BS: Random Traces From All Over

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 09:09 AM

For the first time since record keeping began in 1960, the number of deaths of young children around the world has fallen below 10 million a year, according to figures from the United Nations Children's Fund being released today.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 13 Sep 07 - 10:00 AM

IT MIGHT seem like an esoteric achievement of interest to only a handful of computer scientists, but the advent of quantum computers that can run a routine called Shor's algorithm could have profound consequences. It means the most dangerous threat posed by quantum computing - the ability to break the codes that protect our banking, business and e-commerce data - is now a step nearer reality.

Adding to the worry is the fact that this feat has been performed by not one but two research groups, independently of each other. One team is led by Andrew White at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and the other by Chao-Yang Lu of the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei. Both groups have built rudimentary laser-based quantum computers that can implement Shor's algorithm - a mathematical routine capable of defeating today's most common encryption. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 14 Sep 07 - 10:40 AM

Here's a headline I instantly related to for some reason:

Warm dark matter solves mystery of giant black holes
.19:12 13 September 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Stephen Battersby



The gas filament in the image above is shown at a later time in a simulation of warm dark matter. Warm dark matter forms dense filaments in which stars of different sizes form. Some would be small stars that burn slowly, so a few pure stars formed in these filaments could still be shining today (Illustration: Science)

In a simulation of cold dark matter, the filaments fragment into numerous, nearly spherical halos. One large star forms in the middle of each large halo. These large stars burn fast and die young, so that no pure hydrogen-helium stars survive today (Illustration: Science) Dark matter may be made of fast, lightweight particles – contrary to the most widely accepted theory, according to a new computer simulation. That could explain the peculiarly pure chemical makeup of some stars in the Milky Way, and the enormous mass of black holes that live at the hearts of large galaxies.

Because dark matter reveals itself only by its gravity, astronomers have few clues to its nature. The most popular model is cold dark matter: heavy subatomic particles that tend to move very slowly.
Another possibility is warm dark matter: lighter particles that move faster. The rapid motion of these particles smoothes out the small dense knots of matter that would otherwise form in the cores of galaxies, and there are hints that such dense knots are indeed missing.

Liang Gao and Tom Theuns of Durham University in the UK have built a computer simulation to compare the behaviour of cold and warm dark matter in the early universe. At first the two varieties behave alike, collapsing under gravity into a network of filaments that crisscross the universe.

But cold dark matter then coalesces into blobs, or haloes (see image bottom right), while warm dark matter does not (see image below right). The random motion of its particles smoothes out these blobs, so warm dark matter filaments just keep collapsing and getting denser until there is a narrow tube of matter typically 10,000 light years long with the mass of 10 million Suns....

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 12:15 PM

Classic military jet fighters up for sale

H&H Auctions has announced that it will offer eight jet-powered De Havilland Venoms and Vampires in a rare sale by tender. A Vampire fighter, two Vampire trainers and five Venom fighter/bombers in operating condition are available for purchase individually or as a collection.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 04:51 PM

We are going to look for dark matter with a new instrument that will see 23 octaves up into the gamma ray spectrum and look for the tell tale decay evidence of these possibly invisible particles that wave REALLY fast (10 to 100 giga electron volts). We are using tungsten layers to slow and stop the possible dark matter and then count up the data.

IF we can't quantify dark matter whis way we might have to look to other theories such as interacting dimensional explanations or rethink the possible wavelength of dark matter.

Google the GLAST satellite.
We will also use the LHC Large Hadron Collider for a possible peek at dark matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 04:53 PM

thanks to admin for being consciencious.
So there who would have thought you would get thanks for a thankless job for always doing too much or not enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Art Thieme
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 06:46 PM

Yes---and no...Six of one--half doz. of another...Yin and yang...Things is what is...Dust to dust...bottom line...final word.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 08:06 PM

RECREATING THE WORLD INSIDE YOUR HEAD. The first use of
individualized virtual-reality sounds in a functional MRI (fMRI)
environment to reproduce a naturalistic acoustic experience for
studying brain function might provide a better explanation of the
*cocktail party* effect-the process by which we try to make sense
of a conversation at a crowded party even as several other potentially
distracting conversations proceed at the same time. New brain scans
using fMRI are helping researchers to understand how the brain
segregates objects in space when a person hears, but not necessarily
sees, multiple sources of sound. At Kourosh Saberi's
([e-mail]) lab at the University of California, Irvine, human
subjects are exposed to several sounds.

Sometimes the sounds come from different locations near the subject, while sometimes several sounds come from a single location. When looking at fMRI scans
showing areas of enhanced blood flow, which provides 2-mm-resolution
maps of brain activity, the U.C. Irvine scientists report two main
results.

First, no specific brain region accounts exclusively for
identifying auditory motion, in contrast to the visual cortex which
does have specific motion-sensing regions.

And second, spatial auditory information seems to be processed in a neural region,
called the Planum Temporale, in a way that can facilitate the
segregation of multiple sound sources.

(ASA meeting talk 2aPP8,
http://www.acoustics.org/press/)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 10:33 AM

Male antelopes play hard to get
11:15 29 November 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi

Women have a reputation for being choosy when it comes to mates, but a study of African topi antelopes shows that males can be discriminating too. The study found that some males fight off advances from aggressive females that they have already mated with, so that they can pursue newer mates.

"When biologists talk about the 'battle of the sexes' they often tacitly assume that the battle is between persistent males who always want to mate and females who don't," says Jakob Bro-Jørgensen at the Zoological Society of London, UK.

But previously, researchers had observed female gorillas interfering with copulating pairs to compete for the male. Now, Bro-Jørgensen has observed such behaviour among the African topi antelope (Damaliscus lunatus) in Kenya.

Competitive mating

Herds of African topi can number in the thousands. Typically females travel in large groups to mating hotspots – called leks – where about 10-20 males guard small territories, each measuring about 30 metres in diameter. Smaller males that fail to grab some of this prime real estate miss out on being able to participate in the intense mating, or lekking, that takes place.

Bro-Jørgensen, who has observed the African topi for a decade, analysed the mating habits of 98 females. They could be distinguished from one another by physical traits, such as natural markings on their horns, and scars on their ears.

The females are typically in oestrus for only one day a year. During that brief time they compete with other fertile females to mate with the fittest males as frequently as possible to ensure conception.

On average, the females mate with four males 11 times during this day. This is possible because the actual sexual act takes only a few seconds, says Bro-Jørgensen.

