http://spaceviews.com/boston/events.html
Thursday, February 3, 7:30 pm
"In Celebration of the Pioneers and Voyagers:
To Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Beyond"
by Dr. William Ward
The dramatic pictures of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
their rings and satellites transmitted to Earth by the spacecraft
Pioneer 10 and 11 (1973-1979) and Voyager 1 and 2 (1979-1989) are
the culmination of one of the major scientific and engineering
enterprises of our time.
It is rewarding to look behind the pictures to see how they came
to be and to learn what makes the spacecraft tick. We find that
these missions embody far more than science or technology, or both.
Every area of human activity stands in intimate relationship to them.
During this lecture/demonstration, we will build these Pioneer and
Voyager spacecraft for exploration of the outer planets, launch them
on their trajectories, sample the scientific data that they gather,
and marvel at the unimagined wonders that they reveal. Then we will
ask what it all signifies.
Pioneer 10 and 11 Web site:
http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNhome.html
Voyager 1 and 2 Web site:
http://vraptor.jpl.nasa.gov/
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Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 08:54:51 -0600
From: Brig Klyce <bklyce@...>
Reply-to: META@onelist.com
Subject: [META] Fossilized Bacteria in Murchison and Efremovka
From: Brig Klyce <bklyce@...>
At a conference in Denver, July 20-22, 1999, a pair scientists
from the Russian Academy of Sciences presented sharp images that
look very much like fossilized microorganisms taken from fragments
of several carbonaceous meteorites. The scientists are
Stanislav I. Zhmur, Institute of the Lithosphere of Marginal Seas,
and Lyudmila M. Gerasimenko, Institute of Biology. The conference
was "Instruments, Methods and Missions for Astrobiology II," the
third in a series organized by NASA's Richard Hoover. In December,
The Conference Proceedings became available from SPIE, the
conference sponsor.
I contacted Dr. Zhmur and asked permission to publish some of
those images on the Cosmic Ancestry website. He agreed. He
comments:
"Comparative analysis of bacteriomorphic structures from the
carbonaceous meteorites, Murchison, Efremovka and Allende,... and
morphology of microorganisms of modern and ancient terrestrial
cyanobacterial community showed that they are analogous. This gave
us reason to consider that these bacteriomorphic structures are
fossilized remnants of microorganisms. The lithified remnants
...are tightly conjugated with the mineral matrix, removing the
possibility that they are contaminants. The selection of
microfossils capable of being interpreted as biological is quite
wide. Some of them are demonstrated in the pictures."
See six photos with captions and additional comments by Zhmur at
http://www.panspermia.org/zhmur1.htm
--
Brig Klyce / Acorn Enterprises LLC / Memphis, TN
http://www.panspermia.org
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X-Envelope-To: <carlsagan@...>
X-Lotus-FromDomain: CWB
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 13:01:52 CST6CDT,4,1,0,7200,10,-1,0,10800,3600
X-OldDate: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 13:00:34 -0600
Sender: carlsagan-owner <carlsagan-owner@...>
Reply-To: "Carl Sagan List" <carlsagan@...>
From: "Greg Loeb" <Greg_Loeb@...>
To: carlsagan@...
Subject: Sagan: Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors quote
" If the Universe really were made for us, if there really is a benevolent,
omnipotent, and omniscient God, then science has done something cruel and
heartless, whose chief virtue would perhaps be a testing of our ancient
faiths.
But if the Universe is heedless of our aspirations and our destiny, science
provides the greatest possible service by awakening us to our true
circumstances. In accord with the unforgiving principle of natural
selection, we
are charged with our own preservation -- under penalty of extinction.
And yet we go from massacre to massacre; and as our technology becomes more
powerful, the magnitude of the potential tragedy grows. The many sorrows of
our
recent history suggest that we humans have a learning disability. We might
have
thought that the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust were enough to
innoculate us against the toxins there revealed and unleashed. But our
resistance quickly fades. A new generation gladly abandons its critical and
skeptical faculties. Old slogans and hatreds are dusted off. What was only
recently muttered guiltily is now offered as political axiom and agenda. There
are renewed appeals to ethnocentrism, xenophobia, homophobia, racism, sexism,
and territoriality. And with a sigh of relief we are apt to surrender to the
will of the alpha, or long for an alpha we can surrender to.
Ten thousand generations ago, when we were divided into many small groups,
these propensities may have served our species well. We can understand why
they
are almost reflexive, why they should be so easy to evoke, why they are the
stock in trade of every demagogue and hack politician. But we cannot wait for
natural selection to further mitigate these ancient primate algorithms. That
would take too long. We must work with what tools we have -- to understand who
we are, how we got to be that way, and how to transcend our deficiencies. Then
we can begin to create a society less apt to bring out the worst in us."
Ann Druyan, Carl Sagan,
Ch.21 "Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors",
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors(1992)
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(((dangers of meme inbreeding. ha-ha, only serious)))
Reply-To: "Andrew C . Bul+hac?k" <acb@...>
This was sent to a mailing list I'm on. I thought it was fascinating.
Whilst many of the observations made are about scifi fans, I suspect
that much the same would apply to many other groups who communicate
primarily in textual modes. In fact, this could be a fundamental
aspect of the "geek" archetype throughout history.
-- acb
----- Forwarded message from Karl Musser <karl_musser@...> -----
From: Karl Musser <karl_musser@...>
Subject: Fwd: About sci-fi fans and body language
To: Flat Earth Society <flat-earth@...>
I got this from another mailing list, thought you might
find it interesting.
> There is a large news thread on the subject in
> rec.arts.sf.fandom as well.
>
> Cally Soukup <soukup@...> wrote in message
> news:<7f5o9g$ft2$1@...>...
> >
> > This is my best effort at a summary of Karyn Ashburn's talk. I
> > promised to show it to her before I posted so she could make
> > corrections or additions. Since I emailed it to her sister Elise 10
> > days ago, I believe I've fulfilled that promise. I haven't heard
> > back from her yet, but should she reply, I'll be sure to post
> > whatever she has to say.
> >
> > Minicon Panel Report (VERY long)
> >
> > The best piece of programming I attended at Minicon was a panel, or
> > rather a lecture, by Karyn Ashburn, Elise Mattheson's sister. She is
> > a speech therapist, with lots of initials after her name, who works
> > with adult populations, many of whom are nonverbal or barely verbal,
> > and she isn't a member of fandom. As the sister of a member of
> > fandom, however, she's had an opportunity to observe us in one of our
> > native habitats when meeting Elise at conventions. And as a non-fan
> > and a person passionately interested in speech production, she's
> > noticed some common features in the way fans verbally communicate.
> >
> > We were lucky in that she hadn't shown up for her panel at 5:00 on
> > Saturday, which would have been in a smallish function room and
> > restricted to only an hour. Instead she was rescheduled for after
> > closing ceremonies in the ballroom, so a large fraction of the
> > convention members had a chance to hear her. Because we wouldn't let
> > her leave, her talk ended up being about 2 1/2 hours long, but she
> > still left us with a lot of questions. I recommend her as a speaker
> > to any convention. The bare gist of what she said follows.
> >
> > On those occasions when she showed up at a con to meet Elise, she saw
> > lots of fans in groups talking. To her they seemed angry and rude.
> > To Elise they seemed nothing of the sort. Observing them more
> > closely, she realized that they were using different social cues,
> > different body language, different eye contact, and even different
> > ways of forming vowels than what she jokingly called "my people", or
> > what for convenience sake I'll call mundanes. She hastened to say
> > she doesn't have a theory, or even yet much of a hypothesis for why
> > this may be (or a large enough sample size across populations to
> > prove that this is so), but she does have a lot of questions.
> >
> > She also seemed quite concerned that we would feel offended by what
> > she had to say, but what she told us was so interesting, and often so
> > recognizably true, that I don't think anyone was. Of course
> > everything that I'm about to say is an overgeneralization; different
> > fans possess these traits to greater or lesser degrees.
> >
> > First, the mechanics of actual vocal production, especially vowels.
> > The phonemes in the words "him" and "meet" are produced with the
> > tounge in various positions, and the lips stretched back. The
> > phonemes "uh" and "oh" are produced with rounded lips. This, at any
> > rate, is the case in mundania. Fans, she has noticed, push the
> > vowels forward; rounding the lips somewhat even for "ee" and "ih".
> > We use our lips a lot, but at the same time, we use our cheeks and
> > our chins not as often as would be expected. We stabilize the cheeks
> > and the chin, and we "prolabialize". (When, while sitting at a table,
> > I leaned my chin on my hands while talking to her, she became
> > uncomfortable. She can't do that easily; her chin moves more when
> > she speaks.)
> >
> > Second, fans articulate more than mundanes. She had various of us
> > stand up and say things, and then repeated them in "mundane". When I
> > said the phrase "talk to", she pointed out that I had pronounced the
> > "k" on the end of "talk". Mundanes, she said, wouldn't. We
> > pronounce more of the terminal consonents in a phrase than a typical
> > mundane does. We are more likely than mundanes to pronounce the "h"
> > in "where", and the "l" in "folk". (She seemed to think it was
> > rather charming; that we were preserving old pronounciations, or
> > reinventing them from the way words are spelled.)
> >
> > We also speak in larger word groupings between breaths. This does
> > not necessarily mean that we speak faster; we just pause for a
> > shorter time between words -- except where there is punctuation. She
> > pointed out that when Teresa Nielsen Hayden said she came from Mesa,
> > Arizona, Teresa actually pronounced the comma by putting a slightly
> > longer pause there, while most mundanes would simply run the words
> > together. Mundanes slur a lot of consonents that we pronounce
> > individually. We use punctuation in our spoken utterances.
> > Sometimes we even footnote.
> >
> > What we say in those large word groupings is also different. We tend
> > to use complete sentences, and complex sentence structure. When we
> > pause, or say "uh", it tends to be towards the beginning of a
> > statement, as we formulate the complete thought. The "idea" or
> > "information" portion of a statement is paramount; emotional
> > reassurance, the little social noises (mm-hmm) are reduced or
> > omitted. We get to the heart of what we want to say -- if someone
> > asks us how to do something we tell them, not leading up to it gently
> > with "have you tried doing it this way?"
> >
> > This leads us to body language. Our body language is also different
> > from mundanes. We tend to not use eye contact nearly as often; when
> > we do, it often signifies that it's the other person's turn to speak
> > now. This is opposite of everyone else. In mundania, it's
> > *breaking* eye contact that signals turn-taking, not *making* eye
> > contact. She demonstrated this on DDB; breaking eye contact and
> > turning slightly away, and he felt insulted. On the other hand, his
> > sudden staring at her eyes made her feel like a professor had just
> > said "justify yourself NOW". Mutual "rudeness"; mixed signals.
> >
> > We use our hands when we talk, but don't seem to know what to do with
> > our arms. When thinking how to put something we close our eyes or
> > look to the side and up, while making little "hang on just a second"
> > gestures to show that we're not finished talking. We interrupt each
> > other to finish sentences, and if the interrupter got it right, we
> > know we've communicated and let them speak; if they get it wrong we
> > talk right over them. This is not perceived as rude, or not very
> > rude.
> >
> > We accept corrections on matters of fact and of pronunciation; when I
> > asked her about whether fanspeak might be related to Asperger's
> > Syndrome, and mispronounced "Asperger's", I was corrected in
> > mid-sentence by the man sitting next to me, corrected myself, thanked
> > him, and finished the sentence. One Doesn't Do That in Mundania.
> > Fans understand that mispronouncing words one has only read is very
> > common in fandom, and not mortally embarrassing.
> >
> > When we make a joke, we don't do a little laugh in the middle of a
> > word to signal that it's funny; we inhale and exhale a very fast,
> > short breath at the end of the sentence, rather like a suppressed
> > beginning of a laugh, or a kind of a gasp.
> >
> > She didn't get much into why this is all the case (I think she was
> > surprised at the laughter when she suggested diffidently that we
> > might be a bit under socialized. No, really?? <grin>), and turned
> > away questions about possible pathology. While more comfortable with
> > us now, I suspect she was probably still worried about offending us.
> > She did suggest that many of the common features of fanspeak seem to
> > be related to thinking in "written English".
> >
> > The day before, while waiting for her sister to show up, Elise had
> > suggested that perhaps the overuse of the lips and underuse of cheeks
> > and chin had come from very small children wanting to communicate
> > complex ideas to grownups; the facial muscles still being
> > underdeveloped, the easiest way to articulate would be to concentrate
> > on the lips, holding the cheeks and chin still as a way to reduce the
> > complexity of word formation.
> >
> > I hope others who were at the panel can expand upon what I've
> > reported, especially the parts I may have ommited. It truly was the
> > most interesting lecture or panel I've ever attended, and I can't
> > recommend her too highly if you can convince her to speak at a
> > convention you're involved with. It would both give her more test
> > subjects and us more cool information <grin>.
=====
Rev. Karl Musser, Episkopos of the Cartographer's Conspiracy Cabal
When we laugh, we're indestructable -Joy Harjo
http://www.fantasymaps.com/ccc@...
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
flat-earth mailing list
flat-earth@...http://lists.very.net/mailman/listinfo/flat-earth
----- End forwarded message -----
--
http://dev.null.org/ A thousand worlds and every world's a door.
The lights go out; I think I think of you,
But in these times it's so hard to be sure.
( Neil Gaiman, _Luther's Villanelle_ )
From: Bruce Sterling <bruces@...>
Dioxide
Key concepts: biotech, methanol, carbon-dioxide,
vaporware, Carbondale
Attention Conservation Notice: People in Carbondale are
doing something strange with carbon dioxide and an
artificial liver.
Links: New Scientist magazine, 29 January 02000
http://NewScientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns2223110
Entries in the "Dead Mike" Design contest:
http://www.earthlight.co.nz/~bretts/dm.htmlhttp://www.spaceways.de/Viridian/deadmike.htmlhttp://users.erols.com/ljaurbach/MikeCycle.htmhttp://www.stewarts.org/users/stewarts/deadmike.htmlhttp://www.interlog.com/~shamann
Some stranger named Mike is publicly celebrating
his mortality:
http://www.deadmike.com
Viridian contests archive:
http://www.bomoco.com/Viridian/viridian.htm
This contest expires February 15, 02000.
**********************************************************
(((bruces remarks: NEW SCIENTIST is a darling of Viridian
readers, many of whom sent in this report. The estimable
bonkydog@..., however, took the trouble to *fully
annotate* the note, in fine Viridian style. His remarks
follow.)))
From: bonkydog@...^^^* (Brian Jenkins)
Subject: Upstream from the Fuel Cell
Key concepts: biotech, methanol, carbon-dioxide reduction,
liver.
Attention Conservation Notice: It's a description of a
technology that doesn't quite work yet.
"Burning backwards
"Could cunning chemistry keep carbon emissions in check?"
((( "Cunning" is surely one of virtues most deeply admired
by Viridians.)))
"An enzyme that breaks down alcohol in the liver could
be used to recycle carbon, rather than pumping ever more
into the atmosphere, say chemists in Illinois. They have
developed a more efficient way of turning the greenhouse
gas carbon dioxide into methanol using the enzyme.
"Invented by Bakul Dave and Robyn Obert of the
Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, the process
effectively reverses the chemistry of burning. It
promises to be a highly efficient way to produce methanol,
a clean-burning fuel that can be used to power cars.
What's more, if the energy needed to drive the process
came from sources that don't generate CO2, this fuel
could be produced and used without adding to the
greenhouse effect.
"To make methanol, the liver enzyme and two bacterial
enzymes are embedded in a sponge-like, glassy material,
which is placed in water. When CO2 is bubbled through the
water, one of the bacterial enzymes, formate
dehydrogenase, converts CO2 into formic acid. Then
another, formaldehyde dehydrogenase, transforms the formic
acid into formaldehyde. Finally, alcohol dehydrogenase,
which normally helps our livers to detoxify alcohol,
completes the reaction by turning the formaldehyde into
methanol.
((( Now all we need is one more enzyme, and we'll all be
talking on solar-fueled boozephones.)))
"Each of the enzyme reactions is reversible, so to
drive the process in the right direction, the Illinois
team adds a fourth, electron-donating ingredient called
nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH).
"The spongy glass, a substance called a silica sol-
gel, is the key to the reaction's success. It contains
millions of microscopic pores that act as mini-reactors.
By mixing the enzymes with the liquid gel, Dave and Obert
successfully locked them into the structure. 'When it
solidifies, the enzymes get trapped,' says Dave. 'The
enzymes can't get in or out, but the small reactants can,'
he says. So CO2 and NADH can get in, and methanol can
diffuse out.
((( I like the idea of "spongy glass". I wonder what it
feels like.)))
"To make the process practical, the NADH will have to
be recycled by constantly replenishing the electrons it
feeds to the enzymes. Dave and Obert say this might be
possible if the sol-gel is made from materials which
conduct electricity and feed electrons back into the
system. 'The idea is that you'd feed in current
directly,' says Dave. (...)
(((This can't be much harder than making a pump-less fuel
cell the size of a postage stamp. )))
"If Dave and Obert can solve the remaining problems,
it might be possible to recycle the CO2 from, say, power
stations." (...)
O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O
IT'S 2000 AD, AND A FAKE LIVER AND SOME VOLTAGE CAN TURN
CO2 INTO FUEL. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE IN CARBONDALE
O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O
From: gvwilson@...
[Note: this is somewhat off-topic, but given that the project is being
sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory, and is trying to build tools
that will be useful to scientists and engineers, this list seemed like an
appropriate venue.]
The Software Carpentry project is pleased to announce its first Open
Source design competition, with prizes totaling $100,000. Students
and professionals from any country, working individually or in teams,
are invited to submit design outlines for:
* a platform inspection tool to replace autoconf;
* a dependency management tool to replace make;
* an issue tracking system; and
* a unit and regression testing harness.
Participants may submit separate entries in one or more categories by
March 31, 2000. Entries must be in English, and no more than 5000 words
long. The best four entries in each category will be awarded $2500, and
invited to submit full designs by June 1, 2000. The best design in each
category will then receive an additional $7500, while runners-up will each
receive $2500.
