BS: Random Traces From All Over

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 13 May 08 - 10:29 AM

Years ago, Stanford communication and sociology researcher Clifford Nass wondered why some people treated their computers as humans, instead of machines, a question that led him down a path of interesting research. Now he wonders about drivers willing to have personal conversations with the artificial voice in their cars—and what will become of the secrets the humans share with their four-wheeled friends.

From Stanford.

---

There are certain advantages to having conversations with your car. It hardly ever tries to correct you, for one thing; it allows you to ramble without interrupting. Itis the epitome of the understanding friend--it is always at your service, takes care of its own operations quietly without interrupting, and does not impose ideas on you, preferring to allow you to work out your own cognitive destiny.

My new car is more understanding than my old one. It kept shivering and squeaking back.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 13 May 08 - 09:28 PM

When President Truman retired from office in 1952, his income was
substantially a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a
year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and
personally licking them, granted him an 'allowance' and, later, a
retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.
When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined,
stating, 'You don't want me. You want the office of the president, and
that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's
not for sale.' Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing
to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthd ay, he refused to
accept it, writing,
'I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the
reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise.'
We now see that the Clintons have found a new level of success in
cashing in on the presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many
in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while
enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for
sale. Good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed, 'My choice
early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a
politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.'

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 08 - 12:53 PM

Story from Spiegel Online:

The German Aerospace Center and European aerospace group EADS unveiled a plan this week for a European manned spacecraft. But the project will only lift off if Europe's politicians back it.

The news was only announced to a small group of people. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the aerospace group EADS Astrium had invited a mere handful of journalists to Bremen. Hardly any information had been revealed before the meeting, only nebulous hints.

Now the reason for the secrecy has become apparent. Astrium is planning to add a new chapter to the history of space exploration. Engineers have quietly been developing a plan that would lead to the entry of Europe into manned space travel -- if it gets political backing.


Planners say manned European spaceflight could become a reality within nine years. The essence of the plan is to turn Europe's unmanned Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) into a full spacecraft in two stages.

The Europeans are proud of the school bus-sized vehicle. Its first incarnation, dubbed the "Jules Verne," successfully finished its maiden flight a few weeks ago and completed an automated docking at the International Space Station (ISS). "We caused a stir in the world with that," DLR head Johann-Dietrich Wörner said. Just after the launch, Wörner received congratulatory text messages from NASA boss Michael Griffin and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Perminov. There were also euphoric reactions when the ATV guided the ISS to a higher orbit as planned....

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 08 - 01:15 PM

Here is a picture of a medieval church that has been underwater for four decades and has re-emerged from a drying dam. The village of Sant Roma had been underwater since the Catalonian valley, where it is located, was flooded -- only the church's belltower was visible. But, with the drought, which has gripped Spain and forced Barcelona to ship in water, the 11th century church has re-emerged and is attracting hordes of tourists.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 08 - 03:00 PM

Solar-powered bra 'able to charge an iPod'
By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 5:01PM BST 14/05/2008
A Japanese lingerie firm today unveiled the perfect gadget for eco-friendly sun worshippers – the solar-powered bra.
The bra comes with a detachable solar panel, worn around the stomach, which can produce enough energy to power an iPod or mobile phone as the wearer lazes on the beach, the makers claim.


It is also equipped with plastic pouches that can be filled with water, allowing wearers to quench their thirst without having to buy and then throw away hard-to-recycle drinks bottles.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: bobad
Date: 14 May 08 - 07:35 PM

Apple Trademarks The Rectangular Box
By Charlie Sorrel EmailMay 13, 2008

Apple has been granted a trademark for the shape of the iPod, essentially giving it exclusive rights to make a box with a screen and a wheel:

    [T]he design of a portable and handheld digital electronic media device comprised of a rectangular casing displaying circular and rectangular shapes therein arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

Who decides that last point, we have no idea, but this will mean that Apple is likely to become much more aggressive in going after the knock-off iPod designs out there. One advantage of a trademark over a patent is that it doesn't expire. However, to keep a trademark, you need to defend it, which means lots of nasty letters to manufacturers. Otherwise, the shape of the iPod could end up like the name "Hoover" (now the English for vacuum cleaner).

Ridiculous? Perhaps. But if McDonald's can register "I'm going to McDonald's" and T-Mobile can lay claim to the color pink, then a pretty arrangement of shapes seems almost sensible.

Shape of Things to Come [Wall Street Journal]

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 08 - 08:27 PM

Well, it is a trademark, but that is not a patent. Those who produce hand soap in boxes that look like iPods will be quite safe.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 14 May 08 - 08:41 PM

OK, this just happened in lovely, orderly Riverside, California.

A guy had a problem with rabbits shredding his garden. He did not shoot them, poison them, club them with a ball bat and sell their fur, or loose seven pit bulls on them. Instead, he lived-trapped them and released them in "the wild." As in "wild animal," q.v.

Chapter Two. He was reported to the police. An extremely conscientious [!?] Assistant D.A. charged him with willful abandonment and littering, and requested a fine, jail time, and removal of the man's dog from his home until such a time as he [the man, not the dog] should complete a course of sensitivity training with regard to animals.

Chapter Three. The judge, in a rare judicial lucid moment, said (in Latin of course)--"Not on my watch, you moron. Sit down with the defense attorney and give me something REASONABLE." No jail. No fine. No impounding the dog. Ah, but the DA gets to count this as a "conviction" so her average doesn't suffer, and she's still in line to move up through the ranks to District Attorney, Assemblyman, Governor of California, Governor of Florida, President.

