Shameless Words from Shameless Geeks

Scientists are now telling us that evolution is speeding up. This is contrary to the prior theory that all evolution stops when the sick and genetically imperfect are allowed to live. The theory stated that there is no way to improve the gene pool unless genetically inferior humans were allowed to die. So much for the theory.

If we are evolving so quickly, why does it look like people are getting dumber? I guess that, while some of us are in the fast lane, others are stuck in a genetic traffic jam.

According to The Register, all six Russian computers on the ISS have crashed. As of now, the Space Station is being kept alive by using the computers on board the Atlantis as a sort of life support. No mention of which version of Windows they were running

Well, we don’t yet know who will build them, but NASA has chosen the name Orion for it’s new series of spaceships designed to take men back to the moon.

That’s all very nice, but I suspect this program won’t survive into the next administration. Despite the fact that the space program of the 60’s helped give us a HUGE technological jump over the rest of the world, too may people see space travel as an expensive white elephant.

As for my opinion… I think that the space program should be a high priority until we are able to colonize other planets. The fact that we are currently trapped on this planet is the biggest single point of failure that could spell the end of the human race. How’s that for the long-term macro view?

Though discovered earlier, the two new moons of Pluto have been named Nix and Hydra. If you read between the lines of this article, you will notice that Mickey Mouse’s pup was named after the Roman god of the underworld. What was Disney thinking?

…but how would you know?

Scientists in the US and UK believe that they can build a type of invisibility shield that would bend light around an object. They compare it to Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, but it actually sounds more like something from Star Trek.

I bet I know who is the first to use it… Some cop in a podunk town is going to make a fortune on speeding tickets.

This one gave me a laugh. According to Reuters, Chinese scientists hope to clean up their tarnished image now that a new U.S. National Science Foundation office has opened in Beijing. Rotsa Ruck.

Opening of the office is probably a good thing, but won’t serve that kind of purpose. No matter how much they try, scientists are no less corrupt than the rest of the world. I’ve worked among them and heard the things they will say when their budget is on the line. In fact, there are only two differences between a scientist up for budget review and the stereotypical used car salesman. 1: The salesman actually knows he is doing something wrong and 2: The salesman knows that he is doing it for himself, not some lofty and problematic cause.

If you add in all of the “studies for sale” statistics that roll out of the so-called “scientific” community, the term “scientific integrity” starts to take on a new meaning. As long as the scientific community continues to provide “qualified experts” that can show “absolute proof” of both sides of every issue, I’ll remain a skeptic about everything.

So… Chinese scientists don’t need anyone else to help them end all of their scandals. After all, they are only proving that they are just as human as the rest of us. Welcome to the real world.

A comparison of the human genome with that of the chimpanzee reveals that humans and chimps may have diverged more recently than previously thought, and that there may have been incidents of inter-breeding.

I suspect that several people I know haven’t yet made the split, preferring to spend their time in a room with an infinite number of their friends trying to fix Windows. Also.. the incidents of inter-breeding would explain the persistence of middle management and political parties.

Sorry, I couldn’t pass this one up. While surfing the web, I came across an extraterrestrial Armageddon reference at FiringSquad.com that I have to pass on.

It seems as if a crop circle last year was meant to warn George Bush that, if he adopted a nuclear first-strike policy, pieces of a comet would hit the earth and destroy all life. All of this was revealed to a former French air traffic controller in a vision. If this doesn’t sound like clocks striking the hour (for the slow: Cuckoo! Cuckoo!) and this guy doesn’t sound like a duck talking (again for the slow: Quack! Quack!), then we aren’t reading the same article.

My question to the learned… former air traffic controller Jean Ederman… er… sorry… Eric Julian is: Can I talk you into sharing those drugs? This is the most masterful mixing of mysticism, politics, and pseudo-science that I’ve ever seen. You managed to squeeze the war in Iraq, Bush hatred, prescience, Extra Terrestrials, and the plot from the movie Armageddon into a very entertaining package. I can’t help but believe that you had some chemical assistance with it.

Researchers have “trained” a strain of virus to form “nanowires” for miniature battery electrodes. It’s kinda cool to see the little buggers doing something that can be used to build a computer instead of just destroying it. No word yet on whether these viruses can be spread by IE

That’s not a typo… Researchers have found evidence of dentistry in Pakistan around 7000BC. Ouch.

