 |
| Total Page Views | |
We received
8516565
page views since Nov 2004 | |
| Login | |
| Shop Amazon | |
| Scifillian, Inc. | |
| SPOXTalk | |
| Stories By Topic | |
| Exploration | |
| Who's Online | |
|
There are currently, 13 guest(s) and 0 member(s) that are online.
| |
| Monthly Quote | |
"Scum always rises to the top, but instead of scraping it off and discarding it, most people follow it!?!"
--Sherlyn Meinz, 2008
| |
| Link to us! | |
| Anti-War Webs | |
| |
 | Screwed Again: The Hidden Tragedy of the CIA's Experiments on Children |
 by: H.P. Albarelli Jr. and Dr. Jeffrey S. Kaye, t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report
Bobby is seven years old, but this is not the first time he has been subjected to electroshock. It's his third time. In all, over the next year, Bobby will experience eight electroshock sessions. Placed on the examining table, he is held down by two male attendants while the physician places a solution on his temples. Bobby struggles with the two men holding him down, but his efforts are useless. He cries out and tries to pull away. One of the attendants tries to force a thick wedge of rubber into his mouth. He turns his head sharply away and cries out, "Let me go, please. I don't want to be here. Please, let me go." Bobby's physician looks irritated and she tells him, "Come on now, Bobby, try to act like a big boy and be still and relax." Bobby turns his head away from the woman and opens his mouth for the wedge that will prevent him from biting through his tongue. He begins to cry silently, his small shoulders shaking and he stiffens his body against what he knows is coming.
Mary is only five years old. She sits on a small, straight-backed chair, moving her legs back and forth, humming the same four notes over and over and over. Her head, framed in a tangled mass of golden curls, moves up and down with each note. For the first three years of her life, Mary was thought to be a mostly normal child. Then, after she began behaving oddly, she had been handed off to a foster family. Her father and mother didn't want her any longer. She had become too strange for her father, whose alcoholism clouded any awareness of his young daughter. Mary's mother had never wanted her anyway and was happy to have her placed in another home. When the LSD Mary has been given begins to have its effects, she stops moving her head and legs and sits staring at the wall. She doesn't move at all. After about ten minutes, she looks at the nearby physician observing her, and says, "God isn't coming back today. He's too busy. He won't be back here for weeks." ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Wednesday, August 11 @ 20:49:00 EDT (72 reads)
(Read More... | 40190 bytes more | 1 comment | Screwed Again | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Politics: Candidate appearances affect election outcomes |
MIT researchers demonstrate people around the world have similar ideas about what a good politician looks like
by: Peter Dizikes, MIT News Office
When you vote in an election, your choice is surely not influenced by anything as superficial as a candidate’s looks, right?
Right?
New research from MIT political scientists shows that the appearances of politicians do indeed strongly influence voters — and that people around the world have similar ideas about what a good politician looks like.
While few political observers would be surprised to learn that good looks earn votes, the MIT researchers have quantified a phenomenon that is more often assumed to be true than rigorously measured. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Wednesday, July 28 @ 17:56:47 EDT (83 reads)
(Read More... | 5224 bytes more | Comments? | Politics | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Space: Rensselaer in Search for Conditions of Life in the Universe |
NASA Grant Supports New York Center for Astrobiology
News Release: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
The New York Center for Astrobiology will widen the scope of its search for the building blocks of life beyond Earth with the help of a new NASA grant. Based at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the center is devoted to investigating the origins of life on Earth and the conditions that lead to formation of habitable planets in our own and other solar systems.
“We are looking for the conditions of life, rather than life itself,” said Douglas Whittet, director of the New York Center for Astrobiology and a Rensselaer professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy. The center opened in 2008 with support from NASA.
One interesting finding from its research thus far is that stars aid in the process of forming the more complex matter found on planets and in life.
“You need energy to drive the chemistry. A star itself can cook simple molecules into something more interesting,” Whittet said. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Wednesday, July 21 @ 17:19:19 EDT (75 reads)
(Read More... | 4284 bytes more | Comments? | Space | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| The News: Researchers make gesture-based computing interfaces more accessible |
New system uses single piece of inexpensive hardware and multicolored glove
written by: Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Academic and industry labs have developed a host of prototype gesture interfaces, ranging from room-sized systems with multiple cameras to detectors built into laptops’ screens. But MIT researchers have developed a system that could make gestural interfaces much more practical. Aside from a standard webcam, like those found in many new computers, the system uses only a single piece of hardware: a multicolored Lycra glove that could be manufactured for about a dollar.
The hardware for a new gesture-based computing system consists of nothing more than an ordinary webcam and a pair of brightly colored lycra gloves.
