Science & TechnologyS


UFO 2

Former NASA physicist says we should take seriously the idea that UFOs may be 'alien' visitors

U.S. military footage of Tic Tac UFO encounters
This image is from U.S. military footage of the Tic Tac.
Are we alone? Unfortunately, neither of the answers feel satisfactory. To be alone in this vast universe is a lonely prospect. On the other hand, if we are not alone and there is someone or something more powerful out there, that too is terrifying.

As a NASA research scientist and now a professor of physics, I attended the 2002 NASA Contact Conference, which focused on serious speculation about extraterrestrials. During the meeting a concerned participant said loudly in a sinister tone, "You have absolutely no idea what is out there!" The silence was palpable as the truth of this statement sunk in. Humans are fearful of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Perhaps fortunately, the distances between the stars are prohibitively vast. At least this is what we novices, who are just learning to travel into space, tell ourselves.

I have always been interested in UFOs. Of course, there was the excitement that there could be aliens and other living worlds. But more exciting to me was the possibility that interstellar travel was technologically achievable. In 1988, during my second week of graduate school at Montana State University, several students and I were discussing a recent cattle mutilation that was associated with UFOs. A physics professor joined the conversation and told us that he had colleagues working at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, where they were having problems with UFOs shutting down nuclear missiles. At the time I thought this professor was talking nonsense. But 20 years later, I was stunned to see a recording of a press conference featuring several former US Air Force personnel, with a couple from Malmstrom AFB, describing similar occurrences in the 1960s. Clearly there must be something to this.

With July 2 being World UFO Day, it is a good time for society to address the unsettling and refreshing fact we may not be alone. I believe we need to face the possibility that some of the strange flying objects that outperform the best aircraft in our inventory and defy explanation may indeed be visitors from afar - and there's plenty of evidence to support UFO sightings.

Cell Phone

It's not a conspiracy theory - your phone is really watching & listening to you, research finds

Cell phone
© Phil Noble / Reuters
If you've ever had the sneaking suspicion that your phone might be watching you, new research suggests you're not being paranoid.

Research scientists at Northwestern University in Boston spent a year trying to determine whether or not smartphone applications are secretly recording our private conversations to send personal data to advertisers.

Fortunately, the researchers did not find any evidence to support that long-held theory. They did, however, stumble upon another disturbing piece of information: While your phone might not be listening to you, it is watching you.

The study confirms that smartphone applications are recording video footage of our screens and taking screenshots of our activity and then passing those screen recordings on to third parties. The surreptitious filming even captures the users' personal information - sometimes even their postcodes.

Cassiopaea

Is there a connection between cosmic rays, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions?

cosmic rays
Scientists have detected a correlation between historic solar minima, volcanic activity, sun spots and climate change.

But taking the concept further, it does appear that cosmic impacts could trigger seismic activity causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

John L Casey and his fellow authors examine the history of earth quakes during solar minimums in 'Upheaval!: Why Catastrophic Earthquakes Will Soon Strike the United States' (Casey, Choi,Tsunoda & Humlum (January 2017).
"The authors make a strong case for grand minimums being a causal factor in triggering these strong quakes."
Volcanic activity may be attributed to the increase in Galactic Cosmic Rays penetrating deep into silica rich volcanoes. Several studies have shown this correlation along with historical evidence.

Comment: Correlation clearly does not equal causation but there does appear to be a link with all these phenomena and the increasingly erratic behaviour of weather and geologic activity on our planet: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?




Telescope

Dust storm swallows Mars

mars dust storm 2018
A martian dust storm that started in late May, silencing NASA's Opportunity rover, has now wrapped itself around the entirety of Mars, transforming the appearance of the Red Planet. "Mars has essentially vanished beneath the dust," says longtime Mars photographer Damian Peach of the UK. He created this animation showing how much has changed: [You can see the animation here]

"The animation shifts back and forth between a reference image of the Tharsis region taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft and my own image taken on June 28th," he explains. "The volcanic peaks of Tharsis remain clear, and also a dark spot in Valles Marineris, but little else matches known albedo markings, especially the dark/light streaks."

Comment: Video below shows the progression and extent of the Martian dust storm:



And it's not just on Mars epic storms are taking place, on Earth we're seeing the same kinds of extreme weather and similar is also occurring on other planets; it's solar system wide climate change.

Also check out SOTT radio's:


Laptop

Game-changing: AI tool for tracking human and animal movements has big implications

AI movement tracking
© Mackenzie MathisA mouse reaches for a lever.
Scientists are already using it to study octopuses, electric fish, surgical robots, and racehorses.

In a video, a rodent reaches out and grabs a morsel of food, while small, colored dots highlight the positions of its knuckles. In another clip, a racehorse gallops along a track; again, small, colored dots track the position of its body parts. In a third video, two human dancers circle around each other as those same dots unfailingly follow the sometimes fluid, sometimes jerky movements of their limbs.