Luckily, modern dentistry has electric drills and anesthetics to dull the pain. I’ll bet that one thing hasn’t changed… I’ll bet that they’ll find the same 5 issues of Field and Stream that my dentists has in his waiting room.

A faulty fuel tank sensor is being blamed for NASA delaying the next Space Shuttle launch until at least July 2006. You really can’t blame them for an abundance of caution. Another accident could be fatal to what’s left of the Shuttle program.

A High School student in Pennsylvania has discovered that anthrax in a letter can be killed simply by ironing it. That’s right… all of the doctors and toxicology specialists working on the problem have no solution, but a High School student does. Classic.

Does this mean we can all peel the plastic sheets and duct tape off of our houses now?

After a few scrubbed launches this week, the New Horizons spacecraft finally took off for Pluto yesterday. I thought it was a nice gesture for them to include some of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the scientist who discovered Pluto in 1930.

This time, the planned launch to Pluto was scrubbed by a power failure at the MD lab that will be running the mission. Sooner or later they will have to launch. Hopefully, it is before I run out of jokes about Mickey Mouse’s dog.

Scientists in London have recently indicated that men actually enjoy seeing cheaters get a mild electrical shock. Men don’t have any empathy for the cheater, and indications are that they feel a little rewarded. They do, however, empathize with an honest player who is unjustly shocked.

Well, I could have told you the part about men enjoying the show, but the fact that women don’t is a bit surprising. This whole thing gives me a great idea for an add-on to punkbuster. Wouldn’t it be great to zap some guy who you caught with a wall hack? Unfortunately, it could never be applied to CoD2… the number of cheaters in that game would overload the power grid and cause a nationwide blackout.

The scientific quacks at Clonaid offered disgraced South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk a job. Much as that sounds like the punchline to a bad science joke, it actually seems to have happened. You remember Clonaid… The UFO cult that claims to have cloned humans but refuses to prove it.

My guess is that, since Clonaid has never offered any concrete proof of their assertions, they need someone to make it up for them. Who better than Hwang Woo-suk?

Today’s planned launch of the New Horizons probe bound for Pluto was postponed due to high winds. The earliest chance to try again is tomorrow afternoon, though the weather doesn’t look promising. If the probe isn’t launched by Valentine’s day, then the mission may get postponed until 2015.

BTW… You didn’t think I was referring to Mickey Mouse’s dog getting a bath, did you?

The Story of the one-eyed kitten may or may not be a hoax, but the picture is so bizarre I just had to link it in. Go ahead and check it out. I’ll wait here….

Back already? Good. The only thing I can say is that I’m glad that the corpse of the unfortunate little kitten will not be appearing on eBay. I thought of a few other choice remarks, but none were fit to post

According to the academic panel investigating it, Hwang Woo-suk fabricated data to support the findings of his stem cell research. This means that the man who became a South Korean hero last summer did so by hoodwinking the entire scientific community. It’s sad too see this kind of thing.

Woo-suk’s prior claim of creating the first dog clone seems to be true so far. After having contributed that much to the science of cloning, committing such an act is just a shame. He has not only destroyed his own reputation, his actions will be used to cast doubt on all cloning and stem cell breakthroughs for quite a while to come.

Well, at least NASA intends to fix foam problems before they cause a crash. This time, they’ll just remove a section that protects a cable tray. No telling yet whether the new plan will cause a delay in the scheduled May 2006 launch. Obviously, NASA doesn’t want to sacrifice any more astronauts.

The big question is: when will they finally get a handle on this problem? Shuttles flew for 20 years before this problem popped up. What changed in the last 5 years or so that causes chunks of foam to start dropping off?

It looks like the sinking of the Titanic happened more quickly than originally thought. So… If the sinking only took 5 minutes, why did the movie drag on for 3 hours?

Wow… a bunch of propellerheads from Rice U. have created the world’s smallest functioning car. It has a working suspension and wheels, and is composed of a single molecule. At 4 nanometers long and 3 nanometers wide, it isn’t exactly something you would want to carpool with. No word on how many horses under the hood

According to scientists, Pluto may have three moons instead of one. My take on this is that astronomers must be the most obsessive of all geeks. After all, traditional geeks may argue about how many red-shirted sacrificial lambs were slaughtered by Star Trek, but they never worry about how many butts are on Mickey Mouse’s dog.