Once winning designs have been announced, $200,000 will be available
through open bidding for implementation, testing, and documentation. All
of the project's work will be Open Source; all tools will be written in,
or scriptable with, Python, and will be required to run on both Linux and
Microsoft Windows NT.
The competition will be judged by a panel that includes the following
noted software developers, authors, and computational scientists:
Stephen Adler Brookhaven National Laboratory
Frank Alexander Los Alamos National Laboratory
Donnie Barnes Red Hat
Chris DiBona VA Linux
Paul Dubois Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Andrew Hunt Pragmatic Programmers, LLC
Stephen R. Lee Los Alamos National Laboratory
Josh MacDonald University of California, Berkeley
Brian Marick Reliable Software Technologies
Doug Mewhort Queen's University
Bruce Perens co-founder of the Open Source Initiative
Dave Thomas Pragmatic Programmers, LLC
Jon Udell author of Practical Internet Groupware
Guido van Rossum inventor of Python
Tom Van Vleck TransIlluminant
Phil Wadler Bell Labs
Scot Wingo AuctionRover
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Software Carpentry project is sponsored by the Advanced Computing
Laboratory at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National
Laboratory (http://www.acl.lanl.gov), and administered by
CodeSourcery, LLC (http://www.codesourcery.com). The project's aim is
to encourage adoption of better software development practices by
making software tools easier to use, and by documenting design,
testing, and related activities. For more information on the project,
or to let us know that you intend to submit a proposal, see
http://www.software-carpentry.com, or mail info@....
=========== Bioperl Project Mailing List Message Footer =======
Project URL: http://bio.perl.org
For info about how to (un)subscribe, where messages are archived, etc:
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From: Dave Farber <farber@...>
"Those of us, who've wished for a way to work effectively with remote
collaborators without long flights, will be interested in a project, which
I am advising. This development effort will create a unique workstation
for knowledge work and shared access to documents and electronic
tools. The resulting hardware/software platform will enable professionals
to carry on efficient working meetings from their home to any similarly
equipped site in the world.
This systems concept was developed by Ira Laefsky, a former grad student at
Penn, with technology integration experience at Arthur D. Little and
Digital Equipment. The concept has already received favorable attention
from the NASA Ames Research Center and industry contacts in the computer
and pharmaceutical industries.
>
>"The Digital Carrel is a novel workstation architecture to support
>electronic intellectual work and collaboration in demanding analytical
>tasks. It will offer a flexible and sophisticated workplace for problem
>solving by geographically dispersed teams, allowing them to simultaneously
>create, process and manipulate the electronic documents, multimedia and
>Internet resources now essential in intellectual and collaborative
>activities. This workstation will employ advanced software and display
>technologies to create a common space where knowledge assets can be shared
>and accessed effectively. It will enable remote team members to
>communicate as effectively as in a face-to-face meeting, while being able
>to view and interact with documents, images and objects at a physical desktop.
>
>The Digital Carrel will offer an attractive and ergonomically designed
>workspace with high quality displays and input devices arranged to
>facilitate natural conversation and effectiveness in reading, drawing,
>document markup and review of graphical materials. While the workstation
>and user interface will present a uniquely suitable environment for
>intellectual work, the underlying architecture can be assembled with
>off-the-shelf microcomputer components and medium to broadband
>communications. This will allow users to share the documents and files
>they create on conventional workstations and to employ existing
>infrastructure."
>
>
>We are eager to hear from IP subscribers and organizations that might be
>interested in the application or implementation of this project. You can
>reach Ira at laefsky@...; please include a contact phone number."
>
> If you prefer you can contact me.
>
>Dave
>
From: Simon Mansfield <simon@...>
------------------------------------------------
SPACEDAILY EXPRESS JANUARY 31, 2000
------------------------------------------------
- Shuttle Gets Green Light
- Earth In 3D Takes A Smart Antenna
- DASA Supplies X-SAR Radar For 3D Map Mission
- Slow And Steady In Deep Space
- White Dwarf May Hold Key To Dark Matter
- Cohen Says Missile Defense On Track
- Pentagon Funds Global 3D Mapping Mission
- Web Site Allows Public To Explore Antarctica
- TeleGlobe and OrbComm Restructure
- Smallest Satellites Ever Await Critical Moment
- Increased Production of Antibiotics in Space
- ESA Zeros In On Martian Kennel
- NASA Send ER-2 Over Russia In Ozone Search
------------------------------------------------
---------------
SHUTTLE SPECIAL
- Shuttle Gets Green Light
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/shuttle-00b.html
Cape Canaveral (AFP) Jan 30, 2000 - NASA has decided to
go ahead with Monday's launch of the space shuttle
Endeavour -- weather permitting -- after a last check of
shuttle motors, Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore
said Sunday.
- Earth In 3D Takes A Smart Antenna
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/shuttle-00c.html
Broomfield - January 31, 2000 - Radar antennas designed and
manufactured by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., will
rocket into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on
Jan. 31, 2000, as part of the Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission (STS-99) undertaken by JPL.
- DASA Supplies X-SAR Radar For 3D Map Mission
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/shuttle-00d.html
Munich - January 31, 2000 - With the help of the German
radar instrument SRTM, a three-dimensional map of the
Earth will be drawn up from space.
-----------------
NEAR TO ASTEROIDS
- Slow And Steady In Deep Space
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/near-00f.html
Laurel - January 230, 2000 - The NEAR spacecraft
continued to operate nominally in Operational Mode
with Flight Computer #1 and Attitude Interface Unit #2
in control. All instruments remained "ON" during this
week.
-------------
SPACE SCIENCE
- White Dwarf May Hold Key To Dark Matter
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/darkmatter-00a.html
Cambridge - January 31, 2000 - A White Dwarf star,
discovered in the constellation of Taurus, has been
shown to be one of the coolest and therefore oldest
white dwarfs ever found, and has been shown to be a
member of a hitherto unobserved and possibly large
population of faint stars in the Galactic Halo.
-------------
MILSPACE NEWS
- Cohen Says Missile Defense On Track
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/bmdo-00f.html
Washington (AFP) January 28, 2000 - US Defense Secretary
William Cohen expressed confidence Friday in the National
Missile Defense (NMD) system despite a failed test over
the Pacific last week, revealing that the interceptor
missile came within 100 feet (30 meters) of its target.
- Pentagon Funds Global 3D Mapping Mission
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/milspace-00c.html
Washington - January 31, 2000 - The space shuttle
Endeavour, now scheduled for launch on January 31 from
Cape Canaveral, is one more visible sign of the military
takeover of the so-called "civilian" space program.
---------
ROBOSPACE
- Web Site Allows Public To Explore Antarctica
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/robot-00c.html
Pittsburgh - January 31, 2000 - Big Signal an
interactive Web site and interface for remote
experience that features the daily activities
of Nomad, a robot that has been searching for
meteorites in Antarctica since Jan. 17, is
now available to the public.
-------------
INDUSTRY NEWS
- TeleGlobe and OrbComm Restructure
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/orbcomm-00a.html
Dulles - January 31, 2000 - Orbital Sciences and
Teleglobe Inc. have agreed to restructure their
partnership governing the financing and ownership
of OrbComm Global, L.P.(OrbComm), the world’s first
commercial provider of global wireless data communications
services through a network of 35 satellites operating
in low-Earth orbit.
--------------
MICROSAT BLITZ
- Smallest Satellites Ever Await Critical Moment
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/nanosat-00c.html
El Segundo - January 29, 2000 - A critical moment for
the smallest satellite pair ever launched will occur
Sunday when they are released by a "mother" satellite
over Menlo Park, Calif., and engineers from The Aerospace
Corporation attempt to establish contact with them.
SPACE MEDICINE
- Increased Production of Antibiotics in Space
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/spacemedicine-00a.html
Colorado - January 31, 2000 - Several space shuttle
experiments flown by the University of Colorado at
Boulder-based BioServe Space Technologies Center in
October 1998 show promise for developing new biomedical
products, according to recent research results.
EARTH INVADES MARS
- ESA Zeros In On Martian Kennel
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/marsexpress-00b.html
London - January 30, 2000 - The Beagle 2 team has selected
two potential landing sites on Mars for further study. In
the latest issue of the Beagle 2 Bulletin, John Bridges
from the Natural History Museum, London, who is leading
the landing site study, writes: "The prospective areas
are within the Chryse and Tritonis Lacus regions.
EARTH NEWS
- NASA Send ER-2 Over Russia In Ozone Search
http://www.spacedaily.com/spacecast/news/ozone-00b.html
Kiruna - January 31, 2000 - One of NASA's high-flying
ER-2 aircraft, a civilian variant of Lockheed's U-2,
completed its first science flight through Russian
airspace today in support of the largest international
ozone field experiment to date over the Arctic.
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error reports to bugs@...
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@...>
On Mon, 31 Jan 2000, Charlie Stross wrote:
> I'm currently participating (in a desultory sort of way) in a thread
> on rec.arts.sf.written, about Moore's law and ways round it.
The easiest way to move "through" Moore's law, is to move from 2D
to 3D construction. That extends things quite a bit in terms of
computational throughput per gram or volume of matter. Of course
you have to then go to reversible computing and start dealing
more "seriously" with heat dissipation (which is the big problem
for MBrains).
> [ First, the kick-off -- how to make smaller atoms ]
>
> ><nigel.arnot@...> wrote:
> >
> >>Therefore, the scaling law is reaching its limits. Extrapolating the
> >>current rate of progress, we hit the wall circa 2015. Economic factors
> >>may get in the way before then, but even if they don't you can't engineer
> >>smaller atoms -- ever!
Well, according to my charts we don't "really" hit the limits until
2030-2040 (when we are dealing with single atom layers/wires). But
if we get nanoassembly around 2010, 2015 might be right.
> >Start by replacing silicon doped with impurities with carbon doped with
> >impurities. Smaller atoms!
There is work being done on using diamond as a semiconductor material.
The problem is "building" the diamond without nanoassembly.
> >
> >If that isn't enough, you need to replace the electrons in your carbon
> >atoms' outer orbitals with muons. Buggered if I know how you'd stabilize
> >them for long enough, but their relatively high mass (several hundred times
> >that of an electron) would shrink the orbitals right down so that the
> >density of your muonized-carbon crystals would rival that of degenerate
> >matter -- but it would be structurally and electronically similar to
> >carbon.
Hmmmm.... One of our physics experts is going to have to explain this
to me before I agree. Using "classical" physics, the orbit of the
orbiting "particle" depends largely on the mass being orbited
(considering the nucleus the "sun" and the electrons the "planets").
I would agree that larger masses (muons vs. electrons) should "orbit"
closer, but to my knowledge electron/muon "orbits" do not depend on gravity.
Any coments???
> >
> >Note that this entails waving only one magic wand -- long-lived muons --
> [snip]
> >From: shocklee@... (Paul D. Shocklee)
> >
> >You can stabilize muons by Fermi blocking. (This is how neutrons in
> >neutron stars are stabilized.) All this requires is that the muons be
> >confined inside a degenerate Fermi gas of electrons, with a Fermi level
> >higher than the kinetic energy of an electron produced in muon decay.
> >[snip2]
> >So, short of a neutron star (or stable strange matter), you're never going
> >to stabilize muons in a lab.
Well, I just happen to have Chapter 18 from Xenology sitting on my
desk [Alien Weapons...] and according to *it*, you can stabalize
Muons and Pions by increasing their energy. Bump a 1 MeV pion
(decays in 1m) to 10TeV and its travel time is 540 km. My
suspicion (since the text isn't quite clear) is that this comes
from increasing the velocity (perhaps slowing down decay times
at near c velocities?). So we come down to making the muons/pions
orbit the nucleus *really* fast (which I guess means you want to make
the nucleus really heavy). I would guess that gets into an entirely
new set of problems.
Alternatively you could use electrons and positrons orbiting each
other. I believe this have been constructed, though I'm unsure
of the dimensions. Presumably it would be much smaller than atoms.
Ultimately though I think you want to get rid of the nucleus entirely
and do your computing with things that are massless (photons) or
nearly so (neutrinos). Thats the only way you are going to get
the density *really* high and the communications delays very low.
Unfortunately posts by Eugene seem to suggest to me that controlling
this stuff is going to be difficult.
> Now, back to Charlie:
>
> Which leads me to daydream aloud on the Extropians list:
> ...
> Lightspeed signal propagation delays should be a lot less significant,
> too, everything being so much closer together. (As far as circuit design
> goes, it's a bit like the consequences of raising the speed of light.)
True. But the ultimate minimization of the propagation delays would
utilize light as the information carrier.
>
> I don't have adequate references to hand, but would a red dwarf or black
> dwarf also suffice?
A red dwarf is a very small, long-lived star with normal matter so it
clearly doesn't qualify. The literature is fuzzy re: "black dwarfs"
which may be either "brown dwarfs" (unignited stars) or burned out
"white dwarfs" (remnants of stellar evolution). The brown dwarfs
are largely normal H/He and the post-white dwarfs are layered stellar
cores, probably with a lot of normal C/O and maybe some N/Ne/He with
an H atmosphere, but in both cases they have a fairly normal (nondegenerate)
atomic structure.
So, I would say, no, they do not suffice.
> If so, that environment might be accessible to assembler-built
> tools controlled by an MB. Instead of needing to employ starlifting to
> get extra material for use in an MB, the MB could directly colonise the
> stellar remnant.
There is a good argument that white dwarfs are the "gold" in the hills
of universe (due to the high C concentrations). The problem is that
you have to import H to provide energy. Same thing is true of
neutron stars... Gee that matter density is nice, but where do
you get the energy from?
I'm not sure if I asked or if anyone ever responded to, but the
question of what a photon does when it strikes a neutron star
remains an interesting question to me.... As does the problem
of the "lifetime" of neutron stars. While the neutrons in the
center may be constrained from decaying, I doubt the same is true
for neutrons on the surface. That would suggest that neutron
stars should evaporate.
> The point here is that an MB that extends all the way down _into_ the
> surface of a black dwarf has access to vastly more structured matter
> for computation purposes -- 10 to 1000 Jovian masses doesn't seem
> unreasonable -- and also doesn't suffer from the same sort of lightspeed
> propagation lag as an MB with dimensions measured in AU's.
You *always* have the lightspeed limit, but I agree that removing the
star at the center of an MBrain and replacing it with computronium
produces the highest density computing capacity. The problem then
becomes how do you pump energy in and heat out?
As noted from Anders recent Jnl of TH paper, in the Appendix, under
Jupiter Brains...
"The main limiting factors in this design is the availability of
carbon, the material strength of diamond and the need of keeping
the system cool."
The carbon can be harvested from white dwarfs, the material strength
of diamond can be solved using momentum support (from "The Cuckoo")
but the problem of removing the heat and keeping the system cool
*doesn't* go away. (And Anders carefully avoids the cooling costs...)
Also, if you remove sources of internal power generation, you have the
problem of beaming power "into" the computronium.
> So it can think _faster_ than a normal MB, and probably has more
> resources at its disposal -- in return for being stuck at the bottom
> of a very deep gravity well.
>
> Is this feasible in principle, or am I missing something?
>
Nope, not missing anything. Being at the bottom of a gravity well
doesn't matter much to a being that presumably navigates itself
"en masse" around the galaxy and communicates with massless photons.
Anders does discuss the computational rates of nuclear matter
in his Neutronium brain and points out the problems of increasing
the matter density too much.
For reference purposes a Matrioska Brain of my design probably falls
between Anders' Dyson brain "Uranos" and Neutronium Brain "Chronos"
with an emphasis on power efficiency and heat removal (vis-a-vis
some of the optimizations Anders makes).
Charlie's suggested sun-less MBrain with comp-muon-onium is an enhancement
in the evolution of MBrains towards NBrains. We shall henceforth
call this a muonium-based MBrain (mMBrain)...
Finally, its worth noting that Xenology says the decay time of a muon
is 2.2 microseconds (at non-c speeds presumably) and you can do a lot
of computation in 2.2 mu-sec. The problem is to develop a system that
regenerates the mu-matter as fast as it decays.
Robert
From: infosecurity@... (by way of Michael Paul Johnson <mpj@...>)
[I thought I'd forward this along just the once... --Perry]
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=====================================================
CONTENTS
1. INFOSEC WEEK IN REVIEW
*Administration Seeks Legislative Okay for Cyberspace
Scrutiny
*Programmer Cracks French Banking Smart Card System
2. INDUSTRY UPDATES
*RSA Patent Expiration Looming
3. IN BRIEF
*Check Point Beefs Up SVN
*HP Releases B-to-B Extranet Tools
*Tripwire Launches TEC Agents/Console
*Cylink Unveils VPN, PKI Solutions
*Intel Rolls Out Crypto Boards
*Netegrity to Provide Solutions for Internet Start-Ups
*Axent and Cobalt Team Up to Provide Linux Firewall/VPN
Appliance
*e-Security's OeSP Integrates With 29 Security Products
4. HAPPENINGS
=====================================================
THIS ISSUE OF SECURITY WIRE DIGEST IS SPONSORED BY...
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=====================================================
1. INFOSEC WEEK IN REVIEW
*ADMINISTRATION SEEKS LEGISLATIVE OKAY FOR CYBERSPACE
SCRUTINY
The U.S. Attorney General, Commerce Secretary and a
deputy Secretary of Defense are calling on Congress to
pass the Cyberspace Electronic Security Act (CESA) to
gain an advantage against criminals using advanced
encryption. CESA is a response to the administration's
recent relaxing of controls on the export of products
that allow strong encryption.
In a letter addressed to House Majority Leader Dick
Armey (R-Texas), Attorney General Janet Reno asserted
that CESA was "critical" to the administration's new
security policies. Since criminals now presumably have
freer access to encryption techniques that could allow
them to shield communications from the scrutiny of law
enforcement agencies, the administration feels that those
agencies should have more powers to fight criminals.
The original version of CESA would have allowed law
enforcement officials to obtain search warrants to
secretly enter a suspect's home and either install
software or obtain encryption information that would
allow decryption of encrypted communications, without
notifying the suspect for 30 days. This would be similar
to the existing ability of law enforcement to obtain
warrants that permit wiretapping telephones without the
suspect's knowledge. However, objections from civil
liberties advocates and Representative Armey caused the
administration to withdraw these provisions from CESA.
