From Powerline

In the video below, Charles Bolden, head of NASA, tells Al Jazeera that the “foremost” task President Obama has given him is “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.” Thus, NASA’s primary mission is no longer to enhance American science and engineering or to explore space, but to boost the self-esteem of “predominantly Muslim nations.”

Exploring space didn’t even make the top three things Obama wants Bolden to accomplish. The other two are “re-inspire children to want to get into science and math” and “expand our international relationships,”

This is more evidence, if any were needed, of Obama’s lack of interest in American achievement or, indeed, American greatness. He seems to believe we’ve achieved enough (or perhaps too much) and that the trick now is to make nations that have achieved little for centuries feel like we couldn’t have done it without them (in the video, Bolden goes on to talk about how much NASA owes the Russians and the Japanese).

Behind the bravado of the Muslim world there may well lie an inferiority complex. If so, Obama is a fool if he believes we can help Muslims overcome that complex by having the head of the agency that symbolizes our technical superiority make patronizing statements about ancient Muslim contributions to science.

also:

also:

Ideas have consequences and so do attitudes

Politico reports that Democrats are encountering a brutal fundraising period in their longtime donor stronghold of mega-rich New York. The exact quarterly figures won’t be known until after the July 15 filing deadline, but some Democratic campaign insiders are calling this the worst period for fundraising they’ve experienced in the New York area since 1994 (there’s that year again).

It isn’t difficult to figure out what the problems are. They include non-stop bashing of Wall Street by the administration; the substantial loss of wealth among donors caused by the recession; demoralization among Democrats caused by the party’s loss of popularity and to some extent by disillusionment with the performance of Obama and Congress, the president’s arrogance, which prevents him from mingling much with wealthy donors; and the administration’s anti-Israeli posture.
(more…)

from Flopping Aces

also:

Obama Says We are “running out of places to drill???”

Not so!

I just want to make sure this highlight from last night’s speech doesn’t get lost in the clutter:

OBAMA: Oil is a finite resource. We consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean — because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.

It’s been said many times and is worth saying again: we have abundant supplies of oil in this country, but they have all been put off limits by Democrats who are intent on forcing us to adhere to a flawed environmental premise.

We have PLENTY of oil!

Potentially 85 BILLION barrels of oil offshore:

source: Minerals Management Services (click for full size map PDF)

Potentially 47 BILLION barrels of oil onshore:

source: US Geologic Service (click for full size map PDF)

And over TWO TRILLION barrels of oil in Western oil shale:

source: Institute for Energy Research, US EIA data)

And we haven’t even mentioned US coal resources and Natural Gas!

While the rest of the world is scrambling as fast as they can to exploit the energy resources they have, Democrats in the U.S., at the urging of their environmental extremist overlords have consistently done whatever they could to block nearly all development of U.S. energy supplies. No wonder we cannot break our dependency on foreign energy.

The bottom line is that liberals want to control and restrict the sources of energy as a way to exercise primary control over the lives and economic well being of Americans. Even if they got their way with all current legislation for Cap and Tax it wouldn’t do one thing to help “save” us from climate change!

Finally:

Obama Set To Kill Manned Space Exploration

Any surprise that Obama’s mediocrity rears its ugly head once again. This time by moving to kill the Constellation program, the program to get man on the moon…permanently, and then to mars…..how does he do it? As his Chicago upbringing has taught him

Constellation aimed to build upon what was arguably America’s greatest technological achievement, the first lunar landing of 1969, by launching new expeditions to the Moon and to Mars and worlds beyond. Mr Obama proposed in February that it should be scrapped because it was “over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation”, but he has met opposition in Congress, which has yet to approve his plan.The head of Nasa, Major-General Charlie Bolden — an Obama appointee — has now written to aerospace contractors telling them to cut back immediately on Constellation-related projects costing almost $1 billion (£690 million), to comply with regulations requiring them to budget for possible contract termination costs.
(more…)

Hydrocarbon Lakes on Titan An artist’s concept of a glassy hydrocarbon lake on Titan, which might harbor exotic forms of microbial life. NASA

Something is consuming hydrogen and organic molecules on Saturn’s moon Titan, and the recipe matches astrobiologists’ theories about possible methane-based life. Granted, there may be other chemical explanations — it’s just that no one knows what they are yet.

New data from the Cassini spacecraft show hydrogen is disappearing near Titan’s surface. What’s more, scientists have not been able to find acetylene, an organic molecule that should be pretty abundant in the moon’s thick atmosphere.

All this fits very nicely with a theory from NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay, who proposed five years ago that microbial life on Titan could breathe hydrogen and eat acetylene, producing methane as a result.

Scientists emphasize that the findings are not proof of life, and there’s plenty of work to do before non-biological causes can be ruled out. Scientific conservatism suggests that a biological explanation should be the last choice after all non-biological explanations are addressed,” says Mark Allen of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a NASA release.
(more…)

from Flopping Aces

Related: Science Advisor declares “We can’t expect to be number one” forever.

America’s Astronaut Heroes speak out!

In the clearest sign yet that Obama’s plan is to accelerate the decline of America’s superpower status, Obama went to the Florida Spacecoast on Thursday to tell NASA employees that he is canceling much of the manned space program including plans to return to the moon. Instead, Obama will shoot for landing on an asteroid. We can only hope he plans to personally undertake the mission.

