The Easy Ammonia Servicer (EAS) photographed on July 23rd, 2007, by ISS astronauts. Now this would put a huge dent in your windshield (NASA)A huge piece of space debris, weighing 1400 lb (635 kg) and the size of two refrigerators, is gradually falling to Earth, giving observers on the ground a great opportunity to see it. The junk was jettisoned from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2007 and it is expected to re-enter the atmosphere later this year or early 2009. The Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS) was dropped from the ISS after a seven hour spacewalk and pushed in the opposite direction of the space station’s orbit shortly before a re-boost by a Soyuz resupply vehicle. This ensured the EAS would pose no danger to the ISS or crew on future orbits. Now the container is beginning its final few months in space and the bets are on as to where it will crash to Earth…
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Read the rest of Large Chunk of ISS Space Junk Becomes Easy to Observe (Video) (338 words)
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A droll, gleeful look at elements of the Periodic Table
July 23, 2008 5:06 am
Chemists at the University of Nottingham have made a series of short videos, one for each element of the Periodic Table, and they are a hoot. Not that they’re silly; no, they are quite solid (when not liquid or gaseous) and demonstrate actual properties of these most basic substances. But they’re definitely put together with a twinkle of the eye.
Take sodium: A scientist in lab coat and safety googles removes a cylinder of the reactive metal from a jar and cuts off a piece to show how shiny it is. He and a colleague carry a big chunk outside and drop it into a stoneware dog bowl full of water: Sizzle! Smoke! Flame! Pop! Little chunks fly out of the bowl — one pasting itself onto the camera — and the scientists chuckle like schoolboys. These demonstrations are intercut with shots of Professor Martyn Poliakoff in his cluttered, book-bound office, explaining why sodium is unique and important. It has a warm spot in his heart, he adds, because its chemical symbol is Na, which was his mother’s nickname.
Part of Poliakoff’s considerable charm is his cloud of gray hair; a cross between Einstein and Afro, it seems poised to take off on an adventure of its own. According to his Wikipedia entry, Poliakoff recently won an award for best hair on the Internet. While I’d take that claim with a grain of sodium chloride, you can see how it might be possible.
I spent some time browsing through elements with a particular connection to high-energy physics; argon, mercury and xenon, which fill the chambers of some particle detectors; iron (did you know that the CMS detector at CERN, the particle physics lab on the Swiss-French border, contains more iron than the Eiffel Tower?); copper; the ubiquitous hydrogen and helium (boffo choices because one explodes into flame, the other makes you talk like Donald Duck.) Not all of the films feature exciting demonstrations. Niobium, for instance, a sleek metal used to fashion radiofrequency cavities, did not make a direct appearance in its video, although it had figured in some of Poliakoff’s experiments and he spoke of it fondly. “It was very good to me,” he says. “I’ve always regarded niobium as a very friendly element.” But the project Web site says the videos will be updated “with new stories, better samples and bigger experiments.”
Some of these elements are getting harder to obtain for physics experiments, according to an article David Harris posted here in April. The growing demand for xenon and helium is driving up prices; ingots of lead from sunken Roman ships are prized because they are free from contamination by thorium and uranium, but they are naturally in limited supply.
He concludes:
The list of materials in demand goes on; it seems that the resource struggle the whole world is facing has an impact on basic science research. Fortunately, the ingenuity of scientists generally finds a way around the problem, but this is one more challenge in the conduct of an experiment.
Filed under: Displays
The boys and girls at Microsoft Research are getting set to publish a report detailing a competing (and in their perspective, superior) technology to replace the LCD monitors we’ve grown to know and love heart with reservations. By using pixels that boast “a pair of mirrors to block or transmit light,” displays could theoretically be created which are “faster, brighter, and more power efficient than liquid crystal displays.” Dubbed telescopic pixels, the devices would be able to turn off and on in under 1.5-milliseconds, which is quick enough to put “red, green, and blue light-emitting diodes behind each pixel.” Furthermore, these pixels are way brighter than those used in LCDs, which means users would see less power draw and be able to view the screen more easily in direct sunlight. Sounds solid from here, but could you not humor us with a release time frame or something?
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European Probe Swings Close by Martian Moon By SPACE.com Staff posted: 23 July 2008 11:16 am ET |
A Europeanspacecraft is making its closest ever pass by the Martian moon Phobos today toscan never-before-seen regions of the small, rocky satellite.
