Science Special News

[Rasputin]

E.T. liable to phone any day

Intelligent life is likely abundant in the cosmos, and we will find evidence of it soon, according to one of the world's top experts on the ongoing search for extraterrestrial life. Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., gave a pair of talks in Athens last week about what his organization does to search for alien life, why he believes it is out there, and what might happen when we find it.SETI is a general acronym for "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" that can apply to any group that does such work, and does not exclusively refer to Shostak's institute."The bottom line is we will find E.T. in the next two dozen years," Shostak said. "I'll bet you all a cup of Starbucks on that." "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," of course, was the name of Steven Spielberg's popular 1982 film about a lovable alien.His prediction of such a specific timeframe relies on statistical projections of how many intelligent civilizations lie within our Milky Way Galaxy, as well as how his institute's searching capacity will continue to grow exponentially in the coming years. In fact, he said each SETI experiment usually gathers more data than all the previous ones combined.Shostak compared our generation to the generation of Australian aborigines whose 40,000-year "watchglass of isolation" was shattered when Europeans arrived in the 18th century.

He predicted that ours will be the generation to have our planet's 4 -billion year watchglass shattered in similar fashion.Shostak asked those who doubt the existence of life elsewhere in the universe to consider just what that would mean statistically.He said the currently accepted estimate of 100 billion galaxies in the universe, each containing 100 billion stars, means there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches in North America.

[Rasputin]

Faithful hoping for miracle cure

Hundreds came to St. Michael's Catholic Church on Sunday hoping and praying for a miracle through the hands of Dr. Issam Nemeh. Nemeh, born in Damascus, Syria, is a Westlake anesthesiologist. Dozens of people claim he has the gift of divine healing. He says he does not. "What we do is prayer, and Jesus does everything," he said. "I take no credit. God assigns you to a certain function. All the credit is the Lord's. I'm not worthy. Only the grace of God." People lined the aisles of the church's auditorium as Nemeh and his assistants, including his wife, Kathy, walked around to people in wheelchairs. They talked with people who walked with canes or who were being helped by family members. He hugged them, sometimes whispering to them, sometimes saying nothing. Others, such as Melissa Howell, 34, of Buffalo, N.Y., came to testify to the healing she says was made possible through Nemeh. The mother of two active children was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis two years ago.

She told of foot problems that left her barely able to walk, of the two lesions on her spine affecting nerves so that she felt tingling and numbness in much of her body. "I was at my breaking point," she said. But family members sent her newspaper clippings about Nemeh, and she called him and made an appointment in his office. "I didn't know what to expect when I went to his office," she said. "I just took all the faith I had and was ready to accept whatever God chose for me."

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

“M O N A L I S A, rearranged could spell out “Mon Salai” which means “my salai” in French or possibly “M on Salai” which is pretty cool since the painting of Salai does go over Mona!” There seems to be so many coincidences surrounding this painting and Da Vinci to not consider there to be something to all of these claims however fantastic they might seem. When asked how all of this could have been possible in a day when they didn’t even have the modern convenience of a light bulb Derek says: “Da Vinci is considered to be the greatest genius of all time, there was something special about his way of thinking. I think it was actually his lack of help that forced him to develop areas of his mind that no one else even knows they have. I believe he could actually dream during the day, actually visualizing anything he wanted.” Derek also makes the claim that he thinks Da Vinci might have been either Autistic or had Aspersers syndrome. A neurological disorder that isn’t completely understood but makes it difficult for those affected to relate to others. There are some with autism, called “Autistic Savants” who display some very fascinating talents such as being able to remember almost anything. The character in the movie “rain man” was based off an autistic savant. “There was something unique, something different about Leonardo Da Vinci. Not just in what he thought about but how he did. He saw things in a way that no one else could.” Derek has a lot of theories for someone so young and who only started researching Da Vinci a few months ago. He’s found it difficult to get anyone to listen to his theories due to lack of credentials. He says: “I don’t have a formal education in art or a certificate to back me up but neither did Leonardo and he’s regarded as the greatest genius so far. I think it was Einstein who said that if you haven’t contributed to human knowledge by the age of thirty that you wouldn’t!”