Obama’s action means the U.S. will no longer have the capability to launch men into orbit after the last Space Shuttle launch on September 16, 2010. Instead we will have to depend on the Russians for access to the International Space Station.

The technological advantage that NASA had in the 20th Century and which fueled decades of American economic and technological development will be lost along with 7,000 key jobs in advanced space related fields.

NASA Heroes Speak Out

If you were alive in the 60′s and early 70′s you likely followed the dazzling heroics of our astronauts who landed on the moon. As a young boy, I went to the homecoming for Neil Armstrong in Wapokoneta, Ohio after he returned from the moon in the Apollo 11 mission where man first walked on the moon. Armstrong,who uttered the now famous line “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind,” joined with other Apollo Commanders to condemn Obama’s decision:

Open Letter from Apollo Astronauts

…the accompanying decision to cancel the Constellation program, its Ares 1 and Ares V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft, is devastating.
(more…)

As he cancels our manned space program. It is yet another lie by the marxist -in -chief.

His speech:

AND HERE IS HIS SPEECH

And we have to do more than provide short-term relief. We have to secure our long-term prosperity and strengthen America%u2019s competitiveness in the 21st century. One of the areas where we are in danger of losing our competitive edge is our space program. When I was growing up, NASA inspired the world with achievements we are still proud of. Today, we have an administration that has set ambitious goals for NASA without giving NASA the support it needs to reach them. As a result, they%u2019ve had to cut back on research, and trim their programs, which means that after the Space Shuttle shuts down in 2010, we%u2019re going to have to rely on Russian spacecraft to keep us in orbit.

We cannot cede our leadership in space. That%u2019s why I will help close the gap and ensure that our space program doesn%u2019t suffer when the Shuttle goes out of service by working with Senator Bill Nelson to add at least one additional Space Shuttle flight beyond 2010; by supporting continued funding for NASA; by speeding the development of the Shuttle%u2019s successor; and by making sure that all those who work in the space industry in Florida do not lose their jobs when the Shuttle is retired %u2013 because we cannot afford to lose their expertise.

More broadly, we need a real vision for space exploration. To help formulate this vision, I%u2019ll reestablish the National Aeronautics and Space Council so that we can develop a plan to explore the solar system %u2013 a plan that involves both human and robotic missions, and enlists both international partners and the private sector. And as America leads the world to long-term exploration of the moon, Mars, and beyond, let%u2019s also tap NASA%u2019s ingenuity to build the airplanes of tomorrow and to study our own planet so we can combat global climate change. Under my watch, NASA will inspire the world, make America stronger, and help grow the economy here in Florida.

What he actually did:

White House Confirms Course Change for NASA
By Amy Klamper
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 01 February 2010
10:02 am ET

WASHINGTON — The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is canceling NASA’s current space shuttle replacement- and lunar exploration-plan and is prepared to fight any congressional effort to save it, the nation’s top budget official said Jan. 31. \

And fully justified and true comments by NASA supporters:

obama is a disgrace

OBAMA IS LIAR

HE IS THE WORST PRESIDENT THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER HAD

HE MADE A SPEECH IN FLORIDA SUPPORTING NASA AND SAID HE WANTED TO CONTINUE MANNED SPACE TRAVEL AND NOT DEPEND ON THE RUSSIANS

WANT PROOF

http://a11news.com/430/obama-nasa-speech/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/obama-revokes-f/

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/amandascott/gG5kBP

AND IF HE WINS A SECOND TERM THIS COUNTRY WE WILL NEVER RECOVER FROM THE DESTRUCTION HE HAS CAUSED

ALL THE PEOPLE THAT VOTED FOR HOPE AND CHANGE HAVE BEEN DUPED BY THIS MAN

AND BEFORE SOMEONE ACCUSES ME OF BEING A RACIST LET ME SET YOU STRAIT

I DO NOT CARE WHAT COLOR HE IS,THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS TO ME IS WHAT HE SAYS AND ACTIONS. HE SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN ELECTED PRESIDENT.

THE MAIN STREEM MEDIA DID ALL THEY COULD TOO GET THIS MAN ELECTED

from Flopping Aces

also:

Obama Plan to Kill NASA Rockets Will Kill 23,000 Florida Jobs

Outsourcing thousands of top technical jobs to Russia & China as well as destroying U.S. lead in space!

Bye Bye US #1 in Space!

The Obama Administration decision to cancel all further NASA development of new rocket technology including a replacement for the Space Shuttle and a rocket to the moon will also destroy the economy of the Florida Space Coast. In an era when Obama will spend a $trillion in taxpayer money to create a relative handful of jobs, he couldn’t spare the few billions to save jobs in Florida and save America’s reputation in space.

23,000 now expected to lose jobs after shuttle retirement
BY RICK NEALE
FLORIDA TODAY
February 26, 2010

…Revised projections now show that about 23,000 workers at and around Kennedy Space Center will lose their jobs because of the shuttles’ retirement and the new proposal to cancel the development of new rockets and spacecraft.