Photo: Jason Dorfman/CSAIL
Other prototypes of low-cost gestural interfaces have used reflective or colored tape attached to the fingertips, but “that’s 2-D information,” says Robert Wang, a graduate student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory who developed the new system together with Jovan Popović, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science. “You’re only getting the fingertips; you don’t even know which fingertip [the tape] is corresponding to.” ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Friday, May 21 @ 17:22:33 EDT (124 reads)
(Read More... | 5687 bytes more | Comments? | The News | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Space: New Research Suggests Venus is Geologically Alive |
From: MIT News Office
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For the first time, scientists have detected clear signs of recent lava flows on the surface of Venus.
The observations reveal that volcanoes on Venus appeared to erupt between a few hundred years to 2.5 million years ago. This suggests the planet may still be geologically active, making Venus one of the few worlds in our solar system that has been volcanically active within the last 3 million years.
The evidence comes from the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission, which has been in orbit around the planet since April 2006. The science results were laid over topographic data from NASA's Magellan spacecraft. Magellan radar-mapped 98 percent of the surface and collected high-resolution gravity data while orbiting Venus from 1990 to 1994.
Scientists see compositional differences compared to the surrounding landscape in three volcanic regions. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Thursday, April 15 @ 15:14:45 EDT (130 reads)
(Read More... | 4803 bytes more | Comments? | Space | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Health News: New Approach to Water Desalination |
Could lead to small, portable units for disaster sites or remote locations
by: David L. Chandler, MIT News Office
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A new approach to desalination being developed by researchers at MIT and in Korea could lead to small, portable desalination units that could be powered by solar cells or batteries and could deliver enough fresh water to supply the needs of a family or small village. As an added bonus, the system would also remove many contaminants, viruses and bacteria at the same time.
The new approach, called ion concentration polarization, is described in a paper by Postdoctoral Associate Sung Jae Kim and Associate Professor Jongyoon Han, both in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and colleagues in Korea.
The system works at a microscopic scale, using fabrication methods developed for microfluidics devices — similar to the manufacture of microchips, but using materials such as silicone (synthetic rubber). Each individual device would only process minute amounts of water, but a large number of them — the researchers envision an array with 1,600 units fabricated on an 8-inch-diameter wafer — could produce about 15 liters of water per hour, enough to provide drinking water for several people. The whole unit could be self-contained and driven by gravity — salt water would be poured in at the top, and fresh water and concentrated brine collected from two outlets at the bottom. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Tuesday, March 30 @ 14:05:13 EDT (133 reads)
(Read More... | 5308 bytes more | Comments? | Health News | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| The News: MIT researchers discover new way of producing electricity |
Phenomenon causes powerful waves of energy to shoot through carbon nanotubes
written by: David L. Chandler, MIT News Office
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A team of scientists at MIT have discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that can cause powerful waves of energy to shoot through minuscule wires known as carbon nanotubes. The discovery could lead to a new way of producing electricity, the researchers say.
The phenomenon, described as thermopower waves, “opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare,” says Michael Strano, MIT’s Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, who was the senior author of a paper describing the new findings that appeared in Nature Materials on March 7. The lead author was Wonjoon Choi, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering.
Like a collection of flotsam propelled along the surface by waves traveling across the ocean, it turns out that a thermal wave — a moving pulse of heat — traveling along a microscopic wire can drive electrons along, creating an electrical current. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Thursday, March 18 @ 22:45:47 EDT (128 reads)
(Read More... | 6092 bytes more | Comments? | The News | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Space: Exotic antimatter detected at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) |
MIT News Office
UPTON, N.Y. — An international team of scientists studying high-energy collisions of gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a 2.4-mile-circumference particle accelerator located at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, has published evidence of the most massive antinucleus discovered to date. The new antinucleus, discovered at RHIC’s STAR detector, is a negatively charged state of antimatter containing an antiproton, an antineutron, and an anti-Lambda particle. It is also the first antinucleus containing an anti-strange quark. The results were published online by Science Express on March 4.
“This experimental discovery may have unprecedented consequences for our view of the world,” says theoretical physicist Horst Stoecker, vice president of the Helmholtz Association of German National Laboratories, who is not an author of the paper. “This antimatter pushes open the door to new dimensions in the nuclear chart — an idea that just a few years ago, would have been viewed as impossible.”
The discovery may help elucidate models of neutron stars and opens up exploration of fundamental asymmetries in the early universe, says MIT physics professor Bernd Surrow. Surrow and members of his lab are part of the STAR collaboration, which runs the RHIC. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Saturday, March 13 @ 18:41:21 EST (142 reads)
(Read More... | 5035 bytes more | Comments? | Space | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Politics: Brain structure predicts ability to learn video games |
MIT News Office
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Researchers can predict your performance on a video game simply by measuring the volume of specific structures in your brain, a multi-institutional team reports this week.
