Science & TechnologyS

Grey Alien

Scientists, be on guard ... ET might be a malicious hacker

According to a scientific report, planet Earth's computers are wide open to a virus attack from Little Green Men.

As if spotty teenagers releasing computer viruses on to the internet from darkened rooms were not enough of a headache. According to a scientific report, planet Earth's computers are wide open to a virus attack from Little Green Men.

Comment: While we do not advocate the idea that everyone should accept the reality of ET intelligence, it is patently absurd for organisations like SETI and otherwise intelligent astronomers and scientists to persist in repeating the idea that any potential alien intelligence would HAVE to be as ignorant of us and we are of them. Why is it that the idea that an alien intelligence could be vastly superior to us, and could know all about planet earth and its inhabitants, completely and studiously ignored? You would almost think that they were trying to mold public opinion in this direction for some reason or other...


Coffee

Bacteria Can Take Pictures of Themselves

SAN FRANCISCO - The notorious E. coli bug made its film debut Wednesday. That's when researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Texas announced in the journal Nature that they had created photographs of themselves by programming the bacteria ย— best known for outbreaks of food poisoning to make pictures in much the same way Kodak film produces images.

Info

This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis

Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists. Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions, researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and believe to be true.

Telescope

Polarised light may reveal hidden exoplanets

Scattered starlight may soon reveal the presence of extrasolar planets that cannot be detected by any other means, according to a pair of scientists in India. But some other experts say the method is best suited to studying the properties of known exoplanets ย– not turning up new discoveries.

Telescope

Asteroid probe;did touch down

The Hayabusa space probe landed successfully on its asteroid target despite the initial announcement of a failure, Japan's space agency says.

But it apparently failed to drop equipment to collect material from the surface of asteroid Itokawa.

The Japanese spacecraft is on a mission to return these samples from Itokawa to Earth for the summer of 2007.

Controllers lost contact with the probe after it manoeuvred to within several metres of the space rock.

However, data confirmed Hayabusa landed on Itokawa on Sunday for half an hour, Japan's space agency (Jaxa) has said.

Life Preserver

'Keats claimed physics destroyed beauty. Keats was being a prat'

Britain produced some of the world's great physicists but few schoolchildren want to study the subject now. Simon Singh explains why we should worry.

Coffee

The ideas interview, Ray Kurzweil - Expect the human of the future to be at least part computer, the inventor and futurologist tells John Sutherland

Ray Kurzweil has enormous faith in science. He takes 250 dietary supplements every day. He is sure computers will make him much, much cleverer within decades. He won't rule out being able to live for ever. Even if medical technology cannot prevent the life passing from his body, he thinks there is a good chance he will be able to secure immortality by downloading the contents of his enhanced brain before he dies.

Comment: Well, if you want this stuff plugged into your body, go right ahead. Personally, we'll stick with our cigarettes as the way to enhance our meatware.


Stormtrooper

Uniform that makes soldiers invisible in the works

army_suitCAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) ย— The Army is hunting for a new military uniform that can make soldiers nearly invisible, grant superhuman strength and provide instant medical care.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is up for the task.

The school said Wednesday it has been awarded a five-year, $50 million dollar grant to develop the armor, which could detect threats and protect against projectiles and biological or chemical weapons.

Comment: Given the type of projects that the DOD is throwing money at, it would appear that either they are not expecting world peace anytime soon, or they are actively involved in ensuring that such a peaceful world never comes to pass.


USA

Researchers Looking into Ways Wasps Can Help Law Enforcement, Others

TIFTON - Move over, drug-sniffing dogs.

Make way for the wasps.

Rocket

Landing on Itokawa aborted

The first attempt at a spectacular landing of a space probe on the Itokawa comet has failed. After analyzing the data received from the probe, Japan's Jaxa space agency announced that its research satellite Hayabusa aborted its approach to the comet some 17 meters from the surface for reasons that are still unclear.