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Black Cat

Have Scientists Finally Discovered Evidence for Psychic Phenomena?!

Melissa Burkley, Ph.D.
The Social Thinker
Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:31 UTC
Image
© NA

In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, the White Queen tells Alice that in her land, "memory works both ways." Not only can the Queen remember things from the past, but she also remembers "things that happened the week after next." Alice attempts to argue with the Queen, stating "I'm sure mine only works one way...I can't remember things before they happen." The Queen replies, "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."

How much better would our lives be if we could live in the White Queen's kingdom, where ours memory would work backwards and forewords? For instance, in such a world, you could take an exam and then study for it afterwards to make sure you performed well in the past. Well, the good news is that according to a recent series of scientific studies by Daryl Bem, you already live in that world!
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Calculator

Benoit Mandelbrot, father of fractals, dies at 85

Timothy Prickett Morgan
The Register
Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:55 UTC
An interdimensional explorer

Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractals, died on October 14 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 85.

The cause of death was pancreatic cancer, according to an obituary in the New York Times.

Mandelbrot fled Poland ahead of Nazi occupation when he was 11 and moved with his family to Paris. He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique under the mathematicians Gaston Julia, whose Julia set is a function of complex dynamics closely affiliated with a set of fractals now called the Mandelbrot set, and Paul Pierre Levy, an expert in probability theory.

After World War II, Mandelbrot got a Masters degree in aeronautical engineering at the California Institute of Technology and a PhD in mathematical sciences from the University of Paris; he did a stint at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton University after that, where he was sponsored by none other than John von Neumann.

In 1958, after a few years in academia, Mandelbrot became a mathematician at IBM's TJ Watson Research Center, a post he held for 32 years before retiring as an IBM Fellow and taking a teaching position at Yale University a decade ago.
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Igloo

Hefty physicist: Global warming is 'pseudoscientific fraud'

Lewis Page
The Register
Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:49 UTC
'Academia corrupted' by flow of green greenbacks

A heavyweight American boffin has dubbed the global warming movement "the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist", and resigned in protest from the American Physical Society, saying that the society has deliberately stifled debate on the subject.

The prof's resignation letter is quoted in full at the website of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the warming-sceptic think tank set up by former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and energy minister Nigel Lawson. The GWPF, apart from various British politicians, counts among its academic backers the renowned physicist Freeman Dyson.
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Control Panel

Power grid scare stories a 'bunch of hooey'

Lewis Page
The Register
Wed, 13 Oct 2010 14:45 UTC
Bloody difficult for your average villain to trigger blackout, say boffins

There have been a lot of scare stories in the media about electrical power grids in recent times, suggesting that it would be a simple matter to bring down a national transmission system by way of a minor cyber attack or physical sabotage - thereby bringing that nation's infrastructure to a grinding halt.

There's just one problem with that idea: it's "a bunch of hooey," according to power-engineering boffin Seth Blumsack.

Blumsack and his colleagues were moved to look into the matter of deliberate power-grid crashing after recent papers and studies in hefty journals - including some briefed to US politicians - painted a grim picture earlier this year. The perception was that making a targeted strike on a relatively minor electrical installation such as a neighbourhood substation (by bomb, arson or electronic/network sabotage) could easily bring down the whole grid to which it was attached.
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War Whore

'Men in Black' Computerized Grenade Launcher Heads to Afghanistan

Spencer Ackerman
The Wired
Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:42 UTC

It looks like a piece of riot-control gear. It's got a computerized in-board targeting system. It can kill someone from 2,300 feet away, while he takes cover. And it's on its way to the Afghanistan war.

The XM-25 grenade launcher shoots a 25 mm high-explosive round that's basically a "smart" grenade. What makes it smart? Sensors and microchips inside the round talks to the gun's guidance system, known as the Target Acquisition Fire Control unit, to learn where and when to explode, minimizing the likelihood of collateral damage.

