Category: Science & Technology

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A British Student Has Their Heart Set on Giving Birth on Mars.

A 24 year old student is on the shortlist to go to Mars as part of the widely controversial “Mars One” project.

Maggie Lieu, an astrophysics student, is one of around six hundred people shortlisted with the possibility of becoming part of the first group of people to take permanent residence on Mars.

Everyone has their reasons, but Lieu has a very specific incentive, to be the first woman to ever give birth on the red planet.

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“It would be incredible to be the Adam and Eve of another planet,” she said. “Because it is a colonization program, it’s inevitable that eventually someone will procreate and it would be incredible to be the first mother on Mars.”

The first mission to place a man on mars permanently is scheduled for 2024, but as most projects involving the impossible go, there will enivedibly be technical and financial difficulties, especially with the amount of skepticism and criticism against the idea of the project.

Also, another minor problem, is that once you go to Mars, you can’t come back. The trip is one way because there are no launch pads developed on mars, and the money to build that on Mars is far out of the project budget. But for those who are blue, it wouldn’t hurt to see more red in your life.

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We Made the First Step Towards Making Star Trek a Reality!

They figured it out! The Star Trek transporter is here… at least the first step towards having one.

German engineers created a machine which can scan, decompose, transport, and recompose an object anywhere in the world with the use of a 3D printer.

These Germans were clearly Star Trek fans, for they nicknamed their new masterpiece, “Scotty”.

The machine basically breaks down the object layer by layer, transferring the data so it can be recreated with the 3D printer, so essentially, it’s not as much transporting an object, but destroying it and then recreating it with its data, all done with the press of a button.

With this technology, we can’t see this working on your pet cat or your roommate, but it’s a great step in the right direction to mastering true teleportation.

In the mean time, I’ll have some Philly Cheesesteaks sent to Austin please, Beam me up Scotty!

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We Will Live Forever…or at Least our Virtual Twins Will

I’m ready for immortality. Much to my girlfriend’s chagrin, I’ve publicly let it be known I’m willing to be put in a robot body, turned into a vampire, you know, whatever it takes. Well, except healthy eating and exercise, but I’m not a masochist, ya know? But now, the future is almost here, the Singularity, as famous futurist Ray Kurzweil has put it (who, btw, is now the Engineering Director for Google).

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The idea behind the Singularity, is that the rapid and exponential increase in technology will lead to a snowball rolling downhill effect where Artificial Intelligence becomes more powerful and more in control than human intelligence causing a radical change in civilization…or the end of it. Skynet, anyone? I think we better start hard-wiring Issac Asimov’s laws of robotics into all our home computers now just to be safe.

I hate to say it, but I might just be one of those who lead to the downfall of everything. As I said, I’d like to live forever and I realize that’s probably not going to happen in this meat sack I wear around. So what’s the solution for those of us who don’t necessarily think consciousness when separated from our grey matter means the loss of the hypothetical ‘soul’? Virtuosity baby. And it all begins…REEEEEAL soon. At least according to futurist John Smart.

“When you and I die, our kids aren’t going to go to our tombstones, they’re going to fire up our digital twins and talk to them,” says Smart. These ‘digital twins’ will exist during our own lifetimes as well, scheduling appointments, carry on conversations with others for us…pretty much the next stage in personal assistant apps like Siri or Google Now. Only when we die, they’ll be designed to have incorporated so much of our personality, quirks, and knowledge into them, that they can console our bereaved loved ones. Hell, a supercomputer has now finally beaten a human chess Grandmaster at a championship, and IBM’s Watson supercomputer won on Jeopardy…baby.

Imagine the algorithms that can do these things, taking all our writings on a computer, all our likes and dislikes on fb, all our emails, tweets, games we like to play, running all this stuff through a program designed to simulate consciousness, and really, ya know, kinda…becoming us. It’s not even vaguely far-fetched anymore, and in fact, predictive technology has become the major thrust of the majority of software development.

This is the first (big) step towards Kurzweil’s prediction that in just over 30 years, humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal. Like Johnny Depp in that movie “Transcendence” but hopefully more entertaining. Hmmm, 30 years huh? I might need to reexamine that whole healthy living thing to make that timeline.