In a letter to Congress urging support for CESA, Reno,
Commerce Secretary William Daley and deputy Defense
Secretary John Hamre reiterated the need to "search for
keys" to decrypt communications by criminal and terrorist
suspects. Nevertheless, they expressed the belief that no
new extraordinary powers are required and that "general
authorities" are sufficient to meet the threat.
Civil liberties groups continue to be wary, however.
"Secret searches are fundamentally contrary to the letter
and spirit of the Constitution," says Jim Dempsey, senior
staff counsel for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for
Democracy and Technology. "Cyberspace and encryption
technology doesn't change that." Modifications to the
bill are expected to continue before it comes to a vote
later this year.
*PROGRAMMER CRACKS FRENCH BANKING SMART CARD SYSTEM
A French programmer is being tried for counterfeiting
and fraudulent entry into an automated banking system
after demonstrating his ability to obtain goods without
payment using a homemade smart card. He could face a
two-year suspended jail sentence and a fine of 50,000
francs.
Serge Humpich set himself the task of cracking the smart
card system used throughout France for purchases and cash
advances. He realized that the smart card readers often
query the smart card to determine if the manually entered
PIN is correct, without performing any checks with the
credit card network. The PIN is encoded on the smart card
using what is described as 640-bit RSA encryption.
Humpich was able to perform the factoring using a
quadratic sieve, after discovering that the public key
had special properties he could exploit. He then
purchased hardware -- including smart card readers -- to
create and test his own smart cards.
At this point, Humpich notified the Cartes Bancaires
consortium of his discovery and offered to tell them how
to close the security hole for some 10 million francs.
Cartes Bancaires entered into negotiations with Humpich,
finally demanding a demonstration. Humpich complied by
using his smart cards to purchase Metro tokens, retaining
the receipts to prove that Cartes Bancaires had no record
of his purchase. Cartes Bancaires then had him arrested
for fraud and counterfeiting.
There are, of course, several sides to the matter.
Humpich claims he was selling security consultation
services; Cartes Bancaires says he was blackmailing them.
Cartes Bancaires says that he obtained the tokens
illegally; Humpich insists he only made the purchase at
Cartes Bancaires' behest.
What's clear is that the simple use of 640-bit RSA
encryption is not sufficient to secure a smart card
system. Bruce Schneier, founder and CTO of Counterpane
Internet Security, points out that key length has no
correlation with the strength of the encryption. "Even
with strong encryption, there are often other ways around
the system security," notes Schneier. This lesson is
especially important as government and business
organizations -- such as American Express -- make plans
to roll out smart cards in the United States.
=====================================================
2. INDUSTRY UPDATES
*RSA PATENT EXPIRATION LOOMING
With RSA Security's encryption patent set to expire
Sept. 21, 2000, there's speculation as to what effect it
will have on the industry. Possible outcomes include a
challenge to RSA's market penetration and lower prices
for software incorporating its encryption technology.
Twenty years ago, with U.S. government funding, RSA
pioneered the public-key technology that is the
foundation for the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol
used today to secure Web transactions. The company's
BSAFE cryptography tool kit has been reported to be
licensed to 90 percent of all products sold with
encryption.
"Our competitors have been making a big deal about the
patent expiring, but I don't see it having any real
impact on our business," John D. Worrell, RSA Security
SecurID director of product marketing, told Information
Security magazine at the recent RSA Conference 2000.
Despite the company's optimism, there are competitors
lining up to step in once technology becomes public
domain. For example, Certicom, whose elliptic curve
cryptography (ECC) is used in small wireless devices,
plans to introduce a competitive product this year,
according to Certicom CEO Rick Dalmazzi.
http://www.rsasecurity.comhttp://www.certicom.com
=====================================================
3. IN BRIEF
*CHECK POINT BEEFS UP SVN
Firewall and VPN mainstay Check Point Software
Technologies has released a 2000 edition of its Secure
Virtual Networking (SVN) solution. The updated version
natively supports multiple client-side authentication
options including RADIUS, TACACS+ and SecurID tokens, as
well as biometrics and proximity tokens through its
Secure Authentication API (SAA). Check Point 2000 also
introduced a High Availability module for redundancy and
automatic failover of VPN-1 connections; and new
administrative functionality through a Visual Policy
Editor, which creates a visual representation of the
enterprise VPN architecture, allowing admins to visualize
and manage VPN security policies across extended WANs.
http://www.checkpoint.com
*HP RELEASES B-TO-B EXTRANET TOOLS
Hewlett-Packard (HP) has unveiled several new tools
aimed to help companies strengthen their b-to-b
extranets. Each of the new offerings will be added to
HP's Praesidium portfolio of Internet security products.
The new Domain Guard Enterprise 1.0 ($2,995 per 100
users) allows IT managers to centrally control access to
WinNT 4.0, HP-UX and Sun Solaris-based Web servers.
Domain Guard also provides Web single sign-on functions
and user self-registration, and capabilities to delegate
user and policy administration. HP also released its new
Web Enforcer software ($2,995 per server; $695 for annual
security update), which fixes known NT vulnerabilities
and provides security updates.
http://www.hp.com/security
*TRIPWIRE LAUNCHES TEC AGENTS/CONSOLE
Tripwire has rolled out a central management module
called Tripwire Enterprise Control (TEC) Manager. The
module is the central feature of version 2.2.1 of its
file integrity assessment software, released in January.
TEC deploys agents across eight host platforms (NT and
seven UNIX flavors), monitoring system files, directories
and registries for modifications, additions or deletions.
Changes are reported to the TEC console, which runs on NT
and can manage up to 250 agents from a central location.
Pricing was not announced.
http://www.tripwire.com
*CYLINK UNVEILS VPN, PKI SOLUTIONS
Cylink announced its NetHawk IPSec-based VPN, a hardware
complement to its existing Private Wire software
solution. The NetHawk supports Triple-DES encryption and
is offered in four models, from 10 Mbps Ethernet
(supporting 5,000 simultaneous connections) to 100 Mbps
Fast Ethernet (20,000 connections). The VPN is centrally
managed through the company's existing PrivaCy Manager
interface. Cylink also unveiled its NetAuthority PKI
solution. Both products will ship in March.
http://www.cylink.com
*INTEL ROLLS OUT CRYPTO BOARDS
Continuing its foray into the infosec space, Intel
announced its PRO/100 S line of network security-enabled
adapter cards for the desktop and server. The Layer 2
devices are designed to encrypt IP traffic and offload
cryptographic functions from server and PC processors.
The announcement follows Intel's recent acquisition of
crypto accelerator company IPivot. The PRO/100 S
Management Adapter for the desktop retails at $112 per
board, while the Server adapter runs at $139.
http://www.intel.com
*NETEGRITY TO PROVIDE SOLUTIONS FOR INTERNET START-UPS
Netegrity introduced Startup.Com, a new program that
delivers e-business solutions and services designed for
consumer dot-com companies. The program provides
start-ups with a bundle of secure user access and
personalization software along with educational and
consulting services, enabling them to launch and manage
their e-commerce sites. Startup.Com includes a
subscription-based license of SiteMinder, Netegrity's
flagship product, which provides centralized control of
users accessing corporate intranet and extranet sites. It
also includes 12x5 technical support, three days of
product training and onsite installation and
configuration consulting. Pricing was not announced.
http://www.netegrity.com
*AXENT AND COBALT TEAM UP TO PROVIDE LINUX FIREWALL/VPN
APPLIANCE
E-security provider Axent Technologies announced an
agreement with Cobalt Networks under which the companies
will jointly develop a Linux firewall and VPN appliance.
Targeted for small- to medium-sized businesses, branch
offices and service providers, the product will be based
on Axent's Raptor and PowerVPN software and Cobalt's RaQ
3 server appliance. It will also include a Raptor
management console that manages geographically dispersed
appliances on the WAN via the Web. This feature allows
larger companies to manage branch offices' firewalls from
a central location. The firewall, which will be available
in Q3 2000, will be priced at approximately $5,000.
http://www.axent.comhttp://www.cobalt.com
*E-SECURITY'S OESP INTEGRATES WITH 29 SECURITY PRODUCTS
e-Security announced that its Open e-Security Platform
(OeSP)software now integrates with 29 multivendor
security products and devices, allowing companies to
conduct real-time surveillance of their enterprise
environment from a single console. The integration will
include products and services such as firewalls,
intrusion detection, operating systems, antivirus, Web
servers, databases, policy monitoring, vulnerability
assessment and authentication. Companies involved in the
OeSP integration include: Axent Technologies, Cisco
Systems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Internet Security Systems
(ISS), Microsoft, Network Flight Recorder, Symantec and
Trend Micro.
http://www.esecurityinc.com
=====================================================
*ADVERTISEMENT*
MIS Training Institute presents:
InfoSec World 2000
M-W, April 3-5, 2000 Orlando, Fla.
(April 1, 2, 6, 2000 Optional Workshops)
This annual event is where serious infosecurity
professionals go for serious learning. Focusing
exclusively on information security, InfoSec World 2000
features hands-on experts and is attended by
decision-making infosecurity professionals from
high-profile companies and government. InfoSec World Expo
is one of the largest vendor exhibits in the industry.
Get conference details at:
http://www.misti.com/conference_show.asp?id=ISW00
=====================================================
4. HAPPENINGS
FEBRUARY
Implementing Web Security
Tu-F, Feb. 1-4, Reston, Va.
http://www.learningtree.com
Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS)
Symposium
W-F, Feb. 2-4, San Diego, Calif.
http://www.isoc.org/ndss2000
Information Assurance Technical Framework--Defend the
Network
Th-F, Feb. 3-4, Linthicum, MD
http://www.iatf.net
Certificate Authorities and Public Key Infrastructures
M-W, Feb. 7-9, Orlando, Fla.
http://www.misti.com
How to Become an Effective Information Security
Professional
Tu-W, Feb. 8-9, Gaithersburg, Md.
http://www.gocsi.com
A Practical Guide to Encryption and Certificate
Authorities
Th-F, Feb. 10-11, Gaithersburg, Md.
http://www.gocsi.com
=====================================================
Security Wire Digest and Information Security magazine
are published by ICSA.net, the world's leader in Internet
security services.
Copyright (c) 2000. All rights reserved. Redistribution
of this newsletter is permitted provided all content is
reproduced verbatim.
=====================================================
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From: Damien <damien@...>
Damien Broderick Re: >Techno-Optimism v Pessimism
Sasha Chislenko ABC 60 Minutes about Mitnick starting at 7pm EST
Sasha Chislenko Re: adaptive niches
Max More Re: Agnosticism and the Fear of Atheism (was re: Vital Es
GBurch1@... Re: Agnosticism and the Fear of Atheism (was re: Vital Es
Damien Broderick Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening
Damien Broderick Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening
Damien Broderick Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening
Damien Broderick Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening
Eugene Leitl Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening
Damien Broderick AI hardware before 2011?
Sasha Chislenko Anal talk of freedoms
Damien Broderick Re: Anal talk of freedoms
Damien Broderick Re: and in this corner we have Robert "Jupiter Brain" Owe
Damien Broderick angellic analysis
Max More RE: Antienvironmentalist data?
Damien Broderick Re: artificial wombs and the aftermath...
Eugene Leitl ASTRO: Dark Matter problem gets worse!
GBurch1@... ASTRO: Evidence of Nearby Black Hole
Anders Sandberg Re: ASTRO: Evidence of Nearby Black Hole
Amara Graps At the Students' Dueling-Ground (was: Hey, you two need t
GBurch1@... Re: Atheist Propoganda?
GBurch1@... Re: Atheist Propoganda?
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 22:01:29 +1100
Subject: Re: >Techno-Optimism v Pessimism
At 08:33 PM 18/01/00 -0500, Robert wrote:
>For a real world example -- ask yourself this -- If you have
>three "molecules" and a genetic program for them, i.e. the DNA for
>the genes of RNA and DNA polymerases and the ribosome subcomponents
>and one of each of those"machines" to implement the cycle:
> DNA -> RNA; RNA -> Protein; Protein makes more DNA & RNA
>how fast can that system double itself (given unlimited energy
>and material resources)? I haven't worked it out yet, but my
>brief investigation into the limiting factors (rates of transcription)
>suggests that it doubles in very short periods (probably minutes).
I believe it's on the order of 15 minutes.
Damien
From: Sasha Chislenko <sasha1@...>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 18:44:08 -0600
Subject: ABC 60 Minutes about Mitnick starting at 7pm EST
ABC is supposed to broadcast an interview with Kevin Mitnick
at 7pm. Tune you TVs.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Sasha Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
From: Sasha Chislenko <sasha1@...>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 17:05:01 -0600
Subject: Re: adaptive niches
And more existing systems create more new niches, and
opportunities for mediation - and that requires
increasing complexity...
-----------------------------------------------------------
Sasha Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
From: Max More <max@...>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 09:59:26 -0800
Subject: Re: Agnosticism and the Fear of Atheism (was re: Vital Essence)
At 04:03 AM 1/25/00 -0500, you wrote:
>E Shaun Russell wrote:
>
> > Robert Owen wrote:
> >
>That is what we say, isn't it? You evidently disdain this conventional
>metaphorical description and express the physical situation in a much more
>sophisticated manner. I'm sure you luxuriate in a fantasy about how others
>are impressed with your acumen.
>
>What impresses me are your coarse manners and the extent to which your
>self-importance is based on a pompous assumption that you have somehow
>managed to transform trivial platitudes into profundities.
>
>I apologize to the list for this exasperated statement, but I simply cannot
>tolerate the sheer loutishness and incivility exhibited here by this
>supercilious
>young man.
Robert, I suggest you relax and give Shaun a break. Shaun is one of the
most pleasant, considerate, and downright sweet-hearted fellows on this
list and has been for years before you joined the list. I can see what it
was in his post that set you off, but I think you're misinterpreting his
attitude completely and being very harsh on him. (Unless Shaun has had a
total personality transplant in the last day or two!) I think the number of
insults you've packed in the above to Shaun more than compensates for any
perceived shortcoming in his means of expression, which I'm quite sure does
not represent his intention.
Max
Max More, Ph.D.
President, Extropy Institute. www.extropy.org
CEO, MoreLogic Solutions. www.maxmore.com
max@... or more@...
From: GBurch1@...
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 13:57:03 EST
Subject: Re: Agnosticism and the Fear of Atheism (was re: Vital Essence)
In a message dated 1/25/00 11:59:59 AM Central Standard Time, max@...
writes:
>Shaun is one of the
> most pleasant, considerate, and downright sweet-hearted fellows on this
> list
I certainly add my voice to this opinion of Shaun.
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 18:48:48 +1100
Subject: Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening!]
At 06:00 AM 20/01/00 -0500, Robert B. wrote:
> Why do we have such a "magical mystery cult" about a collection of cells?
>Now, it seems likely within the next 10-20 years, that we will have
>artificial wombs. So the whole "growing babies"/motherhood concept
>gets separated from the putting sperm and eggs together to make
>a potential human being. When will we get to the point where
>people view this like manufacturing a car?
Robert, get a grip! Sorry to say this, but that kinda comment is what you'd
expect to hear from kids in the locker room without an emotional clue. (I
assume - I've never been in the locker room.) Women's bodies are changed
drastically by that clump of cells, and their minds, and their emotions,
especially given 15 or 20 or 50 years of profound personal immersion in a
(largely women's) culture of nurturance. Even women who go through the pain
and anxiety of in vitro conception (and I've known one at least and seen
others interviewed) don't and perhaps can't regard the process as if it
were building a car. Ach!
Which is what makes abortion (usually) so difficult an issue, even for
those without a religious bone in their brain. I've been involved in
several, and finally had myself speyed because it wasn't fair to put
another human at risk of that unpleasantness. (And I didn't wish to find
myself suddenly a father, with all those responsibilities; and yes, in each
case we had taken what seemed to be the best available precautions.)
And yes, at some point that technical proficiency will arrive. I hope those
in charge of it have some empathy for women's long suffering and creative
experiences of pregnancy.
Damien (yeah, yeah, the Pious) (but also the slightly angry)
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 10:59:12 +1100
Subject: Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening!]
At 09:17 AM 20/01/00 -0800, a rocket scientist wrote:
>> I... finally had myself speyed because it wasn't fair to put
>> another human at risk of that unpleasantness.
>
>Eep. I don't think that word means what you think it means :)
>Doug Jones (a vasectomy was good enough for me)
Jest my little jest. Besides, strictly `speying' only applies to female
animals, I think. My empathy does not extend that far...
Damien [I knew a spade cat once]
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 12:47:51 +1100
Subject: Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening!]
At 12:54 PM 20/01/00 EST, QueeneMUSE@... wrote:
><< Women's bodies are changed
> drastically by that clump of cells, and their minds, and their emotions,
>Why the sacred cow?
If we used a sacred cow, the situation might be easier to cope with. :)
>I think artificial wombs *might* make having babies much less of an ordeal,
>and a large percentage of women would opt for it, [+ reductionism is good
for your head, etc, snipped]
But we started out talking *abortion* and cryopreserving the foetuses of
women with an abhorrence of abortion who nevertheless do not wish to remain
pregnant.
Merrily explaining to an anguished woman that hey, it's okay, it's just
expelling a gob of cells, like blowing your nose , does not seem to me an
especially sensitive way to act. (Of course it is literally true; and a
Michelangelo is just a bunch of chemicals, and M-theory a bunch of
scratches on paper.)#
Again, I'm talking about a pregnancy advanced enough to be *felt* by the
woman, to be *experienced* and *interpreted* . Swallowing a morning-after
booster dose of the pill, or RU-486, is presumably very different and far
easier/preferable.
Routinely gestating babies for the whole nine yards in an artifical womb
might yet turn out to have odd effects on the respect and affection we
accord each other, as infancy in a state orphanage does, but I don't think
that'd be inevitable - premmies in humidicribs seem to tug heartstrings
even more than healthy normal births.
