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]

A real Da Vinci Code ?

For the last 500 years “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo Da Vinci has been one of the, if not the most recognizable pieces of art, and face, that’s ever been created. She’s inspired controversy, mystery, and wonder since 1504. The current belief is that she is a portrait of Maddame Lisa Giocondo, the wife of a wealthy silk merchant. There have been countless other theories but the identity of the sitter has been only one of the many mysteries surrounding this painting. The painting once held the world record for the worlds most expensive painting and today could be estimated to be worth almost a billion dollars, but that’s assuming the Louver would sell her. Some new theories have emerged about the identity and mystery surrounding the worlds most famous work of art but from a very unexpected source. Derek Bair, a 23 year old aspiring writer and photographer from Lake Forest California. He’s spent the last few months of his life trying to figure out the many mysteries that surround this painting and the life of Leonardo Da Vinci and thinks he's figured out who she really was.

“I realized that there was something special about Da Vinci that no one really explained in a way that made sense to me. What made him so curious? What compelled him to spend his entire life searching for the answers to life’s biggest questions? But more so, how did he come so close to actually figuring them out!?” His research started after watching the Da Vinci code but he had been interested in Leonardo before the book was released. Fittingly he read “How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci” a couple years back and says he felt that it helped channel his curiosity. “He’s been one of the only people I’ve been able to look up to that had the same immense curiosity about the world. Someone not satisfied with the answers the other people gave but needed to know for himself.” Derek says there are a lot of parallels in his own life and that of Leonardo. He’s always been obsessed with animals, horses especially, and drawing. He’s also kept journals which he describes as; “They’re immense, they’ve grown from a couple entries in high school to literally phone book sized or more each year after. They keep me sane and always listen! They’re my life! – Literally.” For the last few months Derek Bair has been researching and analyzing the Mona Lisa and other art by Da Vinci and Raphael and has come up with some very intriguing theories. Some of which include that the Mona Lisa is “encoded with information to render her in 3d” & “contains thousands of other images.” This might not be totally off based.
The Mona Lisa was x-rayed and found to have at least 3 other paintings underneath. Not only that but there are layers which consist of transparent oils that are invisible to the naked eye.”Why would there be layers on a painting that can’t be seen? Why would he keep covering up his favorite painting time and time again? What are those other paintings underneath? I doubt he would paint them – just to cover them up. I bet they’re meant to be seen” The Mona Lisa is housed behind bullet proof glass and in a climate controlled environment. This isn’t just for the paintings preservation but protection. She’s been attacked in the past by someone throwing acid on her, stealing her, throwing a rock, and cutting her. “I guess I’m not the only one who wants to know what’s underneath!” Derek’s many theories also include the assertion that Da Vinci could be considered to be the world’s first photographer. “I consider Da Vinci to be the world’s first photographer – he painted with such perfect detail and precision that his paintings, especially the Mona Lisa could not just be considered a photograph but something even more. Essentially a new medium that we can barely understand today, with all of our advanced technology we still don’t even know how he painted it.” Derek has been intruiged by the many mysteries surround the Mona Lisa including why the perspective the background is off. No one has really understood why it inexplicitly rises mysteriously behind her. Derek thinks this was just one clue to get people asking questions. He’s found that if you roll up a print of the Mona Lisa that you’ll see the edges match up. He also has doesn’t believe that the sitting is really Lisa Giocondo. “It’s definitely not her! She was used for her name and not her face. Just like Dan Brown used in his novel, Da Vinci was fond of word games and double meaning and “Mona Lisa” is no exemption.

The feminine form of Lisa Giocondo’s last name, Gioconda means “Light hearted lady.” Derek has found, not surprisingly that the exact center of the painting is focused on Mona’s heart and is also has the most concentration of light. He says that this is just one of the many clues that Da Vinci left behind to help someone figure out who “she” really is. One of the many theories of the true identity of the Mona Lisa has been Da Vinci himself. This stems from the fact that his own self portrait matches up exactly with that of the painting. Derek thinks this is no coincidence and after his research he’s found another painting that also matches up. The painting is of Da Vinci’s assistant and lover Salai, which is houses in a collection Alois collection in Lichtenstein. “I thought it was fascinating that his own self portrait would match up with a painting of a woman. I tested this myself and found that it didn’t just match up but combined in a way that produced new images. I actually started to write an entire book on the theory that it was really him as a woman but that ended up turning into something quite unexpected!” When thinking of various other theories to describe why his face might match up with the Mona Lisa Derek also considered; A daughter, his mother, or a sister. “I knew Da Vinci had it match up for a reason. A daughter made the most sense but considering that he never married I was left with the idea that it could have been a painted daughter. Then I wondered who he would have the other parent be. I remembered those machines in shopping malls that tell you what you child might look like after it takes a picture of someone and their partner – what if that’s it?” Interestingly after comparing the painting of Salai – Da Vinci’s lover it matched up with the Mona Lisa even more than Da Vinci’s sketch. “It was one of those moments in my life where I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I only considered it as an alternate theory and was stunned when the painting of Salai matched up over the Mona Lisa. It made me realize why he kept everything such a secret!” If Derek’s theories are correct then we might finally know who the Mona Lisa really was and also found another painting by the worlds greatest painter. In all of Da Vinci’s journals the name “Salai” was used most. It’s also present in the Mona Lisa.

