Science & TechnologyS


Telescope

A Hazy Future for a 'Jewel' of Space Instruments

Kenneth Chang
The New York Times
Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:38 UTC


©Brennan Linsley/Associated Press
The Arecibo radio telescope is a thousand feet wide and 167 feet deep

The next time an unexpected comet shows up in the inner solar system, Amy J. Lovell may not get time at the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico to observe it before it swings back out.
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Telescope

Asteroids may return after deflection


The Times of India
Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:35 UTC
London: A new study by scientists suggests that asteroids which are deflected on a collision course with Earth are likely to return for another potential clash.
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Info

Complacency Management

Jon Lebkowsky
World Changing
Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:08 UTC
I've been thinking a lot about risk assessment and management since my recent public conversation with Denise Caruso of the Hybrid Vigor Institute. We were talking about her latest book, Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet, a clear-headed assessment of the importance of risk assessment within biotech industries, where she found a troubling complacency about the potential for things to go Terribly Wrong when genetically engineered organisms are introduced into the wild.

Comment: The answer we offer is this: First we learn all we can about psychopathy. We then realize that some of the world leaders and many in positions of power fit the profile. Finally, we decide that we want to be ruled by people who are more like us, people who care about our well being and that of the global community; human beings who will network with each other and hire those of us who know and can help, to assist them in solving the world's problems and find solutions for potential problems and disasters that periodically affect our little planet.

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Bulb

Babies Judge Character Well

Andrea Thompson
LiveScience
Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:06 UTC
Even at just a few months old, babies can size up others and decide whom they'd rather hang out with, a new study finds.

©Unknown
Baby sizes up Bush correctly.
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Question

Flashback Biblical hero Samson may have been sociopath as well as strongman, according to new research


University of California - San Diego
Tue, 20 Feb 2001 17:19 UTC
Samson, the Israelite hero and judge who was undone by the temptress Delilah, exhibited almost all of the symptoms of a person with Antisocial Personality Disorder, known in the psychology trade as ASPD.

According to Dr. Eric Altschuler, Samson exhibited six out seven criteria for diagnosis of ASPD (as identified by the American Psychiatric Association in its diagnostic bible, the DSM-IV) and a person need only manifest three of the seven criteria to be diagnosed with the disorder. Altschuler, a physician and research fellow in the Dept. of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, is the lead author of the research paper, "Did Samson Have Antisocial Personality Disorder?" published in this month's Archives of General Psychiatry.

"Appreciation of the diagnosis of ASPD for Samson may not only help us to better understand the Biblical story, but it also may increase our understanding and awareness of instances when a leader has ASPD " said Altschuler, Also, we hope these findings encourage interest in the history of ASPD because the study of the history of a disease can provide clues to its pathogenesis."
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Magnify

In Georgia, a missing link?

Alex Rodriguez
Chicago Tribune
Sat, 24 Nov 2007 09:08 UTC
Remarkable finds are changing beliefs about human evolution and migration from Africa

DMANISI, Georgia - The forested bluff that overlooks this sleepy Georgian hamlet seems an unlikely portal into the mysteries surrounding the dawn of man.
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Magnify

Metal detector pair find Roman Briton skeleton

Gary Cleland
Telegraph
Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:02 UTC
The 1,800-year-old skeleton of one of Roman Britain's "social elite" has been discovered by two men with metal detectors who had already unearthed a £1 million Viking treasure.

©PA
Mags Felter of the York Archaeological Trust examines the skeleton
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Info

Mars' Molten Past


Mars Daily
Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:05 UTC
Mars was covered in an ocean of molten rock for about 100 million years after the planet formed, researchers from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, UC Davis, and NASA's Johnson Space Center have found. The work is published in the journal Nature on Nov. 22. The formation of the solar system can be dated quite accurately to 4,567,000,000 years ago, said Qing-Zhu Yin, assistant professor of geology at UC Davis and an author on the paper.

©Unknown
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Telescope

Oddball white dwarfs embody new category of star

Will Dunham
Reuters
Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:57 UTC
Eight unusual examples of a burned-out celestial object known as a white dwarf detected in our Milky Way galaxy represent a previously unknown category of stars, astronomers said on Wednesday.

©REUTERS/M.S. Sliwinski and L. I. Slivinska of Lunarismaar/Handout
An artists' concept of the surface of the white dwarf star H1504+65, released to Reuters on November 21, 2007.
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HAL9000

Flashback Are we living in a computer simulation?

JOHN TIERNEY
New York Times
Wed, 15 Aug 2007 12:35 UTC
Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else's hobby. I hadn't imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.

But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom's, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else's computer simulation.
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