Damien [one of `the moral guardians out there', Elizabeth?]
# ah, I see Lee Crocker has used the same analogy, with somewhat similar
intent, I think
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 15:55:10 +1100
Subject: Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening!]
At 07:44 AM 23/01/00 -0500, Robert Bradbury wrote:
>Damien's response perhaps point out the problems
>we may have in the future "grok"ing humans who have done the mental
>hardware & software changes that have turned the volume controls
>on many emotional "hooks" to zero.
Well, yes indeedy. People for whom nature and nature `have turned the
volume controls on many emotional "hooks" to zero' are known as sociopaths,
I think, and I scurry away from them quicksmart. Of course doing such
resets deliberately and cautiously might yield another, less heinous
outcome, but even the wish to do so I also find somewhat troubling.
Damien
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 23:26:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: Ahumans [was Re: Cryonics and abortion- not happening!]
Damien Broderick writes:
> Well, yes indeedy. People for whom nature and nature `have turned the
> volume controls on many emotional "hooks" to zero' are known as sociopaths,
One channel tuned to zero would be already enough to qualify for a
sociopath: inability for empathy.
> I think, and I scurry away from them quicksmart. Of course doing such
> resets deliberately and cautiously might yield another, less heinous
> outcome, but even the wish to do so I also find somewhat troubling.
It would be wonderful to have more control over one's emotional
life. (However, I would tend to crank the volume up, not down. Imagine
the ability of revving up the emotional controls, replicating the
effects of MDMA without nuking your substantia nigra).
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 11:27:33 +1100
Subject: AI hardware before 2011?
http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000126/A46070-2000Jan25.html
By then work will have begun on the next generation of
the artificial brain which, Professor de Garis says, could
be finished about 2007 and would have more than 10
billion neurons. This would bring it to about the level of a
village idiot but within reach of the 23billion organic
neurons contained in the cortex of a human male (19
billion in a female).
Then comes the third generation, which Professor de
Garis expects to be finished about 2011 - a fearsome
creation of 1000billion neurons, vastly larger than that of
a human.
=================
The timetable speeds up, as expected.
Damien
From: Sasha Chislenko <sasha1@...>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 00:39:59 -0600
Subject: Anal talk of freedoms
At 08:09 PM 00/01/23 , Damien Broderick wrote:
>...
>I should have reminded everyone that *my* odd (?) use of the phrase was
>just a direct, unaltered recycling of *Sasha's*. He had written:
>
> >(I like reminding people that out of millions of animal
> >species, humans are the only one who have any problem seeing
> >each other naked
>
>Now I assume that while Sasha is a Russian-American (right?) whose English
>usage therefore might be a bit skewed, Americans surely didn't suppose that
>he was saying that humans are plagued by a high frequency of nakedness, or
>hysterical blindness. He meant, as I meant, that (many/most) humans are
>*worried by it*. The difference was that Sasha took this worry to be
>neurotic; I was trying to situate it in a social context that made it more
>understandable/functional. E.g., we worry about people cheating on term
>papers (something few lions or ants get their knickers in a twist abt)
>(`knickers' are underpants), not just because we are obsessively anal types but
because there's something at stake.
>
>Anyway, I'm blaming Sasha for all this. :)
>
>Damien
I consider myself not a Russian-American but an individual largely
liberated from cultural distinctions, and pride myself in using a
goodly Russianalized version of English. Not having the issues -
nor projecting the expectations - of an anal type, I don't have to
pay as much attention to keeping my linguistic knickers clean; that
can be rather expected from the recognized masters of the language
such as Damien, thus making any confusion in the discussion
unquestionably *their* fault.
As an exception, I would graciously descend to the truly anal style:
The general point still is that while cheating on the term papers is
analogous to a failure in systemic inheritance in pre-human stages
in both nature and consequences, resulting in a major pain in the butt
for the subject that botched the learning process, with punishment
delivered by a watchful professor or a still more unforgiving predator,
in an act that in the human society is much more mild, caring, and better
articulated than in cruel Nature, my modest attempt to thoughtfully
stroll along Harvard Square in perfectly clean and nicely shaped
knickers would be rudely terminated by the authorities with arguments
of the sort that there exists regulation saying that such acts should
not be committed, and they were specifically told to spend money
[forcefully] appropriated from people like me to [forcefully] prevent
people from doing such things, and if one person starts walking around
in their knickers then others can also start doing that, and that would
insult the voting anal types because it is against the law that exists.
At which point I get tempted to tell the anal (that's "legal anal"
rather than "polemic anal"; I will deny any allegations of having
made hints that they are related) guys to shove their law where
it belongs, and take my knickers home, with a sad thought that my
plans of implanting the second head with a bush of penal attachments
may be just a tad premature...
Why can't one walk three blocks in their normal swimsuit from the Charles
River to Harvard Square? This is such a simple thing! As long as this
is totally unacceptable, how can you expect acceptance of free play
with really serious genetic and physical modifications?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alexander Chislenko: <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
Mailing list information: <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/mylist.html>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 21:57:51 +1100
Subject: Re: Anal talk of freedoms
At 12:39 AM 24/01/00 -0600, Sasha wrote:
>Why can't one walk three blocks in their normal swimsuit from the Charles
>River to Harvard Square? This is such a simple thing! As long as this
>is totally unacceptable, how can you expect acceptance of free play
>with really serious genetic and physical modifications?
The more I hear about the bizarre restrictions in the Land of the Free, the
happier I am that I'm living in Oz. Can't be certain, but I'm fairly sure
you could stroll in a swimsuit or a feathered chickensuit or a giant
plastic pizza from the Yarra River to the middle of Melbourne without being
molested by police (although they'd surely keep an eye on you, and it might
help if there were several in the company, so you're not mistaken for a
lone escaped lunatic or drug fiend having an unusual reaction). On the
other hand, you *might* be assaulted by any number of jeering out-of-work
young ruffians, the kind who are always picking on Bart Simpson.
But I might be wrong about this. It's not something I've ever done, being
too skinny and unsightly. Anyway, it's usually too damned cold.
If you chanced to be in Sydney during Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, you'd be
joshed for *not* wearing gold lame arseless panties, inflatable bra and
wings, and glittery tiara, or full traditional nun's habit and bushy beard,
while strolling down the centre of the road. Do they do that in Harvard
Square? Even one day a year? If not, don't blame us anal Aussies.
Damien
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 11:52:11 +1100
Subject: Re: and in this corner we have Robert "Jupiter Brain" Owen!!
At 01:11 AM 27/01/00 PST, John Grigg wrote:
>I like the idea of several people working together under one name to create
>the impression of a superhuman intellect. I had the idea I could gather
>some of my brighter friends at school based on majors (bio, computer sci,
>chem, engineering, english lit., etc.) and we could be a one of these
>"communal superminds!"
I've now co-written five novels with an old university/communard buddy,
Rory Barnes, who is nothing like me except for his intelligence and delight
in silliness and wordplay. We seem to synergise each other's writing, using
a variety of different approaches from one writing a book and the other
totally redoing it, through to the hot computer keyboard method, where we
take it in turns at the machine and then I smooth it all at the end. Our
most recent novel, THE BOOK OF REVELATION (HarperCollins Oz, not in the USA
damn it) has been reviewed as one of the two great realist novels on the
topic of purported alien abduction (the other being by the wonderful Alison
Lurie), and all the reviewers talk happily about the humour (so they must
have got the jokes...). Neither of us could have produced the book alone.
Literary readers despise collaborative fiction, of course, so we will be
spurned for all the lucrative prizes.
But I'm here for the communal superminds!
Damien
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 17:01:30 +1100
Subject: angellic analysis
The New Barbarian Manifesto: How to Survive the Information Age
by Ian Angell
Hardcover - 288 pages 1st edition (March 1, 2000)
Kogan Page Ltd; ISBN: 0749431512
A friend writes, having heard a radio interview with this guy:
>Ian Angell takes a Darwinian view of economics. He sees no
>resolution or solutions to an endlessly changing manifold of futures where
>the advantages go to those who have seized the technological high ground.
>Reckon you will have to read his book and see if you can find loopholes in
>his arguments.
Don't suppose anyone here has had an advance peek, or knows about his
argument?
Damien Broderick
From: Max More <max@...>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2000 10:48:05 -0800
Subject: RE: Antienvironmentalist data?
One useful factoid in this department: The *weight* of the USA GDP today is
about the same as it was in 1900, despite a massive increase in value.
A concrete illustration of this trend: Remember the old soda cans? In Jaws
(from the 1970s) there was a scene when the sailor (I forget the actor's
name) shows off to Richard Dreyfuss his strength by crushing a beer can.
Today, a four year old can do the same, since cans use 80% less aluminum.
We don't have to say "with nano, we will recycle superefficiently and so
can produce more with less" -- that's true but it's already happening.
Max
Max More, Ph.D.
President, Extropy Institute. www.extropy.org
CEO, MoreLogic Solutions. www.maxmore.com
max@... or more@...
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 00:32:43 +1100
Subject: Re: artificial wombs and the aftermath...
At 10:53 PM 21/01/00 PST, jg wrote:
>Perhaps some of the sacredness attached to the sex act will be lost when the
>artificial womb is common.
*Sacredness*? I thought the sex act was denounced by the clergy as wicked
and liable to grow hairs on your--
Oh, wait a moment. You mean the *less common* sex act.
As you were.
Damien
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 19:59:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: ASTRO: Dark Matter problem gets worse!
Robert J. Bradbury writes:
> "The halos extend 1.5 *million* light-years from each
> galaxy's center and contain *at least* as much mass as
> 5 trillion suns."
>
> Lots and lots and lots of MBrains out there or a really
> really strange universe with magic matter in it.
The Qeng Ho cannot be far away, then. (There is no god, and Vernor
Vinge is his prophet).
From: GBurch1@...
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 18:56:38 EST
Subject: ASTRO: Evidence of Nearby Black Hole
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000114/aponline165828_000.htm
Black Hole Found Near Earth
By Paul Recer
AP Science Writer
Friday, Jan. 14, 2000; 4:58 p.m. EST
ATLANTA –– Four bursts of X-ray energy have alerted astronomers to a black
hole just 1,600 light years away from Earth, practically on the doorstep in
astronomical terms.
The black hole was discovered last September after an Australian amateur
astronomer noticed the suddenly brightening of a star and notified the pros.
Donald Smith, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology astronomer, and others
focused X-ray detectors on the target star and quickly got a surprise. On
Sept. 14, the black hole announced its presence with an eruption of X-rays
that was brief, but dramatic.
Three other eruptions followed, each one lasting less than two hours. But it
was enough for Smith and a team of radio astronomers to determine that the
energy was coming from a black hole.
"This is one of the fastest (bursts) we have ever seen," said Robert M.
Hjellming of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Smith said that although the bursts were brief, at peak output they were the
brightest source of X-rays in the sky, except for the sun.
The black hole is located in constellation Sagittari and centers on a star
called V4641 Sgr.
Smith said the bursts come and go so rapidly that it may represent a new
subclass of X-ray-producing objects.
Radio telescopes detected twin jets of matter firing out of the black hole
region at nearly the speed of light. Three other similar X-ray sources have
been detected in distant parts of the universe and called by astronomers
"microquasars." They resemble quasars, but are much smaller.
But Hjellming said energy bursts from the other microquasars fade more
slowly, often lasting for weeks.
A black hole is an extremely dense object with a gravitation field so
powerful that not even light can escape. As a black hole pulls matter into
its center, gas and dust are heated to millions of degrees. This gives off
X-rays that can be detected by X-ray telescopes.
Many black holes acquire an envelope of gas and dust called an accretion
disk. Matter from the disk streams constantly into the black hole, triggering
a steady X-ray signal. Black holes are usually in the center of quasars and
characteristically have accretion disks.
The brief bursts from the V4641 Sgr black hole suggests it is not being fed
constantly by a reservoir of matter from an accretion disk. This puzzles
astronomers.
"Either the matter can flow into the black hole without forming an accretion
disk or the black hole is significantly different in its mass, spin or
charge," said Ronald Remmillard of MIT.
From: Anders Sandberg <asa@...>
Date: 17 Jan 2000 12:59:23 +0100
Subject: Re: ASTRO: Evidence of Nearby Black Hole
EvMick@... writes:
> In a message dated 1/16/00 5:59:55 PM Central Standard Time, GBurch1@...
> writes:
>
> > The brief bursts from the V4641 Sgr black hole suggests it is not being fed
> > constantly by a reservoir of matter from an accretion disk. This puzzles
> > astronomers.
> >
>
> Would it be less puzzeling if technology were included in the list of
> possible causes for the observation?
Not really, because adding technology would just enable almost any
kind of emission pattern.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@...http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
From: Amara Graps <Amara.Graps@...>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 18:07:30 +0100 (MET)
Subject: At the Students' Dueling-Ground (was: Hey, you two need to hug...)
From: "john grigg" <starman125@...> Wed, 26 Jan 2000
>At this point Robert Owen slaps Shaun in the face with a glove and
>says, "I demand satisfaction!" "Do you prefer the foil or the
>pistol?" If the duel is done by the knowlege and use of big
>five-dollar words (as Ben Grimm would say) then you have no chance
>Shaun! :)
I believe that dueling still occurs in some European places, in
particular, someplace in Heidelberg, (but I haven't located it, yet).
It's called mensur fencing. One of the friends of my colleague
proudly wears the scar across his cheek that he acquired in his duel
here. (These folks put salt in their cheek wound to make sure that the
scar is noticeable when the wound heals.) The wearing of the scar
is some kind of sign of honor (frankly, I don't get it).
Over the Christmas break, I read a delightful romp by Mark Twain
called _A Tramp Abroad_, about his experiences travelling through
Europe. In that book is an essay "The Student's Dueling Ground", where
he saw some pretty ugly duels in Heidelberg (they were bloodier back
then.. but still.. oh so polite).
You can find the book easily, everywhere, but I also saw it on
the Web:
A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain
http://real.zj.cninfo.net/books/english%20300/contents/english%20literature/mark\
%20twain%20%20(1835-1910)/a%20tramo%20abroad/index.htm
And here is his essay about the Heidelberg duel that Twain witnessed:
At the Student's Dueling Ground
http://real.zj.cninfo.net/books/english%20300/contents/english%20literature/mark\
%20twain%20%20(1835-1910)/a%20tramo%20abroad/chapter05.txt
an undueled student,
Amara
--
***************************************************************
Amara Graps | Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik
Interplanetary Dust Group | Saupfercheckweg 1
+49-6221-516-543 | 69117 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Amara.Graps@... * http://galileo.mpi-hd.mpg.de/~graps
***************************************************************
"Never fight an inanimate object." - P. J. O'Rourke
From: GBurch1@...
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 18:00:44 EST
Subject: Re: Atheist Propoganda?
In a message dated 1/30/00 4:45:03 PM Central Standard Time,
butler@... writes:
> On the matter of inefficiency: I just got a car with a 2 liter engine,
> instead of a 1.6. So far, I'm only getting about 22 MPG, rather than the
> close-to-30 I was getting before.
Wow, Michael, I regularly get 27-30 mpg with my 5.8 liter engine (admittedly
a little less with really sustained 3-digit speeds . . .). You must have a
really heavy right foot.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@...>----<gburch@...>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
From: GBurch1@...
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 08:43:22 EST
Subject: Re: Atheist Propoganda?
In a message dated 1/31/00 4:07:31 AM Central Standard Time,
bradbury@... writes:
> Oh, Spike, come on!!! A lawyer from Texas....
> We are talking about the people that served as the role models
> for the New Russians (who eat up those old Dallas reruns)!
>
> Are you *sure* you're a rocket scientist???
>
> The probable cause of the difference is the fact that Michael
> is probably stuck in StopNGo in the Bay area, while Greg can
> just freefall down those wide Texas highways... Means Michael
> is a good candidate for Evehicles when they come out.
Actually, it has just as much to do with an extremely low drag coefficient
and an excellent horsepower-to-weight ratio (which is why I abhor SUVs) -- I
think a car should be as much like a highly aerodynamic GARMENT as possible .
. .
Greg Burch <GBurch1@...>----<gburch@...>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
From: Damien <damien@...>
Damien Broderick Re: "After Thought" by James Bailey
Eugene Leitl Re: "dead" woman brought back to life
Damien Broderick Re: "Tell me a *good* story!"
Damien Broderick Re: "Tell me a *good* story!"
Eugene Leitl (de Garis') are fake neurons
Eugene Leitl RE: (de Garis') are fake neurons
Eugene Leitl RE: (de Garis') are fake neurons
Eugene Leitl RE: (de Garis') are fake neurons
Damien Broderick RE: (de Garis') are fake neurons
Robin Hanson Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
Eugene Leitl Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
GBurch1@... Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
GBurch1@... Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
Eugene Leitl Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
Robin Hanson Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
Eugene Leitl Re: >H A simulated cell
Eugene Leitl Re: >H A simulated cell
Sasha Chislenko >H Action movies
Eugene Leitl >H AI hardware before 2011?
Anders Sandberg Re: >H Black hole atoms
Eugene Leitl Re: >H Re: transhuman-digest V1 #562
Eugene Leitl Re: >H Re: transhuman-digest V1 #562
Anders Sandberg Re: >H Re: transhuman-digest V1 #562
Eugene Leitl Re: >H Re: transhuman-digest V1 #562
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 23:54:10 +1100
Subject: Re: "After Thought" by James Bailey
>Emlyn
>"The mind of man doth wonderfully endeavor... that it may light upon
>something fixt and immoveable... which may, in some measure, moderate the
>fluctuations and wheelings of the understanding; fearing, it may be, the
>falling of their heaven."
>F. Bacon (Francis???)
Fried.
(This flu has to go away soon, urg)
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 16:47:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: "dead" woman brought back to life
Robert J. Bradbury writes:
> I believe it is fairly low, perhaps 40 deg. F. They can't take it
> so low that you run the risk of ice crystal formation.
It is possible to reduce the body core temperature in dogs to 2-4 deg
C. There is no reason why this shouldn't work in humans. Any
volunteers? ;) I have no idea what the lowest human body core
temperature ever was, but intuitively, in human infants drowned in
ice-cold water (~4 deg C) for 30-45 min it must be damn low.