Disruptive females

He also observed that when a female saw a desirable male about to mate with another, she often charged at the couple with her horns. As a result, the male was sometimes forced to mate with the aggressor. But the researchers also noted that if the male had already mated with the aggressive female, he would fight her off.

The researchers suggest that the males get picky because they want to conserve their sperm and mate with as many females as possible, and thus maximise their chances of bearing offspring. Bro-Jørgensen says that he has seen a male topi antelope copulate 36 times in just one day, leaving the animal "totally exhausted", and possibly with depleted sperm.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 03:15 PM

From the number of "Amos posts" it appeared for a while that he might be just playin' with hisself in this thread.

Special for Amos:

Take WARNING

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 03:35 PM

Now John, be fair. Since this thread is dedicated to Random Notes, it is only logical I should post to it often, being, myself, often quite random.

As for that slanderous reference link, I assure you the material presented their is QUITE inaccurate. These Victorians were not speaking science. They were talking some foreign language, cognitively speaking.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 05:31 PM

Amos - Did you do the voice for that one?

V e r y  S w a v e and D E - B O N E R

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 08:56 PM

According to the FBI announcement, the individuals identified as part of Bot Roast II are as follows:

Ryan Brett Goldstein, 21, of Ambler, Pennsylvania, was indicted on 11/01/07 by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for botnet related activity which caused a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack at a major Philadelphia area university. In the midst of this investigation the FBI was able to neutralize a vast portion of the criminal botnet by disrupting the botnet's ability to communicate with other botnets. In doing so, it reduced the risk for infected computers to facilitate further criminal activity. This investigation continues as more individuals are being sought.

Adam Sweaney, 27, of Tacoma, Washington, pled guilty on September 24, 2007 in U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, to a one count felony violation for conspiracy fraud and related activity in connection with computers. He conspired with others to send tens of thousands of email messages during a one-year period. In addition, Sweaney surreptitiously gained control of hundreds of thousands of bot controlled computers. Sweaney would then lease the capabilities of the compromised computers to others who launched spam and DDoS attacks.

Robert Matthew Bentley of Panama City, Florida, was indicted on 11/27/07 by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Florida for his involvement in botnet related activity involving coding and adware schemes. This investigation is being conducted by the U.S. Secret Service.

Alexander Dmitriyevich Paskalov, 38, multiple U.S. addresses, was sentenced on 10/12/2007 in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida, and received 42 months in prison for his participation in a significant and complex phishing scheme that targeted a major financial institution in the Midwest and resulted in multi-million dollar losses.

Azizbek Takhirovich Mamadjanov, 21, residing in Florida, was sentenced in June 2007 in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Florida, to 24 months in prison for his part in the same Midwest bank phishing scheme as Paskalov. Paskalov established a bogus company and then opened accounts in the names of the bogus company. The phishing scheme in which Paskolov and Mamadjanov participated targeted other businesses and electronically transferred substantial sums of money into their bogus business accounts. Immigrations Customs Enforcement, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the Panama City Beach Police Department were active partners in this investigation.

John Schiefer, 26, of Los Angeles, California, agreed to plead guilty on 11/8/2007 in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, to a four felony count criminal information. A well-known member of the botnet underground, Schiefer used malicious software to intercept Internet communications, steal usernames and passwords, and defraud legitimate businesses. Schiefer transferred compromised communications and usernames and passwords and also used them to fraudulently purchase goods for himself. This case was the first time in the U.S. that someone has been charged under the federal wiretap statute for conduct related to botnets.

Gregory King, 21, of Fairfield, California, was indicted on 9/27/2007 by a federal grand jury in the Central District of California on four counts of transmission of code to cause damage to a protected computer. King allegedly conducted DDoS attacks against various companies including a web based company designed to combat phishing and malware.

Jason Michael Downey, 24, of Dry Ridge, Kentucky, was sentenced on 10/23/2007 in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, to 12 months in prison followed by probation, restitution, and community service for operating a large botnet that conducted numerous DDoS attacks that resulted in substantial damages. Downey operated Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network Rizon. Downey stated that most of the attacks he committed were on other IRC networks or on the people that operated them. Downey's targets of DDoS often resided on shared servers which contained other customer's data. As a result of DDoS to his target, innocent customers residing on the same physical server also fell victim to his attacks. One victim confirmed financial damages of $19,500 as a result of the DDoS attack

Secure Computing's prinicipal research scientist Dmitri Alperovitch was quite happy about the news.

"We welcome this news and applaud the FBI's efforts and law enforcement worldwide in attempting to cleanup the cesspool of malware and criminality that the botmasters have promoted," Alperovitch said in a press release. "Since botnets are at the root of nearly all cybercrime activities that we see on the Internet today, the significant deterrence value that arrests and prosecutions such as these provide cannot be underestimated."

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 11:04 AM

Most Sensitive Ruler Ever
[26 November 2007]
Australian researchers have invented a technique that, for the first time, measures lengths as accurately as the laws of physics allow.
Read about it on Physorg.com.

Portable Nuclear Reactor
[21 November 2007]
The portable nuclear reactor is the size of a hot tub. It's shaped like a sake cup, filled with a uranium hydride core and surrounded by a hydrogen atmosphere.
Read about it in the Santa Fe Reporter.

Neuromemory Chip
[19 November 2007]
Physicists at Tel Aviv University in Israel are aiming to create a hybrid biological-solid state memory that could be linked to conventional computer hardware to create cyborg machines.
Read about it in the EE Times.

3-D TV from Wormholes
[19 November 2007]
A version of the wormholes that have long inspired science fiction writers could one day be used in the home to provide invisible cables to wire up electronics or provide three dimensional images.

---

It is good to see the science boys are hard at it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 12:48 PM

Graveyard shift linked to cancer risk

Scientists suspect flipping body's light-dark cycle leaves workers vulnerable

The Associated Press
updated 6:52 p.m. CT, Thurs., Nov. 29, 2007

LONDON - It was once scientific heresy to suggest that smoking contributed to lung cancer. Now, another idea initially dismissed as nutty is gaining acceptance: the graveyard shift might increase your cancer risk.

Next month, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization, will classify shift work as a "probable" carcinogen.

That will put shift work in the same category as cancer-causing agents like anabolic steroids, ultraviolet radiation, and diesel engine exhaust.

If the shift work theory proves correct, millions of people worldwide could be affected. Experts estimate that nearly 20 percent of the working population in developed countries work night shifts.

[Questions:]

Is partying all night considered work? We could have a lot of people affected.

Quite obviously, in my town there will be an immediate demand for a law requiring all places of business to close at sundown.