Need to take out an insurgent who's popping out from behind a clay wall? Set the guidance for the distance to the wall and adjust a bit more for his body's position and fire - actually using Plus and Minus buttons on the side of the gun. Watch the round release bursts of shrapnel right over him. You can't do that with a regular mortar tube, even if you were able to shoot the mortar like a gun.
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Stormtrooper

Exoskeletons, Robo Rats and Synthetic Skin: The Pentagon's Cyborg Army

Katie Drummond
The Wired
Thu, 07 Oct 2010 10:04 UTC
Image
© The Wired
Cyborg Critters

From remote-controlled flying beetles to honeybees that sniff out land minds, insect hordes are now being programmed to do military bidding.

Pentagon-backed researchers have made rapid strides with moths, after a team at Georgia Tech figured out how to keep them alive long enough to be useful. Micro-mechanical systems, or MEMS, along with microphones or sensors, are implanted during the larval stage, and fuse with the growing insect's tissue. The moths can then be operated via remote control, and act as stealthy spies or biothreat detectors in hard-to-reach locations.
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Laptop

Focus 2010: Social engineering through social networks


V3
Thu, 21 Oct 2010 10:25 UTC
Focus 2010: Social engineering through social networks
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Pharoah

Pictures: Egypt Priest's Tomb Found Near Pyramids

Andrew Bossone
National Geographic Daily News
Thu, 21 Oct 2010 06:46 UTC
Image
© Meghan E. Strong, SCA

Rudj-Ka, the Purifier

A painting on the wall of a newfound Egyptian tomb shows the occupant, Rudj-Ka (right), and his wife. Rudj-Ka probably lived during the end of ancient Egypt's 5th dynasty, roughly 4,350 years ago, archaeologists say (ancient Egypt time line).

Artwork and artifacts found in his elaborate tomb, found in and along a cliff near the Great Pyramids at Giza (map), indicate Rudj-Ka was a priest in the mortuary cult of the 4th-dynasty pharaoh Khafra, who ruled from 2558 to 2532 B.C. Khafra is best known as the force behind the second of the three Great Pyramids and of the Great Sphinx. (Watch video of the Great Pyramids at Giza.)
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Telescope

Oldest Galaxy Discovered From 13.1 Billion Years Ago, Astronomers Say


The Huffington Post
Wed, 20 Oct 2010 13:15 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/NASA
This undated handout image provided by NASA, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows a small smudge, center, that astronomers believe is the oldest thing they have ever seen,light from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away
Astronomers believe they've found the oldest thing they've ever seen in the universe: It's a galaxy far, far away from a time long, long ago.

Hidden in a Hubble Space Telescope photo released earlier this year is a small smudge of light that European astronomers now calculate is a galaxy from 13.1 billion years ago. That's a time when the universe was very young, just shy of 600 million years old. That would make it the earliest and most distant galaxy seen so far.

By now the galaxy is so ancient it probably doesn't exist in its earlier form and has already merged into bigger neighbors, said Matthew Lehnert of the Paris Observatory, lead author of the study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.

"We're looking at the universe when it was a 20th of its current age," said California Institute of Technology astronomy professor Richard Ellis, who wasn't part of the discovery team. "In human terms, we're looking at a 4-year-old boy in the life span of an adult."
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Sun

MIT Introduces Solar Cells That Are Paper Thin

Tracie McDaniel
DailyTech
Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:09 UTC
Image
© Inhabitat
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have come up with a layer-by-layer manufacturing process that produces ultra-thin solar cells.

The cells are grown at low temperatures on ordinary tracing paper and could be placed on rooftops, developed as window blinds or spread over laptops.

The prototypes were used to power up a LED display at a news conference this week, a video demonstration can be viewed here.

According to Karen Gleason, MIT chemical engineering professor and lead researcher on the project, five layers of solid material deposited onto a paper substrate goes into the process of making a cell with each layer serving a separate function.
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