Afaik 27 deg C is routinely used in surgery, but this is hearsay (I
have no refs).
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 12:51:06 +1100
Subject: Re: "Tell me a *good* story!"
At 11:26 PM 29/01/00 -0800, Michael Butler wrote:
>> My question has subtle implications, but as MMB notes, it was an axe-blow.
>I was thinking more of an Alexandrian sword, but hey.
My bad. Although I think it might have been a Macedonian sword, whoever
wielded it. Maybe I meant a nose-blow. (The pun is mightier than the word/s.)
Damien
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 14:17:40 +1100
Subject: Re: "Tell me a *good* story!"
At 10:07 PM 30/01/00 -0500, Bob Owen wrote:
>> >I was thinking more of an Alexandrian sword, but hey.
>>
>> My bad. Although I think it might have been a Macedonian sword, whoever
>> wielded it.
>
>Think "Alexander".
Well... yes. < quavering upward intonation >#
Damien
# In lieu of the more brutal `Yes, d'uh?'
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 21:42:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (de Garis') are fake neurons
Entropyfoe@... writes:
> So if five synthetic neurons were as powerful as one human one, the power is
> close for 20 billion. Perhaps a further generation, a thousand times larger
> still. This is when things get interesting...2011 doesent seem that far
> away now does it?!?!?
Why engage in arithmomancy? CAs are a powerful means of simulation,
but de Garis' are sequential CAs. So what if five thousand synthetic
neurons were as powerful as one human one? And not even realtime?
And what if Moore's law saturates before 2011?
'gene
P.S. "(Eugene Leitl) aus Deutschland hat geschrieben..."
It's Southern California, for gawdssakes!
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 13:09:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: RE: (de Garis') are fake neurons
Billy Brown writes:
> William Kitchen wrote:
> > I also wonder to what extent their greater speed can compensate
> > for their lesser capabilities. The future is ours to create.
Sigh. So are great legends born. These are simulated neurons. They
dwell as 3d patterns in RAM. The FPGA reads from, mangles, and writes
RAM contents back. Because the FPGA is not integrated into the RAM
die, it can only access a tiny fraction of it simultaneusly. In a
sense, we're emulating computronium here. This is an FPGA accelerated
cellular automaton machine, the rules implemented as reconfigurable
logic. It is largely sequential, and hence there is no greater speed
than what biology can deliver. You have essentially no limits to
connectivity, but have to sacrifice speed. Carver Mead's approach is
exactly the other way round: low connectivity, high speed.
If the average length a spike has to traverse is several thousands
cells, you can compute the time necessary for computation of the
result by multiplying time for a single iteration times path length.
> My understanding is that they are already exploiting this. Their hardware
> only instantiates a few thousand virtual neurons at a time, and it does time
> sharing between sets of neurons to reach that 'x million' figure.
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 14:32:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: RE: (de Garis') are fake neurons
Ramez Naam writes:
> Yes, if de Garis' neural connections are just random, there's no way he's
> going to achieve human-level intelligence, even with 1000x the neurons.
GAs are not random. I do not get his manual block assembly part, though.
> That having been said, his plans are encouraging in two respects:
> 1) Independent of getting human-level (or human-like) intelligence, a neural
> net of that size does seem to hold the promise of being a remarkably
> powerful learning machine.
Size alone is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
> 2) If he can really simulate 10^12 neurons in 2011, then that leaves the
> door open for scanning a human brain and replicating its architecture in de
> Garis' neural simulation. In 2011 presumably the only option would be a
> destructive scan, but even this would be phenomenally ahead of schedule.
On what evidence do you base this absurd optimism?
> The major question in my mind is how rich his simulated neurons are. How
> many synaptic connections do they each have? How frequently are their time
> slices? How closely can the mimic the behavior of human neurons?
Once again, his neurons are highly simplified sketches. They are
Potyemkin's villages of neurons. The tasks of creating an AI and
neuronal emulation are only distantly related. Neuronal emulation is
distinctly harder.
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 14:54:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: RE: (de Garis') are fake neurons
Billy Brown writes:
> That isn't quite how I read it. My understanding is that they encode the
> configuration and state information for each FPGA-sized block of simulated
Do you know how long on-the-fly-compression/expansion of the pattern takes?
> neurons in a rather tiny block of binary data, which can be moved to or from
> regular memory in less than one of the FPGA chip's clock cycles. Their
I stand corrected. I have only browsed de Garis' papers, and it has
been 1-2 years ago.
> limitations are that each FPGA can simulate only a very few neurons, so they
> have to do the time-sharing trick to avoid having to buy millions of the
Unfortunately you have to address the overlapping parts of the
simulation. Each volume blocks are coupled at the edges, hence not
completely independant. Also, FPGAs are 2d, and their circuitry
density is order of magnitude lower than an ASIC.
> things. To improve performance they have to get more FPGAs, get denser
> FPGAs so they can put more neurons on each of them, or crank up the speed at
> which the FPGAs run.
Hopefully, before very long we will get real hardware CAs instead of
FPGAs. In silicon, these will be 2d (3d is much more expensive in
terms of connectivity and hence delay), but a lot denser and
faster. As a side effect, with the proper rule you can ignore point
defects (manufacture defects and hardware failure), and utilize
98..99% of a whole wafer in a contiguous circuit.
From: Damien Broderick <d.broderick@...>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 16:47:44 +1100
Subject: RE: (de Garis') are fake neurons
>Billy Brown writes:
> > That isn't quite how I read it. My understanding is that they encode the
> > configuration and state information for each FPGA-sized block
If there are any other pig-ignorant clods like me out there, a useful
source of info on these gadgets is
http://www.optimagic.com/faq.html
which sez inter alia:
Most FPGAs do not provide 100% interconnect
between logic blocks (to do so would be prohibitively expensive).
Instead,
sophisticated software places and routes the logic on the device much
like a
PCB autorouter would place and route components.
A generic description of an FPGA is a programmable device with an
internal
array of logic blocks, surrounded by a ring of programmable input/output
blocks, connected together via programmable interconnect. There are a
wide
variety of sub-architectures within this group. The secret to density
and
performance in these devices lies in the logic contained in their
logic blocks and
on the performance and efficiency of their routing architecture.
And here I was guessing that FPGA was some kind of genetic algorithm...
(But this site's description makes it sound as if I was being uncannily
astute in asking about connectivity.)
Damien the clueless but intrepid
From: Robin Hanson <rhanson@...>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 13:39:00 -0500
Subject: Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
Doug Jones wrote:
>Robin Hanson wrote:
> > Jeff Davis wrote:
> > >The idea of Von Neumann probes "colonizing" the galaxy per preprogrammed
> > >plan, seemed, when I first encountered it, not only rude, ... such an act
> > >would be viewed by those on the receiving end, as an "assault", and
> all but
> > >certain to provoke a forceful "corrective" response. ...
> >
> > "Pardon, me, was anyone sitting here? I don't want to be rude but I am
> > so tired. Haven't seen anyone? OK, thanks. Phew. That feels nice."
> >
> > ... 110 years later at a star 100 light years away ...
> >
> > "Pardon, me, was anyone sitting here? ..."
>
>All the seats? only if multiple probes visit each star, or probes replicate
>without bounds. ...
My point was that replicating without bound does not require the sort of
risky rude assaults that Jeff described. Yes of course there are other
ways to not be rude besides replicating widely but politely.
Robin Hanson rhanson@...http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 16:35:52 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
gary tripp writes:
>
> If all advanced space faring races have avoided interfering with the natural
> evolution of life on planets, such as ours, because they wish to see that
If space faring civilisations exist, they must tread terribly
lightly/be nonexpansive.
This makes no sense at all.
Due to (postbiological) evolutionary species radiation you must have
heterogeneity, even if you have to pass through a diversity bottleneck
(e.g. step into space), and hence there is evolutionary pressure to
fill new niches, whether ultracold (inter) stellar periphery or inner
solar systems.
Nonsentient systems can be capable of interstellar travel and
autoreplication. (Though intelligence is probably a necessary initial
condition for emergence of any brawny spacefaring life).
I can only be moral if I'm sentient (and even then this is necessary
but not sufficient. Morality is an artefact of iterated interaction
among more or less equal partners).
Hence no starfaring culture (or even a population of starfaring
cultures) can remain nonexpansive and hence nonobservable over any
relevant time spans.
> latent potential realized then would they act to prevent natural disasters,
> such as earth-asteriod collisions, in order to preserve that potential?
> Evidently, if such advanced races exist, they don't care much about life as
> they certainly did not intervene during near fatal earth-asteriod collisions
> of the past.
Occam's razor says they don't exist (or are not
observable/noninteracting, which means exactly the same thing).
Solar system screened for planets so far seem to indicate our
particular system is pretty special. With better instrumentation
(e.g. space based large-aperture ultra-lage baseline optical
interferometry) we might make our data set more exhaustive, and even
look for spectroscopic life signatures (nonequilibrium) in our stellar
neighbourhood (photons bounced of small planets in life belt are
awfully scarce). My guess is also that the rate of nucleonic synthesis
is making observations over distances more than 200-500 Mlightyears
too stale. Civilisation nucleation rate is probably very low
intrinsincally because proper planetary systems (chemistry, location,
long-term orbit stability) and early hatching rate as well (isotopic
abundancy has to be right). Things should have sped up by now, but
we're limited to our local galactic group for fresh data.
From: GBurch1@...
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 17:40:47 EST
Subject: Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
In a message dated 1/16/00 3:55:34 PM Central Standard Time, xllb@...
writes:
> . . . there is, IMHO, too
> much that works, in spite of the chaos, to completely exclude intelligent
> design.
Read "Climbing Mount Improbable" by Richard Dawkins.
> Besides, given the vastness of the universe, and potential
> multi-verses, and hyperspace (M. Kaku, et al), it seems likely that
> somewhere there exists intelligence greater than that of Marylyn Von
Savant,
> or whatever her name is.
I wish we could say whether it's likely or not. Possible? Certainly.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@...>----<gburch@...>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
From: GBurch1@...
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 21:58:56 EST
Subject: Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
In a message dated 1/16/00 5:22:10 PM Central Standard Time,
rowen@... writes:
> If, for the sake of argument, we adopt Aristotle's distinction
> between "final" and "formal" causes, it is possible to assert that
> nature as we observe it appears to be the "effect" of a pattern
> of causes having a formal property without implying teleology.
Yes, and viewing evolution in this way can make studying natural science all
the more thrilling. But "design" without teleology isn't what the theistic
"argument from design" has in mind at all.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@...>----<gburch@...>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 19:58:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
gary tripp writes:
> Is it possible that technologically advanced civilizations quickly develop
> the capability to work technology many orders of magnitude smaller & faster
> than nanotech and direct their attention inwardly?
This assumes that the transcension mechanism is extremely rigid (as a
sequence of spacetime events) across civilisation population, and/or
eradicates lower-tech traces creeping outwards (GRB would be a
candidate, but awfully hard on stellar neighbourhood).
Possible, but not likely.
> With such extraordinary technology they could convert their own planet
> into one immensely powerful computer and take up residence within it.
Why limiting itself to just one planet? One stellar system? What
happened to interstellar probes (or just von Neumann probes sent to
their Oort cloud) before? Or slow wetlife habitats travelling
outwards?
> They could bide their time playing with simulations of evolution that make
> the study of extra-terrestrial biological evolution seem painfully slow,
> stupid, inconsequential and ultimately superfluous.
This assumes they are sentient, _all_ of them. I'm arguing that's
impossible to assert on the long run.
> Notwithstanding the fact that WE have a burning desire to explore the
> universe, why would such a civilization venture outward?
Because it can, and because a sufficiently diverse population over
long enough time will sample behaviour space exhaustively. A lot of
behaviours/strategies are compatible with expansion, and that's why it
will happen.
From: Robin Hanson <rhanson@...>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2000 16:48:21 -0500
Subject: Re: *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox
Jeff Davis wrote:
>The idea of Von Neumann probes "colonizing" the galaxy per preprogrammed
>plan, seemed, when I first encountered it, not only rude, but also not well
>thought out. Any reasonable intelligence would foresee that such an act
>would be viewed by those on the receiving end, as an "assault", and all but
>certain to provoke a forceful "corrective" response. So, aside from
>ethical concerns (not to mention discourtesy), simple self-preservation
>would suggest a more circumspect approach: Von Neuman stealthy, or--if you
>wanted to be bold--friendly exploratory probes, with perhaps the colonizing
>program as an option. When one is uncertain as to who one will meet when
>venturing out into unexplored territory, it is best to be both cautious and
>well-mannered.
"Pardon, me, was anyone sitting here? I don't want to be rude but I am
so tired. Haven't seen anyone? OK, thanks. Phew. That feels nice."
... 110 years later at a star 100 light years away ...
"Pardon, me, was anyone sitting here? ..."
Looks like "preprogrammed plan" to me. And polite or no, it leads to
all the seats being taken relatively quickly.
Robin Hanson rhanson@...http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 13:38:27 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: >H A simulated cell
Technotranscendence writes:
> It would be nice to take this work and apply it to antiaging and cryonics
> research. A few years ago, I suggested coming up with a mathematical model
Yes, that's the idea behind it.
> of cryopreservation so as to come up with better cryoprotectants through use
> of genetic algorithmns. (My assumption was the model would be highly
We first need a good water model. I haven't modelled freezing in large
volumes (it's on my todo list), but purportedly the freezing point is
totally off-key. Whether this is an artefact of small volumes, or the
water model, and inasmuch this invalidates studied impact of
cryoprotectants I do not know (but intend to find out).
> nonlinear and very complex so that this method of search would be better
> than trial and error or an exhaustive search.)
Virtual screening is very new, and requires a lot of resources, both
in terms of hardware and manpower.
> Anyone interested in this?
>
> And what is the current method of research on this? I hear about results,
Cryobiology is but a tiny subfied of a subfield, counting about 200
practitioners world-wide, most of them past their prime. Molecular
modelling is hence slow to enter the field.
> but I'm not sure about the program. I assume it's basically trial and error
> because the results seem disjointed.
Thanks to Greg Fahy, we seem to understand colligative cryoprotectant
mixes more or less well now.
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 19:57:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: >H A simulated cell
Technotranscendence writes:
> > We first need a good water model. I haven't modelled freezing in large
> > volumes (it's on my todo list), but purportedly the freezing point is
> > totally off-key.
>
> Please explain. (If it will take too much space here, please email me
> directly.)
The freezing point in machina is far from ~273 K. Of course it could be
microdroplet supercooling, but one find that out by seeding the volume
with an ice nucleus. As I said, I haven't tried it out yet.
> > Virtual screening is very new, and requires a lot of resources, both
> > in terms of hardware and manpower.
>
> But genetic algorithmns have been around since, at least, the early 1970s.
> If one could start with a simple model -- one that hardly works -- and just
> build on it, I bet this could be done a lot quicker. We don't need
Structure generation is more or less trivial. You can generate
hundreds to thousands of structures per second. Screening them
virtually is much more difficult, especially if things go beyond
"mere" docking. Freezing in presence of cryoprotectantcs is probably
synergistic (the cryoprotectant influences the ice structure and the
growth mechanisms). If you assume it isn't, you might produce
garbage. Off the top of my head, a virtual screening run with
simulated freezing with current hardware (64 node Beowulf cluster) can
take around a week for a single candidate. Maybe more than a week.
> perfection here. After all, this would only act as an input into actual
> physical testing. The searches coudl act to weed out more bad
"only"? The computer suggests a structure. You can't buy it, so you
make a literature search (if you're lucky, you can find a procedure,
order the chemicals, and hopefully synthesize the thing in a few
weeks). If not, you have to develop a synthesis route first. Then you
have to purify it, and test it. (Testing can be done in a half a day).
> > Cryobiology is but a tiny subfied of a subfield, counting about 200
> > practitioners world-wide, most of them past their prime. Molecular
> > modelling is hence slow to enter the field.
>
> I can understand, but that also means no one else is probably doing the work
> there, so you need not fear competitors for a while. You'll be the pioneer.
You still need the resources, and the manpower.
> Also, cryobiology is not the only field I mentioned. Antiaging research is
> the other. What of that? If one can develop a good model of aging at the
> cellular or molecular level, then finding new ways to combat it would seem
> to me to be a lot easier. From the looks of it, it appears most research in
> this area is identify a mechanism, find something that inhibits it, look for
> similar things to that inhibitor, and so forth. Am I right?
>
> A simulated aging cell could be used to more efficiently search for aging
> inhibitors and therapies, no?
We cannot even fold proteins yet. Virtual cell at molecular resolution
is future technology.
> Specifically, I'd like to know how people come up with ideas for new
> cryoprotectants.
Educated guess, blind trial and error, and rational design. A little
bit of everything. You can also go for combinatorial chemistry and
evolution in vitro.
From: Sasha Chislenko <sasha1@...>
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 01:45:38 -0600
Subject: >H Action movies
Just saw another martial arts movie to unwind from all
this technological work. Black Mask.
Not too bad, but quite typical.
Cyborg killers fighting each other.
Good fighters, these cyborgs - fun to watch.
Funny, nobody seems to be interested in seeing natural human
skills anymore. Cyborgs are more popular as physical heroes.
Even the best hormonally enhanced, decorated and airbrushed
professional human bodies aren't good enough anymore.
Does anybody watch cowboy films anymore?
If Jeremy Rifkin's children watch the same movies, does it
matter what their father says?
-----------------------------------------------------------
Sasha Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 16:32:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: >H AI hardware before 2011?
Damien Broderick writes:
> Then comes the third generation, which Professor de
> Garis expects to be finished about 2011 - a fearsome
> creation of 1000billion neurons, vastly larger than that of
> a human.
Well, these (de Garis') are fake neurons. Neuronlike functional units,
significantly less powerful than their biological counterparts.