Good thread, Amos

Chicken Charlie

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 15 May 08 - 11:34 AM

A chimpanzee invents a better way to fish for ants, and improves his invention after some experience with it.

A charming video of the improvement can be found on this page.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 15 May 08 - 11:51 AM

Where do mathematical objects live?Think too hard about it, and mathematics starts to seem like a mighty queer business. For example, are new mathematical truths discovered or invented? Seems like a simple enough question, but for millennia, it has provided fodder for arguments among mathematicians and philosophers.

Those who espouse discovery note that mathematical statements are true or false regardless of personal beliefs, suggesting that they have some external reality. But this leads to some odd notions. Where, exactly, do these mathematical truths exist? Can a mathematical truth really exist before anyone has ever imagined it?

On the other hand, if math is invented, then why can't a mathematician legitimately invent that 2 + 2 = 5?

Many mathematicians simply set nettlesome questions like these aside and get back to the more pleasant business of proving theorems. But still, the questions niggle and nag, and every so often, they rise to attention. Several mathematicians will ponder the question of whether math is invented or discovered in the June European Mathematical Society Newsletter.

Plato is the standard-bearer for the believers in discovery. The Platonic notion is that mathematics is the imperturbable structure that underlies the very architecture of the universe. By following the internal logic of mathematics, a mathematician discovers timeless truths independent of human observation and free of the transient nature of physical reality. "The abstract realm in which a mathematician works is by dint of prolonged intimacy more concrete to him than the chair he happens to sit on," says Ulf Persson of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, a self-described Platonist.

Still Debating Plato, Science News

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 15 May 08 - 01:51 PM

Swiss inventor Yves Rossey has become the first human to fly with wings, more or less, flying over a Swiss village using a jet-pack of his own design. The pictures are breathtaking.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: bobad
Date: 16 May 08 - 08:44 AM

From The Times
May 16, 2008
Billions of electronic-eating 'crazy rasberry ants' invade Texas

It sounds like the plot of a farfetched science fiction movie. Unfortunately for the residents of Texas, it is very much a reality: billions of tiny reddish-brown ants have arrived onshore from a cargo ship and are hell-bent on eating anything electronic.

Computers, burglar alarm systems, gas and electricity meters, iPods, telephone exchanges – all are considered food by the flea-sized ants, for reasons that have left scientists baffled.

Having ruined pumps at a sewage facility, the ants are now marching towards Nasa's Johnson Space Centre and William P. Hobby airport, Houston, putting state officials in a panic. "They're itty-bitty things, and they're just running everywhere," said Patsy Morphew, a resident of Pearland, on the Gulf Coast.

She spends hours sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. "There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy."

Crazy is the the right word. The ants are known as "crazy rasberry ants": crazy because they seem to move in a random scrum as opposed to marching in regimented lines, and rasberry after a pioneering exterminator, Tom Rasberry, who first identified them as a problem.

The ants – also known as paratrenicha species near pubens – have so far spread to five counties in the Houston area. Scientists are not sure from where they originate but they seem to be related to a type of ant from the Caribbean. "At this point it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ants because they are so widely dispersed," said Roger Gold, a Texas A&M University entomologist. He added that the only upside to the invasion was that the crazy rasberry ants ate fire ants, which sting humans during the long, hot Texas summers.

Unfortunately, the ants also like to suck the moisture from plants, feed on precious insects such as ladybirds and eat the hatchlings of a small, endangered type of grouse known as the Attwater prairie chicken. They also bite humans – although not with a sting like fire ants.

Perhaps their most remarkable characteristic, however, is that they are attracted to electrical equipment. Pest control specialists say that they are inundated with calls from homes and businesses now that the warm, humid season has begun, with literally billions of the ants wreaking havoc across the state. Worse, the ants refuse to die when sprayed with over-the-counter poison. Even killing the queen of a colony doesn't do any good, because each colony has multiple queens.

The Texas Department of Agriculture said that it was working with researchers from A&M University and the Environmental Protection Agency to find new ways to stop the ants.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 17 May 08 - 01:01 PM

SA's Venus Express spacecraft has picked up evidence that the molecule hydroxyl is lurking in the dense atmosphere of the hot planet.

The molecule is considered to be a crucial component of any planetary atmosphere because it is highly reactive - scientists say it combats pollutants in Earth's atmosphere, and may prevent carbon dioxide from transforming into carbon monoxide above Mars.
The presence of hydroxyl - which was picked up by the spacecraft's Visible and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer - isn't exactly a huge surprise, but ESA scientists say it should help them refine the theoretical models they use to describe what's going on in the planet's atmosphere. Principal Investigator Giuseppe Piccioni said: ÒVenus Express has already shown us that Venus is much more Earth-like than once thought. The detection of hydroxyl brings it a step closer.Ó

(PopSci)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 17 May 08 - 10:51 PM

The NAACP selected Benjamin Todd Jealous as its president yesterday, tapping a young, Oxford University-educated activist to lead the nation's oldest civil rights group.

Jealous, 35, was chosen by the group's 64-member board after a year-long search and was introduced at the group's national headquarters in Baltimore. He is expected to start his new job Sept. 1.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 08 - 04:53 PM

Conifer forests — really big greens — encroaching on Arctic tundra threaten to further accelerate warming in the far North.

