Satellite TV 'Making Humans Invisible To Aliens On Other Planets'

The digital age is effectively gagging the Earth by cutting the transmission of TV and radio signals into space Photo: REX

From The Telegraph:

Satellite television and the digital revolution is making humanity more and more invisible to inquisitive aliens on other planets, the world's leading ET hunter has said.

That might be good news for anyone who fears an ''Independence Day'' – style invasion by little green men. But it is also likely to make the search for extraterrestrial intelligence by Earthly scientists harder, Dr Frank Drake believes.

Dr Drake, who founded the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) organisation in the US 50 years ago, said the digital age was effectively gagging the Earth by cutting the transmission of TV and radio signals into space.

Read more ....

Browser Usage Over The Past 7 Years

The following is an awesome graphic of browser usage over the last 7 years. The link is here.

Pentagon Tests A Global Internet Routing System Via Satellite

Atlas Launch Cisco's space Internet router launched aboard an Atlas 5 rocket on November 23, 2009. ULA/Pat Corkery

From Popular Science:

Communication satellites have traditionally acted as transfer points for data beamed up from the ground. But the first commercial satellite with its own Internet router could eliminate the usual satellite-relay transfer lag and more flexibly handle voice, video and data communications for U.S. and NATO military forces anywhere around the world. The U.S. Department of Defense plans to kick off a three-month demo of the space technology this week, according to Aviation Week's Ares Defense Blog.

Read more ....

My Comment: With the growth of UAV and other robotic systems/platforms continuing at a rapid rate, having the proper (and secure) communication platforms will become even more essential in the years to come. I can only presume that this "space internet router" is just one more vital piece of technology to make all of this work.

Is This The iSlate? 'Pictures Of New Tablet' Surface Online As Apple Frenzy Hits Fever Pitch

Could this be a picture of Apple's hugely anticipated iSlate?
Blogger Dustin Curtis' idea of what the device will look like

From The Daily Mail:

Apple is expected to launch its next generation gadget - an iSlate entertainment device - in San Francisco tomorrow.

But as frenzy surrounding the new device, dubbed the 'Jesus tablet', hits fever pitch, it seems some fans cannot wait that long.

Several alleged pictures of the gadget have surfaced online in anticipation of Apple's sleek new design as speculation continues to grow.

Read more ....

Facebook Users Told To Beware Fresh Wave Of Spam And Phishing Attacks

From Times Online:

A tidal wave of spam has been predicted this year as cyber criminals target social networks such as Facebook.

The networking computer company Cisco estimated that worldwide spam volumes this year could rise by 30 to 40 per cent compared with 2009. Spammers already send out up to 100 million junk e-mails a day and, although the vast majority are never opened, enough people click on the links to make spam a multimillion-dollar industry.

Read more ....

Internet Backbone Breaks The 100-Gigabit Barrier

Same fibre network, more traffic (Image: Fancy/Alamy)

From New Scientist:

THERE are few facets of society that have remained untouched by the internet. From business communication to leisure activity, the net has transformed the way we behave.

Yet at its heart the internet has stagnated. As a slew of bandwidth-hungry services come on-stream, the fibre-optic backbone that forms its trunk routes are at risk of becoming overwhelmed by too much data. It's due for an upgrade.

Read more ....

Was The Threat of H1N1 Flu Exaggerated?

Win McNamee / Getty

From Time Magazine:

By the summer of 2009, shortly after the H1N1 flu pandemic had first emerged, there was a waiting list for the first several million doses of the forthcoming new flu vaccine. At the head of the line, naturally, were the world's richest nations. "Again we see the advantage of affluence," said Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), at a news conference on July 14. "Again we see access denied by an inability to pay." Describing H1N1 as "entirely new and highly contagious," Chan scolded rich countries at the time for hoarding the "lion's share" of the global H1N1-vaccine supply.

Read more ....

Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous... Egyptians

Virtual recreation of King Tut's Death Mask. Heritage Key

From The Independent:

The rich and famous people of ancient Egypt lived a decadent lifestyle with fine wine, sex, high fashion, and plenty of partying. How do they compare with their equivalents today - the modern western celebrity set?