From: Anders Sandberg <asa@...>
Date: 21 Jan 2000 13:21:42 +0100
Subject: Re: >H Black hole atoms
Phil <flick@...> writes:
> > Atom made from charged elementary black hole
> >
> > Authors: V. V. Flambaum, J. C. Berengut
> >
> > It is believed that there may have been a large number of
> > black holes formed in the very early universe. These would
> > have quantised masses. A charged ``elementary black hole''
> > (with the minimum possible mass) can capture electrons,
> > protons and other charged particles to form a ``black hole
> > atom''. We find the spectrum of such an object with a view to
>
> Please pardon my ignorance... How can something with the mass of, say,
> a neutron, form a black hole? Are they saying that the subatomic
> components are packed together more densely than in an ordinary neutron?
The black holes in the paper are rather speculative entities, remnants
from the big bang. During the initial fireball some regions might have
been compressed into lots of very small black holes which remain to
this day. This paper assumes there is a lower mass for black holes due
to quantization and explores what charged quantum black holes could
do.
> How does this black hole capture particles if it is so small that the
> wave functions of the particles it "tries" to capture extend beyond
> its event horizon?
Electromagnetism. The electrons or protons are bound by the charge of
the hole. They are not "eaten" (or rather, the rate of falling into
the hole is very low according to the paper).
> PS - What is omega@...?
It is the local, swedish-speaking transhumanist list.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@...http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2000 19:47:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: >H Re: transhuman-digest V1 #562
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky writes:
> If the Powers are that hungry, why didn't the first sentient species to
> transcend eat the Universe? *Bzzzt* Fermi Paradox.
Maybe we're not in the lightcone of a voracious Power. (Corollary: if
you see their signatures, they're knocking on your front door
already). Given that our higher biosphere would have only 200-500 Ma
to exist before being cooked by Sun starting to visibly move on
Hertzsprung-Russel, the probability that sentient must eventually
evolve on an Earthlike planets is not so very obvious. We don't know
why Cambrian explosion happened and cannot predict the exact
extraterrestrial evolution dynamics reliably, just the overall
pattern.
I'm also looking forward to definite data on Earthlike planets. We
seem to be finding an awful lot of Jovian-type fatties in damn low
orbits around nearby stars. I don't think this forebodes well for
density of earthlike planets. Both in respect of formation and orbit
stability once/if formed.
Maybe Fermi's paradoxon is not a paradoxon at all. Sentient life is
just awful scarce. The more power to us, then.
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Sun, 9 Jan 2000 20:29:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: >H Re: transhuman-digest V1 #562
Bryan Moss writes:
> for spare atoms, I'm going to say 90% likely. Thus we have
> an ~82%+ chance of Bad Stuff happening.
Unless the process of transformation is slow enough that anybody (who
so wishes, and screw the rest) can follow, Powers are definitely Major
Bad News to primate flesh.
I wonder where people take their certainty that Powers are
homogenous. They either diversify or their subsystems become
autonomous. I don't know about you, but I think it takes a damn active
and benevolent Power to protect us from their parasites, or just the
side effects of their metabolism.
From: Anders Sandberg <asa@...>
Date: 10 Jan 2000 17:42:02 +0100
Subject: Re: >H Re: transhuman-digest V1 #562
"Bryan Moss" <bryan.moss@...> writes:
> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>
> > So, given that there's also a 50% chance that the Powers
> > are nice guys,
>
> If we're going to be simplistic (and I don't think we have
> much choice) there's a 33% chance that the Powers are nice
> guys, 33% chance that they're indifferent, and a 33% chance
> that they're bad guys. The space of indifference (towards
> us, a tiny spec in this cosmos) is far greater than the
> space of good or bad, thus more appropriate (although still
> conservative) figures might be 10% good, 80% indifferent,
> and 10% bad. With indifference we're very likely to be used
> for spare atoms, I'm going to say 90% likely. Thus we have
> an ~82%+ chance of Bad Stuff happening.
I think the first half of your post makes a lot of sense, but the
second does not follow since you are now making assumptions about the
*way* they are indifferent - you have to show that the space of
indifferent behaviors leading to them eating us is much larger than
the space of indifferent behaviors that have no negative effect.
What is the probability that a randomly selected human is a nice guy?
As evaluated from the perspective of a cat? From the perspective of an
ant? From the perspective of a bacterium?
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@...http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
From: Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@...>
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 13:19:03 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: >H Re: transhuman-digest V1 #562
Robert Bradbury writes:
> Robert Freitas has an interesting answer for this in his Xenology text.
> He argues that advanced "moral entities" would be highly "extropic"
Very well, but due to darwinistic noise we will have also less moral
entities, the cosmic equivalent of crabgrass. It might be even
nonsentient.
Probabilistically, if sentient life is common as dirt, some of them or
parts of them sometimes wouldn't transcend (if possible). And even a
single instance of it would amplify over a galaxy within 1 Ma or so.
I also don't buy Greg Egan's argument that Introdus civilizations are
intrinsically autistic. A subsystem might grow frisky, and run off.
I still say if you start to see stars in one hemisphere starting to
wink out into infrared, prepare to become food of the gods. (Not that
we have much time left to be eaten, before we start our own little
omnivorous expedition).
> and seek to maximize the possible information content in the universe.
> They would never "consume" or "destroy" anything that has some
> "minimum" information content. It may just be that planets in habitable
From: "space.com" <thoughts@...>
(Today's headlines compiled by the editorial staff of space.com)
--------------------
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(To unsubscribe, follow directions at bottom of this newsletter.)
In today's space.com newsletter:
-- WEATHER DELAYS ENDEAVOUR LAUNCH FOR 24 HOURS
-- WHY SEND UP THIS MISSION, ANYHOW?
-- NASA SEEKS INTERNATIONAL HELP IN LISTENING FOR MARS LANDER
-- JOHN GLENN SHUTTLE MISSION: A BOON TO BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH
-- SHUTTLE COUNTDOWN UNDER WAY; ENGINE PROBLEM COULD PROMPT DELAY
-- TODAY'S SPACEFACT
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WEATHER DELAYS ENDEAVOUR LAUNCH FOR 24 HOURS
Weather and software causing problems for Space Shuttle Endeavour.
http://www.space.com/space/spaceshuttle/sts99_sr3.html
--------------------
WHY SEND UP THIS MISSION, ANYHOW?
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission isn't the first NASA effort go get a
good look at Earth. Scientists were tantalized by results they got some
years back. Read about those efforts and others to focus on Earth from space
in space.com's special report.
http://www.space.com/science/planetearth/sts99_sr2.html
--------------------
NASA SEEKS INTERNATIONAL HELP IN LISTENING FOR MARS LANDER
NASA has asked the Dutch, English and Italians for help in determining
whether recently detected radio signals could have come from the errant Mars
Polar Lander.
http://www.space.com/science/solarsystem/nasa_seeks_help_000128.html
--------------------
JOHN GLENN SHUTTLE MISSION: A BOON TO BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH
The results of John Glenn's historic return to space aboard STS-95 were
released during a two-day conference in Washington, D.C. Read about it in
<i>space.com's</i> special report on John Glenn.
http://www.space.com/spacehistory/SR_john_glenn_000128.html
--------------------
SHUTTLE COUNTDOWN UNDER WAY; ENGINE PROBLEM COULD PROMPT DELAY
A weekend countdown to the planned launch Monday of shuttle Endeavour began
Friday evening, but the first piloted spaceflight of 2000 won't take off
until NASA resolves a potential engine problem.
http://www.space.com/space/spaceshuttle/shuttle_problem_000128.html
--------------------
TODAY'S SPACEFACT
A song called "Follow the Drinking Gourd" helped slaves escape northward in
pre-Civil War America. The "drinking gourd" was the Big Dipper, visible
above the northern horizon.
For more of space.com's Fact Collection go to:
http://www.space.com/news/facts.html
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http://www.spaceviews.com/2000/01/30b.html
While astronomers continue to discover
possible new extrasolar planets, the lack of
discoveries from another planet search
project may mean that solar systems like
our own may be relatively rare in the galaxy.
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; I)
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Approved-By: "H. Alan Montgomery" <fhd@...>
Newsgroups: sci.space.news
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 07:11:52 -0600
Reply-To: News about Space from SEDS <SEDSNEWS@...>
Sender: News about Space from SEDS <SEDSNEWS@...>
From: "H. Alan Montgomery" <fhd@...>
Organization: Master CraftsMon
Subject: Dornier Satellitensysteme provides Space-Radar Instrument X-SAR:
To: SEDSNEWS@...
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Dornier Satellitensysteme provides Space-Radar Instrument X-SAR:
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 01:38:42 -0500
From: Andrew Yee <ayee@...>
Organization: UTCC Campus Access
To: SEDSNEWS@...
Satellites Business Unit
DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG
Munich, Germany
January 2000
DSS provides Space-Radar Instrument X-SAR: Shuttle Flight is to Chart the
World in 3-D
Oberpfaffenhofen/Friedrichshafen -- With the help of the German radar
instrument X-SAR/SRTM, a three-dimensional map of the Earth will be
drawn up from space. Dornier Satellitensysteme GmbH (DSS/Friedrichshafen),
a company of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG (Dasa/Munich), developed and
built this instrument which is to be used in the "Shuttle Radar Topography
Mission" (SRTM). The eleven-day flight with the Space Shuttle Endeavour is
expected to start from Cape Canaveral.
Earth observation from the orbit is possible with various instruments. The
radar sensors have many advantages: they work at day and at night, they
penetrate also clouds and, in the planned configuration, they permit the
generation of 3D images of the Earth's surface. The method planned for SRTM,
the so-called radar interferometry, is the technologically most advanced
and effective method for the acquisition of topographic information.
The idea of the SRTM mission goes back to two successful space shuttle
flights in spring and fall 1994 with the German/Italian X-SAR mapping radar
instrument on board. Combined with the NASA-developed SIR-C instrument,
multi-frequency radar data from space were recorded for the first time for
geoscience and application-oriented earth observation tasks. Both missions
demonstrated that these data could also be used for exact land use
classification, determination of the biomass of forests, acquisition of the
extent of floods, oil spills and ice on the Earth's oceans. It could also be
shown that it was possible to obtain topographic data on the Earth's surface
with the help of SAR interferometry. The operation during the flights of
1994 was in the so-called "multi-pass" mode, i.e. the interferometry data
were acquired during different Earth orbits. In the next and also the third
flight of SIR-C/SAR. data acquisition will be performed simultaneously in
the so-called "single pass" mode.
During the eleven-day SRTM mission, it is planned to collect data for a
digital elevation model of landmasses within a range between +60 and -56
degree geographical latitude. Thus, about 80 per cent of the Earth's
complete landmass will be acquired. For this purpose, it would be necessary
to expand the existing X-SAR instrument by an additional receive channel
and a second antenna mounted on the end of the 60 m boom.
Up to now, the best global database has provided only every 1,000 meters
a point with an accuracy of 100 meters in height. The SRTM sensors will
provide every 30 meters a point with an accuracy of 6 meters in height. This
worldwide unique database will offer manifold utilization possibilities, for
instance, in the fields of mobile radio communication (radio-wave
propagation), navigation, water resources, disaster management (prevention,
operation, evaluation) traffic infrastructure planning and weather
forecasting/climate modeling. Organizations from 25 states have already
ordered these data.
Currently, the C-band and X-band interferometer are being tested with the
shuttle interface and instrument operation is also being simulated via the
ground station in Houston, Texas. The STRM instrument pack is to be
installed into the cargo bay of Endeavour in July.
The SRTM mission is also unique regarding the cost aspects. The cooperation
with NASA allows flight opportunity at no charge as well as the wide use
of existing hardware. In addition to four U.S. astronauts and the Japanese
Marnoru Mohri, the German mission specialist Dr. Gerhard Thiele of the ESA
astronaut team also belongs to the Endeavour crew.
SRTM is a joint project of NASA, NIMA (National Image and Mapping Agency),
DLR and ASI (Italian space agency). JPL is responsible for the development
of the C-band radar interferometer and Dornier Satellitensysteme GmbH is
the industrial prime contractor for the development of the X-SAR radar
system.
For further information:
Dornier Satellitensysteme GmbH
Mathias Pikelj
tel: +7545/8-9123
fax: +7545/8-5589
e-mail: Presse@...
*****
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.
Contact: Jad Davenport, (303) 939-6318
BALL AEROSPACE ANTENNAS TO LAUNCH ABOARD SHUTTLE JAN. 31, TO HELP
NASA/JPL MAP THE WORLD IN 11 DAYS
BROOMFIELD, Colo., Jan. 31, 2000 -- Radar antennas designed and
manufactured by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., will rocket into
orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on Monday, Jan. 31, 2000, as part
of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (STS-99) undertaken by NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The mission will collect data over 80 percent
of the planet's landmass for the National Image and Mapping Agency (NIMA).
NIMA will use the information to create the most accurate and complete
topographic map of Earth ever assembled.
Ball Aerospace, an industry leader in antenna technology for more than three
decades, designed the original Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C (SIR-C) antennas
that were used to create maps on two previous shuttle missions in 1994. To
augment these original 40-foot, 23,100-pound antennas, Ball Aerospace built
an additional, smaller receiving antenna that is mounted on the end of a
200-foot mast. The mast and antenna are deployed while the shuttle is in
orbit 145 miles above Earth.
Once in orbit, the instrument will send radar pulses to the Earth's surface,
and both antennas will receive the energy reflected back from the terrain.
These data will be processed using a technique called interferometry, which
essentially allows scientists to create 3-D views of the Earth's surface.
"It's pretty amazing what we can do in just 11 days," says Gary Salisbury,
director of programs for Ball Aerospace's Advanced Antenna & Video Systems.
"SRTM will be able see through thick cloud cover and dense areas like
rainforests to map areas never seen before from space." The radar will image
mountains and deep valleys in the Andes, Himalayas and Rocky Mountains;
vast expanses of deserts and coastal plains; as well as cold regions and
forests of northern latitudes. The mission will also map vestiges of ancient
human settlements, such as the eighth-century Khmer civilization of Angkor,
Cambodia.
Data from the mission will be used by NIMA to build a digital, global
elevation
map with data points spaced roughly every 100 feet. The current global
elevation map uses data points spaced every 330 feet and covers only 65
percent of the Earth's landmass.
"The really unique thing about this mission is that we've taken a scientific
instrument and adapted it to produce a data product," Salisbury says. The data
will have a wide variety of applications including military and commercial
uses. Salisbury says scientists will be able to use the maps for studying
environment changes in areas previously unavailable. Military applications
could include mission planning, modeling and simulation.
A key commercial benefit, says Gary Rait, Ball Aerospace antenna system
engineer for both SIR-C and SRTM, is to commercial airlines. "Because
mapping quality is so poor in some areas of the world, pilots have very
little accurate information about the location of mountain ranges," he says.
"They can get into a lot of trouble when bad weather reduces visibility.
SRTM's highly improved mapping data will help prevent planes crashing
into mountainsides."
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. provides systems engineering services,
and designs and manufactures complete spacecraft and space systems; space
and scientific sensors; cryogenic subsystems; antenna and communications
systems; and video products for commercial and government customers. The
company is a subsidiary of Ball Corporation (NYSE:BLL), which had $2.9
billion in sales in 1998.
Photos available at:
http://www.ball.com/aerospace/media/SRTM/srtm.html
---
Andrew Yee
ayee@...
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 22:42:10 -0800
From: "PhysLINK.com" <quotes@...>
Subject: PhysLINK.com Quote - Week of January 30, 2000
To: lklaes@...
PhysLINK.com Quote of the Week (ISSN 1099-8683)
+-------------------------------------------------------+
"On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain:
either you will reach a point higher up today,
or you will be training your powers so that you will
be able to climb higher tomorrow."
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
(1844-1900)
+-------------------------------------------------------+
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the late 19th
century who challenged the foundations of traditional morality
and Christianity. He believed in life, creativity, health,
and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those
situated in a world beyond.
(from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
To learn more about Nietzsche, visit:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
+-------------------------------------------------------+
Buy the book:
The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche
by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
- only $14.36 at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0804736480/physlinktheultim
+-------------------------------------------------------+
Have a creative week!
Yours,
Anton Skorucak
President and creator of PhysLINK.com
http://www.PhysLINK.com
+-------------------------------------------------------+
The Space Shuttle Endeavour is planned to launch January 31st
on an 11-day radar mapping mission. For more information
on the mission, including links to NASA information,
breaking news, and live video visit Universe Today's
STS-99 reference guide.
http://www.universetoday.com/html/special/sts99.html
+-------------------------------------------------------+
To unsubscribe or change your e-mail, please
visit: http://www.physlink.com/quotations.cfm
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 16:27:30
Subject: Smithsonian Magazine Newsletter - February 2000
To: lklaes@...
From: news@...
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:leave-smithsonian-magazine-609630F@...>
Reply-To: news@...
WELCOME to the Smithsonian Magazine e-newsletter for February, 2000.
This month, Smithsonian Magazine features gargoyles in Washington DC, a
groundbreaking biology expedition to Iran, a new world of robots, the
glories of Topkapi, and a special online look at the National Zoo's
Sumatran tiger cubs.
Of course, the online edition of the magazine contains beautiful
photographs and articles not included here. In order not to miss a thing,
be sure to bookmark the Smithsonian Magazine home page:
*****************************
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu
*****************************
BEASTS ON HIGH: The stonecarvers of Washington National Cathedral left
their marks in modern gargoyles and grotesques.
CASTING NEW LIGHT ON IRANIAN DESERTS: An American scientist reports
first-hand on the first authorized expedition to Iran in two decades.
REDEFINING ROBOTS: Robobiologist Mark Tilden creates machines that can
adapt to complex environments. What's next?
SPLENDORS OF TOPKAPI: A new exhibit brings symbols of the wealth of the
Ottoman Empire on a tour of the United States.
SMITHSONIAN HIGHLIGHTS: The National Zoo introduces some of its newest
denizens - three Sumatran tiger cubs. See additional pictures online!
KIDS' CASTLE: An educational site that's perfect for ages 8-14, featuring
new articles every week, and our ever-popular message boards! Just click on
"Kids' Castle" from our home page.