Temperatures at these high latitudes already are climbing "at about twice the global average," notes F. Stuart Chapin of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

The newest data on the advance of northern, or boreal, forests come from the eastern slopes of Siberia's Ural Mountains. Here, north of the Arctic Circle, relatively flat mats of compressed, frozen plant matter — tundra — are the norm. This ecosystem hosts a cover of reflective snow most of the year, a feature that helps maintain the region's chilly temperatures. Throughout the past century, however, the leading edges of conifer forests have creeped some 20 to 60 meters up the mountains and begun overrunning tundra, scientists report in an upcoming Global Change Biology, now available online.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 20 May 08 - 08:33 PM

ST. LEONARDS, Australia, May 20 (UPI) -- The United States and Russia are in the bottom half of an annual study ranking nations on how peaceful they are, surveyors said Tuesday.

Iceland topped Vision of Humanity's Global Peace Index of 140 countries that analyzes how peaceful they are regarding international policy and domestic conditions, The Financial Times reported Tuesday.

Because of continued violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Iraq ranked last in the index developed by the organization based in Australia.

The survey found 16 of the 20 most peaceful states are European democracies, most of them European Union members. China ranked 67th; the United States, 97th, and Russia, 131st.

The Global Peace Index was developed by the think-tank Institute for Economics and Peace and the Economist Intelligence Unit. It ranks each nation using 24 "peacefulness" measurements, including a nation's relations with its neighbors, arm sales and troop deployments.

Index officials said the United States' position reflects its military expenditures and engagement. It also has more citizens in jail than any other nation, proportionally.

Iceland's ranking reflects its political stability and its good relations with its neighbors, the index indicated. Iceland has no standing army and proportionally, has among the lowest percentage of its citizens incarcerated.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: bobad
Date: 20 May 08 - 09:14 PM

Canada was 11th. Peace brother.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 08 - 10:18 AM

Tracking Hate 2.0 on the Web
By Brad Stone

The Internet is seeing a stark rise in the number of hate and terror sites and Web postings, according to a Congressional briefing last week entitled "Hate in the Information Age."
At the briefing, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, an associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group based in Los Angeles, presented the organization's annual study of online terror and hate. He said the group had identified some 8,000 problematic sites in the last 12 months, a 30 percent spike over last year.
Contributing to this precipitous rise was the proliferation of Web 2.0 services, which have made it easy to post videos to sites like YouTube and mint hate groups on services like Facebook and MySpace.
Rabbi Cooper said the threat from hate groups is real, not theoretical. "The Internet is a fantastic marketing tool," he said.

Rabbi Cooper attributes a third of the 30 percent spike to blogs and discussion groups that support terrorism. The rest is the material of age-old hatreds–40 percent anti-Semitic, 20 percent anti-black, 15 percent anti-immigrant and the rest a hodge-podge of anti-religious, anti-government sentiment.
NYT

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 08 - 02:39 AM

ARTICLE
Star self-destructs before astronomers' eyes
21 May 2008
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
Hazel Muir



Astronomers happened to be looking at the moment a star exploded (Image: NASA/Princeton U/Gemini Observatories)
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Alicia Soderberg, Princeton University
Swift X-ray Telescope
Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope


Talk about right place, right time. Quite by chance, astronomers have captured footage of a star blowing itself to smithereens.
Stars heavier than about eight times the mass of the sun meet their deaths in catastrophic explosions when their core runs out of fuel. The core can collapse into a black hole or neutron star, generating a shock wave that ploughs outwards, blasting the star's atmosphere apart.
Hundreds of supernovae are seen every year, but usually days or weeks after the event (in the Earth's time frame), when the optical glow of radioactive nickel in the debris reaches a peak. By then it is often too late to determine what kind of star exploded or what events led up to the blast.
Alicia Soderberg from Princeton University and her colleagues were using an X-ray detector on NASA's Swift space telescope to observe a galaxy 88 million light years away when they saw a brief but intense X-ray signal. This is characteristic of a supernova explosion, and is emitted by hot gas trapped just behind the shock wave as it bursts out of a star. "It only lasted a few minutes and then the whole show was over," says Soderberg.
The observations suggest the star that exploded was of a hot, massive and luminous variety called a Wolf-Rayet star, and that the shock wave took about 10 minutes to travel from the stellar core out to the surface.
Astronomers may not need to be so fortunate in future. Though current satellite-borne X-ray telescopes do not scan enough of the sky with sufficient regularity to have a good chance of catching signals from exploding stars, proposed satellites such as NASA's Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope (EXIST), which will image the entire sky every 95 minutes, could pick up hundreds of these blasts every year.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 08 - 01:52 AM

Scientists find first dinosaur tracks on Arabian Peninsula
May 21, 2008 | User rating: 4.6 / 5 after 17 vote(s)

Scientists have discovered the first dinosaur tracks on the Arabian Peninsula. In the May 21 issue of the journal PLoS ONE, they report evidence of a large ornithopod dinosaur, as well as a herd of 11 sauropods walking along a Mesozoic coastal mudflat in what is now the Republic of Yemen.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 08 - 10:10 AM

Ministry of the Interior in the Netherlands decided last week not to adopt electronic voting machines. The decision was made after reviewing extensive research which indicated that none of the available machines offered adequate privacy and security safeguards.

Related StoriesReport: post-election audits needed to ensure election integrity
E-voting reform bill scheduled for House vote this week
Paper trail voting report hammers straw men, its own credibility
E-voting vendor blocks security audit with legal threats
Developing new equipment that could meet the government's standards was deemed too costly and challenging. Instead, voters will go old-school: marking their choices on paper ballots which will be tabulated by machines. The government has also ordered periodic testing of the tabulation machines in order to ensure that they are consistently reliable.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 08 - 11:40 AM

When NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander sets down in the Martian arctic on Sunday, it will open a new, icy frontier for scientists back on Earth.