The main differences might be regarding who were the richest people then, and who are the richest people now. In ancient Egypt the pharaoh was at the top of the ‘pyramid’ and his family, noble people who owned land, and the priests came after. Scribes, architects and doctors were well off, and skilled craftsmen also had many privileges.

Read more ....

Engineers Plot The Future Of A Hobbled Mars Rover

European Pressphoto Agency

From The New York Times:

PASADENA, Calif. — As they have on many days during the past six years, about 10 engineers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory gathered in a conference room here last Tuesday to plan the schedule of the Mars rover Spirit.

From Cornell University in upstate New York, Steven W. Squyres, the mission’s principal investigator, appeared on a screen in the room as he presided over the “surface operations working group” meeting that day — a SOWG meeting for short, pronounced “sog.”

Read more ....

Ozone Hole Healing Could Cause Further Climate Warming

Total Antarctic ozone - September 2009. (Credit: NOAA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 26, 2010) — The hole in the ozone layer is now steadily closing, but its repair could actually increase warming in the southern hemisphere, according to scientists at the University of Leeds.

The Antarctic ozone hole was once regarded as one of the biggest environmental threats, but the discovery of a previously undiscovered feedback shows that it has instead helped to shield this region from carbon-induced warming over the past two decades.

Read more ....

No Help Wanted: Shopping Tactics Different For Men

From Live Science:

The stereotype of a man refusing to ask for directions while driving may carry over to shopping as well, researchers announced recently.

The results, which are based on survey questions, show that women are much more likely to seek out other people for guidance about wine purchases, usually from interpersonal relationships, such as friends and family. But men are less likely to ask others for help, and instead prefer to get information from impersonal and published materials, as well as from their own experiences.

Read more ....

What Happens In Sex Rehab?

Gentle Path facility in Hattiesburg, Miss.

From Time Magazine:

The calls for Tiger Woods to get help did not go unheeded: on Jan. 16, after weeks of sordid allegations regarding his extramarital affairs, Radaronline.com reported that Woods had enrolled in the Gentle Path program at Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services, in Hattiesburg, Miss., to be treated for sex addiction. Local television stations later confirmed the story.

Few people know what actually happens at sex rehab. While those who treat it say sex addiction is a disease like any other compulsion, the field is in its infancy: there is virtually no research on it compared to the vast resources on drug or alcohol addiction. "You look at ways that your behavior has made your life unmanageable. That's really the question," says Benoit Denizet-Lewis, author of America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life, who has been treated for sex addiction himself. "That often differentiates a sex addict from a nonsex addict."

Read more ....

Hunt For Earth's 'Twin Planet' Takes Leap Forward

Scientists claim the search for an Earth-like planet outside the solar system has entered a new phase Photo: GETTY IMAGES

From The Telegraph:

Scientists are on the brink of discovering the first Earth-like planet outside the solar system, a leading astronomer has claimed.

Professor Michel Mayor, the scientist who led the team that identified the first extrasolar planet in 1995, believes a planet similar in size and composition to Earth will soon be found.

Prof Mayor, of Geneva University, said that the prospect of finding a planet habitable for humans had come a step closer through rapid technological advances allowing observation of planets outside the solar system.

Read more ....

World Wide Web May Split Up Into Several Separate Networks

From Investors Business Daily:

Google's threat to exit China is igniting worries that the Web, a linchpin of globalization, may fracture into regional fiefdoms.

The U.S. and China are ratcheting up rhetoric over the Internet's future. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday warned that "a new information curtain is descending across much of the world."

China says it'll make no exception for Google (GOOG) or other U.S. firms on its Internet policies. China's government has lashed back at Clinton's speech, saying it damaged bilateral ties. On Monday, the Communist Party's People's Daily accused the U.S. of using social Web sites like Twitter to cook up unrest in Iran.

Read more ....