TheEuropean Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft will skim just 60 miles(97 km) above the surfaceof Phobos, one of Mars’ two diminutive moons, during today’s pass. The flybyis the third — and closest — in a series of five swings past Phobos this summerto study the moon in unprecedented detail.
With adiameter of just 13.5 miles (22 km), Phobos is larger than Mars’ second moonDeimos (7.4 miles, or 12 km, along its long axis). Both satellites were firstspotted by astronomer Asaph Hall in 1877, but researchers are still unsurewhether the moons are actually captured asteroids, ancient planetismals fromthe birth of the solar system, or the remains of a massiveMartian impact.
MarsExpress made its first summer swing by Phobos on July 12 at a distance of about350 miles (563 km), with subsequent passes bringing the spacecraft within 60 miles(97 km) of the moon at the closest and out as far as 412 miles (664 km) on the final flybyset for Aug. 3. The probe has flown by Phobos before, such as its August 2004 passat a range of about 124 miles (200 km), but never as close as today’s visit,ESA officials said.
Mars Expresshas turned its full complement of science instruments on Phobos for its flyby series, including a high-resolution camera formapping and three-dimensional images, a subsurface-probing radar to study the moon’sinterior and other tools to take detailed measurements of Phobos’ mass,composition and other features.
Missionmanagers said Mars Express may also catch a glimpse of the planned destination for Russia’sPhobos-Grunt lander, a spacecraft slated to launch in 2009 to collect samplesof the small Martian moon.
MarsExpress is not the only spacecraft to take a look at Phobos thisyear.
In April,NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter turned its camera eyes on the pitted moonfrom a distance of about 3,600 miles (5,800 miles) and returned some of the mostdetailed views of Phobos to date with its High-Resolution Imaging ScienceExperiment (HiRISE) camera.
Manned spaceship design unveiled |
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The first official image of a Russian-European manned spacecraft has been unveiled. It is designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia and will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation. The reusable ship was conceived to carry four people towards the Moon, rivalling the US Ares/Orion system. Unlike previous crewed vehicles, it will use thrusters to make a soft landing when it returns to Earth. Russian aerospace writer and graphic designer Anatoly Zak has produced artist’s renderings of the new craft based on a design released by Russian manufacturer RKK Energia at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK last week.
In some respects, the capsule resembles America’s next-generation spacecraft Orion. The 18-to-20-tonne Russian-European vehicle is designed to carry six crew into low-Earth orbit and four on missions to lunar orbit. One of the most unusual features about the capsule appear to be the thrusters and landing gear on its underside. Mr Zak said it would use these engines to soften its landing on Earth after the fiery re-entry through our atmosphere. The European Space Agency (Esa) has been talking to its Russian counterpart Roscosmos about collaborating on the Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS) since 2006. Launcher decision “If Esa and the Russian Space Agency reach agreement, Europe will supply the service module of that co-operative spacecraft,” Mr Zak told BBC News. This service module will use technology – such as the propulsion systems – developed for Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), an unmanned freighter recently sent to re-supply the International Space Station (ISS). Russia may provide the launcher for the new manned spacecraft. This might be an entirely new vehicle, or a modification of an existing rocket.
Mr Zak said Russia was insisting in its negotiations with Europe that all future manned projects be based in Vostochny, the new cosmodrome being developed in Russia’s eastern Amur region. The Russian government wants to host its first manned launch from that site in 2018. At the moment, all manned Soyuz launches take place from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Alternatively, the space agencies could opt to “man-rate” Europe’s Ariane 5 launcher, which lifts off from Kourou in French Guiana. This would allow the rocket to carry humans into space. This would involve making major modifications to Kourou spaceport, including the development of infrastructure to support a crew escape system in the event of an emergency. It is quite possible that both launch sites would play a role in any collaborative programme, which would necessitate the lofting of cargo as well as human crew. However, if this collaboration falls apart, Europe has another option for direct manned access to space. Other option In May this year, European aerospace company EADS Astrium unveiled its own model of a crewed space vehicle, described as an “evolution” of the ATV, which was built by a consortium of European companies led by Astrium. It would combine what is essentially the avionics and propulsion end of the ATV with a crew compartment taking the place of the current cargo section.