Phoenix, a stationary lander set to make a planned May 25 descent to the Martian surface, is going to where no probe has gone before - the northern plains of Vastitas Borealis on Mars.

"Ten years ago, you wouldn't have chosen this spot at all because it looks just like every other part of Mars," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. "A lot of the features aren't even named up there."

But it's the promise of what lies beneath the frozen surface features, signs of untouched Martian water ice first spotted by orbiters in 2002, which spurred NASA engineers and researchers to launch the $420 million Phoenix last August.

Wielding its robotic arm like a backhoe, Phoenix is designed to dig down in to the Martian soil to collect water ice samples. It will feed them into small onboard ovens and beakers to determine if its landing site may have once been habitable for microbial life.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 08 - 05:07 PM

Male Birth Control on a key-fob. For the man who needs one more remote control!!


:D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: bobad
Date: 24 May 08 - 09:52 AM

Incense is psychoactive: Scientists identify the biology behind the ceremony
May 20th, 2008 by Josh Hill

Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. In a new study appearing online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), an international team of scientists, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain to alleviate anxiety or depression. This suggests that an entirely new class of depression and anxiety drugs might be right under our noses.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 24 May 08 - 05:40 PM

IF YOU thought it was hard finding the email address that some other john.smith hasn't already bagged, that's nothing compared with the difficulty you'll have getting an internet connection for your computer after 2011.

As of this month 85 per cent of the 4.3 billion available Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which identify devices connected to the net, are already in use. Within three years they will all be used up, according to a report by the OECD. "The situation is critical for the future of the internet economy," it says.

The report urges governments and businesses to upgrade from the current version, IPv4, to IPv6, which effectively has an unlimited number of IP addresses. IPv6 has been available for more than a decade but service providers have been slow to adopt it.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 25 May 08 - 12:06 PM

ThereÕs no way around it: The nature of light seems different depending on how itÕs observed. Light can act like a particle or wave, and all shades of gray in between. Now, physicists have the most dramatic demonstration yet that this range of behaviors between wave and particles really is unavoidable, and that light itself doesnÕt know what it is while itÕs propagating.

Light is made of elementary particles called photons, but those photons donÕt have well-defined trajectories. At any given time, their positions are diffused clouds of probability that move like waves. Thus, light can act like a wave, going around obstacles and creating patterns of interference. Or a photon can act like a particle, producing a discrete click when it hits a detector. The behavior depends on the experimental measurement.

In one interpretation, light somehow knows in advance what kind of measurement will be performed, so it can pick a certain modus operandi. ÒIn a na•ve interpretation, the photon would know the experimental apparatus, and behave accordingly,Ó says Jean-Fran쳌ois Roch of the Ecole Normale SupŽrieure in Cachan, France. ÒIf the experiment tests the particle-like behavior, then it behaves like a particle, and if the experiment tests the wavelike behavior, then it behaves like a wave.Ó

Roch and his collaborators, however, have now shown that this na•ve interpretation is, well, na•ve Ñ and they have done so for the first time for the full range of lightÕs behaviors. In an upcoming Physical Review Letters, they describe randomly changing the measurement they took while light was propagating, and how light behaved accordingly.


Physicists in France shot one photon at a time through a partially-reflecting mirror . Each photon ÒsplitÓ and took two trajectories simultaneously, hitting two regular mirrors and then recombining in different ways at a second partially-reflecting mirror, before hitting one of two detectors

ÒYou can change choices which, common sense says, had to be made at the beginning,Ó comments Wojciech Zurek of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. ÒIn some sense, you can rewrite the past by what you measure now.Ó

Inspired by an idea proposed three decades ago by physicist John Archibald Wheeler, Roch and his team played mind tricks with a single photon at a time. In their experiment, each photon went first through a partially reflecting mirror. Normally, the mirror would appear to reflect 50 percent of the light and let the other 50 percent pass through.

But a single photon, faced with the choice of going straight through the mirror or bouncing off, wonÕt decide right away. Only once it hits a detector will the photon decide which trajectory it took, with a 50-50 chance.

After splitting, the photonsÕ two virtual paths bounced off two (real) mirrors, and then crossed at a point. Beyond that point, the physicists placed a detector on each of the possible paths. Right at the crossing point, however, the researchers also placed a second partially reflecting mirror. They finely tuned the position of this last mirror to create the unmistakable signature of wavelike behavior. Light waves corresponding to the two paths created a pattern of interference Ñ with crests and troughs reinforcing or canceling each other out.

The team arranged the second partially reflecting mirror so that it would randomly twist the waves every 10 nanoseconds or so.

Roche and his collaborators had already described this kind of experiment last year in Science, in which the mirror twisted the waves by either 0 or 90 degrees. Twisting 90 degrees made the interference disappear, as if the mirror wasnÕt there, so that the experiment would revert to testing particle-like behavior. In the experiment reported in the upcoming paper, the team put into practice a variation on WheelerÕs idea, proposed by Zurek and William Wootters at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. In the new twist, the researchers allowed intermediate angles, so the last mirror can twist the light not only by 90 degrees, but also by any intermediate angle. That let the detectors receive partial information about the photonÕs path, which corresponded to the full range between particle and wave behaviors. The result is a progressive shift from interference to partial interference to no interference, showing that the particle/wave duality admits all shades of gray.

The researchers also placed the mirrors far from each other Ñ about 50 meters apart. Because a photon takes tens of nanoseconds to cover such a distance, and because information cannot travel faster than the speed of light, each photon couldnÕt possibly know the random state of the mirror Ñwhich changed faster than that ÐÑ in advance.