That sum includes 9,000 “direct” space jobs and — conservatively speaking — 14,000 “indirect” jobs at hotels, restaurants, retail stores and others that depend on activity at the space center, said Lisa Rice, Brevard Workforce president.

Those 9,000 space jobs include some of the most highly desirable technical jobs. Jobs that will now be filled overseas by our space competitors. The idea that space launching on the scale required by NASA to maintain a manned space program will now be carried out by private sector firms is laughable.

Beyond the direct impact of lost jobs and skills, this decision undermines our national security capability. Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT) reports:
(more…)

NASA Space Shuttle Launch STS-119 3/15/09 Sunset Launch

Crossposted from Flopping Aces

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine – an organization poo poo’ed by AGW proponents as insignificant, ties to “big oil”… the usual mantra – has released the results of their petition drive to American scientists. 31,072 of them who reject the assertation that global warming is a crisis, or that it is caused by human activity.

The release of the list has managed to elude most MSM outlets, but can be found reported in Heartland Organization’s July 2008 newsletter, Environment & Climate News.

Tho SourceWatch has a less than complimentary review of both the OISM and it’s head, Arthur Robinson, the petition has garnered the support of credible scholars.

The current list of 31,072 petition signers includes 9,021 PhD; 6,961 MS; 2,240 MD and DVM; and 12,850 BS or equivalent academic degrees. Most of the MD and DVM signers also have underlying degrees in basic science.

All of the listed signers have formal educations in fields of specialization that suitably qualify them to evaluate the research data related to the petition statement. Many of the signers currently work in climatological, meteorological, atmospheric, environmental, geophysical, astronomical, and biological fields directly involved in the climate change controversy.

~~~

Outlined below are the numbers of Petition Project signatories, subdivided by educational specialties. These have been combined, as indicated, into seven categories.

1. Atmospheric, environmental, and Earth sciences includes 3,697 scientists trained in specialties directly related to the physical environment of the Earth and the past and current phenomena that affect that environment.

2. Computer and mathematical sciences includes 903 scientists trained in computer and mathematical methods. Since the human-caused global warming hypothesis rests entirely upon mathematical computer projections and not upon experimental observations, these sciences are especially important in evaluating this hypothesis.

3. Physics and aerospace sciences include 5,691 scientists trained in the fundamental physical and molecular properties of gases, liquids, and solids, which are essential to understanding the physical properties of the atmosphere and Earth.

4. Chemistry includes 4,796 scientists trained in the molecular interactions and behaviors of the substances of which the atmosphere and Earth are composed.

5. Biology and agriculture includes 2,924 scientists trained in the functional and environmental requirements of living things on the Earth.

6. Medicine includes 3,069 scientists trained in the functional and environmental requirements of human beings on the Earth.

7. Engineering and general science includes 9,992 scientists trained primarily in the many engineering specialties required to maintain modern civilization and the prosperity required for all human actions, including environmental programs.

The following outline gives a more detailed analysis of the signers’ educations.

(continue reading the qualifications here…)

The Salem-News weighed in on the petition’s progress back in June, saying:

As the Senate prepares for floor debate on global warming legislation, the list of scientist signatories to the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine’s petition against global warming alarmism is growing by about 35 signatures every day, announced OISM’s Art Robinson.

~~~

Signatories include such luminaries as theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, MIT’s atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen and first National Academy of Sciences president Frederick Seitz. More than 40 signatories are members of the prestigious national Academy of Sciences.

The purpose of the Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.

The petition was mailed out, along with a cover letter from Professor Frederick Seitz – former President of the Nat’l Academy of Sciences.

Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1951, Seitz served as president on a part-time basis for three years before assuming full-time responsibilities in 1965. Among his numerous honors and awards, Seitz received the Franklin Medal in 1965; Stanford University’s Herbert Hoover Medal in 1968; the United States Department of Defense Distinguished Service Award in 1968; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Distinguished Public Service Award in 1969 and 1979; the Compton Award, the highest award of the American Institute of Physics, in 1970; and the James Madison Medal of Princeton University in 1978. Rockefeller University awarded him an honorary doctor of science degree in 1981 and the David Rockefeller Award for Extraordinary Service to The Rockefeller University in 2000. In addition to Rockefeller, 31 universities in the United States and abroad awarded him honorary degrees.

Seitz was a member of numerous scientific organizations, including the American Physical Society (president, 1961), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Society for Metals, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum Engineers, the American Crystallographic Society, the Optical Society of America, the Washington Academy of Science and a number of European scientific academies. From 1978 to 1983 he served as vice chairman of the board of trustees of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Robinson, himself a biochemist specialist, is described by SourceWatch as an eccentric scientist who has a long history of controversial entanglements with figures on the fringe of accepted research. OISM also markets a home-schooling kit for “parents concerned about socialism in the public schools” and publishes books on how to survive nuclear war. The entire history by the site offers the usual progressive “snear” in flavor, but provides a career overview that reveals a man with a more than interesting past.

SourceWatch’s dated commentary on the petition, states:

When questioned in 1998, OISM’s Arthur Robinson admitted that only 2,100 signers of the Oregon Petition had identified themselves as physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, or meteorologists, “and of those the greatest number are physicists.” This grouping of fields concealed the fact that only a few dozen, at most, of the signatories were drawn from the core disciplines of climate science – such as meteorology, oceanography, and glaciology – and almost none were climate specialists. The names of the signers are available on the OISM’s website, but without listing any institutional affiliations or even city of residence, making it very difficult to determine their credentials or even whether they exist at all.