Mr Zak commented: “I think the main roadmap is the agreement between the European and Russian space agencies. That is their Plan A. Their Plan B is the initiative made by EADS Astrium in Bremen.” But if the agencies want a manned craft capable of reaching the Moon, they will need to develop new, more powerful rockets than those on the drawing board today. “This is an open question, there are no decisions on how to proceed,” said Mr Zak. The CSTS is also sometimes referred to as the Advanced Crew Transportation System (ACTS). Esa and Roscosmos started talks on the project after some Esa member states rejected further involvement in the development of another manned spacecraft called Kliper. The proposals will go before a crucial meeting of space ministers from European member states in November this year. |
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I think the main roadmap is the agreement between the European and Russian space agencies. That is their Plan A 
High Cliffs Surrounding Echus Chasma on Mars What created this great cliff on Mars? Did giant waterfalls once plummet through its grooves? With a four-kilometer drop, this high cliff surrounding Echus Chasma, near an impressive impact crater, was carved by either water or lava. A leading hypothesis is that Echus Chasma, at 100-kilometers long and 10-kilometers wide, was once one of the largest water sources on Mars. If true, water once held in Echus Chasma likely ran over the Martian surface to carve the impressive Kasei Valles, which extends over 3,000 kilometers to the north. Even if initially carved by water, lava appears to have later flowed in the valley, leaving an extraordinarily smooth floor. Echus Chasma lies north of tremendous Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar System. The above image was taken by the robotic Mars Express spacecraft currently orbiting Mars.
Looking at the sunset on Mauna Kea through IRPOL. Credit: U of HawaiiAlthough we can’t actually see a black hole, we can see the black hole’s effect on nearby matter. But even that is difficult because infrared light from clouds of dust and gas usually pollutes the view. But astronomers have found a way to get a clean view of the disks surrounding black holes by using a polarizing filter in the infrared. This technique works in particular when the region immediately surrounding the black hole emits a small amount of scattered light. Since scattered light is polarized, astronomers can use a filter that works like polarized sunglasses on large telescopes to detect this small amount of scattered light and measure it with unprecedented accuracy. Scientists have theorized these luminous disks existed around black holes, but until now have not been able to observe them.
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Read the rest of New “Sunglasses” Help Astronomers See Light Near Black Holes (302 words)
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Google announced on its official blog Wednesday the debut of Knol, a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia penned by authoritative sources.
Udi Manber loves cartoons. Not animations, but the single-panel graphics that appear in magazines like The New Yorker. He studies the history of the field, has covered the walls of his house with framed originals, and has edited a book of cartoons about Google, where he works as the head of search engineering.
“Udi’s not just a fan, he’s a connoisseur,” says Robert Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker.
When not thinking about cartoons, Manber spends endless time thinking about how search can be improved. One big reason many searches don’t succeed, he believes, is that despite the 20 billion or so Web pages in Google’s indexes — including the 2 million items in Wikipedia — the information simply isn’t there.
For instance, what if you wanted to learn all about Peter Arno, a celebrated New Yorker cartoonist who died in 1968? You wouldn’t get lucky. The items appearing in the first page of results give only the barest information on Arno’s life and work.
Of course, it’s not just information about cartoonists that’s missing — according to Manber there are thousands of black holes when it comes to things searchers want to know. What people need, Manber concluded about a year-and-a-half ago, is the information that would come “when an expert who knows this topic would tell you, if they had 15 minutes to explain.”
So Manber began what he refers to as his pet project — an effort to generate exactly those kind of answers in the top search results. The product, announced Wednesday, is called Knol.
“It’s a nice, very simple word to remember, and it’s part of knowledge,” says Manber.
Google hopes that Manber’s project will give experts who know their stuff a platform to share it with everyone else. Google is especially keen on seeding this information internationally, in languages where the online corpus is sparse.
Photo courtesy Kat Wade/Wired.com
Here’s how Knol works. Experts in a given subject log into a Google account and use the Knol software to post an item, also known as a knol. In some senses, the process is like producing a blog post — but in this case it’s not something written off the cuff but carefully crafted to coherently explain a single subject.
One key attribute: Knols are meant to be signed with the author’s actual name. With permission, Google will actually verify the writer’s identity, either by credit card or phone.