Peter Sonnentag of the University of TŸbingen in Germany calls the teamÕs latest results Òvery convincing.Ó He says that such experiments rule out Òan interpretation of quantum mechanics that would state that the photon adjusts its behavior to wavelike or particle-like at the beginning of an experiment.Ó

---

It scarcely needs to be pointed out that the proposition "You can rewrite the past by what you measure in the present" will open the doors to a dozen New Age books about positive mental assertions and so on, far beyond the scientifically legitimate implications of the experiments described. Watch for it to resurface in numerous strange places on your bookstore's self-help shelf. :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 25 May 08 - 12:13 PM

"ith nearly 300 planets now known beyond the solar system, astronomers are honing their hunting skills, trying to determine which stars are most likely to harbor planets that resemble Earth. A four-year study of 400 stars, most of them similar to the sun, have yielded what astronomers are calling a ÒremarkableÓ and unprecedented statistic.

As many as 30 percent of sunlike stars possess close-in, relatively small planets Ñ only four to 30 times as heavy as Earth. These are small enough to have a solid, rocky surface like EarthÕs or an icy one like NeptuneÕs. The planets all lie near their parent star and take less than 50 days to complete an orbit.

Christophe Lovis of Geneva Observatory in Switzerland and his colleagues base their findings on a search for tiny wobbles, induced by the tug of small, unseen planets, in the motion of several hundred F, G and K stars. Such stars range from 0.7 to 1.2 times the mass of the sun. (The sun is a G type star.) The researchers measured the wobbles, indicated by periodic shifts in the wavelength of starlight, using a sensitive spectrometer called HARPS, for High Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Search, on the European Southern ObservatoryÕs 3.6-meter telescope in La Silla, Chile.

Lovis and his collaborators found signs of 45 low-mass planets among a subset of the stars. These include at least eight superEarths Ñ objects that are likely to have rocky surfaces and have between about four and 10 times EarthÕs mass. Heavier objects, up to 30 times EarthÕs mass, are classified as ice giants or Neptune-like planets, which would have an icy surface and an atmosphere composed mainly of hydrogen and helium."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 25 May 08 - 12:27 PM

The great blockbuster mystery-adventure of the Crystal Skulls of Modern Manufacture.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 25 May 08 - 12:37 PM

Last summer, the Discovery Channel temporarily suspended airing its hit survivalist show Man vs. Wild. The producer admitted that the protagonist would get help from staff or spend nights in hotels Ñ all along claiming to rough it alone in the worldÕs most inhospitable places. Yet, Man vs. Wild was not the first high-profile case of possible Òfrontier fakery.Ó

In August 1913, Joseph Knowles, a former Boston Post illustrator, one-time trapper, hunting guide and Navy man, went into the Maine woods on a solitary retreat. Starting out with nothing, not even clothes, Knowles thrived for two months by catching fish, gathering roots and berries, and killing game, the Post recounted in frequent updates.

KnowlesÕ feat was touted as a Òscientific experimentÓ to demonstrate that humans could still make it when deprived of the conveniences of modern life. He was a short-lived media sensation.

But soon after KnowlesÕ triumphant return to Boston, another newspaper printed an exposŽ: Knowles had received help all along. He had spent time drinking beer at a lodge. And the bear skin he sported during many public appearances hosted bullet holes. Motavalli enriches the narration with historical context. But perhaps more important, Motavalli explores the enduring significance of the wilderness in American culture.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: bobad
Date: 25 May 08 - 02:37 PM

Huge hidden biomass lives deep beneath the oceans

    * 19:00 22 May 2008
    * NewScientist.com news service
    * Catherine Brahic

It's the basement apartment like no other. Life has been found 1.6 kilometres beneath the sea floor, at temperatures reaching 100 °C.

The discovery marks the deepest living cells ever to be found beneath the sea floor. Bacteria have been found deeper underneath the continents, but there they are rare. In comparison, the rocks beneath the sea appear to be teeming with life.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: bobad
Date: 25 May 08 - 02:47 PM

Men are all the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 May 08 - 10:55 PM

Cyber-Spying for Dummies
Mark Hosenball
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 11:10 AM ET May 24, 2008

Congressional experts fear that Defense intelligence agencies are not making wide enough—and smart enough—use of the vast pool of "open source" information now available in cyberspace. The House Armed Services Committee, in a report approved last week on the House floor, worried that clumsy attempts by Pentagon agents to download useful intelligence from the Web could compromise U.S. spy operations by putting potential enemies on notice that U.S. intelligence is interested in them.

Last week the Federation of American Scientists made public a U.S. Army field manual, stamped FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY, outlining procedures for open-source intelligence collection by Army units. The manual says Army agents "must use Government computers to access the Internet" unless they have special authorization to do otherwise. One U.S. official, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said that, in an effort to track people behind Web sites giving detailed instructions on how to build sophisticated IEDs, counterterrorism experts two years ago asked Pentagon brass for permission to log on to the Web sites using fake identities. The official said the plan was abandoned when lawyers and policymakers insisted that the counterterrorism officials log on using computers with telltale ".gov" or ".mil" domains—a ruling that would have tipped off potential bad guys.

/quote

So the army has to tell you if they're reading a newspaper that you publish for everybody to read, but the other "intel" guys can hide under your bed without a warrant?

Sounds like superb coordination of effort to me.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 25 May 08 - 11:17 PM

I am sure they have their reasons, John; just as I was sure, Mister Bush probably knew something I did not about terrorists and Iraq.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 May 08 - 12:57 AM

Amos -

Given the number of "disaffected" enlisted people I met while in the military, a .gov or .mil URL might tag a new sign-in as a potentially valuable recruit, so I'm not sure they couldn't have created a "cover" that wouldn't have hurt the info gathering. That would, of course, require that they act "intelligently" in their data collection efforts ... ... .