Video: Airborne Laser Tracks and Engages A Missile in Flight

From Popular Science:

Remember the Airborne Laser (ABL), the jumbo-jet-mounted chemical laser weapon designed to knock hostile missiles out of the air in mid-flight? The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has released a video of this futuristic system in action, tracking and engaging a test missile fired from San Nicolas Island off the California coast. While the video might come off just a bit anti-climactic, with no dramatic explosion to cap off the laser blast, it does prove one key thing: the system, at least if the video is to be believed, actually works.

Read more ....

My Comment: I have to assume that the video is accurate (even if it was probably taken under controlled conditions) .... if it was not I am sure that critics of the program would be yelling to anyone who would listen right now.

Having said that, I recall how critics were calling this program "mission impossible" 25 years ago. Hmmmm .... 25 years later and billions spent .... I guess nothing is no longer impossible.

Mozilla Leader Worries About Internet Limits

From Yahoo News/AP:

MUNICH, Germany (AP) -- The leader of the Mozilla Project, whose Firefox Web browser now has 350 million users, said Sunday that she is concerned that legal restrictions could limit Internet expansion.

Mitchell Baker said she worried about "the increase in laws that make it difficult to run an open network," especially rules about content.

"You suddenly become liable for anything that gets downloaded, whether it's legal or not," she said. "If you said to a municipality, if you build a road, you have to guarantee nothing illegal happens on it -- that's what's happening on the Internet now. So that's the kind of regulatory disruption that's going to have some long-term consequences."

Read more ....

Has USA Hit Its Final Frontier In Human Space Exploration?

Gravitating toward the International Space Station: If it continues to get the government's support, which space experts say is likely, that will limit the money needed to send humans to the moon or Mars. NASA via AP

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Still hoping for that Jetsons future?

Ruh-roh, as the Jetsons' dog, Astro, might put it.

Just six years ago, President Bush laid out a vision of space exploration that harked back to NASA's halcyon days built on astronauts as explorers. Bush wanted to sling them from low Earth orbit to a base on the moon and then, perhaps, on to a first manned landing on another planet, Mars.

But that was before huge federal deficits arrived, public support failed to show, and unmanned explorers scored successes — namely the Hubble telescope and Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which are still sending back signals years after they were expected to expire.

Read more ....

Apple ‘Tablets’ Sniffed By Analytics Are More Likely iPhones

From Gadget Lab:

A mobile analytics company has come forward with what it touts as evidence that Apple tablet prototypes are being tested — without offering any solid details suggesting the mystery devices are tablets at all.

Analytics firm Flurry has tracked down 50 devices that it believes are Apple’s expected tablet. The devices’ IPs and GPS data give away they have not left Apple’s Cupertino campus, according to Flurry, which raises the firm’s suspicion that these are prototypes in testing. Flurry goes on to say its app tracking matches the “characteristics of Apple’s rumored tablet device” even though the analytics don’t provide any data about the characteristics of the prototypes.

Read more ....

Stone Age Surgery Discovered After 7,000-Year-Old Man Found With Expertly Amputated Arm

From The Daily Mail:

Evidence of surgery carried out nearly 7,000 year ago has emerged – suggesting our Stone Age ancestors were more medically advanced than first thought.

Early Neolithic surgeons used a sharpened flint to amputate the left forearm of an elderly man, scientists have discovered.

And, more remarkable yet, they ensured the patient was anaesthetised and the limb cut off cleanly while the wound was treated afterwards in sterile conditions.

Read more ....

Global Warming: 'Cooling' Forests Can Heat Too

Pine forest. The simple formula we've learned in recent years -- forests remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere; therefore forests prevent global warming -- may not be quite as simple as we thought. Forests can directly absorb and retain heat, and, in at least one type of forest, these effects may be strong enough to cancel out a good part of the benefit in lowered CO2. (Credit: iStockphoto/Jeremy Sterk)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2010) — The simple formula we've learned in recent years -- forests remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere; therefore forests prevent global warming -- may not be quite as simple as we thought. Forests can directly absorb and retain heat, and, in at least one type of forest, these effects may be strong enough to cancel out a good part of the benefit in lowered CO2. This is a conclusion of a paper that will be published on January 22, in Science by scientists in the Weizmann Institute's Faculty of Chemistry.

Read more ....