“The process will take 20 seconds with credit cards,” says Knol product manager Cedric Dupont. Phone checks will take a minute or so. This vetting, Manber hopes, will give knols accountability and, in the case of high-status authors, the benefit of a solid reputation.
The format and tone are up to the author: Google won’t intervene if your knol on F. Scott Fitzgerald opines that The Great Gatsby was really a dud. And it will certainly help if the knol delivers the goods in a pithy, captivating style. (Google won’t, however, tolerate knols that violate copyright or include porn.)
Google is attempting to establish a model for a standard item, and has seeded the “Knolosphere” with a few hundred entries appearing on launch, largely in the field of health and medicine. Working with Google on this is Robert M. Wachter, a professor of medicine at the University of California, who also sits on Google’s health advisory council.
Just like blogs, knols can include images, video and links. As a special bonus, The New Yorker will allow knol authors to include, free of charge, a single cartoon from the publication’s 20,000-image archive to illuminate the subject. (Guess which Googler was behind that deal.)
Knols are treated pretty much like any web page — found by following links, but readers will encounter most through search results from Google or other search engines. Google says that knols will get no special favors when its algorithms choose results, but clearly expects the best efforts to rocket towards the top of search results. Maybe even ahead of the ubiquitous Wikipedia items.
“A high-quality knol will rise up not just on Google but all the search engines,” says Michael McNally, the project’s technical lead.
Photo courtesy Kat Wade/Wired.com
There’s no limit on how many people can write knols on the same subjects, but presumably the inferior ones will be stalled in the back results pages while searchers encounter the best ones immediately.
Why would an expert on a subject take the time to write a knol? One reason would be an altruistic impulse to share wisdom with the world. There’s also the ego juice that might come with being the first authority one encounters in a search for absinthe or Daryl Lamonica. By default, knols use a Creative Commons copyright license, which allows copying and remixing. If they wish, authors can change the settings to register traditional copyright protection.
In addition, there’s money involved. If authors OK it, Google will compensate them with revenue from advertisements served by the company’s AdSense program. If someone writes a top-ranked knol on a subject that’s matched with high-value clicks from Google ads (diseases, travel destinations, personal finance), the payout could be thousands of dollars. (Purists can keep the ads off.)
But Manber is emphatic that his project is not about the bucks. “If Knol doesn’t improve search but generates some revenues, that’ll be a failure for me,” he says.
Many people, however, will find it puzzling that Google thinks it necessary to create a new platform for people to share information. Why bother, when Wikipedia will give you answers whether you’re wondering about George M. Dallas (James Polk’s vice-president) or the 13th Floor Elevators (an Austin psychedelic rock band formed in late 1965)?
One person asking that question is Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, who learned about Knol a few months ago, when Google posted a blog teaser about the project.
“What is the added value?” Wales asks. “People already can put up web pages somewhere on the internet, put some ads on it if they want to get revenue or not put ads if they don’t want the revenue.”
Wales clearly thinks that his brainchild will satisfy most searchers. “If I type in Thomas Jefferson, there’s a pretty good chance that the Wikipedia entry is more or less exactly what I’m looking for,” he says.
Google says it isn’t trying to compete with Wikipedia, but providing an alternative.
“I’m not suggesting one is better than the other, but different,” says Manber.
And what would the difference be?
“One article is written by one person, and it’s one person’s opinion,” says Manber. “You know who that person is and where they’re coming from.”
Photo courtesy Kat Wade/Wired.com
During one of my interviews with Manber I asked him to compare the first commissioned knol, about insomnia, with a Wikipedia item. The knol was written by Manber’s wife, Rachel, who is an associate professor at Stanford University’s Psychiatry and Behavioral Science Sleep Center.
Though Rachel Manber’s item is a more coherent and thorough treatment of the subject than Wikipedia’s, in some respects it’s similar to the crowdsourced entry: a general definition followed by a discussion of causes and treatments.
But the top of the Wikipedia page on insomnia displays this caveat: “This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject.” Touché.
By the way, Google isn’t rejecting the wisdom of the crowd. Once an author creates a knol, the general public can improve it. People can suggest corrections, edits and amendments to the content — a technique Google calls “a moderated edit.”
Readers can also leave comments alongside the content. While the author is the arbiter of the item itself, and can reject suggestions, he or she can’t delete the comments. Users can also rate knols on a five-star scale.