[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]

Sea urchins genetically similar to humans

Sea urchins and humans have a remarkable amount in common—genetically speaking. Scientists already knew that the creatures, which resemble underwater hedgehogs, are one of only a few invertebrates (animals without backbones) on the human branch of the evolutionary tree. But a new sequence of the California purple urchin's genome reveals that the marine creatures and humans bear a striking number of similarities."Comparing all the genes of the sea urchin, it's actually quite similar to us," said George Weinstock, who led the sequencing project. Weinstock is co-director of the Human Genome Sequencing Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. The sea urchin is one of the few marine organisms whose genome has been sequenced. The study therefore also provides insights into the vital role of sea urchins in many marine ecosystems.

"Sea urchins are major grazers in shallow seas of many parts of the world's oceans ... and they are the main prey of many top predators," said John Pearse, a biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Results from the sequencing project and accompanying articles, including one by Pearse, will appear in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.

[Rasputin]

Was life on Earth inevitable?

The appearance of life on Earth seems to face so many obstacles — sourcing the right ingredients, for example, and arranging them into living things (while being bombarded by meteorites) — that scientists often feel forced to regard it as almost miraculous. Now two US researchers suggest that, on the contrary, it may have been inevitable.They argue that life was the necessary consequence of available energy built up by geological processes on the early Earth. Life sprang from this environment, they say, in the same way that lightning relieves the accumulation of electrical charge in thunderclouds.In other words, say biologist Harold Morowitz of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and physicist Eric Smith of New Mexico's Santa Fe Institute, the geological environment "forced life into existence".This view implies not only that life had to emerge on the Earth, but that the same would happen on any similar planet. Smith and Morowitz hope ultimately to predict the first steps in the origin of life based on the laws of physics and chemistry alone.

Morowitz and Smith admit that they don't yet have the theoretical tools to clinch their arguments, or to show what form this "inevitable life" must take. But, they argue, it probably used the same chemical processes that now drive our own metabolism — but in reverse.One source of geological energy would have been compounds called polyphosphates, made in volcanic processes. These are 'battery molecules', similar to those that now supply living cells with energy.

[Rasputin]

Mars mirrors could create Earth-like haven

Mirrors in orbit around Mars could create Earth-like conditions on a small patch of the planet's surface, according to a NASA-funded study. The extra sunlight would provide warmth and solar power for human explorers, but some experts say the mirrors may be hard to deploy.Scientists and science-fiction authors have long dreamed of turning Mars into a more Earth-like planet for future human colonists. The process, called terraforming, involves thickening Mars's atmosphere and increasing its temperature. But schemes to transform the entire planet would take centuries and would require enormous resources.Now, Rigel Woida, an engineering student at Arizona State University in Tucson, US, is investigating the possibility of "terraforming" just a small patch of the planet's surface by focusing sunlight on it from orbiting mirrors.He received $9000 to study the idea from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) in Atlanta, Georgia, US.The concept calls for 300 reflective balloons, each 150 metres across, arranged side-by-side to create a 1.5-kilometre-wide mirror in orbit around Mars.

The mirror would focus sunlight onto a 1-kilometre-wide patch of Mars's surface. This would raise the temperature in this patch to a balmy 20° Celsius (68° Fahrenheit) from Mars's typical surface temperature of between -140° C and -60° C (-220° and -76° F).The extra warmth would mean the astronauts would not need heavily insulated suits or living quarters, allowing them to work more easily. The extra sunlight would also boost power from solar cells.

[Rasputin]

Toilet links Dead Sea Scrolls to sect

Following directions found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeologists have discovered the latrines used by the sect that produced the scrolls, discovering that efforts to achieve ritual purity inadvertently exposed members to intestinal parasites that shortened their lifespan. The discovery of the unique toilet area provides further evidence linking the scrolls to Qumran — an association that recently has been called into question by a small but vociferous group of archaeologists who have argued that the settlement was a pottery factory, a country villa or a Roman fortress, but not a monastery.The Dead Sea Scrolls, the revisionists claim, were actually hidden in the caves of Qumran by Jews fleeing the devastation of Jerusalem during the Roman suppression beginning in A.D. 66.The majority of archaeologists, in contrast, argue that the scrolls were copies produced by a small sect, generally called the Essenes, who lived at Qumran.Because the location of the latrine was specified in two of the most important scrolls found at the site, its discovery provides strong evidence associating the settlement with the scrolls, said archaeologist James Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, one of the co-authors of a paper appearing in the international journal Revue de Qumran.

In 1947, Bedouin tribesmen discovered three ancient manuscripts in a cave on the shore of the Dead Sea, about 10 miles south of Jericho. Subsequent searches revealed about 900 manuscripts and fragments dating from about 250 B.C. to A.D. 68.Some manuscripts are copies of books of the Old Testament, while others are related to more mundane aspects of life.

[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]

9 billion-year-old ‘Dark Energy’ reported

A strange thing happened to the universe five billion years ago. As if God had turned on an antigravity machine, the expansion of the cosmos speeded up, and galaxies began moving away from one another at an ever faster pace.Now a group of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that billions of years before this mysterious antigravity overcame cosmic gravity and sent the galaxies scooting apart like muscle cars departing a tollbooth, it was already present in space, affecting the evolution of the cosmos.“We see it doing its thing, starting to fight against ordinary gravity,” Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute said about the antigravity force, known as dark energy. He is the leader of a team of “dark energy prospectors,” as he calls them, who peered back nine billion years with the Hubble and were able to discern the nascent effects of antigravity.

The group reported their observations at a news conference yesterday and in a paper to be published in The Astrophysical Journal.The results, Dr. Riess and others said, provide clues and place new limits on the nature of dark energy, a mystery that has thrown physics and cosmology into turmoil over the last decade. “It gives us the ability to look at changes in dark energy,” he said in an interview. “Previously, we knew nothing about that. That’s really exciting.”

[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.