HeHe.

It looks like hurricane Wilma is one for the record books. It just keeps on setting records for intensity and pressure drop over time. Let’s all hope that this one dies back a little bit before landfall.

It looks like China has launched their second manned space flight. The fact that much of the equipment was purchased in Moscow means that this wasn’t much of a scientific feat. The extreme paranoia that surrounds Chinese technical advancement tends to take a lot away from any political points that the government may want to gain from it. Even so, it was a major event.

The main thing that the Chinese government showed here was that they have the willpower to undertake a large challenge. The people of the US and Russia should see this as a serious indictment of their own ability to advance in the current world order. They should, but they won’t, and of the 2 countries, Russia has the far better excuse.

We all know why Russia has trouble sending out Cosmonauts. They have fallen on hard times in recent years, and they simply don’t have the cash. It is really hard to maintain any kind of cash flow or scientific program when your economy and government are going through frequent upheavals. The fact that so much of the Chinese technology was purchased from Russia should be your first clue about the scientific programs of both countries.

The US, on the other hand, has absolutely no excuse. We have the finances, we have the talent, and we have the capability. Our problem is a complete lack of will in all levels of government. Our congressmen would rather spend their time trying to justify the fact that their local college should get a multi-billion dollar grant to study the sex life of rodents as part of an urban development bill. Instead of actually trying to get things done, our government officials spend their time soliciting donations for libraries that they can draw a salary from when they “retire” from government “service".

Something for those of you who don’t care: Do you really believe the extremely aggressive and hyper-paranoid Chines government when they say that they don’t believe in space-based weapons? When they drop the pretense and decide to launch their orbiting nuke platform, will we be able to stop them?

For the next few years, we are OK… However… It will take us 5 to 10 years to accelerate our program back up to speed. Where will the Chinese be then? It took us less than 10 years to go from first manned flight to moon landing. How long do you think it will take the Chinese when they can buy most of that technology from Russia?

So there you have it folks. Paranoid and misguided though they are, the Chinese government has the will to safely launch men into space. The US, on the other hand, spends it’s time making sure that the thermal foam sprayed on the Space Shuttle is good for the environment.

We have a winner in the DARPA Grand challenge! A VW Touareg finished the course in just under 7 hours yesterday, which is well within the 10 hours allowed. The fact that 5 vehicles finished the 132 mile race this year was a HUGE improvement over last year, when nobody got more than a few miles from the starting gate.

Congrats to the geeks of Stanford University, who have earned immortality in the minds of all Geekdom.

Tomorrow is the sequel to DARPA’s unmanned vehicle race. In last year’s contest, nobody won the $1M prize because nobody was able to cover more than 10 miles of the 150 mile course. That sounds like a cool contest to enter. Now if only I could get someone to pony up the $3M it would take me to win the $2M prize…

Have you seen Xena’s moon? According to the scientists who discovered it, Xena has a dim little moon named Gabrielle hanging around. For those of you who forget: Xena is the heavenly body that was recently discovered, and has caused scientists to re-think the definition of a planet. For those who forget the TV series, Gabrielle was the name of Xena’s dim little sidekick.

Whether or not Xena is eventually deemed a planet, it is pretty evident that some scientists have time to watch really bad TV.

This time, doctors are using games to help diagnose asthma in young children. No jokes here. Anything that can be used to improve the life of a sick two-year-old is OK in my book.

A couple of Japanese scientists have managed to photograph a live Architeuthis, or Giant Squid. Until now, the only things we knew about these monsters came from finding washed-up carcasses. It’s kinda amazing that a monster that can grow to nearly 60 feet long has managed to avoid us for so long. I guess the fact that they live a half-mile deep in the ocean helped them a little.

A University of Pennsylvania professor has developed a backpack frame that generates electricity from walking. As stated in the article, the device uses very little additional energy, but generates only a few watts of power.

If they could learn how to harness the power of snoring, I’d be a major energy supplier for this country.

