him?) might be very interested in getting a hold of the 70(!) lbs. of Pu on board. Cassini was scheduled to do a flyby (gravitational assist) using the earth, passing overhead at an altitude of 800 miles I think, and it would be easy to redirect it so that it would instead impact the earth almost anywhere, say for example the Iraqi desert. Since the RTGs carrying the plutonium were specifically designed to handle the most horrific accidents like an explosion on launch or reentry, I figured that all Saddam had to do was get control of Cassini.
He (or rather his minions) wouldn't need to control Cassini for a long period of time. All that would have to be done would be to make the appropriate course correction WHILE USING UP ALL THE FUEL. Then even if NASA (or most likely by then the CIA) wrested control back of Cassini, they could only watch helplessly while Cassini plummeted back to earth into Saddams greedy little hands (and into a James Bond like action movie as MI-6 tried to recover it).
I actually knew the senior flight control engineer on Cassini at the time and asked him if anyone had offered him a couple of million dollars to make this happen. He laughed and said of course not and there were safeguards to prevent this from happening but then told me not to tell anyone about this idea. (Maybe he was afraid of someone making him an offer he couldn't refuse). Now that Cassini is safe orbiting Saturn, New Horizons is out of the inner solar system and MSL is on its way to Mars I guess it's okay to talk about it now! (All these probes have plutonium filled RTGs).
Anyway, the other point that the summary makes is that with undersea technology now getting robust and cheap enough for non-governments to afford it, there are other nuclear prizes in the deep sea. Like what about the Thresher which even if it wasn't carrying nuclear warheads, certainly had a huge amount of nuclear fuel in its reactor? Or even more to the point how bout the nuclear sub the CIA tried to lift in the 70s using Howard Hughes and the Glomar Challenger as a cover? That sub WAS carrying nuclear warheads and that was the part of the sub they were unable to recover. (There are lots of other nukes lost at sea, I'm sure Google or Wikipedia can enlighten you).
So if Al-Qaeeda starts developing undersea technology, you know what they're after. Or maybe they'll just use it to smuggle drugs like the south american drug cartels are doing.
Doesn't this make you think of the weapons the aliens (the "Prawns", what a great name) used in Distrcit 9? What a cool (and terrifying) weapon, caused the people to EXPLODE upon being shot at (presumably from the instant vaporization of all the water in their bodies).
Would this device cause the same thing to happen if it could be used at a weapon? I heard that some scientists had figured out how to direct lightning bolts using (relatively) low powered lasers to create an ionized pathway in the air. So using a laser with this could possibly make a "lightning gun", no? Even if this weapon was large and bulky I think the psychological effects would be huge if it were used in something like crowd control!
Is it true that District 9 was made on a very low budget. If so, the special effects were excellent, the aliens and other CG elements looked completely believable and well integrated (correct movement, lighting, shadows, etc.).
According to the article the world's funniest joke is 102 words long. Also, it is claimed that jokes 103 words long are the "funniest" length. Finally jokes with the word "duck" in them also are funnier.
Therefore change "there were two hunters..." to:
"there were two DUCK hunters..."
(Not only have you now included the word "duck" but you've know made the joke the optimal length! Did I really have to explain that?)
I guess what made this amazing photo possible was that rather than using an occluding disk or filter, he found a very similar star (the article says getting the same color was critical) and subtracted it (digitally?) from the image.
Can this be used by much bigger telescopes? Considering that they have hundreds of times more light gathering capabilities and, I would imagine, vastly more sophisticated sensors, we could be finding exo-earths by the bucketful. Maybe we could even be seeing the lights from alien civilizations on the night side of those worlds! (It would help if they used lamps that had some sort of unusual spectral characteristic).
Is Echelon, which was operated by the "five eyes" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUSCANNZUKUS) still in operation? Is Palantir tied into it? Presumably that would give it a lot more data to work with.
Anyway, I'd be much more concerned with making sure the data matched with the right person. For example, remember how many spellings there were for Colonel Qaddafi, and he presumably wasn't trying to mask his identity! (At the U.N.: "I'm sorry Mr. Qaddafi but we don't have you down as speaking to the general assembly now, we have someone by the name of Khaddafi".)