What a difference a decade makes, along with the AGW religion shoved down the world’s throats. A settled science and consensus? Not by a long shot. And as time marches on, the temperatures fall, the JPL’s Auru satellite measuring systems start filling in stratosphere data not previously measured, the numbers of skeptics grow.

Also:

What Does Obama Stand For?

Richard Cohen, a man not known for his conservative beliefs, asks a important question in his editorial today at The WaPo:

“Just tell me one thing Barack Obama has done that you admire,” I asked a prominent Democrat. He paused and then said that he admired Obama’s speech to the Democratic convention in 2004. I agreed. It was a hell of a speech, but it was just a speech.

We’ve heard this kind of question before and each time its quite amusing to listen as the Obamamites hem and haw. Great speaker they utter. He’s a uniter they sputter. Nevermind the man has no experience other then being a community organizer. Nevermind the poor judgement he has shown in befriending terrorists, racists, and corrupt politicos. Nevermind his oft stated beliefs that are just an inch or two away from Marxism on the political philospophy dial. (more…)

From WorldScience.

Re­search­ers have found that gay peo­ple’s brains re­sem­ble those of the op­po­site sex in some ways, in­clud­ing the ex­tent to which the brain’s sides are sym­met­ric.

Some psy­cho­log­i­cal tests have shown dif­fer­ences be­tween men and wom­en in how much they use each of the brain’s hemi­spheres, or op­po­s­ite sides, in ver­bal tasks.

Oth­er re­search has hinted that ho­mo­sex­u­als ex­hib­it the ten­den­cies of the op­po­site sex in brain be­hav­ior un­re­lat­ed to sex­u­al ac­ti­vity.

In the new stu­dy, Ivanka Sa­vic of the Ka­r­o­lin­ska In­sti­tute in Stock­holm and col­league per­ Lind­ström found that the brains of he­tero­sex­u­al men and homo­sex­u­al wom­en are slightly asym­met­ric: the right hem­i­sphere is larg­er than the left.

But the brains of gay men and straight wom­en are not, they found. (more…)

by Regina Sztajer

I had the opportunity to watch as man landed and walked on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969. Yesterday I was thrilled to see NASA have the success to be able to land a spacecraft on the surface of Mars the Red Planet. How fitting on the Memorial Weekend that we honor the men and women who have made the sacrifices necessary to keep this great nation of our free from danger. The Phoenix Mars Lander gently put down on the surface in a cold region of Mars going only 5 miles per hour for the touch down. In flight it was flying 12,000 mph, 422-million miles for 10 months to land on Mars. Samples from a reservoir of ice will be taken for the next 90 days in order to discover if life has ever existed on Mars. At least NASA doesn’t have to worry about high gas prices for a 10 month trip to become a tourist on a planet millions of miles away. Information will be relayed via three Mars orbiters to mission control on the ground. The ice is only a few inches or a foot in the ground and it will be analyzed for traces of organic compound and the chemical building blocks of life. If life existed at one time scientists will be able to detect it from the samples preserved in ice. COOL!!!!

The Phoenix can’t detect alien life!!! What no aliens and UFO’s on Mars. The spacecraft is inexpensive compared to the other missions to Mars which cost $820 million for twin Rovers which landed on Mars and lasted four years. This mission had a price-tag of only $420 million but it is not as hardy as the Rovers were. The Rovers were like two Energizer Bunnies which had the ability to keep on going. They found ancient Mars had water that flowed near the surface.
(more…)

Crossposted from Red Maryland

Looks like NASA is starting to finally get real (H/T Instapundit)

For decades, NASA kept a tight fist around the construction and operation of the spacecraft that ferried its astronauts and hardware into orbit. Sure, an army of private contractors actually built the vehicles, but NASA oversaw the designs—and always kept the pink slips. Now, however, the agency seems to be shifting course, as NASA officials insist that the budding commercial spacecraft fleet represents the only way the United States can realize its dreams of solar-system conquest on schedule and at an affordable cost.

Because of a new focus for NASA’s strategic investments—not to mention incentives like the Ansari X Prize, which spurred the space-tourism business, and the Google Lunar X Prize, which could do the same for payloads—private-sector spaceships could be ready for government service soon, says Sam Scimemi, who heads NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. “The industry has grown up,” he tells PM. “It used to be that only NASA or the Air Force could do such things…..”

…..”I’d like for us to get to the point where we have the kind of private/public synergy in space flight that we have had for a hundred years in aviation,” Griffin said. The spirit of private enterprise is crucial to the future of space exploration, he acknowledged. “I see a day in the not-very-distant future where instead of NASA buying a vehicle, we buy a ticket for our astronauts to ride to low Earth orbit, or a bill of lading for a cargo delivery to space station by a private operator. I want us to get to that point.”

Hauling cargo represents the grunt work of space exploration and, dominated by the space shuttle, it has long gobbled millions of dollars of NASA’s budget. The agency’s new vision hands that duty off to private companies that, freed from government paperwork, can do it more economically. This would free up more of the NASA budget for space exploration missions, Scimemi says.