Here’s one that could easily be put in the “I don’t want to know about it” category: A University of Georgia poultry science professor has developed a method of turning dark meat chicken into white meat. The process involves grinding, soaking and spinning the dreaded chicken parts until all the color and flavor are removed. The end result is then a barely identifiable bio-mass suitable for fast food restaurants and school cafeterias everywhere.

A house sitting robot named Roborior is now selling in Japan for the bargain price of approximately $2,600. It comes with IR sensors to detect break-ins, a cell phone link to notify the homeowner that he is getting robbed, and a cell phone camera to show him what he was robbed of.

If Roborior is able to prevent a major theft in your home, it might be worth the asking price. If not, it’s just one more expensive item to put on the long list that you give to your insurance company. (You DO have insurance, don’t you?)

Harvard scientists have figured out how to turn skin cells into embryonic stem cells, according to this AP story. This would be good news for all concerned. It would allow embryonic stem cell research to continue without all of the controversy.

The only catch is that the technology is in the embryonic stage (pun intended). Though current results look promising, nobody can really call it a ‘done deal’.

Well, we all expected this to happen. NASA has pushed the next shuttle launch back to no sooner than March 2006. The space agency intends to avoid the problem of 14 postponements that they experienced with the most recent launch. Hopefully, they will have enough time to find all of the foam problems with the shuttle.

Also:

A minority report from NASA’s Return To Flight Task Group is unkind to the culture of the space program. This unofficial report is an opinion of 7 out of 26 panelists that is not reflected by the majority. Basically, the report blasts the attitude that if a glitch hasn’t hurt a prior launch, then it is acceptable. The main report is much kinder, crediting NASA with meeting 10 of it’s 13 goals. I don’t know about anyone else, but this tells me that they missed about one-quarter of their goals.

Scientists in Singapore have developed a urine powered battery that is cheap and easy to manufacture. The intended use is in low-cost disease analysis systems that would use the urine being tested as the power source. Now thats what I call using your head!

Maybe I can take advantage of this kind of thing. If I drink enough beer, I can generate enough urine to light a small city! … and it is a much better use of the energy than trying to spin that little spinner in the men’s room urinal.

NASA launched another Mars probe today with the mission of finding evidence of water on the red palnet, and therefore, evidence of life there. I’m not sure if I want to know if there is life on other planets. Though it would be cool to try to communicate with an alien life form, I’m afraid of some of the other implications. If you’ve lived in the tech industry for the past couple of years, you know that as soon as life is discovered on another planet, someone will try to outsource to it.

The Space Shuttle Discovery landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base this morning. Welcome Home Astronauts!

Nobody really knows when the next shuttle flight will be. There is one scheduled for September, but that seems unlikely at this point. All shuttle flights will be held off until NASA engineers find a solution for the foam insulation problem that was the root cause of the Columbia disaster.

The repair of the Space Shuttle Discovery appears to have gone very smoothly. All that was required to remove the strips of protruding filler was a gentle tug from a gloved hand. It would have been nice to see the astronauts show their “hacking” skills, but it is probably a lot better for everyone that the repairs turned out to be so easy. There is a remote possibility that there will be another spacewalk later this week to repair a thermal blanket that was ripped during takeoff. If that happens, I’ll be sure to keep you informed.

In true hacker fashion, astronaut Stephen Robinson is scheduled to repair the space shuttle with the tools at hand, including forceps, scissors, a hack saw, and duct tape. Lets hope that he is able to do the job without damaging the thermal tiles on Discovery. I know that everyone wants to see them have a nice, smooth return to earth.

Scientists in California believe they have detected the tenth planet in the solar system. According to a few web sources, The new planet has already been informally dubbed Xena, though the name and the discovery will have to be approved. You may want to wait on that name though, just yesterday, web sources were calling the new planet Sedna.

There have been several attempts to claim a 10th planet before. There was even a push to find the hypothetical planet of Vulcan, which was believed to be inside of the orbit of mercury. If this discovery turns out to be real, we’re all going to have to get used to a new solar system model.

Though the media is calling todays news from NASA mixed, I consider it a bad day for the space program. The news is that Discovery successfully docked with the International Space Station, but NASA has halted further shuttle launches indefinitely. Lets hope they can fix the falling insulation problem quickly.