I wonder if the recently announced initiative to collect the biometrics data for EVERY living Afghani (which will then be given to the U.S.) was "encouraged" by the U.S. for this reason. I doubt that the Indian effort to do the same for 1.2 BILLION(!) Indians had anything to do with the U.S. (but you never know, both countries ARE U.S. allies). I guess we'll know if other U.S. "allies" in the middle east (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq?) follow suit. THEN these systems could begin to really track down terrorists (who by and large come from that part of the world).
I'm very impressed by the voice recognition capabilities of Siri (and presumably other products like it). Its ability to UNDERSTAND what you are asking for of course has a lot of room for improvement.
Is that just a matter of time though? When will the simpler types of these jobs be eliminated? What about us slashdot posters, will I have to worry about being replaced by Siri 2.0? (ok maybe Siri 3.0).
I just love the mission of DARPA:
"DARPA’s mission is to prevent technological surprise for the United States and to create technological surprise for its adversaries."
It's the closest thing we've got to a science fiction agency or MIB (the first good movie at least). Too bad I'm not smart enough to work there. (The company I was at did get its basic technology for image compression fom DARPA, now that technology and variations on it, are used in movie theaters around the world.)
Returning to the subject: their goal seems crazy ambitious (defeat 3.5 billion years of bacterial evolution?). Still, I heard of a project at MIT where researchers had shown (in mice) a technique which would defeat just about ALL virusis (they tried it on dengue, influenza, H1N1). So who knows? Still, gotta be just a teensy bit worried because a good bio-offense (weapon) depends on a good bio-defense.
For posting this story, I thought it got lost in the shuffle (I don't understand the "recent" ratings system at all).
I just wanted to mention, India is also in the process of obtaining biometric data for all of its 1.2 Billion(!) citizens.
Will the U.S. get access to that? With or without the Indian govt.'s permission? (and how long until hackers get ALL of the data?)
Upon reading some other posts I realize that maybe you are not as literal minded as I am (scientists tend to also be very literal minded).
I hope you'll agree that simple life is likely in the cosmos. That may not be what you meant.
Complex life, like Peter Ward said, may be very rare (though I think he's backed off a bit if only because, as he says, simple life may be everywhere). I hope he's wrong but what can I say? Reasonable people may disagree.
INTELLIGENT life, detectable (one way or the other including visits) over light years is something else entirely. Many scientists seem to be concerned about the "Fermi Paradox". Again, I'm hoping one day (soon!) we'll be picking up an unambiguous extra-solar signal but really who knows? On the flip side (and almost contradictorily) I doubt we've been visited yet.
Look, my friends said it is very very likely not that it was 100% sure (they are scientists after all!). I mean that's a very reasonable stance to take considering that there are about a 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and about a trillion stars in the OBSERVABLE universe (the actual universe is likely to be MUCH larger, maybe infinite). Considering the large proportion of stars that seem to have planets and the billions of years they've been around it, doesn't it seem very VERY likely that life would have started more than once?
Flip a coin several trillion times. What's the chance that it won't come up heads more than once?
Of course I've read "Rare Earth" AND his other book "Life, But not as we know it" in which he says life could've arisen not just on earth but on Mars, Europa, Enceladus and maybe THREE TIMES on Titan! So while he is (rightfully) concerned that COMPLEX life is "rare" (but not impossible) he also seems to think that (simple) alien life is present almost everywhere!
Also, my chemist friend is in the geological sciences dept. of his university and works with experts in the fields of extremeophiles. As for the others, please realize that science is not a vacuum, at least not at the level that they practice it and they follow major developments in other fields both directly and indirectly; they, to varying degrees, have an excellent idea as to what's going on. (My computational linguist friend probably knows the details of the transit studies, he's the kind of guy who learned a difficult Asian language on his spare time while raising a couple kids while developing algorithms so sophisticated he has to give the state dept. one month advance notice before leaving the country).
Actually I'm beginning to think that the people who claim that their educated brethren say that we are unique have their own, belief based, agenda to push. Whatever.