And this is exactly what NASA should have been doing for years. The NASA monopoly on government-backed space missions has always seemed silly particularly, as the story notes, since all of the components and crafts were being built by private contractors.

As we have seen time and time again, privatization of certain government functions gives the taxpayer more flexibility, more options, and a better product with less overhead, less bureaucracy, and lower costs. (more…)

Crossposted from Conservative Thoughts.

Or at least one step toward them. A Cornell researcher has claimed to have created the worlds first genetically engineered human embryo.

NEW YORK: Researchers in New York have created what is believed to be the first genetically engineered human embryo, which critics immediately branded as a step toward “designer babies.”

[…]

The Cornell scientists put a gene for a fluorescent protein into the single-celled human embryo. The embryo had three sets of chromosomes instead of two.

After the embryo divided for three days, all the cells in the embryo glowed, Rosenwaks said. He said the goal of the work was to see if the fluorescent marker would carry into the daughter cells, allowing genetic changes to be traced as cells divided.

This is a significant difference from gene therapy where changes to genes are not inheritable. These researchers are in essence overriding mother nature. The new technology allows man to fiddle with characteristics a person would be born with and can pass on to future generations.

This is well beyond the ethical standards and boundaries scientists in this field of study should be working within. (more…)

An Earth-like, hab­it­a­ble plan­et may be in our stel­lar neigh­bor­hood, and could be found with a ded­i­cat­ed tel­e­scope, new com­put­er sim­ula­t­ions sug­gest.

Astro­nom­ers have long been looking for potentially ha­bi­table planets, and one team fi­nal­ly re­ported a can­di­date pla­ne­tary sys­tem last year. But no place where re­search­ers have pinned their hopes is nearly as close where the new study points.

The Al­pha Cen­tau­ri tri­ple stel­lar sys­tem is our clos­est neigh­bour in space. It lies 4.36 light-years away in the di­rec­tion of the south­ern con­stel­la­tion Cen­tau­rus. In the above pho­to, the two brighter stars of the sys­tem ap­pear as merged to­geth­er due to their lu­mi­nos­i­ty and prox­im­i­ty. The small ar­row at low­er right in­di­cates the lo­ca­tion of the third, dim star, Prox­i­ma Cen­tau­ri. (Cred­it: 1-Meter Schmidt Tel­e­scope, ESO)

The near­est stars to our Sun are in the three-star sys­tem called Al­pha Cen­tau­ri—a pop­u­lar trav­el des­tina­t­ion in sci­ence fic­tion, though it’s un­likely hu­mans could get there an­y­time soon.

Us­ing sim­ula­t­ions based on cur­rent plan­et-forma­t­ion the­o­ries, re­search­ers con­clud­ed that Earth-like plan­ets should have formed around one mem­ber of this sys­tem, the star Al­pha Cen­tau­ri B.

One of these worlds, they added, could well be or­bit­ing in the star’s “hab­it­a­ble zone,” a re­gion suitably warm for liq­uid wa­ter to ex­ist on a plan­et sur­face.

“If they ex­ist, we can ob­serve them,” said Ja­vie­ra Gue­des, a grad­u­ate stu­dent at the Uni­ver­s­ity of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Cruz. Gue­des is first au­thor of a pa­per de­tail­ing the find­ings, ac­cept­ed for pub­lica­t­ion by the re­search pub­lica­t­ion As­t­ro­phys­i­cal Jour­nal.

“I think the plan­ets are the­re, and it’s worth a try to have a look,” added as­tron­o­mer Greg­o­ry Laugh­lin of the uni­ver­s­ity, a co-au­thor. The in­ves­ti­ga­tors said they ran the re-enactments re­peat­edly with dif­fer­ent start­ing as­sump­tions, and got at least one Earth-sized plan­et each time, and in the hab­it­a­ble zone much of the time.
(more…)

Life on other worlds may be closer then you think….

Sci­en­tists hope to send a ro­botic sub­ma­rine in­to oceans that may lurk with­in a moon of Ju­pi­ter, in what could be the first ex­plora­t­ion through li­quid wa­ters on an­oth­er world.

Re­search­ers have long spec­u­lat­ed that un­der the icy shell that en­cases the moon, Eu­ro­pa, liq­uid wa­ter might har­bor prim­i­tive life forms.

A Eu­ro­pa mis­sion is still years away, ac­cord­ing to sci­en­tists; but in prepara­t­ion for such an ev­ent, they plan to test a NASA-funded ro­botic probe un­der ice on Earth.

Test­ing will take place next week in Lake Men­do­ta on the cam­pus of the Un­ivers­ity of Wis­con­sin, Mad­i­son, ac­cord­ing to a Feb. 8 an­nounce­ment from the agen­cy.

The sub is made to “swim un­teth­ered un­der ice, cre­at­ing three-di­men­sion­al maps of un­derwa­ter en­vi­ron­ments,” the an­nounce­ment said. The ro­bot would al­so “col­lect da­ta on con­di­tions in those en­vi­ron­ments and take sam­ples of mi­cro­bi­al life.” The pro­ject is led by Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois at Chi­ca­go and NA­SA scientists.