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Jack the Ripper Identified with DNA! … well, maybe

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Of course it’s click bait for all demos… AMATEUR RIPPEROLOGIST SOLVES JACK THE RIPPER MYSTERY. Every tabloid, newpaper, website, has been running something on this story, and I can’t be surprised; I clicked on the first one I saw. And the second. And after reading several reports on it, I realized that maybe this case isn’t exactly as airtight as hyperbolic headlines would have us believe.

Here’s what happened: a businessman named Russell Edwards watched the movie “From Hell”, spent some ‘mad money’ on a shawl allegedly found near Catherine Eddowes body, and had the cloth tested for DNA. Blood and semen on it was submitted to mitochondrial DNA testing and it matched a descendant of suspect Aaron Kosminski. Edwards also claims other testing matched descendants of Kosminski’s sister.

So that’s it. We have a winner (?) Kosminski looked good for the Ripper anyway, since he lived in the Whitechapel district, had severe mental illness, well known misogyny and the Ripper crimes stopped after he was committed.

But hold up, Ripperologists…this ain’t over till it’s over (and it probably never really will be, unless we invent time travel).

–First, why is Edwards submitting his findings to The Daily Mail (a tabloid) instead of a scientific journal?

–Second. why has there been no attempt to present the evidence for testing to other scientists? So far, we’re going just on the word of Edwards and Dr. Jari Louhelainen, a senior molecular biology lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University.

–Third, Mitochondrial DNA isn’t exactly a reliable indicator when we’re talking about how many people handled the scarf, and how many people share the DNA coding after such a sizable divide in time.

This is just getting started. Check out more detailed explanations of these reasons and more at Mysterious Universe.

And I always assumed it was David Warner.

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Real-life Cullen Brothers Suffer From Vampiric Syndrome

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Ladies, here’s what you’ve been waiting for: the real life Cullens. Ok, so, not very much like Edward Cullen, played famously by the sparkly Robert Pattinson from the “Twilight” films. These unfortunate brothers, Simon and George Cullen from Suffolk suffer from the rare condition known as Hypohidrotic Ectodermal Dysplasia (HED). Like the fictional (?) vampires, they cannot be exposed to much light, as they have the inability to sweat and can overheat easily. More startlingly, they can never grow a full set of teeth and only have sharp fangs.

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The poor kids have had a tough life, as you might expect, with pretty much no going outside during the day, the attention from mean-spirited kids, and not as many shrieking fangirls clamoring for their attention as they may have been led to believe from popular culture. “Kids make fun of the way we look. But our mates think its cool. My friends keep trying to get me to change my name to Edward like the character in the Twilight film.”

The brothers make the best of it: hey, they get to stay in and play video games all day with no complaints. But the eldest, Simon, has had trouble eating with his teeth structure. “We’re hoping he’ll be suitable for a bone graft,” said Mandy. “Part of his jaw will be replaced with bone from his leg, which will have artificial teeth drilled into it. It will be painful, but it will give him a smile and we’re looking forward to it.”

…I think I’d stick with my fangs and soup rather than go through that.

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A Record-Breaking 232 Teeth Extracted from Teen’s Mouth

Ever go into the dentist with mouth pain? I did and ended up with a hour long under-the-gums cleaning that still is down in my books as one of the least pleasant experiences of my life. But now I feel like a real wimp.

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Meet Ashik Gavai, a 17 year old teen from India who went to see his local physician complaining of pain and swelling in his right jaw. Stunned doctors discovered that his gums were just forming extra teeth like crazy. This “very rare” condition was described by doctors as “a complex composite odontoma where a single gum forms lots of teeth. It’s a sort of benign tumour.” 

Thank god it’s extremely rare. And that’s not even the most painful part of the story…

 “At first, we couldn’t cut it out so we had to use the basic chisel and hammer to take it out. (editor: !!) Once we opened it, little pearl-like teeth started coming out, one-by-one. Initially, we were collecting them, they were really like small white pearls. But then we started to get tired. We counted 232 teeth.”

Seven hours of surgery…and the result:

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Ouchie.

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The Giant Hole at the Top of the World

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Scientists are confused by the sudden appearance of a giant 80 meter wide hole that has appeared in a remote part of Siberia (you know it’s gotta be remote if it’s the most remote part of Siberia) called Yamal, which means “end of the world”.