(But only Walmart will be affected here, and it's okay to pick on minorities - unless they're religious.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 08:39 AM

"AMID much publicity last year, the National Geographic Society announced that a lost 3rd-century religious text had been found, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. The shocker: Judas didn't betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed. Judas's reward? Ascent to heaven and exaltation above the other disciples.

It was a great story. Unfortunately, after re-translating the society's transcription of the Coptic text, I have found that the actual meaning is vastly different. While National Geographic's translation supported the provocative interpretation of Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes clear that Judas is not only no hero, he is a demon.

Several of the translation choices made by the society's scholars fall well outside the commonly accepted practices in the field. For example, in one instance the National Geographic transcription refers to Judas as a "daimon," which the society's experts have translated as "spirit." Actually, the universally accepted word for "spirit" is "pneuma " — in Gnostic literature "daimon" is always taken to mean "demon."

Likewise, Judas is not set apart "for" the holy generation, as the National Geographic translation says, he is separated "from" it. He does not receive the mysteries of the kingdom because "it is possible for him to go there." He receives them because Jesus tells him that he can't go there, and Jesus doesn't want Judas to betray him out of ignorance. Jesus wants him informed, so that the demonic Judas can suffer all that he deserves."

(NY Times)

---

There have been many instances of treason across the centuries since then. Many far more dramatic, involving thousands of lives, and millions of shekels. Sorta odd this one keeps pulling down the headlines, huh?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 09:02 AM

"Google said last week that it was going to invest millions in developing its own energy business. Google described its goal as "RE < C" — renewable energy that is cheaper than coal — adding: "We're busy assembling our own internal research and development group and hiring a team of engineers ... tasked with building one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal." That could power all of San Francisco.

Its primary focus, said Google.org's energy expert, Dan Reicher, will be to advance new solar thermal, geothermal and wind solutions "across the valley of death." That is, so many good ideas work in the lab but never get a chance to scale up because they get swallowed by a lack of financing or difficulties in implementation. Do not underestimate these people.

Last week, I also met with two groups of M.I.T. students who blew me away. One was the M.I.T. Energy Club, which was founded in 2004 by a few grad students discussing energy over beers at a campus bar. Today it has 600-plus members who have put on scores of events focused on building energy expertise among M.I.T. students and faculty, and "fact-based analysis," including a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Then I got together with three engineering undergrads who helped launch the Vehicle Design Summit — a global, open-source, collaborative effort, managed by M.I.T. students, that has 25 college teams around the world, including in India and China, working together to build a plug-in electric hybrid within three years. Each team contributes a different set of parts or designs. I thought writing for my college newspaper was cool. These kids are building a hyper-efficient car, which, they hope, "will demonstrate a 95 percent reduction in embodied energy, materials and toxicity from cradle to cradle to grave" and provide "200 m.p.g. energy equivalency or better." The Linux of cars!

They're not waiting for G.M. Their goal, they explain on their Web site — vds.mit.edu — is "to identify the key characteristics of events like the race to the moon and then transpose this energy, passion, focus and urgency" on catalyzing a global team to build a clean car. I just love their tag line. It's what gives me hope:

"We are the people we have been waiting for.""


(NY Times editorial)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 09:51 AM

(A young man finds himself addicted to Facebooking" and recovers...he writes:)

"All this started to add up, and scare me, over the summer. I interned in Washington at a company where most employees had Facebook profiles. Naturally, I "friended" many of them. One day my boss made some comments about my personal status and movie interests, creeping me out. He had broken the cardinal, if unwritten, rule of Facebook etiquette: Never hint that you know anything about someone's profile. Voyeurism must be anonymous (which might be why Beacon caused such a stir).

I'm in recovery now, having realized that the last thing I want is for people to find out about me the things that I used to find out about them. I have removed loads of personal information from Facebook, de-tagging myself from pictures, abandoning the "status update" as a narrative of my private life and walling myself off from Beacon's grasp. These days, I'm finding myself with time on my hands. Best of all, beating my addiction has opened up a novel way to get to know people: face to face."

The writer is a sophomore at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 09:26 AM

The Church of Coltrane

A San Francisco church believes that the music of jazz legend John Coltrane is divine.

Sunday services at the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco are part revival meeting, part jam session.

Franzo Wayne King, right, started the church shortly after Coltrane's death in 1967, under the name Yardbird Temple. Followers worshiped the legendary jazz saxophonist as an incarnation of God. Now, the church practices Christianity, and sees Coltrane as its patron saint.
...

(Photo essay on the CofC can be found here.)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 11:12 AM

Scientists Get Rare Look at Dinosaur Soft Tissue
Fossil May Shed New Light on the Creatures

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 3, 2007; Page A01

A high school student hunting fossils in the badlands of his native North Dakota discovered an extremely rare mummified dinosaur that includes not just bones but also seldom seen fossilized soft tissue such as skin and muscles, scientists will announce today.

The 25-foot-long hadrosaur found by Tyler Lyson in an ancient river flood plain in the dinosaur-rich Hell Creek Formation is apparently the most complete and best preserved of the half-dozen mummified dinosaurs unearthed since early in the last century, they said.

The discovery of a mummified dinosaur in North Dakota reveals fossilized soft tissue, such as skin and muscles, providing scientists with new clues about the size, body mechanics and appearance of the 25-foot long hadrosaur.

Much scientific investigation remains to be done, and no peer-reviewed studies of it have yet been published, but the discovery appears to be yielding tantalizing new clues about the size, body mechanics and appearance of the reptilian beasts that ruled the Earth millions of years ago, said paleontologists studying the specimen.

"He looks like a blow-up dinosaur in some parts," said Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at the University of Manchester in England who is leading the inquiry. "When you actually look at the detail of the skin, the scales themselves are three dimensional. . . . The arm is breathtaking. It's a three-dimensional arm, you can shake the dinosaur by the hand. It just defies logic that such a remarkable specimen could preserve."

Although it is described as "mummified," the 65 million-year-old duckbilled dinosaur that scientists have named Dakota bears no similarity to the leather-skinned human mummies retrieved from ancient tombs in Egypt. Time long ago transformed Dakota's soft tissue into mineralized rock, preserving it for the ages. ...


(From The Washington Post)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 11:59 AM

...As you read this, somewhere a man is purchasing the Chasey Lain Cyberskin ... well, I can't write the rest of the name of this device in the newspaper. Suffice to say that the object in question is molded directly from the naughty bits of a porn star named Chasey Lain for the purpose of sexual congress.

I know this is happening because I sold such devices while working in an adult store in Tempe, Ariz. – reportage, if you will, for an upcoming book, "America Unzipped."