These videos are showcases for DeepLabCut, a tool that can automatically track and label the body parts of moving animals. Developed this year by Mackenzie Mathis and Alexander Mathis, a pair of married neuroscientists, DeepLabCut is remarkable in its simplicity. It has allowed researchers to download any video from the internet and digitally label specific body parts in a few dozen frames. The tool then learns how to pick out those same features in the rest of the video, or others like it. And it works across species, from laboratory stalwarts like flies and mice to ... more unusual animals.

Comment: See also:


Doberman

Do dogs really understand our words?

Dog Understands Words
© Fred Ohlander on Unsplash
Scrolling back through my Instagram posts recently, I came across a short video I took last summer. I'm throwing a ball into a lake for my parent's yellow lab, Johnson, to fetch. Johnson is pretty excited about the whole affair - perhaps in part because after the successful retrieval you can hear my dad, sitting on the dock offscreen, praising his effort: "Good boy! GOOD BOY!!!"

This is a scene that probably sounds familiar to many dog owners. We talk to our dogs not only to praise them, but to ask them to perform actions, to identify objects, and sometimes to scold them. And for the most part, they seem to possess some level of understanding. Dogs are motivated by praise, and find this type of social reinforcement equally or more rewarding than food. Your dog may be able to react to many commands, and they may know some of their favorite toys by name. If you ask Johnson, 'Where is your ball?" he will search for it without fail. And Johnson's ability to retrieve his favorite toy is nothing in comparison to what has been reported in some other dogs, like a border collie named Rico that knows the names of over 200 items, or a dog named Sofia that can respond to combinations of two words to perform actions paired with specific objects.

But how dogs process human language was still unknown. To find out more, two research groups used a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner (fMRI) to see which parts of dogs' brains are active when we talk to them. They are looking for evidence that will tell us if dogs understand what words are, what words mean, and whether the areas of their brains that they use to process this information are similar to the areas we use.

Sun

Quiescent Sun: More than 3 months without a sunspot*

spotless sun quiet sun
© Solar Dynamics ObservatoryThe sun on July 2, 2018
"What if the worst is to come?" - Dr Carlo Testa.

"The Belgian department of solar physics research (SIDC) says we are about to touch 100; that is, a hundred days in which we do not see spots on our sun," says Italian meteorologist Dr Carlo Testa.

During a time of few or no sunspots (a solar minimum) the Sun emits less energy than usual, says Dr Testa. "According to some scholars this situation could lead to climatic upheavals."

Suffice it to recall, says Testa, that between 1645 and 1715 the most significant solar minimum of history, the Little Ice Age, occurred, bringing years and years marked by very strict winters that lasted until June.

Comment:


Network

'Parallel internet': Russia reportedly can create its own version of the world wide web according to Foreign Ministry official

internet
© CC0 / geralt
Russia has the means to create its own version of the Internet as a worst-case scenario contingency, according to a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official.

The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department for New Challenges and Threats, Ilya Rogachev, announced that Russia has the necessary capabilities to create an alternative to the Internet, Russian media reports.

Comment: Western sanctions: Russia ready to be cut off from internet with its own web


Pistol

Directed energy weapon: China develops a powerful new laser assault rifle

chinese and russian guards
© ReutersChinese armed police and Russian national guards take part in a joint counter-terrorism drill.
Chinese Armed Police units may soon have a new weapon, a portable laser beam that can reach targets from a kilometer away and is powerful enough to set flammable things on fire.

Although classified as "non-lethal," the infrared laser projector can "burn through clothes in a split second ... If the fabric is flammable, the whole person will be set on fire," according to a South China Post report. The device is called ZKZM-500 and has been prototyped by the Xian Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shaanxi province.

It weighs about 3kg, has an effective range of 800 meters and is powered by a lithium battery pack. It fires in bursts of no more than two seconds and lasts for over 1,000 'shots' before requiring recharge.

Rocket

Chinese media: China's super-powerful rocket under development outstrips Europe's, NASA's

Launching rocket
© AP Photo/ Cai Yang/Xinhua via APIn this photo provided by China's official Xinhua News Agency, a Long March-4C rocket carrying a relay satellite, named Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), is launched from southwest China's Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Monday, MAY 21, 2018
China is currently developing an ultra-powerful rocket that could deliver heavier payloads into low-Earth orbit than NASA's devices can, according to Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua.

By 2030, the Chinese Long March-9 rocket will be capable of carrying 140 tonnes into low-Earth orbit, which extend out to 1,200 miles above the Earth's surface, according to Long Lehao, a senior official at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

In comparison, Europe's Ariane 5 rocket can deliver 20 tonnes into low-orbit while Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy can catapult 64 tonnes. The Long-March 9 would also outstrip the 130 tonnes that will be delivered by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), which is currently under development and expected to become operational in 2020.