In what seems like a risky move, NASA appears to be down-playing shuttle damage that was found during an inspection. Wow… I really hope they know what they are doing with this. Another accident could easily kill the space program, which isn’t nearly as bad as what would happen to the poor astronauts.

In case you’ve been under a rock for the past few weeks, the Discovery made it’s triumphant return to space today. It was a beautiful launch (IMHO). You can keep up with the Shuttle’s doings by visiting the STS-114 Shuttle mission’s Wikipedia page.

By a margin of 383-15, The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly endorsed NASA’s trips to Mars and the Moon. You’ll always find sympathy for the space program here at ShamelessGeeks. Despite it’s costs, the space program stretches the limits of technology in ways that terrestrial sciences can’t. Many technological advances can be credited to the program often called “folly” by those who oppose it.

NASA will make another attempt to launch the Space Shuttle on Tuesday, according to this AP feed. The interesting part is that they may go with the launch even if the fuel gauge problem re-appears. It will be nice to see the space program fly again, but one has to wonder if they are taking too big of a risk with their return to space. An accident every 15 years is tragic, but unlikely to cause an outcry. Two accidents in a row would be quite a different story.

Slate has posted an article explaining how NASA figures out the launch window. The current launch window is set to the time that the shuttle can meet up with the International Space Station when it passes over Florida during the daytime. That window currently ends July 31, so the launch will have to take place before the end of July or it will have to wait until September.

Slate has posted an article describing a new periodic table of the elements that is starting to take hold. The new table was created by Oxford ecologist Philip Stewart to solve the grouping issues with the current periodic table. Stewart’s table still groups elements by size and type but joins the related ones together without all the confusion the old periodic table creates.

The launch of the space shuttle has been postponed until no earlier than late next week. This is a disappointing, but not unexpected, extension of the delay announced on Wednesday afternoon.

Oh yeah… Researchers at the University of Minnesota have found that there may be a way to reverse the effects of Alzheimers. I just wish I remembered what it was. I’ll be here for 2 shows a night for the rest of the month. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.

The launch of Space Shuttle Discovery has been postponed until at least Saturday, according to this Reuters article. The problem this time was a fuel sensor, that could have caused the engines to shut off prematurely. If there had been no problem with the sensor, there still may have been a problem with the weather. There was a 60% chance of thunderstorms in the area.

It’s a little disappointing to see the launch delayed, but I doubt that anyone will second guess the decision to postpone. The space program cannot afford another mishap.

The much anticipated Space Shuttle launch is on schedule for Wednesday. Hurricane… er… Tropical Storm… er Big wind Dennis is out of the picture, but Emily may become a problem. Even so, it looks like the launch is a 70% probability.

It will be nice to see NASA up and flying again. Lets just hope that the safety precautions pay off.

This Reuters post quotes a study on the effects of violent video games that found that the human brain may confuse simulated violence with real violence. As usual with these studies, there seems to have been an attempt to equate the playing of video games with aggressive behavior. Also as usual, there was no real link that could be established. Jack Thompson would be proud.

The daisy-sniffing, gun-hating, folk-song-singing, wussy crowd couldn’t use actual statistics to prove that video games were bad for society, so they have resorted to psycho-babble to try to sell their views. Sometimes, I just wanna nuke them all. Damn wimps.

According to an article on CNN, the Air Force turned up no traces of a nuclear bomb that was dumped off the shores of Savannah, Georgia in the late 50’s. Before you get all Tom Clancy on me, the bomb is not in the hands of terrorist or even usable. It is most likely buried beneath 8-to-40 feet of water and 5-to-15 feet of mud and sand and lacks the plutonium capsule needed to trigger a nuclear blast. Still I wonder if any three headed fish have appeared along the shores of Savannah like they do along the shores of Springfield in the Simpsons.

Space shuttle Discovery was transported back to its launch pad today in preparation for it’s return to space. If you’ll recall, the space shuttle program has been on hold since the tragic destruction of the Columbia in 2003. In preparation for this launch, the shuttle has been fitted with an upgraded fuel tank and an additional heater to keep ice chunks from forming. Hopefully, this will greatly enhance the safety of the crew.