Af­ter the Wis­con­sin tests, re­search­ers said they plan to ship the probe to a per­ma­nently fro­zen lake in Ant­arc­ti­ca for fur­ther tri­als. The ve­hi­cle, called EN­DUR­ANCE (En­vi­ron­men­tally Non-Disturbing Un­der-ice Robotic Ant­arc­tic Ex­plor­er), is a $2.3 mil­lion proj­ect. It’s a fol­low-up to the Deep Phre­at­ic Ther­mal Ex­plor­er, an­oth­er NASA-funded proj­ect that fin­ished un­derwa­ter tests in Mex­i­co in 2007, agen­cy sci­en­tists said. (more…)

from Curt at Flopping Aces

We all know that the Global Warming zealots are a crazy bunch, they would destroy whole economies because of a .00010 increase in temperature.  Now they want to torpedo the man mission to Mars:

A squeeze on funding for satellites to look down on the Earth’s environment at a time of growing need for research into the effects of climate change is creating alarm among scientists and on Capitol Hill.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, renowned for its pioneering role in science, is seeing its science budget shrink and its satellite Earth observation capacity endangered even as the agency’s overall mission grows.

Three and a half years ago, President Bush announced “a new plan to explore space and extend a human presence across our solar system,” including a return to the moon by 2020, a step toward Mars and beyond.

The ambitious program vastly expanded NASA’s mission at a time when its near Earth science programs — arguably more relevant to humankind’s needs — were in decline.

Since Bush announced his Vision for Space Exploration, the administration has reduced future-year funding for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate by a total of $4 billion, according to the House Science and Technology Committee’s space and aeronautics panel.

A two-year study released last January by the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council found that NASA’s Earth science budget had declined 30 percent since 2000 and was threatened to fall even further.

How will they accomplish this?

Last week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science recommended an increase of over $280 million above the requested level for NASA. However, within this budget markup, there is language that would prevent work on programs devoted to humans to Mars. According to a House Appropriations Committee press release, the markup language states that NASA cannot pursue “development or demonstration activity related exclusively to Human Exploration of Mars. NASA has too much on its plate already, and the President is welcome to include adequate funding for the Human Mars Initiative in a budget amendment or subsequent year funding requests." THIS ANTI-MARS LANGUAGE MUST BE REMOVED! Otherwise, the program may turn into MOON ONLY program. We can’t let that happen.

I admit it, I’m a bit of a space junkie and I still bitterly complain that a Democrat controlled Congress cut funding to the Apollo program in 1972, just when we were getting good at visiting the moon.  They then approved money for a freakin bus to orbit the earth.  We go to the moon and then instead of going forward we move backwards.

Anyways, The Mars Society (whom members include officers serving in Iraq) has started a drive to get faxes, emails and phone calls to various politicians to get the offending language removed.

In the past week, the Mars Society "Save Mars Phone/Fax Blitz" has been a tremendous success. So far, almost 400 faxes have been sent and numerous phone calls have been made to Congress requesting that they remove the anti-Mars language that has been placed in the House version of the budget.

If you haven’t yet called or faxed your members of Congress, please do so soon using our automated system. We would like to have a total of 1,000 faxes sent within the next couple of weeks. It is imperative to remind both houses of Congress that the American people support human missions to Mars. If you have called your members of Congress or plan to, please let us know by dropping us an email at Marspolitics@yahoo.com.

And they have even started a Political Action Task Force to ensure that the human exploration of Mars remains the mission of NASA:

The purpose of the U.S. Political Task Force is to support the endeavor of The Mars Society to establish a human mission to Mars as the primary goal of the U.S. Space Program. This will be accomplished by means of an aggressive campaign of contact with our elected officials asking them to actively support the required technologies and legislation in support of this vision. The Political Task Force will mobilize and assist our membership and other space advocates with up-to-date information and the necessary tools for effective communication to accomplish this goal. Further, we will seek to act in ways that garner sufficient media and public support for the goal of sending humans to Mars.

All great programs.  Gus Grissom, the commander of Apollo One which tragically burned on the pad in 1967, once said:

Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves, because in the final analysis, only Man can evaluate the Moon in terms understandable to other men.

Exploring Mars is no different.  Only another Man (or woman) can really evaluate that planet in terms understandable to other’s.

Scary stuff….

A research institute has applied for a pat­ent on what could be the first largely ar­ti­fi­cial or­gan­ism. And peo­ple should be al­armed, claims an ad­vo­ca­cy group that is try­ing to shoot down the bid.

The idea of own­ing a spe­cies breaches “a so­ci­e­tal bound­ary,” said Pat Mooney of the Ot­ta­wa, Canada-based ETC Group, which is asking the pat­ent ap­pli­cants to drop their claim. Creat­ing and own­ing an or­gan­ism, he added, means that “for the first time, God has com­pe­ti­tion.”

His group claims cred­it for spur­ring the Eu­ro­pe­an Pat­ent Of­fice last month to re­voke a pat­ent on ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied soy­beans by St. Lou­is, Mo.-based Mon­santo Co., af­ter a 13-year le­gal chal­lenge by ETC.

