While searching for the article on the recent SETI signal, I ran across a couple of articles in which the folks at Project SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) estimate that, with their current methodology, they’ll find an alien civilization within twenty years . . . if there is one nearby to find.
Some of the stories are pitched as “If we don’t find it within 20 years, it doesn’t exist,” but that claim seems too strong and not what the SETI folks are claiming.
Drudge is carrying an item headlined “Mysterious signals from 1000 light years away,” which links to an article at NewScientist.Com.
The problem is that New Scientist, having been Drudged, has now Popularity Crashed. Their server is either so overloaded that it has shut down completely or is so swamped that it can’t respond effectively to all the hits it’s getting.
Been like that for hours.
I’ve been using Google and other search engines to try to turn up information on this story, but all I’ve been able to get thus far are some tiny scraps of data, not the complete text of the article.
If anyone can get the latter, you copy and paste it to me via e-mail?
Here’s what I’ve found out thus far: It appears that the Project SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) have found a signal coming from the area between the constellations of Pisces and Aries that appears to be artificial and appears to be about a thousand light years away.
Now, the great likelihood is not a genuine transmission originating from an alien civilization. Previously unknown signals have been found for decades, and they (thus far) have always turned out to either be natural phenomena (some objects in space emit radio signals naturally) or local artificial phenomena (like signals from Earth-orbiting satellites). One of tiny scrap o’information sites I found even mentioned that this one might be a telescope error.
In all likelihood, researchers will soon figure out what the signal is and that it falls into one of the above non-EBE categories. That’s what happens to most such signals in no time at all. This one has remained unresolved long enough for New Scientist to run a story about it, which means its origin is harder to track down than most.
I just with I could track down some signals originating from New Scientist’s web site.
UPDATE! I just got the text. Click the comments link to read it.
American astronomers have announced the discover of two more “super-earths”–planets which are 14-18 times the size of Earth but much smaller than gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn.
Interestingly, one of the old explanations for part of Superman’s strength was that he came from a planet (with a solid surface) that was much heavier than Earth, and its gravity led its inhabitants to be stronger.
Maybe one day scientists will find a rocky super-earth orbiting a red sun and name it . . . Krypton.
. . . or would if I lived on this newly discovered planet.
Despite its having a ten day year and being 14 times as massive as Earth, it’s still the most earthlike planet found around a normal star.
. . . or would if I lived on this newly discovered planet.
Despite its having a ten day year and being 14 times as massive as Earth, it’s still the most earthlike planet found around a normal star.
Fifteen or twenty years ago I thought of the idea of combining a cash machine with a gas pump so that you don’t have to go inside to pay. Now such hybrid machines are everywhere.
Here’s another invention I want: I call it, The Song Longer.
You know how there are some songs that are just too good to be so short? There are even some parts of songs that are too good to be so short. Well, the song longer is meant to remedy that problem. Here’s how it works: You load a song into your computer and then The Song Longer makes it . . . longer. It does this in a number of ways:
1. Basic mode: If you simply want the song as a whole longer, it identifies the bridge of the song (the middle part between the intro and the outro) and repeats it as many times as you desire.
2. Advanced mode: After the user identifies particular parts of the bridge for special emphasis, lengthens the song by resequencing these segments in a more complex manner (i.e., so the middle of the song isn’t just played twice through).
3. Superadvanced mode: Like advanced mode, except The Song Longer modulates the pitch and speed of different song elements so that they are transposed up an octive, down an octave and played faster or slower so that there is more variety as the song gets longer.
4. Superduperadvanced mode: The Song Longer composes new segments in the same style and based on the same melody and sequences them into the mix.
5. Extrasuperduperadvanced mode: The Song Longer composes new lyrics to go in the new segments.
Wouldn’t that be great????
The thing is, we already have the technology to do most of this. A good sound editing package can let you accomplish modes 1-3, you’d just have to do it all by hand. The Song Longer would automate the process and make it easy enough for your grandmother to do (even if she doesn’t have a sound engineering degree), while still letting the user have the flexibility to customize the outcome of the song.
Modes 4 and 5 aren’t beyond our reach, either. There are already programs that do both of these, though they may not yet be ready for prime time.
So there you have it: The Song Longer, ending the plague of songs and song moments that are just too short.
(Like that one moment in Dvorak’s New World Symphony where the violins really soar . . . Oh! It’s a crime against the humanities that that moment doesn’t just go on and on and on.)
Answer: NOBODY knows!
Yes, another one of “Nature’s Special Creatures” has been spotted–this time on the ocean floor!
The creature on the left is approximately a foot long and was photographed at 6,500 feet . . . down that is.
It was phographed during a mission to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which runs between Iceland and the Azores.
Attempts to bring the creature to the surface failed, meaning that it may be years before we get to examine another of these creatures in detail.
In the mean time, cryptozoologists rejoice!
According to one team of reserachers, it has been.
Guess we’ll find out. . . . . But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
This article about the possibility of life on Mars is quite intersting.
One reason (among several) is that it’s about a scientist who argues that life on Mars is likely.
Another is that it points out something that doesn’t get a lot of attention in the press: Even if there is life on Mars, it may not be native to Mars. In fact, it may be native to Earth.
We already know that rocks occasionally get blasted off one celestial body and deposited on another. In the last few years there have been press stories about rocks from Mars and the Moon that made their way to Earth. The reverse process can occur as well, and these rocks may carry Earth-native microorganisms to new environments. Some of which are very hardy and can survive in very harsh, Mars-like environments (such as the dry valleys of Antarctica). If they find a survivable environment, they may survive.
The article points that out, but I’ve also wondered about another possibility: Some microorganisms make it way up in the atmosphere, and I’m curious about whether some might make their way far enough out of the Earth’s gravity well to be carried along by the solar wind. If so, Earth may be blowing out a constant trail of microorganisms, some of which might make it alive (or in hybernation) as far as Mars.
So even if scientists one day announce that they’ve found clinching proof of life on Mars (or any other body in this solar system), we shouldn’t instantly take that as evidence of parallel evolution (or creation) on another planet. The stuff may have originated here.
A third reason that I like this article is that it suggests using the Moon as a decontamination base rather than bringing stuff directly from potentially biologically-active zones in space (like Mars). If we ever encounter extraterrestrial microorganisms (even ones formerly native to Earth) and bring them back here, we could have a MAJOR plague on our hands. The devastation to Earth’s biosphere could be unimaginable. In my view, as the space program continues, we need to take MUCH, MUCH more stringent measures than we have thus far for preventing bringing dangerous biological material back to Earth.
You’ve no doubt seen those reconstructions in science documentaries and magazines of what ancient people looked like based on their bones. Until now, such reconstructions have missed a significant element of what you would have seen had you met the person in person–namely, what the person’s hair and skin color would have been.
Now that’s changing. A new gene-analysis technique allows researchers to determine what the hair and skin color of what many long-dead persons were.
Now if they could just use similar technique to determine the quesiton of the ages: what dinosaur skins looked like!