I also sold vibrators, dildos, foam breasts, dozens of different gizmos to many more people than you might think. So, when David Levy makes the case that sometime in the future (he thinks it'll be about 40 years from now) people will have sex with robots, I say you can bank on it.

In "Love + Sex With Robots," Levy seems to expect lots of resistance to this idea, but we have been fantasizing about it at least since the days of "Pygmalion." The robot in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" is still one of the sexiest females in movie history. An artist named Hajime Sorayama has been creating fetishized renderings of "gynoids" for a while now, and if any one of them ever did come to "life" there'd be a line of eager devotees waving credit cards outside the gynoid factory. Web sites like The Fembot Chronicles already pant at the prospect. And, as was recently reported in these pages, San Marcos-based Abyss Creations has been providing silicone love for about a decade in the form of life-size dolls costing upward of $6,500. ...

---

I guess this is like hiring strike-breakers when the union gets uppity or somp'n....(ducks and exits stage right).


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: GUEST,strad
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 08:18 AM

Sex with robots! Brings back memories of the past!

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 07 - 10:28 AM

So far, the fabrication and assembly of nano-objects with specific shapes and sizes that can act as elementary components for movable nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) is only at the conceptual stage.

New research results coming from South Korea now offer the first step toward the realization of sophisticated nanomachines, designed to perform specific tasks, with overall dimensions comparable to those of biological cells.

"We have fabricated freestanding gold nanogears smaller than 500 nm in overall size and 60-70 nm in thickness and assembled them tooth to tooth without damage" Dr. Dong Han Ha tells Nanowerk. "This is the first case to our knowledge in which freestanding nanocomponents with precisely designed shape and size are fabricated and assembled. The freestanding nanogears with one center hole surrounded by six teeth were obtained reproducibly by selectively etching the chemically synthesized single-crystalline gold nanoplates using gallium focused ion beam (FIB). The fabrication process is very simple and it takes only 10-20 s to fabricate a nanogear under real time monitoring."

Ha is a Principal Researcher in the Division of Advanced Technology at the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS). Together with his colleagues from KRISS he has demonstrate that blunt AFM tips on stiff cantilevers are effective for the nondestructive manipulation of ductile and flat nano-objects having large contact areas with the substrate.

The findings have been reported in the November 20, 2007 online edition of Nanotechnology ("Manipulation of freestanding Au nanogears using an atomic force microscope").

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 10:21 AM

NASA's Mars rover Spirit has freed itself from the loose soil it had been stuck in for about two weeks, but over the next month it will have to navigate similarly treacherous terrain to reach a safe spot to ride out the coming Martian winter.

Spirit got stuck in the sandy soil, nicknamed "Tartarus" after an underworld dungeon in Greek mythology, in mid-November.

But on 28 November, it clambered out, after a series of short drives in which rover managers drove it first in one direction and then in another, "switchbacking" out of the troublesome spot.

Now, the rover will try to drive about 25 metres to the northern edge of Home Plate, a 90-metre-wide raised plateau that it has been exploring for months. That region boasts relatively steep, northern-tilting slopes that would maximise the sunlight falling on the rover's solar panels during winter in the planet's southern hemisphere (see Mars rover Spirit to head north for the winter).
But Spirit is likely to hit more rough patches on its way to its destination. "During the next few weeks, Spirit's journey to 'Winter Haven 3' is expected to be no less difficult, requiring the rover to manoeuvre across a sandy, rocky valley along the western edge of Home Plate," states an update on the rover website.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 10:49 AM

A neutron star has been clocked travelling at more than 1500 kilometres per second. It joins the ranks of other fast moving neutron stars, deepening the puzzle over how these dense stellar corpses are accelerated to such astonishing velocities.
Neutron stars are the city-sized spheres that remain after stars are destroyed in supernova explosions. They are incredibly dense – a teaspoonful of neutron star material would weigh a billion tonnes.
Many neutron stars are now known to travel at speeds of hundreds of kilometres per second, with one shown in 2005 to be moving at 1100 km/s (see Fastest pulsar set to escape the Milky Way). Some others have been estimated as travelling faster than 1500 km/s but with less certain measurements: their speeds were measured in an indirect way, based on observations of their effect on the gaseous medium that they move through.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 11:07 AM

Magneto Stars are really neato.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 07 - 03:22 PM

"As part of General Electric's ecomagination campaign, the engineers behind this project dreamt up a way to transform one of the oldest and most powerful forms of transportation in the planet into an energy efficient marvel. Introducing, the Hybrid Locomotive!

Here is an interesting fact: According GE, a 207-ton locomotive during the course of one year is enough to power 160 households for a year. So why not capture that energy? That's what they thought as well and what they came up with was quite ingenious.

Take a 4,400 horsepower locomotive, add lead-free rechargeable batteries (essentially a 1,000 pound molten-salt cell), and a fuel-efficient high horsepower diesel locomotive, and you end up with quite a package. Every time the engine brakes, the dynamic energy is transferred into the batteries, thus becoming an extra 2,000 horsepower that is available for use by the operator when needed. The outcome of this? A fuel consumption reduction of about 15% and an emissions cut of a whopping 50% compared to locomotives operating today.

Best part? The first one goes into operation in 2010.
+ GE Ecomagination website

A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 11:26 AM

obit for a fuel saver

An incident that occurred in the Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina earlier this month is at least a curious coincidence, or it may possibly even represent assassination and suppression of another highly important "energy from the vacuum" (EFTV) invention. At least such a possibility should be considered, and then if all the facts warrant questioning the autopsy finding of death from natural causes, the incident should be more deeply investigated.

The victim's name was M. DeGeus. DeGeus was found slumped in his car in the long term parking area of the airport, totally unresponsive. He was rushed to the hospital, and was pronounced dead very quickly, according to http://www.WBTV.com

The resulting autopsy indicated heart failure, and thus concluded "death from natural causes". Hence police are not investigating it any further, and they are not considering it as a possible homicide.

Some Background on the Victim and His Invention

DeGeus was in fact the inventor of a thin wafer-like material/device that somehow specially aligned the atoms or electron currents ongoing in that material, so that the wafer produced a constant amperage at a small voltage ­ continuous real power, or in other words a strange kind of "self-powering battery". It is actually powered by the ongoing and continuous tremendous exchange of energy by the active vacuum with the charges of any material. This exchange is exceptionally powerful, and normally our electromagnetic systems and devices only use just a tiny bit of it.