The new study, in the journal Cerebral Cortex, found that nearly a quarter of the variability in achievement seen among men and women trained on a new video game could be predicted by measuring the volume of parts of the striatum, a collection of brain structures tucked deep inside the cerebral cortex. The study adds to the evidence that the striatum profoundly influences a person’s ability to refine his or her motor skills, learn new procedures, develop useful strategies, and adapt to a quickly changing environment.
“This is the first time that we’ve been able to take a real-world task like a video game and show that the size of specific brain regions is predictive of performance and learning rates,” said Kirk Erickson, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and lead author on the study. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Thursday, January 28 @ 17:48:29 EST (421 reads)
(Read More... | 5200 bytes more | 1 comment | Politics | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| The News: Mistaken Science Leads to Texas Executions |
by: Yana Kunichoff, t r u t h o u t | Report
An investigative report reveals that Texas continues to execute mentally retarded prisoners despite a US Supreme Court ban. The state has been basing its decisions on unreliable mental health testimony by a court-appointed psychologist.
In a series of articles in the Texas Observer, Renee Feltz reported the mistakes made by George Denkowski in psychiatric evaluations of a number of patients - and how catching a similar mistake saved the life of Daniel Plata.
"To those of us familiar with the right way to do these things," said Jerome Brown, a Texas psychologist, "it is very apparent that what he's doing is wrong." Brown was referring to the medical evaluations Denkowski did of inmates deemed potentially mentally ill.
In a Supreme Court ruling in 2002, Atkins v. Virginia, it was decided that "executions of mentally retarded criminals are cruel and unusual." The impetus behind this decision was that, although mentally disabled people can distinguish between right and wrong, their ability to control impulsive behavior or learn from mistakes was curtailed. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Saturday, January 16 @ 20:07:18 EST (162 reads)
(Read More... | 6375 bytes more | Comments? | The News | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Business/Economy: ‘Micro-ants’: Tiny conveyor belts for the 21st century |
written by: David L. Chandler, MIT News Office
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A new microscopic system devised by researchers in MIT’s department of materials science and engineering, in collaboration with researchers in Germany and Boston University, could provide a novel method for moving tiny objects inside a microchip, and could also provide new insights into how cells and other objects are transported around within the body.
Inside organs such as the trachea and the intestines, tiny hair-like filaments called cilia are constantly in motion, beating in unison to create currents that sweep along cells, nutrients, or other tiny particles. The new research uses a self-assembling system to mimic that kind of motion, providing a simple way to move particles around in a precisely controlled way.
Alfredo Alexander-Katz, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, his doctoral student Charles Sing, and other researchers, devised a system that uses so-called superparamagnetic beads (tiny beads made of polymers with specks of magnetic material in them). Due to the heavy magnetic material content, these beads sink to the bottom of the sample. By applying a rotating magnetic field, which caused the beads to spontaneously form short chains which began spinning, they were able to create currents that could then carry along surrounding particles — even particles as much as 100 times larger than the beads themselves. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Tuesday, January 05 @ 17:18:33 EST (182 reads)
(Read More... | 5145 bytes more | Comments? | Business/Economy | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Health News: New RNA interference technique can silence up to five genes |
written by: Anne Trafton, MIT News Office
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Researchers at MIT and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals report this week that they have successfully used RNA interference to turn off multiple genes in the livers of mice, an advance that could lead to new treatments for diseases of the liver and other organs.
Since the 1998 discovery of RNA interference — the naturally occurring phenomenon in which the flow of genetic information from a cell's nucleus to the protein-building machinery of the cell is disrupted — scientists have been pursuing the tantalizing ability to shut off any gene in the body. Specifically, they have been trying to silence malfunctioning genes that cause diseases such as cancer.
The new delivery method, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is orders of magnitude more effective than previous methods, says Daniel Anderson, senior author of the paper and a biomedical engineer at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Saturday, January 02 @ 21:34:27 EST (191 reads)
(Read More... | 3811 bytes more | Comments? | Health News | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Other News: Popular Animal Myths |
A real tragedy is happening on the shores of the Black Sea. Dolphins throw themselves out onto the shore almost every day. Local residents are convinced that a horrible ecological conditions of the sea is the reason. However, scientists from a Crimean laboratory in Brem who have been monitoring the situation for nearly 20 years explain that the brains of suicidal dolphins are infected with morbillivirus infection. The infection causes them to lose [spatial] orientation and strength. We know very little about the animal world.
Myth 1. Mice love cheese
Rodents will not turn down a piece of cheese but if they had a choice, they would always choose food high in sugar, like chocolate. This was proven by scientists from a Massachusetts University.