The ar­ti­fi­cial or­gan­ism, a mere mi­crobe, is the brain­child of re­search­ers at the Rock­ville, Md.-based J. Craig Ven­ter In­sti­tute. The or­gan­iz­a­tion is named for its found­er and CEO, the ge­net­icist who led the pri­vate sec­tor race to map the hu­man ge­nome in the late 1990s.

The re­search­ers filed their pat­ent claim on the ar­ti­fi­cial or­gan­ism and on its ge­nome. Ge­net­i­cally mo­di­fied life forms have been pa­tented be­fore; but this is the first pa­tent claim for a crea­ture whose genome might be created chem­i­cally from scratch, Mooney said. (more…)

from World Science

Two merg­ing black holes can gen­er­ate a re­coil so pow­er­ful, the merged hole shoots out of its host gal­axy at up to 4,000 km (2,500 miles) per sec­ond, ac­cord­ing to a new com­put­er sim­ula­t­ion.

Its cre­ators said the work shows for the first time that these vi­o­lent events, which fol­low merg­ers of ga­lax­ies con­tain­ing black holes, can to­tally eject the black holes. So these ti­ta­nic ob­jects may be cruis­ing through the un­iverse, vir­tu­ally in­vis­i­ble un­less they should crash in­to some­thing.

But don’t wor­ry, as­tro­no­mers said. Most of the un­iverse by far is emp­ty space. The odds that a black hole will streak through our so­lar sys­tem are ti­ny.

Black holes are ex­tremely com­pact ob­jects that con­tain so much mat­ter crammed in­to so small a space that their gra­vity be­comes over­pow­ering and sucks in eve­ry­thing near­by, in­clud­ing light. De­spite their light-eating tal­ents, many black holes are as­sociat­ed with in­tense light emis­sions, be­cause the in­fall­ing ob­jects heat up and shine. But a black hole with noth­ing to feed on, called a “qui­es­cent” black hole, is dark.

Most lu­mi­nous ga­lax­ies are believed to con­tain a gi­ant, or supe­rmassive, black hole at their cen­ter. The sim­ula­t­ion, led by Manuela Cam­pan­elli at the Roch­es­ter In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, N.Y., stud­ied the best con­di­tions for mer­gers to pro­duce re­coil speeds high enough to free a supe­rmassive black hole from its host gal­axy. (more…)

In sci­ence, plen­ty of prob­lems are hard. But per­haps just one is so grue­somely try­ing that sci­en­tists them­selves have termed it, well, “the hard prob­lem.” How does con­scious­ness arise—the liv­ing, aware ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing?

Some the­o­ries hold that it comes from, or is even iden­ti­cal to, elec­tri­cal and chem­i­cal pro­cesses known to un­fold in the brain. Oth­ers say it arises else­where: in some even sub­tler, yet-un­dis­cov­ered brain pro­cesses, or per­haps a mind-stuff quite dis­tinct from the brain—some call it a soul.

Ces­sa­tion of brain ac­tiv­i­ty is rec­og­nized when a device known as an elec­tro­en­ce­pha­lo­gram, set up to re­cord the brain’s elec­tr­ical activity, de­tects no activity be­yond the in­her­ent in­ter­nal noise of the ma­chine it­self. The read­out from the de­vice then ap­pears as flat line.

Few on ei­ther side claim to have fi­nal an­swers. But they of­ten ar­gue pas­sion­ately over who’s at least in the right play­ing field.

Now a group of re­search­ers has be­gun a study that they say might set­tle the is­sue. “We can ac­tu­ally test this, and put and end to all these de­bates,” said Sam Par­nia, a crit­i­cal care doc­tor at Weill Cor­nell Med­i­cal Cen­ter in New York.

Par­nia has spent years stu­dying re­ports that some car­di­ac-ar­rest pa­tients keep hav­ing clear, dis­tinct thought pro­cesses af­ter they’re clin­ic­ally dead and de­tect­a­ble brain ac­ti­vity has ceased. Pa­tients com­monly re­count these men­tal ex­pe­ri­ences, which of­ten in­clude see­ing a light at the end of a tun­nel, af­ter be­ing re­vived.

Parnia and colleagues aim to put these re­ports to a test: spe­cif­ic sounds will be played to such pa­tients, and they’ll be asked to re­call the sounds af­ter re­viv­ing. If they do, it would con­firm the ac­counts of thoughts with­out brain ac­ti­vity—sup­port­ing the claims that “con­scious­ness is a sep­a­rate, yet un­disco­vered sci­en­tif­ic ent­ity” from the brain, Par­nia wrote in a pa­per in the the April 23 ad­vance on­line edi­tion of the re­search jour­nal Med­i­cal Hy­pothe­ses. (more…)

(reposted from 4/3/07)

by Robert Farrow

The universe is full of magicals things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Eden Philpotts.

Imagine a world called flatland, where there is length and width but no height. The world is infinitely flat. Say one day a strange visitor called a Mr. Ball decided to pay the residents of flatland a visit. To the residents there, the visitor would appear as a slice of a circle whose dimensions constantly changed in size. If the ball picked up one of the residents, he would appear to his flat friends as magically disappearing, and would magically reappear when returned. Does Flatland sound strange? Well, in a way we may already be living there.