But as is known in physics, even simple materials (such as a simple short piece of ordinary copper wire) have extraordinary symmetrical cross currents ongoing perpetually, even when no ordinary "net" current is flowing since normally there is no asymmetry. E.g., quoting Swann:

"Think of the cables which carry the telephone current in the form of electrons. In the absence of the current the electrons are moving in all directions. As many are moving from left to right as are moving from right to left; and the nothingness which is there is composed of two equal and opposite halves, about a million million amperes per square centimeter in one direction, and a million million amperes per square centimeter in the other direction. The telephone current constitutes an upsetting of the balance to the extent of one hundredth of a millionth of an ampere per square centimeter, or about one part in a hundred million million million. Then if this one part in a hundred million million million is at fault by one part in a thousand, we ring up the telephone company and complain that the quality of the speech is faulty." [W.F.G. Swann, Physics Today, June. 1951, p. 9.]

However, if by special alignment of atoms and basic constituents one does provide an EM asymmetry in this naturally occurring "opposing huge EM power currents" always ongoing laterally in the matter itself, then a net lateral direct current (real EM power) can be freely provided by that altered material at a resulting voltage (indicating the asymmetry) because every charge in the material is continually involved in an enormous energy reaction with its local active vacuum.

This continual giant energy interaction of every charge with the seething vacuum is already well-known in modern quantum field theory. E.g., quoting Aitchison:

"...the concept of a 'single particle' actually breaks down in relativistic quantum field theory with interactions, because the interactions between 'the particle' and the vacuum fluctuations (or virtual quanta) cannot be ignored." [I. J. R. Aitchison, "Nothing's Plenty: The Vacuum in Modern Quantum Field Theory," Contemporary Physics, 26(4), 1985, p. 357.].

A Little Corroborating Information

Indeed, I found an obscure bit of information that seems directly related to proving the concept. We urge other investigators to further investigate this effect. Quoting:

"infrared Tourmaline is the only mineral to show permanent electricity on the earth and is also a natural (non-manufactured) source of negative ions and far infrared (FIR) rays.

Around 1986, it was found in a research station in Japan that, even though tourmaline was broken down in smaller pieces, a positive and a negative electrode existed on both ends of the crystal, and the electrodes never disappeared unless tourmaline was boiled near 1000°C.

In addition, when the positive and the negative electrodes of a tourmaline crystal were connected to each other, it was proven to show low electricity of 0.06mA."

We suspect that the vast new phenomena uncovered in nanocrystalline research will also probably have similar "self-powering DC battery" capabilities in some cases.

At any rate, altering the layering characteristics of the wafer material used by DeGeus provides a broken symmetry in its usual equal-and-opposite cross currents. This asymmetry results in the little DeGeus solid state wafer pouring out a net steady lateral DC current at a given steady voltage. In short, it becomes a "perpetual battery" type of device, gating and pouring out steady and directly usable net DC power, and fed by energy from the seething vacuum reaction due to that organized broken symmetry.

Proposed Explanation of the "Self-Powering Battery"

Physics already tells us that, when we have a broken symmetry, then something previously virtual becomes observable. So when we have a power supply using the normal proven asymmetry of opposite charges (its dipolarity), it will be receiving input energy from the virtual state vacuum, cohering it to quantum size, and emitting it as real, observable EM energy. E.g., quoting Nobelist Lee:

"the violation of symmetry arises whenever what was thought to be a non-observable turns out to be actually an observable." [T. D. Lee, Particle Physics and Introduction to Field Theory, Harwood Academy Publishers, Chur, New York, and London, 1981, p. 181.]

DeGeus Wafers and the Purpose of his Planned Trip

DeGeus appears to have readily achieved different voltages and currents (different levels of power) by grouping, multiple-layering, etc. ­ much like connecting or grouping individual batteries. The novelty was that the inventor had discovered how to build these wafers extremely cheaply ­ couple bucks each for a small one, with an assembly of them for greater power just requiring multiples of the basic cost.

He is believed to have been from a well-to-do European family with significant assets in South America. His family is reported to have claimed the body and officially tied up all his assets, effects, records, etc. The legal ongoings are likely to permanently suppress any and all technical lab notes, descriptions, etc.

Unknown to the authorities investigating his death, DeGeus was on his way to Europe to receive very substantial funding to put his invention into mass production and marketing.

Importance of the DeGeus Invention

As an example of the importance of this probably-now-lost "free energy from the vacuum" invention, consider an electric car with a much smaller DeGeus wafer assembly "battery pack" using self-powering "batteries" taking all their energy output continually from the seething vacuum. As can be seen, suddenly one has eliminated the recharging of batteries for the electric car, and is now using a "permanent, self-powering battery" instead. Thus one has achieved the dream of a "self-powering electric auto", taking all its input energy cleanly from the active vacuum environment itself, without need of burning physical fuel to run the car or recharge the battery. In short, a car also without harmful emissions that damage and pollute the biosphere and contribute to global warming.

Use of a larger DeGeus battery, together with an alternator, would also produce a self-powering unit capable of powering the average home with AC power. Many other applications are obvious, as is also the tremendous impact of such a developed technology upon our present consumption of hydrocarbon fuels, nuclear fuel rods, etc.

If Assassination, Explanation of How It Was Done

So a question arises as to whether this was just a simple "accidental" heart attack, or whether it could have been a very professional assassination to suppress the inventor and his invention. While we cannot definitively answer that question, we can explain exactly how such an assassination could have been done, which would have given the victim a massive heart attack or stroke or both, resulting in his death.

The standard method of assassination to provide a certified autopsy report of "death by natural causes" is the little EM beam "shooter" using the Venus ECCM technique ­ i.e., warping of its wavefront ­ to destroy the body's control of its heartbeat. There are two basic sizes: One is about the size of a dime-store pocketbook, and has an effective range of something like 30 feet or so. The other is the size of a bazooka (shoulder-held rocket launcher) and its beam is effective at a range of about 200 feet or so. It also is often used with infrared sighting, to fire through a wall at a person (say, in a room on the second floor) by aiming at his infrared change and signature detected outside the building.

A person struck by this Venus-technique warped wavefront beam has a sudden interruption of all control of his heartbeat, and so his heart goes into instant, uncontrolled, and violent fibrillation. Exposure to the main beam for 10 seconds or more is almost certain to result in death of the individual, by a resulting massive heart failure, stroke, or both.