Derek’s not completely uneducated and studied Digital Media at a private college in Sydney Australia. He also went to Saddleback community college where he majored in philosophy. Derek has a lot of interesting theories that seem to ask more questions that they answer but has some pretty compelling evidence to back it up. He says the hardest part hasn’t been the research and discoveries but not getting any recognition for his hard work. “I had never even looked at paintings before all of this and came across this almost by chance. It’s been really hard to put so much effort into something that I would have never even considered doing a year ago. It’s also frustrating trying to get people to even look at what I’ve found, I’m not a good salesman!” Derek says his research and findings have been based off of Da Vinci’s notebooks and art and credits his success to understanding how Da Vinci thinks more than anything else. He’s reached the limits of what he can do on his own and says he’s lost almost everything in this endeavor. With the blockbuster “The Da Vinci Code” being released on DVD This month it couldn’t be better timing to release his research. There seems to be a growing interest in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and it’s only now that we’re able to understand how he created such amazing works of art. Derek is ready to move onto something else but can’t help but wonder what’s enabled him to see things and discover things that no one else has even touched on in 500 years, especially with no formal training other than reading Da Vinci's journals. “Although I never believed in such things before, there seems to be some guiding force behind what I’ve been doing. It could be something inside my own mind or something else – I’ve tried to, but I can’t explain it.”

Derek is looking for publishers for the books he’s working on. One on The Mona Lisa and another one The Last Supper which he says will shock the art world and help support Dan Brown. He’s also finishing up a book he’s calling Sfumato: Ancient art meets future innovation which contains his own art that’s he’s created digitally from the paintings of Da Vinci and Raphael. “It’s been an interesting experience. I’ve gone a little crazy, lost everything, but found myself. I've never felt more complete. I have so much hope for the future that I can’t help but consider everything I’ve found to be a gift. Hopefully all of this will enable me to do what I really want, which is to help other people..” Derek is definitely onto something and it will be interesting to see what comes from all his theories. He has his research on his web site http://www.itsjustlife.com and says he will keep it updated with his current research which includes discovering a new way to view the Last Supper with shows that the feminine looknig character is indeed a woman and holding a baby. He insists that this is just a painting and isn't interested in the implications beyond what Da Vinci painted.

[Rasputin]

NASA tries to save failed Mars probe

NASA is running out of options for fixing a failed Mars probe that has been snapping detailed pictures of the red planet for a decade, officials said on Monday. Mars Global Surveyor is the oldest of five NASA robotic probes checking the planet for signs that Mars once had water, which many scientists believe to be the key to learning if life ever took root there. Global Surveyor, which has found evidence of ancient channels and gullies that likely were carved by flowing water, stopped working on November 2 after it developed a motor problem while trying to move one of its power-generating solar panels. After two days of silence, ground control teams received a signal that the spacecraft had put itself into an emergency standby mode.

There was no information about what had gone wrong. Since then, the mission operations team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has run through nearly all its backup plans to try to contact the probe. This week, engineers are preparing for what may be their last chance to salvage the spacecraft.

[Rasputin]

Searching for 'our alien origins'

In July 2001, a mysterious red rain started falling over a large area of southern India. Locals believed that it foretold the end of the world, though the official explanation was that it was desert dust that had blown over from Arabia. But one scientist in the area, Dr Godfrey Louis, was convinced there was something much more unusual going on. Not only did Dr Louis discover that there were tiny biological cells present, but because they did not appear to contain DNA, the essential component of all life on Earth, he reasoned they must be alien lifeforms. "This staggering claim is that this is possibly extraterrestrial. That is a big claim I know, but all the experiments are supporting this claim," said Dr Louis. His remarkable work has set in motion a chain of events with scientists around the world debating the origin of these mysterious cells. The main reason why Dr Louis's ideas have not been immediately laughed out of court is because they tie in with a theory promoted by two UK scientists ever since the 1960s.

The late Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe have been the champions of "Panspermia", the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet. They speculate that life was first brought here on the back of a comet. Over the last decade, Panspermia is being taken ever more seriously. The US space agency (Nasa) is now increasingly interested in searching for extra-terrestrial life.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Voice of dead woman caught on tape

A strange voice captured on audiotape during an investigation of a home in Sanford, Fla., is believed to be that of an elderly woman who died years ago, according to a Local 6 News report. Local 6 was with the Peace River Ghost Trackers when they set up electromagnetic meters, temperature sensors and a slew of infrared cameras inside a historic house after reports that a woman was haunting the house. Paranormal investigators attempted to contact the woman.Local 6 News aired a 3:24 minute audio recording of a faint voice picked up on tape. It sounds like a woman who is singing. Past owners of the home said they believe the house is haunted by a childless woman who watches over children in the home and becomes agitated with any child is mistreated.

