Friday, May 27, 2011

When Science Fiction Becomes Science


The best is yet to come ...

Wait or it ...




Parts of moon interior contains as much water as Earth's upper mantle   PhysOrg - May 27, 2011

Parts of the moon's interior contains as much water as the upper mantle of the Earth - 100 times more of the precious liquid than measured before ­ research from Case Western Reserve University, Carnegie Institution for Science, and Brown University shows.

Moon's interior water casts doubt on formation theory   BBC - May 27, 2011



An analysis of sediments brought back by the Apollo 17 mission has shown that the Moon's interior holds far more water than previously thought. The analysis, reported in Science, has looked at pockets of volcanic material locked within tiny glass beads. It found 100 times more water in the beads than has been measured before, and suggests that the Moon once held a Caribbean Sea-sized volume of water. The find also casts doubt on aspects of theories of how the Moon first formed.



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Pyramid-Exploring Robot Reveals Hidden Hieroglyphs   Discovery - May 27, 2011



A robot explorer sent through the Great Pyramid of Giza has begun to unveil some of the secrets behind the 4,500-year-old pharaonic mausoleum as it transmitted the first images behind one of its mysterious doors. The images revealed hieroglyphs written in red paint that have not been seen by human eyes since the construction of the pyramid. The pictures also unveiled new details about two puzzling copper pins embedded in one of the so called secret doors or Gantenbrink Doors.

Researchers were also able to scrutinize the two famous copper pins embedded in the door to the chamber that had only ever been glimpsed from the front before. The back of the pins curve back on themselves. Why? What was the purpose of these pins? The loops seem too small to serve a mechanical purpose. The new information dismisses the hypothesis that the copper pins were handles, and might point to an ornamental purpose. Also, the back of the door is polished so it must have been important. It doesn't look like it was a rough piece of stone used to stop debris getting into the shaft. The Djedi robot is expected to reveal much more in the next months.



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New explanation for Hawaiian hot spot   PhysOrg - May 27, 2011

Scientists in the US have suggested that volcanic activity in Hawaii could be fed by a giant hot rock pool 1,000 kilometers west of the islands and in the Earth¹s mantle, rather than being fed by a hot plume of magma as previously thought.

800-Mile-Wide Hot Anomaly Found Under Seafloor off Hawaii   National Geographic - May 27, 2011



Hawaii's long-accepted birth story - that the volcanic islands were, and are, fueled by a hot-rock plume running directly to Earth's scorching core - could be toast, a new study hints. Scientists say they've finally found solid evidence of a giant mass of hot rock under the seafloor in the region. But it's not a plume running straight from the core to the surface - and it's hundreds of miles west of the nearest Hawaiian island. Until now, the researchers say, good seismic data on the region has been scarce, so there was no real reason to question the most obvious explanation: that a stream of hot rock directly from around Earth's core formed the 3,100-mile-long (5,000-kilometer-long) chain of islands and undersea mountains in the Pacific Ocean.



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Mini Black Holes Zip Through Earth Every Day?   National Geographic - May 27, 2011



Like cosmic ghosts, miniature black holes may be zipping harmlessly through Earth on a daily basis, a new study suggests. The new theory rebuts doomsday scenarios in which powerful atom-smashing machines such as the Large Hadron Collider spawn black holes that swallow the planet. Instead, the study authors think that tiny black holes would behave very differently from their larger brethren in deep space, called astrophysical or stellar-mass black holes. Despite having roughly the mass of a thousand sedans, a mini black hole would be smaller than an atom. At that size the black hole wouldn't swallow much matter and would instead mostly trap atoms and some larger molecules into circling orbits - in much the same way that protons in atoms capture and bind electrons. The study authors therefore call mini black holes with orbiting material Gravitational Equivalents of an Atom, or GEAs.





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Does Quantum Theory Explain Consciousness?   Discovery - May 27, 2011



Consciousness: How do you go about explaining that? Indeed, many scientists are currently studying what happens in the brain and how the mind relates to the outside world, but quantifying what gives us consciousness is proving to be a rather tough nut to crack. Is there some supernatural influence? Is it purely biological? Or is there something else, something more... physicsy?

Quantum theory can't explain all of life¹s mysteries

Are We Living in a Hologram?

The Holographic Universe   Crystalinks

Don't you think our consciousness might be explained by the Large Hadron Collider which is probing states of matter that existed immediately after the Big Bang, so it's bound to throw up some new physics -- don't you reckon it might uncover some sort of particle, or energy, that might explain our connectivity with the Universe?

Possibly inspired by the crazy science butchered in the TV series FlashForward - in which everyone on the planet gets knocked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, having visions 6 months into the future, after an experiment apparently went awry in a particle accelerator - my friend was quick to point out that quantum physics, by its nature, is weird, and consciousness is, well, weird, so there must be some connection. While this may be attractive -- after all, quantum mechanics brought us Schrodinger's-very-confused-dead-or-alive-(or both)-Cat -- there is a fundamental flaw in this logic. As Brooks mentions in his article, "strange quantum effects don't fit in with our everyday experience of the world, they have been invoked to resolve myriad things we don't yet understand, such as supernatural phenomena."







May 26, 1970


Joseph Fiennes

  Joseph Fiennes Google Videos

Joseph Fiennes is an English film and stage actor who

starred in the 2009 TV series FlashForward. Filmography






Time travel is mind-boggling.


If you could travel into the future you would know

that history and reality are an experimental science.


Once confined to fantasy and science fiction,

time travel is now simply an engineering problem.


Joseph Fiennes









Senior Citizens




On Memorial Day weekend, many Senior Citizens, who have served in the wars we read about, are celebrated. Cannonball Park outside my home, Fort Hamilton down the block, are among the many places that honor these former soldiers with parades, speeches and other ceremonies. Here in Brooklyn the parade always starts with classic cars for classy guys (senior veterans) who come to meet with old friends and remember the moment. Memories are just that ... a streaming screen of events that shaped our lives and made us who we are today. Some were good ... some best forgotten ... but all were part of the journey here.



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Where people are oldest - Maine tops Florida   CNN - May 27, 2011

Florida may have the reputation as a big draw for retirees, but it's actually the northern end of the Eastern Seaboard that has the most aged population in America.Maine's median age in 2010 was 42.7, the Census reported Thursday. That's two years older than the median in Florida, and more than five years above the national median age of 37.2.

Older people not as good at lying or detecting lies: study   PhysOrg - May 27, 2011

Older people cannot lie as convincingly as younger people, are worse at detecting when others are lying, and the latter is linked to age-related decline in emotion recognition, new University of Otago research suggests.



May 27, 1922


Christopher Lee

  Christopher Lee Google Videos


Christopher Lee is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films. Lee has performed roles in 266 films since 1948 making him the Guinness book world record holder for most film acting roles ever. He was knighted in 2009 and received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2011. Filmography




The allure of the Vampire will live on forever, today with The Twilight Saga...


Christopher Lee








May 27, 1936


Louis Gossett, Jr.

  Louis Gossett, Jr. Google Videos

Louis Gossett Jr. is an Emmy, Golden Globe, and

Academy Award winning American actor. Filmography






As we experience throughout the universe, we all play many roles in different forms.


Life is about what we learn from each one.

Louis Gossett, Jr.