If today’s scientific community is right, we may live in a multi-dimensional universe. And since we only inhabit three of what might be many dimensions, whole sections of the universe may not only be beyond our present understanding, but may be beyond what we can understand. As Shakesphere once said “There are more things in heaven and earth then is drempt in our philosophy.” If that is the case, is our understanding of the universe may be no better then a child’s tale, grasping for things beyond our perception.As a flatlander is not only unable to see the whole of the ball, but also unable to even percieve the real form of the ball, so also may our understanding of the universe be similarly faulty, and in some ways a myth. And if that is the case, how does that change the never ending debate between science and religion?

The Myth of Our World?

Imagine you are an intelligent carp living in a pond. Also imagine you are a scientist. You know nothing for certain of the world beyond the pond and the water’s edge. Many other carp scientists have wondrous theories, but alas, nothing concrete. Perhaps one day it rains, and the carp scientists see lilies on the pond mysteriously move around all by themselves, unaware of the raindrops influence.

When I was younger I use to believe that through physics that man would best understand the mind of God. I did not, and still do not see anything contradictory between physics and religion. On the contrary, various aspects of physics actually confirm the existence of God for me. But as I delved deeper into the strange world of physics, I realized that the world is not only stranger then I imagined, it is stranger then I can imagine. For instance, the subatomic world is filled with ghostly phantoms where it is impossible to know exact details. Time and length changes as you speed up and slow down. And the universe may be made up of strings and filled with more dimensions then one can imagine. But it gets even weirder. Try to imagine a particle breaking up into two fragments, and imagine later they are even separated by great distances. Any observation on one of the fragments instantly affects the reality of another fragment. Another interesting fact is that light also has both the properties of a particle and a wave, depending on the observation. Also, light acts like a wave through a vacuum, despite the fact there is no medium to carry the wave. Some of these facts come from a theory the Quantum theory, and Einstein hated it. His celebrated retort “God does not play dice.” is a rejection of the randomness and fuzziness of the Quantum world. Quantum mechanics has been tested for almost a century, and is quite correct. But is it misleading, because our reality is misleading because we too are trapped in a pond?

Perhaps the ghostlike action at a distance and light duality is the result of viewing a multidimensional world while stuck in three dimensions. Let us go back to flatland and their science. It does not take a genius to realize the physics in a two-dimensional world will be different then ours. Like carp in a pond, the universe they live in utterly affects their science and their life. Physicists realize this and try to probe into the hidden borders of this world. However, to test most of their theories require energies well beyond the dreams of man for perhaps centuries. These Plank energies are quite unreachable, which begs the question, “Is it really possible for man to really understand this grand and amazing Universe?” Besides, at least to me, what happened before the big bang seems just as much a question of faith as where did God come from.

I have found it amusing the many predictions from amateur scientists predicting one day mankind will one day solve the “Theory of Everything” and there will be nothing left to ask. Personally, a Universe with no questions left to solve is a Universe with no mystery and quite a dull place to live in. I also think it is an underestimation of the grandeur of the Universe and an overestimation of the mind of man. History does not support this assumption. Many particle theorists are surprised and discouraged at the zoo of particles that have been discovered after believing the Standard Model was the end all of particle theory. There has been a plethora of Grand Unified Theories that are no closer to the goal then Einstein’s unfinished papers left on his deathbed in the 50’s. I expect this trend to continue, that deeper we go down the rabbit hole, the stranger and more wonderful the universe will become. (more…)

from World Science

Sev­er­al phys­i­cists say they’ve con­firmed strange pre­dic­tions of mod­ern phys­ics that clash with our most bas­ic no­tions of real­i­ty and even sug­gest—some sci­en­tists and phi­loso­phers say—that real­i­ty is­n’t there when we’re not look­ing.

The pre­dic­tions have lurked with­in quan­tum me­chan­ics, the sci­ence of the small­est things, since the field emerged in the 1920s; but not all phys­i­cists ac­cept­ed them. They were un­dis­put­edly con­sist­ent with ex­pe­ri­ments, but ex­pe­ri­ments might not re­veal eve­ry­thing.

New tests—de­signed more specif­i­cally than be­fore to probe the real­i­ty ques­tion—have yielded un­set­tling re­sults, say re­search­ers who pub­lished the find­ings in the April 19 is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Na­ture. One of their col­leagues called the find­ings in­tri­guing but in­con­clu­sive.

A wave with a sim­ple, or lin­e­ar, po­lar­i­za­tion is tilted in one di­rec­tion as above. El­lip­ti­cal po­lar­i­za­tion means the an­gle of po­lar­i­za­tion changes con­stant­ly as the wave moves, as the corkscrew-like im­age be­low.

Quan­tum phys­i­cists have long not­ed that sub­a­tom­ic par­t­i­cles seem to move ran­dom­ly. For in­stance, one can meas­ure a par­t­i­cle’s lo­ca­tion at a giv­en mo­ment, but can’t know ex­act­ly where it would be just be­fore or af­ter.

Phys­i­cists de­ter­mined that the ran­dom­ness was­n’t just an ap­pear­ance due to our ig­no­rance of the de­tails of the mo­tion, but an in­es­cap­a­ble prop­er­ty of the par­t­i­cles them­selves. (more…)