My colleague Ken Moore and I were struck with just such a beam from a small Venus beam shooter, in the inside breast coatpocket of the assassin, in a restaurant here in Huntsville several years ago. We both felt the beam and the instant fibrillation. I personally saw the assassin, about 20 feet away from us and well-dressed in suit and tie, pull back his coat front and point that book-sized shooter at us. Fortunately we were seated right beside the emergency exit from the dining room, and I knew about Venus technique shooters and their drastic effects. So we just immediately jumped right through that exit, setting off all the alarms, but getting out of the beam in just a few seconds. So we lived to tell the tale.

If this were indeed used in the DeGeus death case, it would have been very simple for the assassin to simply approach him while he was still sitting in his just-parked car, hit him with the beam and hold it on him for, say, 30 seconds to a minute, then close his coat and simply walk away. And no one would have been the wiser, till the victim was found by someone in his car, either dead or dying.

There is the information for the reader's review. The reader will have to make up his own mind as to what probably really happened, and whether it was truly an act of nature (a normal heart attack) or a deliberately induced heart failure (an assassination using the standard Venus shooter).

Other Similar Incidents

There are of course other incidents similar to this. Stan Meyer, a well-known inventor who apparently got his watergas working well, rushed from a restaurant and shouted "They're killing me!" (Some reports stated he shouted "They're poisoning me"), and then collapsed and died. Simply Google on the web, for many articles on Stan Meyer, his invention, the threats to his life, and his strange death.

An Australian researcher and friend of mine also had a colleague who was assassinated in an upstairs room by a shot from the street below, using the larger bazooka-sized Venus shooter. The other persons there actually observed the assassin load the bazooka-shaped shooter back into his vehicle and speed away.

In Conclusion

All we can state for certain is that (1) lots of inventors of successful watergas, self-powering systems, etc. have been severely warned or in some cases killed. (2) Many other "free energy from the active medium" inventors have been threatened, bought out, or killed ­ or experienced a mysterious death (we tell neophytes to be careful, else one can have a "sudden suicide" on one's way to the supermarket!) (3) The Venus electronic countermeasures technique is well-known and established. (4) I have personally experienced just such an assassination attempt, with my good friend Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Ken Moore with me and also experiencing the weapon effects and our very rapid escape in the nick of time. So I have a corroborating witness.

Nonetheless, the interested reader will have to take it from there and draw his or her own conclusions about the DeGeus incident. Was it just a curious natural heart attack, or was it a deliberate assassination?

Hopefully, time will tell.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 12:15 PM

Picture-sorting dogs show human-like thought
06 December 2007


... It seems dogs can place photographs into categories the same way humans do, an ability previously identified only in birds and primates.

Friederike Range at the University of Vienna, Austria, and colleagues trained dogs to distinguish photographs that depicted dogs from those that did not. "We know they can categorise 'food' or 'enemies' from experience," says Range, "but this is the first time we've taught them an abstract concept - 'a dog' - and shown they can transfer this knowledge to a new situation."

In the training phase, four dogs were simultaneously shown photographs of a landscape and of a dog, and were rewarded if they selected the latter using a paw-operated computer touch-screen. When the computer-savvy dogs were shown unfamiliar landscape and dog photos they continued to identify those containing dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 12:54 PM

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans who fell behind on their mortgage payments rose to a 20-year high in the third quarter as borrowers were unable to refinance or sell their homes.

The share of all home loans with payments more than 30 days late, including prime and fixed-rate loans, rose to a seasonally adjusted 5.59 percent, the highest since 1986, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a report today. New foreclosures hit an all-time high for a second consecutive quarter.

The surge in foreclosures is expanding the inventory of unsold homes and contributing to the decline in housing demand. Sales of new and previously owned homes probably will drop to 5.09 million next year, 32 percent below the 2005 peak of 7.46 million, according to Frank Nothaft, chief economist of Freddie Mac, the second largest U.S. mortgage buyer. About 40 percent of lenders have increased standards for their most creditworthy borrowers, according to a Federal Reserve study in October.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 01:58 PM

Amos, its as simple as this:

When the Parasite (banks) saw that they were about to kill their host (the public)
they sought to keep their victim barely alive
so they could continue to feed.
A very smart parasite indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Dec 07 - 02:08 PM

I'll not beat about the Bush. What this country needs is another think tank. The ASSO Institute. I will humbly be the director.

Not that the ones we have aren't good at hair brained schemes and creating fortune factories for Defense Contractors. Yes the think tanks we have are already great at proposing 2nd century empire solutions for the 21st century but I believe with all my heart, all we need is just one more.

Why?! For one thing I could use a real job, but the main reason would be to show the rest of us exactly how full of crap the other think tanks are.*

Like a casino or stockbroker they make money comin or goin, whether they win or lose. A think tank could dream up a PNAC scheme and once it royally screws up they could analyze why it doesn't work.

The beauty of the system is that there is no bottom line, No One is respondsible and NO ONE will be held accountable. Same goes for the administration. OK name one person who has been held accountable - with the exception of George Slam Dunk Tenet. We all know how severely he was punished. In fact I heard he almost cried at his million dollar retirement party.

In the ASSO Institute the letters won't stand for anything. Only the sound of it counts.

Just because every other think tank is Republican the ASSO Institute will not be Democrat. In fact we will take a page from Homeland Security and the new director of all Intelligence agencies and declare ourselves the centralized command of all other think tanks...whether we do anything or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 08:37 AM

Dolphins wave weed to attract a mate

06 December 2007
Emma Young
New Scientist issue 2633

While men might try flowers, smart clothes or cars to impress the opposite sex, male Amazon river dolphins carry weed.

Object-carrying has been reported throughout the dolphin's range in Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia, but what had been thought to be play behaviour now appears - exceptionally among mammals - to have a sexual function.

Tony Martin of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK, and Vera da Silva of the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Amazonas, Brazil, have studied the dolphins for three years in the Brazilian Amazon and are now convinced it is a sexual display. Only humans and chimps do anything remotely similar, says Martin. "It's so unusual that many of my colleagues were sceptical when I first suggested the idea, but now I think the evidence is overwhelming," he says.

---

Hey, some of my friends have been doiong that since college...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 10:00 AM

ANd for Ole SPaw, this delicat epiece of advanced research:

Humid balls help Rockies hit fewer home runs

16:46 06 December 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Bob Holmes

   When the Colorado Rockies baseball team reached the World Series last October, many analysts gave part of the credit to the humid room where the team stores its baseballs. But a new analysis by a pair of physicists suggests that the humidor's effect is not what baseball experts had thought.

The Rockies' home field in Denver is 1600 metres above sea level, far higher than any other team in the Major Leagues.

Denver has always had a reputation as a hitter's heaven and a pitcher's hell, because batted balls travel further in the thin, dry air. As a result, hits that would fall harmlessly into a fielder's glove at other parks are more likely to clear the fences for a home run, leading teams to average more than two extra runs per game compared to other cities.