“I’m sure there will be knol spam,” says Dupont, who says that Google will use its experience fighting spam in Blogger and other products to minimize it.
“If Google is able to pull it off, bring expert knowledge to the masses, that’s absolutely wonderful,” says Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopedia Britannica, the company best known for providing trusted expert information in an encyclopedia format.
It’s not Google that worries him, but Wikipedia, and he sounds like he’d like some help fending off Britannica’s crowdsourced rival. “It’s not the presence of Wikipedia that’s a problem, it’s the omnipresence of Wikipedia,” he says.
In fact, he says, from what he hears about Knol, “it’s very similar to things we’re thinking and retooling Britannica to do.” He hints that the company might be changing from its subscription model to a scheme where much of its content would be free to users — and show up in search engines.
“If you’re charging for content, you’re behind the firewall. And if you’re behind the firewall people don’t call on you first,” he says. As part of this process Britannica now encourages anyone to link to its items. Those following the link can read the full article free. Britannica also posts a daily info-nugget on Twitter.
But Cauz does imply that Google is stepping out of its sweet spot by generating content. “The issue here is that Google will become a publisher and will have moral liability and moral obligation for something that happens under its own brand — and that is something that Google has never done,” he says.
Google sees it differently, viewing Knol as a common-carrier platform like Blogger or YouTube. Knol pages won’t even carry a Google logo.
“We are not publishers,” says Manber. “We do not want to be editors. We do not want to have influence over what is written.” He can’t say it enough: It’s about search. “There are millions of people with something in their head that they’re not writing down,” he says. “If I can get some of them to write it down, I’m helping everybody.”
If Google’s plan works, future searchers will get higher-quality results from searches of subjects commonplace and obscure — even Peter Arno. In fact, a knol has already been written about The New Yorker cartoonist. If its author posts it — he hasn’t pulled the trigger yet — Google won’t have to work hard to verify the expert who worked for weeks to pen that item. It’s Udi Manber.
Photo courtesy Kat Wade/Wired.com
PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Thursday, July 24, 2008
Source: European Southern Observatory - Comments 
VLTI observes for the first time how dust forms around an erupting star
Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, and its remarkable acuity, astronomers were able for the first time to witness the appearance of a shell of dusty gas around a star that had just erupted, and follow its evolution for more than 100 days. This provides the astronomers with a new way to estimate the distance of this object and obtain invaluable information on the operating mode of stellar vampires, dense stars that suck material from a companion.
Although novae were first thought to be new stars appearing in the sky, hence their Latin name, they are now understood as signaling the brightening of a small, dense star. Novae occur in double star systems comprising a white dwarf – the end product of a solar-like star – and, generally, a low-mass normal star – a red dwarf. The two stars are so close together that the red dwarf cannot hold itself together and loses mass to its companion. Occasionally, the shell of matter that has fallen onto the ingesting star becomes unstable, leading to a thermonuclear explosion which makes the system brighter.
Nova Scorpii 2007a (or V1280 Scorpii), was discovered by Japanese amateur astronomers on 4 February 2007 towards the constellation Scorpius (”the Scorpion”). For a few days, it became brighter and brighter, reaching its maximum on 17 February, to become one of the brightest novae of the last 35 years. At that time, it was easily visible with the unaided eye.
Eleven days after reaching its maximum, astronomers witnessed the formation of dust around the object. Dust was present for more than 200 days, as the nova only slowly emerged from the smoke between October and November 2007. During these 200 days, the erupting source was screened out efficiently, becoming more than 10,000 times dimmer in the visual.
An unprecedented high spatial resolution monitoring of the dust formation event was carried out with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), extending over more than 5 months following the discovery. The astronomers first used the AMBER near-infrared instrument, then, as the nova continued to produce dust at a high rate, they moved to using the MIDI mid-infrared instrument, that is more sensitive to the radiation of the hot dust. Similarly, as the nova became fainter, the astronomers switched from the 1.8-m Auxiliary Telescopes to their larger brethren, the 8.2-m Unit Telescopes. With the interferometry mode, the resolution obtained is equivalent to using a telescope with a size between 35 and 71 metres (the distance between the 2 telescopes used).