Signing in as "Commanding General CONUS," or with a JAG office header might have been suspicious, I guess. Not too long ago though, I found a guy (SP3? according to the messages) spamming from my old post at YPG (.mil) using the offical website/server to sell phony drugs (probably Mexican, since it's only 30 miles to the border).

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 08 - 01:40 AM

It sure is a sorry-ass version of technical literacy.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: bobad
Date: 26 May 08 - 03:50 PM

New MP3 Revolutionizes Way You Listen to Music

By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter

If you are a serious guitar-master wannabe and you want to focus on the tune of Brian May's guitar and don't want to hear Freddie Mercury's voice and Roger Tailor drumming in Queen songs, then this may be what you have been looking for.

Korean computer engineers are introducing a new digital music format that has separate controls on the sound volume for each musical instrument, such as guitar, drum, base and voice -- an ideal tool for music lovers of different tastes as well as karaoke fans.

The new format, which has a file extension format of MT9 and a commercial title of Music 2.0, is poised to replace the popular MP3 file format as the de facto standard of the digital music source, its inventors say.

The MT9 technology was first conceived by Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and is being shaped into commercial use by venture company Audizen. It was selected as a candidate item for the new digital music standard at a regular meeting of Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), the international body of the digital music and video industry, held in France late April.

``We made presentations to the participants and they were all surprised to see it. They immediately voted to make it a candidate for the digital music standard,'' said Ham Seung-chul, chief of Audizen. He is expecting it will be formerly selected as an international standard in the MPEG forum's next meeting to be held in Germany June.

The distinctive feature of MT9 format is that it has a six-channel audio equalizer, with each channel dedicated to voice, chorus, piano, guitar, base and drum. For example, if a user turns off the voice channel, it becomes a karaoke player. Or one can turn off all the instruments and concentrate on the voice of the main singer as if he or she is singing a cappella.

Ham says that the music industry should change its attitude to the market as music is becoming a digital service, rather than a physical product. MT9 is the ideal fit for the next generation of music business because it can be used for multiple services and products, such as iPhones, PCs, mobile phones and karaoke bars, he says.

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are both interested in equipping their mobile phones with an MT9 player and their first commercial products are likely to debut early next year, he said.

If selected as an international format, the MT9 technology can earn big for both Audizen and ETRI, a governmental research institute. ETRI said that it holds three international and six domestic patents for the technology and is planning to file two more this year.

The MT9 files are served in an album package. Audizen is currently selling a limited choice of albums at 2,000 won to 3,000 won on its Web site. More albums are being recorded in the format and even very old albums, such as Queen's or Deulgookhwa's, can be made into MT9 files if they have a digitally re-mastered music source, Ham said.

Unlike other digital formats exclusively used by big companies such as SK Telecom, Audizen allows users to copy the MT9 files, making it a more attractive format. ``It's like having a CD or cassette tape. Once you buy it, you can lend it to your friends. We don't want to be too fussy about DRM (digital right management),'' he said.

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 08 - 04:21 PM

They will have to make it iTunes-playable one way or anothert.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 08 - 09:11 PM

SAN FRANCISCO Ñ Same-sex couples in some counties will be able to marry as soon as Saturday, June 14, the president of the California's county clerks association said Monday.

Stephen Weir, who heads the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, said he was told by the Office of Vital Records that clerks would be authorized to hand out marriage licenses as soon as that date Ñ exactly 30 days after the California Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage should be legal.

The court's decisions typically take effect after 30 days, barring further legal action.
"They are shooting for the 14th," said Weir, adding that the state planned to give California's 58 counties advice early this week for implementing the historic change so local officials can start planning.

An effort, however, is under way to stay the Supreme Court's decision until voters can decide the issue with an initiative planned for the November ballot. The measure would overrule the justices' decision and amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage.

Justices have until the ruling's effective date to weigh the request, but could give themselves longer to consider it, attorneys have said. Another complicating factor is that the Supreme Court also directed a midlevel appeals court that upheld the state's one man-one woman marriage laws a year ago to issue a new order legalizing same-sex marriage, and it's not clear when the appeals court would comply.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 26 May 08 - 09:55 PM

Life has been found 1.6 kilometres beneath the sea floor, at temperatures reaching 100 ¡C.

The discovery marks the deepest living cells ever to be found beneath the sea floor. Bacteria have been found deeper underneath the continents, but there they are rare. In comparison, the rocks beneath the sea appear to be teeming with life.

John Parkes, a geobiologist at the University of Cardiff, UK, hopes his team's discovery might one day help find life on other planets. He says it might even redefine what we understand as life, and, bizarrely, what we understand by "age".

Parkes has been hunting for deep life for over 20 years. Recently, he and his colleagues examined samples of a mud core extracted from between 860 metres and 1626 metres beneath the sea floor off the coast of Newfoundland.

They found simple organisms known as prokaryotes in every sample. Prokaryotes are organisms that often have just one cell. Their peculiarity is that, unlike any other form of life, their DNA is not neatly packed into a nucleus.

Gradual descent

About 60% of the cells Parkes and his team found were alive. They are related to organisms found in deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Depending on the depth, between one in 20 and one in 10 of the cells were dividing, which is the normal way prokaryotes reproduce.

Where cells living so far beneath the sea floor could have come from remains a mystery. They may have been gradually buried in sediment as millions of years passed by, and adapted to the increasing temperatures and pressure, he says.