*****************************
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu
*****************************
OTHER COLUMNS AND FEATURES:
Reclaiming old logging roads
A day in the life of a District Attorney
The amazing feats of slimy, slippery eels
California's Long Valley caldera: a tranquil threat
The story behind the man we know as Blackbeard
A review of Bernd Heinrich's "Mind of the Raven"
... and much more!
*****************************
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu
*****************************
COMING NEXT MONTH:
A mother-daughter book club
The evolution of the mobile home
Farmers harness the power of the wind
Heading to New Zealand to track the elusive Kiwi bird
America's largest contemporary art museum opens in Massachussetts
... and much more!
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http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu
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X-Authentication-Warning: seti1.setileague.org: majordom set sender to
owner-public@... using -f
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 10:25:46 +0200
From: Institute of Radio Astronomy <rai@...>
Reply-To: rai@...
X-Mailer: MailWarrior 3
To: lunascan@...
CC: public@..., seti@onelist.com, francisgraham@...
Subject: SETI public: Article on Lunar Archaeology
X-Mailer-Version: v3.03
Sender: owner-public@...
The full version of the following article could be ordered via
<metares@...>.
PRELIMINARY SEARCH FOR RUIN-LIKE FORMATIONS ON THE MOON
Alexey V. Arkhipov
[Meta Research Bulletin, December 15, 1999, vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 49-54]
The Moon is an indicator of possible alien visits to the Earth during
the past ~4 billion years. New computer algorithms are proposed and
tested for the archaeological reconnaissance of our satellite. About
20,000 Clementine lunar orbital images have been processed, and a few
ruin-like formations were found. According to a fractal analysis,
some of these finds are different from the lunar surface on which they
reside, and formally resemble terrestrial archaeological objects. At
the least, the catalogued formations should be interesting as geolo-
gical anomalies.
Reply-To: <dthomas@...>
From: "Dr. David J. Thomas" <dthomas@...>
To: <dthomas@...>
Subject: Marsbugs Vol. 7, No. 4 (text)
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 09:24:26 -0600
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0
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Importance: Normal
MARSBUGS:
The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter
Volume 7, Number 4, 31 January 2000.
Editors:
Dr. David J. Thomas, Biology and Chemistry Division, Lyon College,
Batesville, AR 72503-2317, USA. dthomas@...
Dr. Julian A. Hiscox, School of Animal and Microbial Sciences,
University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AJ, United Kingdom.
J.A.Hiscox@...
Marsbugs is published on a weekly to quarterly basis as warranted by
the number of articles and announcements. Copyright of this
compilation exists with the editors, except for specific articles, in
which instance copyright exists with the author/authors. While we
cannot copyright our mailing list, our readers would appreciate it if
others would not send unsolicited e-mail using the Marsbugs mailing
list. The editors do not condone "spamming" of our subscribers.
Persons who have information that may be of interest to subscribers
of Marsbugs should send that information to the editors.
E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting
either of the editors. Article contributions are welcome, and should
be submitted to either of the two editors. Contributions should
include a short biographical statement about the author(s) along with
the author(s)' correspondence address. Subscribers are advised to
make appropriate inquiries before joining societies, ordering goods
etc. Back issues and Adobe Acrobat PDF files suitable for printing
may be obtained from the official Marsbugs web page at
http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/marsbugs/marsbugs.html.
The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a channel of information
for scientists, educators and other persons interested in exobiology
and related fields. This newsletter is not intended to replace peer-
reviewed journals, but to supplement them. We, the editors, envision
Marsbugs as a medium in which people can informally present ideas for
investigation, questions about exobiology, and announcements of
upcoming events.
Astrobiology is still a relatively young field, and new ideas may
come from the most unexpected places. Subjects may include, but are
not limited to: exobiology and astrobiology (life on other planets),
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), ecopoeisis and
terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, primordial
evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and
human habitation of space and other planets.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
1) PROJECT IN HIGH ARCTIC SIMULATES LIFE ON RED PLANET; FEASIBILITY
STUDIES TO GAIN INSIGHT INTO FUTURE MARS EXPLORATIONS
By Janet Wong
2) GENOME OF HIGHLY RADIORESISTANT POTENTIALLY SPACE-FARING
BACTERIUM SEQUENCED
By Mark Pallen
3) FIRST ANNUAL ASTROBIOLOGY CONFERENCE
By Lynn J. Rothschild
4) NEW FINDINGS SUPPORT PROSPECT OF LIFE ON JUPITER'S MOON EUROPA
By Mark Shwartz
5) BEAGLE 2 TEAM ASSESSES LANDING SITES
>From ESA Science News
6) INCREASED PRODUCTION OF ANTIBIOTICS IN SPACE REPORTED BY CU
RESEARCHERS
University of Colorado-Boulder release
7) BREAST CANCER SCREENING AID CLEARED FOR DIAGNOSTIC USE
By Nancy Lovato
8) NEW MARS METEORITE FOUND IN CALIFORNIA
By Ron Baalke
9) THE GALILEO MISSION TO JUPITER--THE DARING RETURN TO IO: MOON
OF VOLCANOES AND FIRE
By John Mosley
10) THIS WEEK ON GALILEO
JPL release
11) NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES
By Ron Baalke
12) MARS POLAR LANDER MISSION STATUS
JPL releases
13) STARDUST MISSION STATUS
JPL releases
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PROJECT IN HIGH ARCTIC SIMULATES LIFE ON RED PLANET; FEASIBILITY
STUDIES TO GAIN INSIGHT INTO FUTURE MARS EXPLORATIONS
By Janet Wong
University of Toronto release
24 January 2000
If humans were to inhabit Mars, how would we do it? What would we
need to know? How would we breathe, eat, sleep, communicate,
interact and live? U of T geology graduate student Darlene Lim is
among a team of scientists on the Haughton Mars Project asking, and
answering, those very questions. This project, led by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, will be conducted on Haughton
Crater on Devon Island in the Canadian high Arctic. According to
Lim, the similarity of this crater to Mars is quite remarkable. Its
geography, topography and potential microbiology may be comparable to
those of the Red Planet since there is evidence that Mars once had
crater lakes similar to the ancient lake that once occupied Haughton
Crater.
"By and large, the Haughton Mars Project explores how we would
explore Mars," Lim says. "We have to know what to look for to see if
there ever was life on Mars. And we also have to be conscious so
that our activities do not destroy what we intend to study."
A two-level habitat is being built and tested in Colorado by the Mars
Society (a private group committed to the exploration and settlement
of Mars). This simulated Mars space station--which sleeps up to six
people--will have its inaugural opening July 20 on Haughton Crater
and two groups will reside there for one week each this summer. As
the project progresses through the years, the plan is to have people
staying in the habitat for longer periods of time, says Lim, who is
also a Mars Society member.
"The science and research gathered will be extremely useful--from
earth sciences research to robotics testing on rough terrain, from
space communication to the social aspects of living in extreme
conditions," she notes. "This project is a feasibility study and
will give us a lot of information on what we need to know before we
can send human explorers to Mars."
Janet Wong is a news services officer with the Department of Public
Affairs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
GENOME OF HIGHLY RADIORESISTANT POTENTIALLY SPACE-FARING BACTERIUM
SEQUENCED
By Mark Pallen
The Queen's University of Belfast
25 January 2000
Owen White and his co-workers at the Institute of Genomic Research
(TIGR) have recently reported the complete genome sequence of the
most radiation-resistant organism yet known--Deinococcus radiodurans.
Exponentially growing cells of this bacterium are 200 times more
resistant to ionizing radiation than Escherichia coli cells. A
recent study by Harada and colleagues shows that they are able to
cope with DNA damage in a microgravity environment, so they probably
survive better in extra-terrestrial environments than any other
organism (those interested in terraforming Mars take note).
The complete genome sequence is composed of two chromosomes (2.6
mega-base-pairs and 0.4 mega-base-pairs), a megaplasmid (177 kilo-
base-pairs) and a small plasmid (45 kilo-base-pairs). 3187 open-
reading frames were identified in the genome. Sequence comparisons
confirmed the previously suspected close phylogenetic relationship
between the genera Deinococcus and Thermus. Analysis of predicted
protein sequences suggests that the extreme radio-resistance of this
bacterium results from an unparalleled abundance of highly redundant
DNA repair mechanisms and perhaps also from the presence of multiple
scattered intergenic repeats. Availability of the genome sequence of
this highly transformable bacterium is likely to assist in
engineering of strains useful for bioremediation in radioactive waste
sites. The genome and/or associated sequences can be accessed from
the TIGR web site
(http://www.tigr.org/tdb/CMR/gdr/htmls/SplashPage.html), via the NCBI
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PMGifs/Genomes/1299.html) or via PEDANT
(http://pedant.mips.biochem.mpg.de/).
White O, Eisen JA, Heidelberg JF, Hickey EK, Peterson JD, Dodson RJ,
Haft DH, Gwinn ML, Nelson WC, Richardson DL, Moffat KS, Qin H, Jiang
L, Pamphile W, Crosby M, Shen M, Vamathevan JJ, Lam P, McDonald L,
Utterback T, Zalewski C, Makarova KS, Aravind L, Daly MJ, Fraser CM,
et al. Genome sequence of the radioresistant bacterium Deinococcus
radiodurans R1. Science 1999 Nov 19; 286(5444):1571-1577.
Brim H, McFarlan SC, Fredrickson JK, Minton KW, Zhai M, Wackett LP,
Daly MJ. Nature Biotechnology 2000 Jan; 18(1):85-90. Engineering
Deinococcus radiodurans for metal remediation in radioactive mixed
waste environments.
Rothschild LJ, Cockell CS. Mutation Research 1999 Dec 6; 430(2):281-
91. Radiation: microbial evolution, ecology, and relevance to Mars
missions.
Harada K, Sugahara T, Ohnishi T, Ozaki Y, Obiya Y, Miki S, Miki T,
Imamura M, Kobayashi Y, Watanabe H, Akashi M, Furusawa Y, Mizuma N,
Yamanaka H, Ohashi E, Yamaoka C, Yajima M, Fukui M, Nakano T,
Takahashi S, Amano T, Sekikawa K, Yanagawa K, Nagaoka S.
International Journal of Molecular Medicine 1998 May; 1(5):817-22.
Inhibition in a microgravity environment of the recovery of
Escherichia coli cells damaged by heavy ion beams during the NASDA
ISS phase I program of NASA Shuttle/Mir mission number 6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
FIRST ANNUAL ASTROBIOLOGY CONFERENCE
By Lynn J. Rothschild
25 January 2000
NASA will host an international conference on astrobiology science to
be held this spring at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View,
California, on April 3-5, 2000. The focus of the meeting is on
scientific results that illustrate the broad multidisciplinary nature
of astrobiology. As such, this conference will complement other,
more narrowly focused meetings that deal primarily with one or two
subdisciplines of astrobiology. We hope that this conference will
become an annual event and will help to develop a growing
constituency for astrobiology within the international scientific
community.
Bruce Jakosky (U Colorado) is the Chair of the Scientific Organizing
Committee, and Lynn Rothschild (NASA Ames) is the Chair of the Local
Organizing Committee. Format for the conference will be single
sessions (no double or split sessions), with mix of invited oral
reviews, oral contributed talks, and dedicated poster sessions.
Selection of oral contributed papers will be on the basis of exciting
new results of interest to the whole community. Our goal will be to
have good overviews of the science, broad representation of the
component disciplines, and integration across disciplines. There
will be no published proceedings, but a booklet of abstracts will be
prepared for distribution at the meeting. Abstracts of contributed
papers for the conference will be due (electronic submission) on
February 11, 2000.
Abstracts can be up to one page in length (nominally 400 words).
Details concerning abstract requirements, logistical information,
fees, and preregistration will be available on the conference web
site (see astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov).
Dr. Lynn J. Rothschild
Ecosystem Science and Technology Branch
Mail Stop 239-20
NASA/Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 USA
ph: (650) 604-6525
fax: (650) 604-1088
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NEW FINDINGS SUPPORT PROSPECT OF LIFE ON JUPITER'S MOON EUROPA
By Mark Shwartz
Stanford University release
26 January 2000
If alien creatures exist elsewhere in our solar system, they're most
likely to be found on Europa, one of 16 moons orbiting Jupiter.
There is strong evidence that beneath Europa's frozen exterior of ice
lies an ocean of liquid water--one of the essential ingredients for
all living organisms. Many scientists believe that this vast
subterranean sea could host living microorganisms similar in size and
complexity to bacteria found on Earth. Others question whether a
frozen moon with a surface temperature of -260°F (-170°C) can produce
sources of energy useful for the basic chemical reactions necessary
for life. But a new report in the January 27 issue of the journal
Nature concludes that Europa does indeed contain plenty of biological
fuels, thanks to billions of charged particles that constantly rain
down from neighboring Jupiter.
This relentless bombardment of radiation "should produce organic and
oxidant molecules sufficient to fuel a substantial Europan
biosphere," writes Christopher Chyba, associate professor (research)
of geological and environmental sciences.
On Earth, all organisms use carbon as a basic building block of life
to construct everything from cells to DNA. Many organisms obtain
their energy from carbon-based molecules like sugar, and some form of
energy is required to free the carbon atoms from their chemical
bonds. Plants and algae use energy from sunlight to produce their
own organic molecules out of carbon dioxide gas taken from the
atmosphere or the ocean. The process is known as photosynthesis.
According to Chyba, sunlight would not provide enough energy to
sustain life on Europa since its ocean appears to lie "beneath an ice
layer too thick to permit photosynthesis."
A likelier source of energy, he concludes, may come from fast-moving,
charged particles that pound Europa from the atmosphere of Jupiter.
Jupiter has the strongest magnetic field of any planet," Chyba says,
more than 10 times stronger than Earth's. When protons, electrons
and other particles from space get trapped in Jupiter's
magnetosphere, they are accelerated to extremely high velocities.
Europa's orbital path around Jupiter lies deep within this powerful
magnetic field, so it receives a continuous barrage of electrified
particles or ions. According to Chyba, when these ions slam into the
icy surface of the moon, chemical reactions are likely to occur,
transforming frozen molecules of water and carbon dioxide into new
organic compounds such as formaldehyde. It turns out that one of the
most common bacteria on Earth, Hyphomicrobium, survives on
formaldehyde as its sole source of carbon, and Chyba believes that
similar formaldehyde-feeding microbes could be alive and swimming in
Europa's subsurface ocean. In addition to creating organic fuels,
radiation from Jupiter also may drive chemical reactions that produce
oxidants--molecules such as oxygen and hydrogen peroxide that can be
used to burn formaldehyde and other carbon-based fuels.
But Chyba notes that the oxidant and organic molecules formed on
Europa's frigid surface "are biologically relevant only if they reach
the ocean."
The problem is that, if there is a liquid ocean on Europa, it's
hidden beneath an ice sheet about 50 to100 miles (80 to 170 km)
thick. So if extraterrestrial creatures are going to feast on
formaldehyde, there has to be a way to get that compound through the
dense layer of ice and into the liquid sea below.
Recent photographs taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft reveal evidence
of sudden melt-throughs in the ice that could allow oceanic microbes
to come into quick contact with oxidants and organic food sources.
The result could be a dramatic increase in population similar to
"microbial blooms" that periodically occur in the Earth's oceans.
Chyba points out that Europa's surface ice appears to get naturally
recycled into the ocean every 10 million years--a process that would
allow a very gradual delivery of life-giving molecules to any
submerged organisms. And just how many microbes might exist in
Europa's sea? Chyba's conservative estimate: one per cubic
centimeter--a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of organisms
that occupy each cubic centimeter of water on Earth. Could life on
our planet have its origins on Europa? Probably not, according to
Chyba.
"Europa is as old as our solar system," he says, "but it's probably
too far, too deep inside Jupiter's gravity well to have inoculated
Earth with life-bearing debris."
Chyba emphasizes that all theories about life on Europa hinge on
proof that a liquid body of water actually exists between the moon's
surface and its rocky core.
"The point is to go there and find out," Chyba says, noting that in
three years NASA plans to launch the Europa Orbiter satellite that
will use radar to detect the presence of large bodies of subsurface
water. The Orbiter should reach Europa in 2008, and NASA hopes to
follow that with a remote landing.
"We'll know in the next 10 years if there's an ocean," Chyba
predicts. "If there is, Europa will be the site of a series of new
space missions."
As a student, Chyba's interest in extraterrestrial life led him to
the Cornell University laboratory of famed astronomer Carl Sagan, a
long-time advocate of planetary exploration. Chyba received his PhD
in astronomy under Sagan's guidance in 1985. Today, in addition to
his post on the Stanford faculty, Chyba holds the Carl Sagan Chair
for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute in
Mountain View, CA. "SETI" is the acronym for the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
>From 1993 to 1995, Chyba served as a White House adviser on national
security. Beginning February 1, he will become co-director of the
Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, an
organization dedicated to finding innovative solutions to worldwide
security problems such as arms control and ethnic conflict.
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BEAGLE 2 TEAM ASSESSES LANDING SITES
>From ESA Science News
http://sci.esa.int
26 January 2000
The Beagle 2 team has selected two potential landing sites on Mars
for further study. In the latest issue of the Beagle 2 Bulletin,
John Bridges from the Natural History Museum, London, who is leading
the landing site study, writes: "The prospective areas are within
the Chryse and Tritonis Lacus regions. Both are at low elevation,
which gives more opportunity for the parachutes to brake the descent
of Beagle 2. The latitude of the two sites, about 19 deg N, means
that the mission will begin during the Martian late spring, when
there is more solar energy to charge batteries and nighttime
temperatures are relatively high, making it easier to keep the
spacecraft warm.
"Chryse is a region of flood channels which have brought materials
from the southern highlands down over the northern plains. The Maja
Vallis channel area in Chryse is of particular interest because
Viking and Mars Orbiter images show the presence of some layering in
isolated mesas (elevated flat surfaces, like plateau). Such layers
might include hard pans (crust) formed through precipitation of salts
from groundwater or ephemeral lakes.