In an attempt to compensate for this, in 2002 the Rockies began storing baseballs in a humidified room before games. They reasoned that the balls would absorb more moisture and thus not fly as far. The strategy has worked, reducing the average runs per game from nearly seven per team to less than six

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 06:34 PM

What We Eat In One Week

This web page tells the story in pictures of what typically gets eaten in one week by families in many different nations around the world.

Some surprises and a vivid profile of human habits.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 08:10 PM

No too many surprises there, Amos. But a few "curiosities."

Note that they don't say that they tried to find "representative families."

The two US families shown would indicate that US families don't consume soft drinks, while the Mexican family of 4 shows 11 L of what looks like Coca Cola per week? (Of course not as many 'tater chips as the US family). That's a nasty "un-Amurrican" kind of propoganda.

The German family seems to have one of the highest weekly bills, but is that really 44 bottles of "beverage" per week for 4 people (2 adults)? (They must be musicians(?).)

The pictures aren't clear enough to zoom in on much more detail, so identifications of some things are a little ambiguous. I don't find either of the US families "unusual," but our two adults and four cats spend about $300 per month on groceries and aren't particularly deprived. (The cats account for about $30 per month of that for litter and food.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 09:21 PM

Yeah, we come in WAY under those cost points, so I wonder what their research method was.

Nice pictures, though.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 09:42 PM

Amos I once watched a PBS special on the Amazon and they featured the cultural peculiarity of the men there having sex with the female river dolphins. It was rather graphic. They didn't mention waving weeds though.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 11:59 AM

Faint galaxies spotted in the early universe
20:49 28 November 2007
NewScientist.com news service
David Shiga


Tiny galaxies that may be the first building blocks of galaxies like the Milky Way have turned up in an extremely long exposure of the early universe, reveal new observations by one of the world's largest telescopes.

Because light takes time to travel to us, we see the most distant objects as they were billions of years ago, when the universe was just a small fraction of its present age of 13.7 billion years.
Now, a marathon observation with the 8.2-metre Antu telescope, part of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory in Paranal, Chile, has provided an unprecedented view of tiny galaxies that were present just 2 billion years after the big bang.
...The telescope did not make a traditional image of the strip, but measured the spectrum of light coming from each part of it, for a total observation time of 92 hours. This is the most concentrated observation the VLT has ever made of such a small patch of sky, Rauch says.

The long exposure revealed 27 faint galaxies whose size and brightness suggests they are between 1 and 10% as massive as our own Milky Way galaxy.

Some even more distant galaxies have been observed previously, appearing as they were just 500 million years after the big bang.
But those objects are bigger than the 27 newly discovered galaxies and they also churn out stars at up to 100 times the rate of the new finds. That suggests they may be the precursors of giant elliptical galaxies, the largest galaxies in the modern universe, Rauch says.
The newly discovered objects, on the other hand, are much smaller and are about 20 times more numerous than their larger cousins, based on the number found in the small patch of sky Rauch's team observed. Rauch says theory suggests these smaller objects would have merged over time to produce middleweight galaxies more like our own Milky Way.

"These small things may be just forming their first stars for the first time," Rauch told New Scientist.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 12:17 PM

Intergalactic particle beam is longest yet found
17:29 07 December 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Stephen Battersby


Colossal black holes at the centres of active galaxies power jets of matter that stretch far into space (Illustration: NASA)Tools Related ArticlesSun-like stars get a kick out of death
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12 June 2007
Search New Scientist
Contact us
Web LinksGiant Metrewave Radio Telescope
Effelsberg radio telescope
Very Large Array
Bagchi et al. abstract

An intergalactic particle beam stretching for more than a million light years is the longest ever seen. According to the team that discovered this record breaker, it could help reveal how such jets of matter bind themselves together.

Jets are seen all over the cosmos squirting out of many different types of object, including stars that are just beginning to form. The most powerful ones come from the cores of active galaxies, where gas falling towards a giant black hole generates a mixture of heat, high-energy particles and magnetic fields. In some cases, these elements combine to spit out narrow columns of hot gas laced with high-energy particles, which drill though the galaxy and on out into space.
The latest discovery emerges from a large elliptical galaxy called CGCG 049-033, which is about 600 million light years away. ...


...The jet they saw is nearly 1.5 million light years long, twice the length of the previous record holder. If this jet sprang instead from the centre of the Milky Way, it would loom over us like a skyscraper and would stretch halfway to the Andromeda galaxy.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:33 AM

ANd NOW, they're dicking around closer to home, witht he Milky Way its own self!

"We call it home, but the Milky Way can still surprise us. It does not have just one halo of stars, as we thought, but two. The finding calls into question our theories for how our galaxy formed.
Daniela Carollo at the Torino Observatory in Italy and her colleagues were measuring the metal content and motion of 20,000 stars in the Milky Way, observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, when they made their discovery.

They found that the halo can be divided into two distinct regions, rotating in opposite directions, and containing stars of different chemical composition. "We really weren't expecting to see anything like this," says Carollo.

The team found that the inner halo is flattened and extends out to about 4.6 x 1017 kilometres from the galactic centre, rotating at 20 kilometres per second, in the opposite direction at about 70 kilometres per second."

---

So much for the "No-Spin Zone", Mister O'Reilly.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 06:32 PM

The Texas Court of Appeals for the Sixth Appellate District at
Texarkana took an important step today toward protecting the rights of
Internet bloggers in Texas to write anonymously. In an opinion issued
by Justice Jack Carter in Essent v. Doe, the court of appeals joins a
broad consensus of state and federal courts in insisting that
plaintiffs present sufficient evidence to show they could win at trial
before gaining access to information identifying anonymous speakers
whom they wish to sue for wrongdoing.

The case arose from a blog about the Paris Regional Medical Center in
Paris, Texas, which included analysis of problems at the hospital (http://the-paris-site.blogspot.com
). Claiming a concern for patient privacy, Essent, the operator of the
Medical Center, sued for defamation, and immediately sought discovery
to identify the employees who, Essent claimed, were revealing
confidential patient information in the course of criticizing abuses
at the hospital. The Doe, represented by James Rodgers of the Moore
Law Firm in Paris, sought to block discovery but District Judge Scott
McDowell upheld the request. However, the Court of Appeals has now
reversed and remanded the case to give the hospital a chance to submit
evidence for consideration under the proper legal standard.