Another possibility is that they were sucked deep into the mud from the sea water above. Hydrothermal vents pulse hot water out of the seabed and into the ocean. This creates a vacuum in the sediment, which draws fresh sea water into the marine aquifer.

It is important to understand the way the cells got down there, because that has implications for their age. The cells are not very active and according to Parkes they have very few predators. "We find very few viruses, for example, down there," he says. "At the surface, if you don't divide you get eaten. But if there are no predators, the pressure to reproduce decreases and you can spend more energy on repairing your damaged molecules."

Ancient life

This means it is conceivable Ð but unproven Ð that some of the cells are as old as the sediment. At 1.6 km beneath the sea, that's 111 million years old. But in an underworld where cells divide excruciatingly slowly, if at all, age tends to lose its relevance, says Parkes.

Parkes' interest in prokaryotes goes far beyond those that are buried deep in the Earth. He thinks the cells found there could lead to life on other planets.
Previously, he has shown that the rocks beneath the oceans could be home to the largest population of prokaryotes on Earth, and account for one tenth of all living carbon. He estimates the combined undersea biomass could be equivalent to that of all the plants on Earth.

"We are all dominated by our surface existence where everything relates to photosynthesis and oxygen," he told New Scientist.

The possibility that there could be more forms of life beneath the surface than above it suggests that they have different and effective ways of surviving Ð ways that could be independent of light and oxygen. And if these "new" forms of life exist on Earth, they could exist on other planets too.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 27 May 08 - 12:24 PM

Hear George W sing green green grass of home

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 27 May 08 - 04:56 PM

Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests.

God may work in mysterious ways, but a simple computer program called Evogod may explain how religion evolved. By assuming that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to pass along unverifiable information, the program predicts that religion will flourish. However, according to the US scientist who wrote the program, religion only takes hold if non-believers help believers out ö perhaps because they are impressed by their devotion.

Read the full story here:

Full Story

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: bobad
Date: 27 May 08 - 07:32 PM

Beavers to return after 400 years

The European beaver is to be reintroduced to Scotland for the first time in more than 400 years, the Scottish Government has announced.

Environment Minister Michael Russell has given the go-ahead for up to four beaver families to be released in Knapdale, Argyll, on a trial basis.

The beavers will be caught in Norway and released in spring 2009.

Mr Russell said: "This is an exciting development for wildlife enthusiasts all over Scotland and beyond."

The beavers, which will be captured in autumn 2008, will be put into quarantine for six months before three to four families are released. Five lochs have been proposed for the release.

This will be the first-ever formal reintroduction of a native mammal into the wild in the UK.
        
They are charismatic, resourceful little mammals and I fully expect their reappearance in Knapdale to draw tourists from around the British Isles and even further afield

The trial will be run over five years by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, with Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) monitoring the project.

Mr Russell added: "The beaver was hunted to extinction in this country in the 16th Century and I am delighted that this wonderful species will be making a comeback.

"They are charismatic, resourceful little mammals and I fully expect their reappearance in Knapdale to draw tourists from around the British Isles and even further afield.

"Other parts of Europe, with a similar landscape to Scotland, have reintroduced beavers and evidence has shown that they can also have positive ecological benefits, such as creating and maintaining a habitat hospitable to other species."

Scottish Natural Heritage will closely monitor the progress of the beavers over the next five years to consider the impact on the local environment and economy before any decision on a wider reintroduction.

Professor Colin Galbraith, director of policy for SNH, said: "The decision is excellent news. For the first time we will have the opportunity to see how beavers fit into the Scottish countryside in a planned and managed trial.

"No other beaver reintroduction project in Europe has gone through such a long, and thorough, process of preparation, assessment and examination."

Prof Galbraith added that although beavers had been spotted in the wild in isolated cases, they had usually been caught and returned to zoos.

Allan Bantick, chairman of the Scottish Beaver Trial Steering Group, said it was a "historic moment" for wildlife conservation.

"By bringing these useful creatures back to their native environment we will have the chance to restore a missing part of our wetland ecosystems and re-establish much needed natural processes," he said.

David Windmill, chief executive of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said: "It is a strong and visible sign of the Scottish Government's commitment to carrying out conservation in Scotland and re-building our depleted biodiversity."

Simon Milne, chief executive of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, said the challenge was now for the licence holders to raise funds for the project.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 08 - 11:44 AM

ANd now, a weather report...from the Arctic region of northern Mars:

"Researchers also released the first weather report from the landing site, provided by a Canadian meteorology station mounted on the Lander's mast. Temperatures ranged from a low of -80° Celsius in the early morning to high of -30° C in the afternoon. That's warmer than it will be come August, when the sun sets below the landing site at the planet's arctic circle.

The average pressure was 8.55 millibars, less than 1 percent the pressure at sea level on Earth. The wind is blowing from the northeast at about 20 kilometers per hour with little dust obliterating the view. Future reports will include measurements of humidity and visibility as more weather instruments are switched on."

---

For some reason I am imagining a dusky summer evening in, say, Indiana or Missouri, with a few folks--Jared and his wife Mae, and their son Jared, Junior who is called "Bud" -- sitting out in rockers or porch swings enjoying the cool after dinner and recognizing the planet Mars by its reddish glint, hanging over the horizon among the distant stars. It is late June, say, in the year 1938. Mae is knitting, and speaks in a sort of dreamy tone.

"I wonder what the weather is like on Mars, Jared."

"Dang foolish idea, Maw. How's anyone ever gonna know thet?"

"But Dad!! Someday, we could go to Mars, maybe by a rocket or somethin'. Then we'd know!!!"