When Kepler's planets are confirmed (I guess when it sees 3 or more transits), I think this total will more than double.
Also, I don't know where the AC above is coming from but the scientists I know (tenured theoretical chemist who worked under a Nobel laureate, computational linguist who's father won a fields medal, A.I. expert funded by DARPA and prominent computer graphics researcher with 9 patents) all think it is very VERY likely there is life out there. (Are the AC's acquaintances in the "hard" sciences?).
After all, "it would be a tremendous waste of space!"*
*don't know if I paraphrased that right but if you saw the movie you'll know
Build a standalone DVD drive with a USB/Memorycard slot.
When the user pops in a DVD-ROM, the drive copies an image of the disk onto the memory card. When the memory card is popped into a computer, an exact copy of the disk shows up!
Of course this would have problems with copy protected media but for software installs it could be useful. Most importantly it is simple enough that your grandmother could use it.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/11/18/us/life-us-usa-lunch.html?scp=1&sq=House%20protects%20pizza&st=cse
Ok, ok I know that we're talking about Republicans here but still it shows stupidity is rampant on both sides of the Atlantic!
Is it just the transmission of DNA?
Then if it is, then transmitting our DNA via high powered radio telescopes would be far cheaper than a space program. Next would be including DNA samples on anything leaving the solar system (pioneer, voyager, new horizon).
If it's our cultural heritage, we've been beaming a (lopsided) collection out into space for the last 100 years. We've even sent some physical artifacts.
If it's the survival of our MINDS that we're concerned with, well rather than build space ships capable of crossing the interstellar void (which'll likely take centuries) maybe it would be faster to figure out how to convert them into code and beam THAT.
Of course this assumes that there is someone out there on the receiving end. I don't think that's too unlikely a hypothesis but reasonable people might disagree. So let's get listening! (And maybe we'll figure out the answer to the Fermi Paradox).
(By the way, I'm all for a VERY aggressive space program, it's just that maybe we shouldn't think survival is the best reason for it!)
Thanks for the info; not knowing where to look (and not having a background in structural engineering) I was wondering if you calculated the feasibility of using aerogels or this new substance? I mean if you think about it, isn't this structure just like a kilometers large structure but reduced in every dimension by a thousand or so? (The metal "beams" are just nanometers thick).
But I know I'm being very optimistic. I, in fact, just saw a video where this substance was easily deformed so maybe its strength ain't so great. :(
I don't know how to emphasize words otherwise (is there boldface or italics?).
And I DID watch A LOT of the old BATMAN tv series when I was a KID! :)
(I should've added this to the above)
So, if the booster is big enough, can they use this thing with a MOP as a payload?
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/11/17/1445237/boeing-delivers-massive-ordnance-penetrator [slashdot.org]
A big 30,000 warhead designed to blow up things DEEP underground might even do a better job if delivered at hypersonic speeds, think "rods from god". (It'll have to be redisgned to take the much higher impact speed but that's what engineers are for!) The fact that it is delivered on a (much) more expensive booster is mitigated by the fact that you don't need to use a B-2 to deliver it. This gives you two advantages: 1) the (admittedly low) risk of human crew loss (and loss of a $2B bomber) goes to zero and 2) you can now attack IN DAYLIGHT (B-2s lose their stealth advantage because they are not invisible to visible light, just radar and have low infrared profiles. So I figure any Iranian fighter pilot could easily shoot down the subsonic aircraft during the day).
Paradoxically they may NOT be as good a first strike weapon as a B-2 bomber against a great power because presumably Russia (and China?) can detect missile launches anywhere in the world more easily than a stealthy B-2. Against some country like Iran or North Korea however, they give the commander in Chief the ability to hit a target very quickly, with almost zero chance of interception, with the power of redirection (or abort) and during daylight (which would be very useful if you want to KILL all THE high value PEOPLE working there). Combined with a MOP you can go after even the deep ultra-high value targets although in order to do so you'd probably need to develop a new heavily solid fuel launcher (the old minuteman and MX don't have the throw weight and liquid fueled rockets aren't exactly things you can launch on a moment's notice).