The first observations, secured 23 days after the discovery, showed that the source was very compact, less than 1 thousandth of an arcsecond (1 milli-arcsecond or mas), which is a size comparable to viewing one grain of sand from about 100 kilometres away. A few days later, after the detection of the major dust formation event, the source measured 13 mas.
“It is most likely that the latter size corresponds to the diameter of the dust shell in expansion, while the size previously measured was an upper limit of the erupting source,” explains lead author Olivier Chesneau. Over the following months the dusty shell expanded regularly, at a rate close to 2 million km/h.
“This is the first time that the dust shell of a nova is spatially resolved and its evolution traced starting from the onset of its formation up to the point that it becomes too diluted to be seen”, says co-author Dipankar Banerjee, from India.
The measurement of the angular expansion rate, together with the knowledge of the expansion velocity, enables the astronomer to derive the distance of the object, in this case about 5500 light-years.
“This is a new and promising technique for providing distances of close novae. This was made possible because the state of the art facility of the VLTI, both in terms of infrastructure and management of the observations, allows one to schedule such observations,” says co-author Markus Wittkowski from ESO.
Moreover, the quality of the data provided by the VLTI was such that it was possible to estimate the daily production of dust and infer the total mass ejected. “Overall, V1280 Sco probably ejected more than the equivalent of 33 times the mass of the Earth, a rather impressive feat if one considers that this mass was ejected from a star not larger in radius than the Earth,” concludes Chesneau. Of this material, about a percent or less was in the form of dust.
More information:
“VLTI monitoring of the dust formation event of the Nova V1280 Sco”, by O. Chesneau et al. appears today in the research journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
The team is composed of O. Chesneau, S. Sacuto, and A. Spang (CNRS/OCA, Grasse, France), D. P. K. Banerjee, N. M. Ashok and R. K. Das, (Physical Research Laboratory, Gujarat, India), F. Millour, N. Nardetto and S. Kraus (Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany), E. Lagadec (Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Manchester, UK), and M. Wittkowski, C. Hummel, M. Petr-Gotzens, S. Morel, F. Rantakyro, and M. Schoeller (ESO). A French press release is available at http://fizeau.unice.fr/article.php3?id_article=189
Science Contacts:
Olivier Chesneau
Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur, Dpt. Fizeau
Grasse, France
Phone: +33 4 93 40 53 40
E-mail: Olivier.Chesneau@obs-azur.fr
Markus Wittkowski
ESO
Garching, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6769
E-mail: mwittkow@eso.org
Dipankar Banerjee
Physical Research Laboratory
Ahmedabad, India
Phone: +91 79 26314611
E-mail: orion@prl.res.in
An animation is available athttp://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2008/phot-22-08.html
Red hot enlightenment led me to believe in one fewer god
by The Age
Red hot enlightenment led me to believe in one fewer god
Catherine Deveny
Believe what you will, but don’t expect me to stop prodding you about why you’re religious.
WASN’T it hilarious how World Youth Day was an attempt to make Catholicism appear all modern and trendy, but what it achieved was to highlight how deluded and anachronistic the religion is?
The cavernous gap between the fresh-faced young teenagers and the old blokes in frocks and party hats was never more apparent than when the words “pilgrim” and “texting” were used in the same sentence. Repeatedly.
I had to laugh when I heard that “Ratzinger Rules” had been spray-painted on the Hyde Park War Memorial. And when I saw pilgrims chanting, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Oi! Oi! Oi!” I can’t help wondering how the teenage pilgrims coped with their hormones and no condoms and what the consequences will be in a few weeks’ time.
The fusion of wild youth and religious rapture is a complicated reality. A complicated reality I assume was responsible for the GOD ROCKS! graffiti I saw on an old stone church yesterday.
I don’t give a stuff what people believe in, but it won’t stop me poking at it or prodding it. Why should religion be any exemption? Telling me I’m going to hell won’t bother me because I have the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorn and Bertrand Russell’s Teapot in my heart. Google them if you are in the market for some red hot enlightenment.
Over the past couple of weeks Catholic-bashing has been elevated to the level of an extreme sport. Put your hand down at the back there, I’m allowed to. I spent every Sunday for the first 18 years of my life sitting in a medieval torture chamber listening to a bloke bang on about his imaginary friend who did magic tricks. Then the next 20 years massaging, editing and pruning the brainwashing into something that fit until suddenly I woke up one day and realised I was an atheist.