"You best tend to your books, sprat, an' git them dang tomfool idees outta yer head, iffen you want to 'mount to anything in this world. Weather reports from Mars? Ree-dicklous!! I cain't even get a straight answer from the damn raddio about weather right here in Teller County!!!"

"Awww, pa. But could happen....someday!!"

"An' hell could frizz over, too, young man. Ain't worth bettin' on, though!! You keep a sensible head on your shoulders, now, an' leave all that daydreamin' to others who don't mind wastin' their time..."

"Awww. Kin I have some more lemonade?"

(Camera pans the sky and zeros in on the red-glinting dot of far-off Mars, hanging over the horizon....).

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 08 - 05:42 PM

EXPLODING STAR CAUGHT ON TAPE
Call it fantastic timing. Early this year, a group of astronomers
led by Princeton University's Alicia Soderberg were using NASA's
Swift satellite to observe a new supernova-one of those spectacular
explosions that mark the end of a massive star's life. This
supernova was in a galaxy some 100 million light years away. It was
relatively unremarkable, Soderberg admits. But then something
extraordinary happened. On January 9, in what some astronomers are
calling a remarkable stroke of good luck, another star in their
field of view went supernova. "We actually watched the star
explode," says Soderberg, who was in Michigan, talking to an
audience of fellow scientists about her research when the call about
the supernova came from her colleague. This set off a week of
scrambling to get astronomers across the globe to point telescopes
at the supernova to confirm and better study the phenomenon.

Astronomers have never before seen a star at the first moments of
its explosive death. Usually, astronomers miss the earliest flash
of a supernova because the explosion is only visible to orbiting
x-ray detectors on platforms like Swift. In the 22 May 2008 issue of
Nature, Soderberg and her colleagues describe how the supernova's
initial burst lasted a few minutes and then faded away. Its power
was remarkable. In 10 minutes, the exploding star expelled the about
the same amount of energy as the sun puts out in 82,000 years.

"It's incredibly serendipitous," says Harvard astrophysics professor
Josh Grindlay, a supernova expert who was not involved in the
research. "This almost certainly provides a whole new way of
detecting supernovae." Though astronomers have known about
supernovas for hundreds of years, the events are rare, only seen
about once a century in any given galaxy. They are only visible to
the eye or to ordinary telescopes a few weeks after the initial
burst, when the supernova begins to shine brightly-sometimes
becoming one of the brightest objects in the evening sky.
Supernovae are remarkable events not only for such displays of power
but because they culminate a natural process of stellar renewal-sort
of like cosmological compost. ...

(Physics News)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:38 AM

By John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle

In a dramatic reversal of decades of public opinion, California voters agree by a slim majority that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, according to a Field Poll released today.

By 51-42 percent, registered voters said they believed same-sex marriage should be legal in California. Only 28 percent favored gay marriage in 1977, when the Field Poll first asked that question, said Mark DiCamillo, the poll's director.

"This is a milestone in California," he said. "You can't downplay the importance of a change in an issue we've been tracking for 30 years."

While opposition to same-sex marriage has been weakening for years in California, supporters have remained a minority. In March 2000, for example, voters overwhelmingly backed Proposition 22, a statute that said the state would recognize only the marriage of a man and a woman. A 2006 Field Poll showed that half the state's voters still disapproved of same-sex marriage.

But the state Supreme Court's decision this month to overturn Prop. 22 might have turned the tide, DiCamillo said.
...

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 08 - 03:23 PM

Recommended for you »   

Add a section with stories recommended for you, by using search history.



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Section:

At least 123456789 stories






Calgary Herald
Royal flag comes down at Nepal palace
AFP - 5 hours ago
KATHMANDU (AFP) - The royal flag was taken down from Nepal's royal palace Thursday as the Himalayan nation celebrated a vote consigning its centuries-old monarchy to the history books and declaring a republic.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 May 08 - 03:54 PM

A bulletin report from international news sources has discovered new and startling information. No link can be provided due to the refusal of all sources to be quoted in any way that includes any identifying information:






Amos does NOT PREVIEW his posts here.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 08 - 11:28 PM

My apologies, John. Rushing never pays, does it?

BERLIN -- Authorities in southern Germany said Saturday they have taken custody of a 7-month-old boy after his parents posted an ad on eBay offering to sell him for one euro, the equivalent of $1.57.

Peter Hieber, a spokesman for police in the Bavarian town of Krumbach, said the baby was placed in the care of youth services in the southwestern Allgaeu region, although the child's 23-year-old mother insisted the ad was only a joke.

Authorities have launched an investigation into possible child trafficking against the baby's mother and 24-year-old father, neither of whom was identified.

"Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28 inches (70 cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller," police quoted the ad as reading.
No offers were made for the child in the two hours and 30 minutes the ad was posted on Tuesday. eBay later deleted the posting and assisted police in tracking down the parents.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 08 - 11:01 AM

There is no point-and-click formula for accumulating a body of knowledge needed to make sense of isolated facts.

It is past time to retire the sliming of elite knowledge and education from public discourse.

Do we want mediocre schools or the best education for our children? If we need an operation, do we want an ordinary surgeon or the best, most elite surgeon available?

America was never imagined as a democracy of dumbness. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written by an elite group of leaders, and although their dream was limited to white men, it held the seeds of a future in which anyone might aspire to the highest — let us say it out loud, elite — level of achievement.

Susan Jacoby is the author of "The Age of American Unreason."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 30 May 08 - 02:36 PM

The entire continent of Europe is being disrupted at various places by protest strikes against high oil prices and demands something be done about it. Spain, Portugal, France, Bulgaria.

Here are some images of some of the strikes. (Der Spiegel)