In ruling, the court recognized that although Internet anonymity can
be abused, the right to speak anonymously online is protected by the
First Amendment. That right cannot be denied absent real evidence
supporting the plaintiff's claims of wrongdoing. Otherwise, the very
threat of litigation will have a serious chilling effect on anonymous
speech. The court also agreed with rulings in other states that
declare an anonymous blogger has "standing" to oppose discovery even
though the discovery demand is directed to a third-party Internet
hosting service, and that a blogger has the right to appeal if their
request for anonymity is denied.

The decision is not a perfect one. Unlike last month's decision of the
Arizona Court of Appeals in Mobilisa v. Doe, and the 2001 ruling of
the New Jersey Appellate Division in Dendrite v. Doe, the Texas Court
of Appeals did not add an explicit balancing step, under which, for
example, the danger of retaliation against an employee whistleblower
can be considered in deciding whether the plaintiff has put in enough
evidence of wrongdoing. This case may well present a realistic
possibility of such retaliation. So far as I have been able to
determine, the balancing step was not proposed to the Texas court.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 10:45 AM

Here's a wunnerful site rich with nostalgia on the remarkable history of computer development, The Computer History Museum. The talk by Woz is mind-boggling. The man is Hero made manifest! :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 12:03 PM

OYAGER 2 REACHES THE HELIOSPHERE. Like its sister craft, Voyager 1
several years ago, Voyager 2 has now flown far enough out into the
solar system to encounter the heliosphere, where the wind of solar
particles meets the interstellar medium. We already know that the
surface of this boundary zone is irregular in shape because of
earlier measurements by Voyager 1.

(http://www.aip.org/pnu/2006/split/778-1.htm

Voyager 1 is currently about 9.8 billion miles from Earth and traveling out at a
speed of 38,000 miles per hour. Voyager 2 is about 7.8 billion
miles away and traveling at about 35,000 miles per hour. Voyager 1
might be faster, further, and earlier, but Voyager 2's plasma
measuring instrument is functioning, unlike Voyager 1's.

Voyager 2 confirms that the boundary layer is irregular and has found that the
temperature just beyond the boundary is some ten times cooler than
expected. (Results reported at this week*s meeting of the American
Geophysical Union in San Francisco.)

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 09:55 PM

Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 17, 2007; A01

It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule. Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA -- an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought.

Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of life forms driven by completely artificial DNA.

Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome -- a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.

In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to "boot itself up," like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding. And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life forms that have never existed before are already under construction.

The cobbling together of life from synthetic DNA, scientists and philosophers agree, will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial -- and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive.

"This raises a range of big questions about what nature is and what it could be," said Paul Rabinow, an anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley who studies science's effects on society. "Evolutionary processes are no longer seen as sacred or inviolable. People in labs are figuring them out so they can improve upon them for different purposes." ...

For the balance of this article, Clicke Ye Here

A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 11:54 PM

It's been fully 20 years, I believe, since it is claimed that Russian scientists were able to replicate by constructing from elemental molecules, the complete structure of the smallpox virus.

Evidence is not conclusive, but is very persuasive, that this was actually done with the results claimed. (Reported in some detail in Technology Review, but it's been too long ago for me to have citations handy.)

There have been several claims of similar "built-from-ground-up" simple viral and protviral structures having biological (infectious) capabilities. Such claims seldom are contested, since serious researchers consider them more in the category of "parlor magic" than as having serious potential - in the absence of any intent to use them maliciously.

On researcher claims to have been "back-tracking" viral infections that appear to have infected ancestors during our (and other related creatures') evolution, using DNA changes that were quite probably caused by them, and has had some success in reconstructing viral agents that no longer exist, but that may have had sufficient effect on once-living ancestors to have altered our own DNA and that of other closely related creatures. ... ... ...

John

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 01:12 PM

Jet From Supermassive Black Hole Seen Blasting Neighboring Galaxy

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 18, 2007; Page A03

A jet of highly charged radiation from a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy is blasting another galaxy nearby -- an act of galactic violence that astronomers said yesterday they have never seen before.

Using images from the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other sources, scientists said the extremely intense jet from the larger galaxy can be seen shooting across 20,000 light-years of space and plowing into the outer gas and dust of the smaller one.


This composite image shows the jet from a black hole at the center of a galaxy striking the edge of another galaxy, the first time such an interaction has been found. X-rays from Chandra (colored purple), optical and ultraviolet (UV) data from Hubble (red and orange), and radio emission from the Very Large Array (VLA) and MERLIN (blue) show how the jet from the main galaxy on the lower left is striking its companion galaxy to the upper right. The jet impacts the companion galaxy at its edge and is then disrupted and deflected, much like how a stream of water from a hose will splay out after hitting a wall at an angle. (Chandra X-ray Center, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

The smaller galaxy is being transformed by the radiation and the jet is being bent before shooting millions of light-years farther in a new direction.

"What we've identified is an act of violence by a black hole, with an unfortunate nearby galaxy in the line of fire," said Dan Evans, the study leader at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge. He said any planets orbiting the stars of the smaller galaxy would be dramatically affected, and any life forms would likely die as the jet's radiation transformed the planets' atmosphere.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 18 Dec 07 - 02:40 PM

Astronauts Mark 100th Station Spacewalk
Space.com - 1 hour ago
By Robert Z. Pearlman

Two US astronauts stepped outside the International Space Station this morning, making the 100th spacewalk dedicated to the ongoing assembly of the orbiting outpost.

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 07 - 11:48 AM

An astronaut aboard the international space station found out his 90-year-old mother died Wednesday after she was hit by a freight train.

Dan Tani, a crew member aboard Expedition 16, cannot return to Earth for her funeral; he is expected to return in January.

---

Boy, not showing up for his own mother's funeral because of the demands of his job is pretty...I dunno...callous, wouldn't you say? He could at least drop in.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Random Traces From All Over
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 07 - 08:26 PM

Scientists have created a nanoscale device that is capable of detecting one quadrillionth of a gram of biological matter, or about the size of certain viruses. In the future, the sensor may be able to detect influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), bird flu, and other viruses.

The sensor was created by researchers from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, and is described in a recent edition of Optics Letters.

The sensor is a hexagonal array of tiny cavities, each 240 nanometers in diameter, carved into a very thin slab of silicon using a beam of electrons. It has a total sensing area of about 40 micrometers square, making it one of the smallest sensors of its type.

When a laser beam is directed into the crystal, it interacts with the crystal such that only a particular part of the light's spectrum is transmitted. But when a particle is trapped in one of the nanocavities, the transmitted spectrum changes slightly. A detector measures the altered spectrum.