Myth 2. Rattle snakes make a cracking sound before an attack.
A hissing or a cracking sound is a warning signal a snake gives to an animal or a human. It means that the snake is very close and may not have enough time to escape. If the snake attacks, it does it in silence.
Myth 3. Cats meow to communicate with other cats ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Tuesday, October 27 @ 19:59:04 EDT (230 reads)
(Read More... | 3714 bytes more | Comments? | Other News | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| Space: Smallest Exoplanet Known to Man Looks Exactly Like Earth |
By Pavel Urushev
It has been long considered that nearly all planets in the Universe are gas giants. However, the latest research of the depths of space showed that this theory is rather doubtful. Astronauts often discover exoplanets that get closer and closer to the parameters of Earth. Pravda.ru talked about the discovery of one of these planets with Nikolai Potashev, an employee of The Sternberg Astronomical Institute.
A small unremarkable planet that doesn’t even have a name, just a number - TYC 4799-1733-1 - surprised astronauts. It turned out to be the smallest of all exoplanets known to this day. Although the “small” size is rather relative, it once again proves that celestial bodies similar to Earth are spread out around the entire Universe.
Now the celestial body located in the constellation of Monoceros, 500 light years from the Sun, is honored with a short name CoRoT-7 and together with its orbital body received the attention of the astronomic community. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Saturday, September 26 @ 22:33:17 EDT (207 reads)
(Read More... | 3819 bytes more | Comments? | Space | Score: 0)
|
|
|
| History/Culture: Cement's Basic Molecular Structure Finally Decoded |
Robustness comes from messiness, not a clean geometric arrangement
Denise Brehm, Civil and Environmental Engineering
In the 2,000 or so years since the Roman Empire employed a naturally occurring form of cement to build a vast system of concrete aqueducts and other large edifices, researchers have analyzed the molecular structure of natural materials and created entirely new building materials such as steel, which has a well-documented crystalline structure at the atomic scale.
Oddly enough, the three-dimensional crystalline structure of cement hydrate - the paste that forms and quickly hardens when cement powder is mixed with water - has eluded scientific attempts at decoding, despite the fact that concrete is the most prevalent man-made material on earth and the focus of a multibillion-dollar industry that is under pressure to clean up its act. The manufacture of cement is responsible for about 5 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, and new emission standards proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could push the cement industry to the developing world. ...
|
|
|
Posted by Blue1moon on Friday, September 11 @ 23:25:17 EDT (209 reads)
(Read More... | 6593 bytes more | Comments? | History/Culture | Score: 0)
|
|
| |
| Survey | |
| Please Visit | |
| Shop AlienLove | |
| The Fine Print | |
| Stone Tarot | |
| File Photo | |
| Things To Do | |
| The Forums | |
| Old Articles | |
| Tuesday, August 04 | | · | Jupiter, Solar System's 'Big Bully,' Takes a Punch |
| Friday, July 31 | | · | Life on Mars To Be Found in 2018 |
| Friday, July 17 | | · | Adult Brain Can Change Within Seconds |
| Wednesday, July 01 | | · | Thinking of you |
| Wednesday, June 24 | | · | The Vision Revolution: Eyes Are the Source of Human “Superpowers" |
| Saturday, June 13 | | · | Ultracool stars take 'wild rides' around, outside the Milky Way |
| Tuesday, June 02 | | · | New Jersey Slaps Gag Order On Environmental Scientists |
| Tuesday, May 12 | | · | World’s high tech giants unite to create revolutionary wireless technology |
| Thursday, May 07 | | · | ESA to launch two large observatories to look deep into space & time |
| Thursday, April 30 | | · | ESA's Old EO Missions Perform Sophisticated New Tricks |
| Saturday, April 25 | | · | Green Revolution A Failure in Africa |
| Thursday, March 26 | | · | Tainted Research On Genetically Altered Seeds |
| Monday, March 09 | | · | GOCE satellite launch – mapping the Earth’s gravity as never before |
| Saturday, February 28 | | · | Scientists learn to make hamsters charge cell phone batteries |
| Monday, February 16 | | · | Rensselaer Hirsch Observatory Invites the Public To See the Stars |
| Thursday, January 29 | | · | Astronomers Crack Longstanding Lunar Mystery |
| Wednesday, January 21 | | · | Liquid Wood to Replace Plastic |
| Friday, January 16 | | · | Landmark year ahead for Earth observation science missions |
| Monday, January 05 | | · | 2009 Russia Will Carry Out 39 Launches |
| Monday, December 22 | | · | Researchers Lay Out Vision for Lighting “Revolution” |
Older Articles
| |
|
|
Welcome
AlienLove Forums