U.S. astronaut John Phillips made history when he became the first astronaut to testify from space in front of the U.S. House Science Space Subcommittee. Part of his testimony was a litle bit of zero-g floating around just to show off. Leave it to a geek to show off in front of Congress like that. If it were me, I’d have spun around until I got dizzy enough to be sick. It would be cool to see the effects of zero-g on a technicolor yawn.

This US government has opened up the high-security Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee to private tours. Y-12 was the plant that made the enriched uranium for the “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. The tours do not show the entire plant but they do allow you to see the cauldron and machines where the uranium was made. Still, it is neat seeing all of the gadgets and toys, but it also scary to think a bunch of 18 years old were at the controls. I think the best line in the article was at the end when one of the controllers, Gladys Owens, found out she was making a nuclear bomb (she had no clue what she was doing back in 1940): “Mostly, I thank God the state of Tennessee is still on the map,” she said, with a laugh. “Because I was right here at the controls. At 19 years old.”

According to some scientists, although populations are getting older, people have more time remaining. I’m hoping this means that I can postpone my mid-life crisis indefinitely. If I can delay it forever, will that make me immortal? Will I be allowed back into Chuck E. Cheese? Will I eventually go all of the way back to an embryonic stage?

I believe the part about people acting younger. In fact, I have watched grown men devolve to a state of childhood with no more to trigger the event than seeing a nice sports car drive by.

Swiss Scientists have identified a hormone that can cause a subject to become more trusting after nasal exposure. Thats just wonderful. I can guess what will be found in the AC ducts at every political convention from now until the end of time. The fake smiles and limp handshakes were bad enough… now these guys have a way to trick us that we can’t catch them at.

According to this AP report, Tom Delay has indicated that NASA will receive adequate funding for Moon and Mars missions. This strengthens the promise made by President Bush that he will push for a mission to Mars, which will be preceded by a return to the Moon. Always good to hear that our government is going to finally pick up it’s space exploration program again. Many of the technical advances made in the last half-century were directly related to the space program.

In the latest issue of Time Magazine is an article about the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) and their conference in Florida. SSE does very serious scientific explorations into areas like UFOs, Bigfoot, and Loch Ness Monster. In other words, the more fringe and questionable elements of science. Before you laugh off SSE, the group is made up of several high ranking members of the scientific community, who feel we should take the time to look outside the box, and in doing so, question proper science.

Infineon if forming a team to explore a new type of computer storage called Phase Change Memory. In this type of memory, the material changes from amorphous to crystalline in order to store a 1 or 0. Sounds like a cool technology. We wish them luck.

According to this article from CNN, scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories are attempting to build the worlds most powerful laser. The scientist are building the laser to be the first to achieve fusion ignition, which is what occurs at the heart of the Sun and when a hydrogen bomb explodes. If the laser is successful at achieving fusion ignition it will allow scientist to test nuclear bomb theories out with out having to set off any nuclear bombs. All this sounds like the perfect tool for would be world conquers like Dr. Evil.

In a step toward the stuff of bad Scf-Fi novels, Cornell Geeks have created a self-replicating robot. It’s at a very crude stage, and it is the only thing that the robot can do, but the implications are pretty big. It’s not an inconceivable jump from here to a robot that can repair itself and other robots.

Bad Sci-Fi novels tend to portray self replication as the last step before robots discover that they no longer need us. Good Sci-Fi novels are much smarter, focusing more on the time when toasters learn how to turn themselves into six-packs.

This weekend MIT will be holding the first conference geared toward time travelers. So far no time travelers have registered for the conference, but the organizer are still hoping some travelers do show up.

If you are a time traveler the conference will be on MIT East campus courtyard at 42:21:36.025 degrees north, 71:05:16.332 degrees west. Please also leave a comment about yourself and time here on Shameless Geeks.

The return to flight status of the shuttle program has been delayed until late July due to continuing safety concerns. It appears that NASA isn’t convinced that they have sufficiently mitigated the risk, and they are especially concerned that they haven’t done enough to fix the problems that caused the last tragedy.

It’s been over two years since the shuttle was grounded by a tragic accident in 2003. We would all like to see the shuttle program start up again, but it’s hard to find fault with NASA’s caution about astronaut safety. The next window of opportunity is July 13 - 31.