I wasn’t searching for anything. I wasn’t dabbling or questioning. I wasn’t having any kind of spiritual breakdown. I just opened my eyes one day, looked around and realised that I had once been standing in a house and one by one the walls had collapsed and there was no longer a house there. I was standing out in the open. It was very liberating.
Funny though. For a while I would go to pray and then remind myself that I didn’t believe. These days I send out wishes. I know, just as crazy.
I question some of my progressive, believing mates about if they believe in Noah’s ark, the Immaculate Conception, Adam and Eve, the Resurrection, even heaven, and they squirm a little and try to change the subject. They get vague, defensive and then start muttering something about faith and mystery and a power of love that unites us all.
Sure, it would be easy to torture them, but they’re adults and it’s their life. I just can’t see why it’s so difficult to have a rigorous discussion about it. I feel no need to convert them. I just want them to know that if you are brave enough to place your hand through the invisible electric fence there’s a bigger world beyond.
It’s been a revelation to me a year since my “epiphany”. I feel as if I’m walking through life with the blinkers off. Suddenly all the religious mumbo-jumbo jumps out as so bonkers. Wearing certain things, eating certain things, mumbling certain things at certain times so some imaginary friend will let you into a club in the sky when you die. I want to do my living now, thanks. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of never having lived.
There is a school of thought that suggests atheists should not call themselves atheists but just say we apply rational thought to everything and religion is no exception.
As Sam Harris, author of The End Of Faith, puts it, “I think that ‘atheist’ is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don’t need a word for someone who rejects astrology.
“We simply do not call people ‘non-astrologers’. All we need are words like ‘reason’ and ‘evidence’ and ‘common sense’ and ‘bullshit’ to put astrologers in their place, and so it could be with religion.”
I don’t care what people believe in, but I do care that religion impacts on political discourse, public policy and that it stunts the ability of people to think for themselves and question. And that it kills people and causes suffering. But most of all I care that the invisible electric fences that are wired in the minds of children brainwashed by religion are difficult to remove. And impossible if you don’t even know they’re there.
A quote attributed to Stephen F. Robert sums it up for me: “We are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Peace be with you.
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox 360, First Person Shooters, Video
Joystiq has obtained a video that’s set to air at the start of Gamestop’s Gears of War midnight tournaments tomorrow. The video contains an introduction by Cliff Bleszinski as well as “never-before-seen footage” from Gears of War 2. Is your interest piqued? Video embedded after the break.
Gallery: Gears of War 2
Continue reading New Gears of War 2 footage from Gamestop tournament
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When Storms Collide These detailed Hubble Space Telescope close-ups feature Jupiter’s ancient swirling storm system known as the Great Red Spot. They also follow the progress of two newer storm systems that have grown to take on a similar reddish hue: the smaller “Red Spot Jr.” (bottom), and smaller still, a “baby red spot”. Red Spot Jr. was seen to form in 2006, while the smaller spot was just identified earlier this year. For scale, the Great Red Spot has almost twice the diameter of planet Earth. Moving horizontally from left to right past the Great Red Spot, Red Spot Jr. clearly went below the larger storm, but the smaller spot was pulled in. Emerging on the right, the baby spot’s stretched and now paler shape is indicated by the arrow in the frame from July 8. It is expected that the baby red spot will be pulled back and merge, becoming part of the giant storm system.
The technology could make it possible to print circuits on plastic sheets for applications including flexible displays and an electronic skin to cover an entire aircraft to monitor crack formation. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news136037378.html)
This panorama mosaic of images was taken by the Surface Stereo Imager on board NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander. This mosaic documents the midnight sun during several days of the mission, from Sol 46, or the 46th day of the mission to Sol 56 (that would be to July 12 – 22, 2008 here on Earth.) The foreground and sky images were taken on Sol 54, when the lander pulled an all-nighter to coordinate work with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The solar images were taken between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., local solar time, on the different nights of the 11 sol period. During this period, the sun’s path got slightly lower over the northern horizon, causing the lack of smoothness to the curve. This pan captures the polar nature of the Phoenix mission in its similarity to time lapse pictures taken above the Arctic Circle on Earth.
The latest activities of the lander has brought it closer to analyzing a sample of icy soil in the TEGA oven.