"Usually 99 percent of the time the spirits are friendly," a paranormal investigator said. "The might get your attention by making noises, touching you or poking."

[Rasputin]

Do UFO's exist in the history of arts ?

The desire to communicate is inherent in the man. It is a part of his own nature. Since the first graffito to the Renaissance, since the Baroque to the Impressionism, Art has been and it is the first form of communication, base of our civilization. Only with this Muse is possible to express totally our reality in a spontaneous way.It is almost unbelievable as by artworks or signs gushed from an hand one can know enough thoroughly aspect of cultural, social and political situation of the environment surrounding the artist. Actually Art can be considered as a book of history, culture and science telling the man in many of his aspects in a more complete form than an unique branch of knowledge. Since the beginning of man, humans have always felt a need to reproduce celestial events, first on the wall of caves, and then on canvas.

It is not a case that sometimes History, Arts, Archaeology and Anthropology have been often rewritten on occasion in light of new elements whose existence no one had previously suspected.From the past we receive strange signals of interference in our life and in our culture. Strange flying objects depicted in ancient works of art raise disturbing questions about our history and the role of man in the Universe.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Robot discovers itself, adapts to injury

Submitted by Waspie_Dwarf: Nothing can possibly go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ... The truth behind the old joke is that most robots are programmed with a fairly rigid "model" of what they and the world around them are like. If a robot is damaged or its environment changes unexpectedly, it can't adapt.So Cornell researchers have built a robot that works out its own model of itself and can revise the model to adapt to injury. First, it teaches itself to walk. Then, when damaged, it teaches itself to limp. Although the test robot is a simple four-legged device, the researchers say the underlying algorithm could be used to build more complex robots that can deal with uncertain situations, like space exploration, and may help in understanding human and animal behavior. The research, reported in the latest issue (Nov. 17) of the journal Science, is by Josh Bongard, a former Cornell postdoctoral researcher now on the faculty at the University of Vermont, Cornell graduate student Viktor Zykov and Hod Lipson, Cornell assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. Instead of giving the robot a rigid set of instructions, the researchers let it discover its own nature and work out how to control itself, a process that seems to resemble the way human and animal babies discover and manipulate their bodies.

The ability to build this "self-model" is what makes it able to adapt to injury. "Most robots have a fixed model laboriously designed by human engineers," Lipson explained. "We showed, for the first time, how the model can emerge within the robot. It makes robots adaptive at a new level, because they can be given a task without requiring a model. It opens the door to a new level of machine cognition and sheds light on the age-old question of machine consciousness, which is all about internal models." The robot, which looks like a four-armed starfish, starts out knowing only what its parts are, not how they are arranged or how to use them to fulfill its prime directive to move forward. To find out, it applies what amounts to the scientific method: theory followed by experiment followed by refined theory.

[Rasputin]

Human/Neanderthal DNA 99.9% identical

We may like to think we're far superior to the Neanderthals species that us humans beat in the evolutionary battle. But analysis of DNA from a 38,000-year-old bone has revealed Neanderthal and human DNA is actually up to 99.9 per cent identical. In contrast, humans and chimps only share 95 per cent of their genetic material. The discovery came as scientists work on decoding the entire Neanderthal genome from a perfectly-preserved artefect. Found in a cave in Croatia, the bone could hold the key to many of the secrets of evolution. Dr Edward Rubin, one of the US and German researchers who have started to sequence the ancient DNA, said: 'We are at the dawn of Neanderthal genomics. 'This data will function as a DNA time machine and tell us aspects of biology we could never get from bones or associated artefacts. Fossil remains have already shown that Neanderthals looked different from us, with heavy brows, low foreheads, and receding chins. They were also much more robustly built than modern humans.

A full blueprint of Neanderthal DNA - due to be produced in two years' time - could provide information on eye colour and hair colour, intelligence and language. The partial sequencing completed so far has confirmed the theory that humans and Neanderthals split from their common ancestor between 400,000 and 500,000 years ago, studies published in the journals Nature and Science report. The two then co-existed for many thousands of years before Neanderthals became extinct around 30,000 years ago, perhaps beaten by their more innovative cousins in the race for food, clothing and shelter, It is thought they were unable to compete with the more innovative and adaptable Homo sapiens for food, clothing and shelter.