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The Vatican joins the search for alien life - Telegraph

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:26:15 -0800

Sadly for the Catholics as well as most other religions, any confirmation of alien life will have dire, irreconcilable theological consequences. The existence of alien life (intelligent or otherwise) is for me without question. No, this isn't a "belief" but a simple understanding of statistical probability, the cousin of random chance which is the very engine of the universe and of life itself, an anathema to all religion. Once the existence of life elsewhere has been confirmed, maybe then, as a species, we'll collectively get a grip and grow up.

Large Hadron Collider: Damaged by a Time-Traveling Bird? - TIME

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:10:19 -0800

This has to be one of the idiotic contrivances I've read in the last few days (unfortunately, because of what I do and write about, I have to trawl through dross like this).

Could I not formulate my own theory? Either: a. Nielsen and Ninomiya are both insane, or b. Nielsen and Ninomiya are both being funded by or are associated with the [un]Intelligent Design rabble.

Lunacy.

Studies Shed Light on Collapse of Coral Reefs : News

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:37:55 -0800

From the page: "An explosion of knowledge has been made in the last few years about the basic biology of corals, researchers say in a new report, helping to explain why coral reefs around the world are collapsing and what it will take for them to survive a gauntlet of climate change and ocean acidification."

Puncturing an Ancient Supervolcano : Discovery News

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:20:34 -0800

From the page: "You have to wonder about the wisdom of drilling an active volcano. But at Italy's Campi Flegrei, that's exactly what scientists are planning to do, in an effort to learn about an ancient volcanic monster that could one day blow again. "

NASA - NASA Reproduces a Building Block of Life in Laboratory

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:49:27 -0800

From the page: "NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life. "

Astronomy Question of the Week: How far into outer space have space probes penetrated? | International Space Fellowship

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:24:03 -0800

From the page: "Outer space, a place of enormous distances: for more than 30 years, unmanned spacecraft have journeyed to learn more about the depths of space, its planets and the nature of interplanetary space. Now, billions of kilometres from Earth, space probes are entering areas never before explored by humankind."

Novelties - How an Engineer Turned a Cellphone Into a Microscope - NYTimes.com

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:05:55 -0800

From the page: "Now an engineer, using software that he developed and about $10 worth of off-the-shelf hardware, has adapted cellphones to substitute for microscopes."

Bettween Makes Tracking And Sharing Twitter Conversations A Breeze

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:29:02 -0800

From the page: "With Twitter rolling out its own retweet functionality soon, people will be pointing their followers to more users they may not be engaging with yet, which will spark users to follow more people and hence increase the amount of conversations on Twitter. At least, that�s what I think."

Online advertising stats round up | Blog | Econsultancy

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:11:31 -0800

From the page: "Here's a selection of recent social media stats, taken from a range of sources, including Econsultancy's Internet Advertising Statistics document, which forms part of the Internet Statistics Compendium, and other reports... "

Theoretical Supernova Actually Exists | International Space Fellowship

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:57:17 -0800

From the page: "Astronomers have identified a type of supernova that appears to be a type predicted in theory but never actually observed before. Two years ago Lars Bildsten from UC Santa Barbara and his colleagues predicted a new type of supernova in distant galaxies which they dubbed the �oe.Ia” (point one a) mechanism, involving a helium detonation on a white dwarf, ejecting a small envelope of material. "