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Not a good omen.

A scientific crew is preparing to investigate but the reason for the hole’s existence is a mystery. Some experts say that from analyzing the images, scorching is visible around the sides of the hole which indicates ‘severe burning’. Enter the UFO folks, natch. Another expert says global warming is the cause with expanding gases under the surface that mixed with salt and water and BOOM…high school chemistry class on a massive level.

I’m certainly not thinking they’re going to find Atlantis or any other versions of the occasionally resurfacing Hollow Earth theories, but I admit to feeling trepidation as to what they’re going to find down there nonetheless. Where’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer when you need her?

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Cryptozoologist raising funds to study Lovelock Cave Giants

Despite my colleague Chris Cox’s article the other day (see A Bad Day for Bigfoot), I remain optimistic that there will be some proof of an unknown, living, upright-walking primate found — eventually.

As cryptozoologist Scott Marlowe points out in response to that article, “The researchers DON’T claim any sweeping generalization whatsoever. They are simply reporting on those samples they worked with — and say as much in the report.”

“Good science is about patience, not easy gratification.”

Well now Scott is putting his money where his mouth is (or more accurately, your money). Marlowe is starting a GoFundMe campaign to raise $10,000 to conduct a DNA study on the skeleton of one of the mysterious Lovelock Cave Giants. According to his GoFundMe page:

Having located the remains of one of the Lovelock Cave “Giant” skeletons, and verifying that the keeper of it is willing to permit me to extract a tooth for the purpose of doing a DNA study on the creature, I am attempting to raise the funding necessary to complete the expedition and subsequent DNA work upon it to determine its origins and phylogeny.

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In 1911 mummified remains were found by guano hunters in Lovelock Cave, a large rock shelter in Nevada’s Lake Lahontan region. According to legend, these skeletons belong to a cannibalistic tribe of red-haired giants.

Known to the Paiute indians as the Si-Te-Cah, these cannibals were at war with the Paiute until a number of tribes came together and trapped the Si-Te-Cah in Lovelock Cave, started a fire and asphyxiated them.

There may be some factual basis for the legend. During a 1924 expedition, some human bones found in the cave showed evidence that they were split to extract the marrow, which may indicate cannibalism. In addition several large fiber sandals were found in the caves, one measuring a whopping 15″. Now that’s a Big Foot!

If you’ve ever wanted to be a part of a potential new discovery, I’d say here’s your chance. To help Scott reach his goal, you can contribute to his study here:

Red-Haired Giant Research

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DEVICE TO TRANSLATE DOGS’ THOUGHTS INTO ENGLISH

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This news just in from Russia Today:

A group of Scandinavian boffins have gathered enough money through crowdfunding to try and bridge the gap between animals and humans by producing a gadget that can translate what a dog is thinking into plain English.

They claim that a new invention from Sweden, No More Woof, will be able to translate a dog’s thoughts into words.

A headset will be strapped to the animal’s head. The device will read EEG signals from the dog’s brain and software will then attempt to translate those thoughts into English.

Sounds exciting, but I think most dog owners probably already know what their dogs are thinking, as one commenter points out:

I already know what my dog(s) will say on this device: “MINE!”, GIMMEE!! GIMMEE!!”, “NO!”, “OUT!”, “IN”, I WANT IT!” “COOKIE!” “SCRATCH”, “INCOMING!!” and “MORE!”… .lol…that should be simple enough to translate in ANY language.

 

READ MORE:  http://rt.com/news/dog-thoughts-english-translate-063/

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ZOOBANK ACCEPTS KETCHUM’S NAME FOR BIGFOOT AS “HOMO SAPIENS COGNATUS”

Dr. Melba Ketchum's announcement of Zoobank accepting her proposed name for the Bigfoot species.
Dr. Melba Ketchum’s announcement of Zoobank accepting her proposed name for the Bigfoot species.

Dr. Melba Ketchum announced today that Zoobank has officially granted the creatures popularly known as “Bigfoot” the latin name: Homo sapiens cognatus.

http://zoobank.org/NomenclaturalActs/40E2FA1F-10A1-4D42-8B02-A007347F1B43

(And the race to the finish line starts heating up!)