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Read the rest of Phoenix in the Land of Mars’ Midnight Sun (345 words)
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Spiral galaxy M 51 with magnetic field data. Credit: MPIfR BonnThe origin of magnetic fields in our universe is a mystery. But magnetic fields are a key part of the interstellar medium and scientists are finding they may play a major role in galactic formation, such as helping to form the spiral arms of galaxies. Until recently, however scientists believed the strength of galactic magnetic fields increased over time as galaxies matured, and in the early universe, these magnetic fields were initially very weak. But, recently a team of scientists looking back to probe the ancient universe as it existed 8 to 9 billion years ago has found that the magnetic fields of ancient galaxies were just as strong as they are today, prompting a rethinking of how our galaxy and others may have formed.
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Read the rest of Ancient Galactic Magnetic Fields Stronger than Expected (447 words)
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“This language is stepping into an unknown universe, when your computer starts building things for you.”
Jeremy Gunawardena, director of the Virtual Cell Program in Harvard Medical School’s department of systems biology
Enter into the world of Little b, a computational language developed by a team of Harvard Medical School researchers.
“Through incorporating principles of engineering, we’ve developed a language that can describe biology in the same way a biologist would,” says Gunawardena. “The potential here is enormous. This opens the door to actually performing discovery science, to look at things like drug interactions, right on the computer.”
The analogy is of writing a document with pen and paper. You need the pen, the paper, and the paper is blank, you’ve got nothing to work with; you have to create everything from the bottom up. You probably have that information available to you, but you have to put it down on the pen and paper.
Little b, a program written in a programming language called LISP, a language used widely in the field of artificial intelligence research, is not like our analogy. It has the ability to bypass the limitations of most programs and languages, and create its own code that, in turn, can write its own code. “LISP isn’t like typical programs, it’s more like a conversation,” says Gunawardena. “When we input data into Little b, Little b responds to it and reasons over the data.”
Gunawardena’s impetus for the creation of Little b is not for something as mediocre as looking in to the human genome, but the human protein. The protein does much more of the work, and is home to a massive wealth of genomic information far and away past the simple DNA. In particular, Gunawardena’s lab works on kinases, otherwise known as a phosphotransferase, an enzyme that transfers phosphate groups from molecules to molecules.
The researchers are now able to use Little b as a scientific collaborator, rather than as a simple passive tool. “This language is stepping into an unknown universe, when your computer starts building things for you,” says Gunawardena. “Your whole relationship with the computer becomes a different one. You’ve ceded some control to the machine. The machine is drawing inferences on your behalf and constructing things for you.”
At the moment, Little b acts very much like those unnamed programs I mentioned at the top. They are for the early adopters who know the code back to front. But the researchers realize that in order for the program to get out of that early adopter community, it has to be made more accessible. “The next step is to create an interface that’s easy to use,” says Gunarwardena. “Think of web page development. Lots of people are creating web pages with little or no knowledge of HTML. They use simple interfaces like Dreamweaver. Once we’ve developed the equivalent, scientists will be able to use our system without having to learn Little b.”
Posted by Josh Hill.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/hms-be072108.php
Death penalty for saying the wrong things on a blog?
July 6, 2008 by tinyfrog
On Wednesday, Iranian members of parliament voted to discuss a draft bill that seeks to “toughen punishment for disturbing mental security in society.” The text of the bill would add, “establishing websites and weblogs promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy,” to the list of crimes punishable by death.
In recent years, some Iranian bloggers have been sent to jail and many have had their sites filtered. If the Iranian parliament approves this draft bill, bloggers fear they could be legally executed as criminals. No one has defined what it means to “disturb mental security in society”.
Such discussion concerning blogs has not been unique to Iran. It shows that many authorities do not only wish to filter blogs, but also to eliminate bloggers!
A state policy to control blogs
About a year and a half ago, the Iranian government demanded that bloggers should register and provide their names and addresses on a site called Samandehi. Many people believed such a process would facilitate legal action against them.
Bloggers resisted and many published an “I do not register my blog/site” banner on their blogs. The Government then realised it cannot have real control of the situation, or force bloggers to register.
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(Source)
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http://redordnancecase.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/19 : Science and Technology News said this on July 25, 2008 at 11:04 pm