"Tritonis Lacus is on the margin of the Elysium plains and consists
of a more eroded landscape. This erosion has left a generally smooth
surface, which would be suitable for a safe landing." Selection of
the final site will be made in February 2001 based on the outcome of
detailed modeling of the landing activity at both sites and after
consultation with the scientific community at an international
workshop. "We are reviewing all the images we can get from Mars
Global Surveyor (NASA's spacecraft currently in orbit around Mars).
The site must be suitable for the science we want to do and be
compatible with the entry and descent of Beagle 2," says Colin
Pillinger, Principal Investigator for Beagle 2.
"The delivery of Beagle by Mars Express requires complicated
manoeuvres which use extra fuel. So the final selection will also
take into account extensive studies to make sure that the
implications for the spacecraft are acceptable," adds Rudi Schmidt,
Mars Express Project Manager.
Useful links for this story
* More about Beagle II
http://sci.esa.int/marsexpress/mex-beagle2.html
* Beagle II homepage
http://beagle2.open.ac.uk/beagle2/
Image captions
[Image 1:
http://sci.esa.int/image.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=9011&table=ContentTab
le&Storytype=22] Location diagram for the Beagle 2 landing sites.
The landing ellipses are 240 km long.
[Image 2:
http://sci.esa.int/image.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=9011&ImageID=4330&tab
le=ImageTable&Storytype=22] Maja Vallis area. The general pattern of
flood and sediment passage towards
the NE is clear from the streamlined landforms. Evidence of
terracing exposed on the sides of channels is most well developed
around 50-51 deg W. The N-S running ridges towards the the east of
the figure may be surface expressions of underlying lava flows. A
band of Noachian basement is present around 54 deg W, the Maja Vallis
channel cuts through this at 18 deg N. The landing ellipse is 240 x
20 km in 16 deg WSW/ENE orientation.
[Image 3:
http://sci.esa.int/image.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=9011&ImageID=4331&tab
le=ImageTable&Storytype=22] Tritonis Lacus. This shows the generally
flat, even surface of the region with isolated mesas and craters.
Sinusoidal projection Viking context image. The landing ellipse is
240 x 20 km in 16 deg WSW/ENE orientation.
[Image 4:
http://sci.esa.int/image.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=9011&ImageID=4350&tab
le=ImageTable&Storytype=22]
Model of the Beagle 2 lander.
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INCREASED PRODUCTION OF ANTIBIOTICS IN SPACE REPORTED BY CU
RESEARCHERS
University of Colorado-Boulder release
27 January 2000
Several space shuttle experiments flown by the University of Colorado
at Boulder-based BioServe Space Technologies Center in October 1998
show promise for developing new biomedical products, according to
recent research results. Aerospace engineering sciences Assistant
Professor David Klaus said an antibiotic production experiment
involving microbes showed the production of the antibiotic
actinomycin D was 75 percent higher in space than in ground-control
experiments. The tests, conducted in collaboration with Bristol-
Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute in Wallingford, CT,
took place during the flight of Discovery that returned astronaut
John Glenn to space. Similar experiments flown by BioServe in the
past and carried out in test tubes also showed increases in
antibiotic production, although relatively small quantities were
produced, said Klaus, Bioserve's associate director for research and
the mission manager for the flight. Actinomycin D is an anti-cancer
therapeutic, but its use is still largely experimental due to
relatively high toxicity levels.
The modification of the apparatus containing the antibiotic
experiments for the flight appears to have made a difference, said
Klaus. "We added a new gas-exchange fermentation device, which
appears to have stimulated the antibiotic production by 20-fold over
the test tube values."
"This device was designed to provide more optimal growth conditions
for microorganisms, and should help researchers gain insight into the
causes of increased antibiotic productivity," he said. "This
represents one more incremental step in eventually being able to
reproduce these beneficial responses on Earth."
Headquartered in CU-Boulder's College of Engineering and Applied
Science, BioServe is a joint venture between NASA, CU-Boulder and
Kansas State University that undertakes a variety of industry-driven,
life-science experiments on shuttle flights and involves both
students and faculty.
In a related experiment, samples of E. coli bacteria also grew
better and more efficiently during the flight than the samples in the
ground-control experiment. "The bacteria essentially grew more and
consumed less nutrients--in this case glucose--indicating a higher
metabolic efficiency in space," Klaus said.
Another BioServe experiment, involving protein crystal growth in
collaboration with BioSpace International of College Park, MD,
produced crystals roughly equal in size to those grown in the ground-
control experiments. But the space grown crystals--which have
applications for new drug design--were primarily loose and free-
floating, compared to the Earthbound crystals, most of which adhered
to walls and membranes and were difficult to remove.
"More importantly, topographical analyses indicated that space-grown
crystals were of higher perfection than the ground crystals and had
more uniform, sharper diffracted images," he said.
Klaus was one of about a dozen researchers from around the nation
that presented new findings from the 1998 Discovery mission at a
symposium held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, on January 27.
NASA and the National Institutes of Health sponsored the symposium.
BioServe and its industry affiliates will carry out longer-duration
experiments on the International Space Station beginning in 2001,
said Klaus. "BioServe's primary objective is to support commercial
researchers in exploring mechanisms by which space flight can be used
to create a 'value-added' benefit in a biotech application."
The shuttle experiments took place inside the Commercial Generic
Bioprocessing Apparatus, a suitcase-sized device designed and built
at CU-Boulder that has flown on 13 space shuttle missions, including
two four-month stints on Russia's Mir Space Station. The CGBA
contains hundreds of syringe-like devices for mixing fluids in space,
as well as other project-specific devices.
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BREAST CANCER SCREENING AID CLEARED FOR DIAGNOSTIC USE
By Nancy Lovato
JPL release
28 January 2000
The war against breast cancer has a new weapon, thanks to an advanced
sensor developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The
device, called the BioScan System, was developed by OmniCorder
Technologies, Inc., Stony Brook, NY. OmniCorder received clearance
to market the system from the Food and Drug Administration in
December 1999.
Studies have determined that cancer cells exude nitric oxide. This
causes changes in blood flow in tissue surrounding cancer that can be
detected by the sensor. The BioScan System is sensitive to
temperature changes of less than .015 degree Celsius (.027 degree
Fahrenheit) and has a speed of more than 200 frames per second. It
causes no discomfort to the patient and uses no ionizing radiation.
"Clearance for use of this noninvasive diagnostic tool is an
important milestone for us," said OmniCorder president and CEO Mark
Fauci, who noted that the device has also been cleared to be marketed
for other applications.
The sensor, called the Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector (QWIP),
was invented by Dr. Sarath Gunapala, principal engineer of JPL's
Device Research and Applications Section. The digital sensor detects
the infrared energy emitted from the body, thus "seeing" the minute
differences associated with blood flow changes. Earlier versions of
QWIP had potential applications, such as locating hot spots during
fires and observing volcanoes.
"It is a great pleasure to see something I invented being used for
public benefit," said Gunapala, "especially in medicine and even more
so in the early detection of cancer."
The BioScan System also uses Dynamic Area Telethermometry, invented
by Dr. Michael Anbar, founding scientist of OmniCorder. The two
technologies work together to image the target area and to provide
the physician with immediate diagnostic information.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, CA.
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NEW MARS METEORITE FOUND IN CALIFORNIA
By Ron Baalke
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/la.html
30 January 2000
I'm very pleased to report on a new Mars meteorite find by a good
friend and fellow meteorite collector, Bob Verish. The meteorite was
found somewhere in the Mojave Desert in California, and consists of
two stones of 452.6 & 245.4 grams. The two rocks have been
classified as Mars meteorites, specifically basaltic shergottites, by
analysis done at UCLA. The new meteorite's official name is the Los
Angeles meteorite.
Background
While on a rock collecting trip somewhere in the Mojave Desert in
California, Bob Verish picked up a couple of rocks that had caught
his eye. The rocks were basaltic with dark exteriors on top, and
were interesting enough to his discerning eye to be included in his
rock collection. About 20 years would pass before Bob would look
closely at the rocks again.
The rocks were stored in boxes in Bob's backyard along with a large
portion of his rock collection. On October 30, 1999, while clearing
out his rock collection for rat nests and rodent dropping, Bob came
across the rocks again. Since Bob had begun collecting meteorites
about 5 years ago, he knew what meteorites looked like. He
immediately noted the dark fusion crust on the rocks and suspected
the two rocks to be meteorites. Bob cut off small samples of each
rock (total weight of about 30 grams) which he would then take to
Alan Rubin at UCLA for analysis.
New Mars meteorite?
On December 17, 1999, UCLA confirmed the two rocks were meteorites.
They also noted that upon viewing a thin section of the rocks, they
bore a remarkable similarity with the QUE 94201 meteorite, a Mars
meteorite found in the Antarctic in 1994. They suspected the rocks
to also be Mars meteorites, but would require additional lab analysis
for confirmation.
Shortly aftwards, a very excited Bob brought the rocks to me. Bob
has brought many rocks to me over the years, rocks that were
potential meteorite candidates, though many of them turned out be
"meteorwrongs". Bob informed me of the preliminary identification of
the rocks as Mars meteorites (shergotittes) by UCLA. I took several
photographs of the meteorites, which are shown here on this web page
(http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/la.html). UCLA were busy analyzing the
rocks though the Christmas break and wanted to submit papers on the
meteorites for the upcoming Lunar And Planetary Science Conference
(LPSC) being held in Houston in mid-March. The abstract deadline for
the conference was January 12, 2000. UCLA was working hard to have
confirmation of the rocks done by then, and had enlisted the help of
Arizona State University.
Mars meteorite confirmed
By January 12, UCLA had confirmed the rocks were indeed Mars
meteorites and had submitted three abstracts for the LPSC [1][2][3].
Meanwhile, Bob had reported his meteorite find to the Meteoritical
Society, and the Nonmenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society
approved the name of Los Angeles for the newly discovered Mars rocks.
Bob has affectionately nicknamed the two Mars rocks as "Miguel" and
"Gabriel".
In the petrology analysis led by Alan Rubin [1], the Martian origin
for the Los Angeles meteorite was indicated by the D/H ratio.
Apatite grains from the meteorite contained D-enriched water that was
isotopically indistinguishable from comparable minerals from other
shergotites. The rocks were shocked, which was also consistent with
Mars meteorites. In the geochemistry analysis led by James Greenwood
[2], the Los Angeles meteorite showed characteristic Martian values
for such ratios as Mn/Fe, Na/Al and Ga/Al. It was also noted that
the Los Angeles in many respects was the most geochemically evolved
sample yet discovered from Mars.
Per Bob Verish [4], the following paragraph is a proposed draft of
what is proposed to appear in the Meteoritical Bulletin 84: Final
version, 2000, July, MAPS 35:
Los Angeles (original find location unknown) Los Angeles County,
California, USA
Recognized 1999 October 30
Martian basalt (shergottite)
Two stones, weighing 452.6 g and 245.4 g respectively, were found by
Bob Verish in his back yard while he was cleaning out a box of rocks
that was part of his rock collection. The specimens may have been
collected ~20 years ago in the Mojave Desert. Classification and
mineralogy (A. Rubin, P. Warren and
J. Greenwood, UCLA): a basalt with a texture closely resembling
that of the QUE 94201; plagioclase laths, 43.6 vol%, An41Or4 to
An58Or1, have been shocked to maskelynite; Ca-pyroxene, 37.7 vol%,
ranges from Fs45Wo13 to Fs45Wo37 to Fs72Wo24; other mineral modes,
4.9 vol% silica, 4.2 vol% fayalite, 2.4 vol% K-rich felsic glass, 3.5
vol% titanomagnetite, 2.7 vol% Ca phosphate (including whitlockite
and chlorapatite), 0.7 vol% pyrrhotite, and 0.2 vol% ilmenite;
contains a higher proportion of plagioclase than Shergotty or Zagami,
and has pyroxene that is moderately more ferroan than that in QUE
94201. Specimens: main masses with finder; 30 g, UCLA. [Houston
LPSC references to be added later]
More Mars meteorites?
I personally believe there are more unidentified Mars and lunar
meteorite sitting in collections waiting to be discovered. However,
finding a new Mars meteorite is not an easy feat as Mars meteorites
are extremely rare. Assuming the two Mars meteorites found in the
Sahara Desert are paired, and the two new Los Angeles rocks are also
paired, then the number of Mars meteorites is at only 14. Compare
that with the over 20,000 meteorites found on Earth. The Los Angeles
meteorite is only the second Mars meteorite found in the United
States. The other US find was the Lafayette meteorite found in
Indiana. Like the Los Angeles meteorite, the Lafayette meteorite sat
in a collection for a number of years before it was recognized as a
Mars meteorite. In Lafayette's case, it was discovered in the
geological collection at Purdue University, and identified as a Mars
meteorite in 1931. There is a lot of work involved in identifying
meteorites. Since 99% of the rocks brought in by the public turn out
not to be meteorites, weeding through all of these "meteorwrongs"
takes a lot of time and effort. But as the Los Angeles meteorite
shows, the effort can sometimes be worth it.
References
[1] Rubin A. et al, "The Pretology Of Los Angeles: A New Basaltic
Shergottite Find", 31st Lunar And Planetary Science Conference
(http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/meetings/LPSC2000/)
[2] Warren P. et. al, "Geochemistry Of Los Angeles, A Ferroan, La-
and Th-Rich Basalt From Mars", 31st Lunar And Planetary Science
Conference.
[3] Greenwood J. et. al, "Late-Stage Crystallization Features Of
Los Angeles, A New Balsatic Shergottite", 31st Lunar And Planetary
Science Conference.
[4] Verish, Robert, The Los Angeles Meteorite Home Page
(http://members.tripod.com/~marzmeteorite/la/losangel.htm)
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THE GALILEO MISSION TO JUPITER--THE DARING RETURN TO IO: MOON OF
VOLCANOES AND FIRE
By John Mosley
31 January 2000
Speaker: Nagin Cox of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Monday, 7 February 2000, 7:30 PM at Griffith Observatory
In 1492, explorers found a "New World" called America. Now, in our
own time, another invincible ship is pushing at the frontiers of our
knowledge. For four years, the Galileo spacecraft has been in orbit
around Jupiter sending back stunning new images of this giant planet
and it's incredible moons. This year Galileo completed another stage
of its mission--exploring the mysterious moon Europa. Does Europa
have an ocean? Galileo's data is essential to answering that
question. Now from October 1999 through the start of the year 2000,
Galileo is in the midst of one of its greatest challenges- returning
to the volcanic moon Io--deep in the heart of Jupiter's radiation
belts. Come relive the journey through the solar system, experience
the excitement of arrival at Jupiter and share in the wonder of
Galileo's ongoing voyage of discovery.
In 1986, Nagin graduated from Cornell University with a BS in
Operations Research Engineering and a BA in Psychology and was
commissioned as an officer in the US Air Force. As a lieutenant, she
was stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and worked
as a systems engineer in F-16 aircrew training. Then she attended
the Air Force Institute of Technology where she received a masters
degree in Space Operations Systems Engineering in 1990. As a
captain, she served as an Orbital Analyst at NORAD/Space Command in
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs.
In 1993, after leaving the Air Force to pursue more civilian space
applications, she joined JPL as a ground data system engineer. At
the same time, she served for two additional years in the Air Force
Reserve as a Space Operations Officer. In 1995, she transferred into
JPL's Spacecraft Systems Engineering Section and she is currently
working as Deputy Team Chief of the engineering spacecraft flight
team for NASA/JPL's Galileo mission to Jupiter.
Friends of the Observatory (FOTO) is the non-profit support group for
Griffith Observatory. Currently, one of FOTO's primary goals is to
support the renovation and expansion of the Observatory, so that it
continues to provide the nearly 2 million visitors and 50,000 school
children annually with accurate astronomical and scientific
information and programs and remains the internationally recognizable
icon of Los Angeles.
Admission is $2 for FOTO members, $5 for non-members, tickets
available at the door. For more information call FOTO at (818) 846-
3686; fotofriend@... (Children under 5 are not admitted)
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THIS WEEK ON GALILEO
JPL release
24-30 January 2000
Galileo flies through apojove this week as it continues to return
data stored on its onboard tape recorder. Apojove occurs on Friday
and is the point at which the spacecraft is farthest from Jupiter in
a given orbit. Galileo acquired the data returned this week during a
flyby of Jupiter's icy moon Europa on January 3, 2000. Galileo is
fairly busy this week as it halts data playback several times to
perform engineering and navigation activities.
On Monday, the spacecraft will perform a test to determine the status
of the Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) instrument. UVS has been
turned off for Galileo's past two encounters to protect it from
additional radiation damage. Engineers hope that the instrument's
damaged electronic components will have had a chance to anneal,
restoring the instrument's functionality. Annealing is the process
through which heat is applied to a cooling material to relieve
stresses, change properties, improve machinability, or in this case,
for realignment of atoms in a distorted crystal. On Friday, the
spacecraft performs a flight path adjustment, if necessary. Finally,
on Saturday, the spacecraft performs standard maintenance on its
onboard tape recorder.
This week's playback continues last week's return of images of Europa
taken by the Solid-State Imaging camera (SSI). The images were
designed to capture sharp-edged ridges on Europa, a multi-ring impact
feature named Callanish, and a region of mottled (or blotchy-looking)
terrain. Also continuing from last week is the playback of portions
of a high-resolution recording performed by the Fields and Particles
instruments during the spacecraft's closest 60 minutes to Europa.
The data contained in the recording will allow scientists to refine
and interpret estimates of Europa's recently-detected induced
magnetic field. The presence of the field indicates the presence of
an electrically conducting layer of material inside Europa, yet
another piece of circumstantial evidence that liquid water is present
beneath Europa's surface.
Next on the playback schedule is the return of images taken by SSI of
three of Jupiter's smaller moons: Amalthea, Thebe, and Metis. The
images will provide the best resolution views of these moons, almost
a factor of two better than the best previous images in the case of
Amalthea and Metis. The increased resolution should aid scientists
significantly in improving the knowledge of the shape and surface
conditions of these smaller moons.
Toward the end of the week, the spacecraft returns two observations
of Io. The first was performed by the Near-Infrared Mapping
Spectrometer (NIMS) and captured a near-global observation of the
hemisphere of Io that contains the volcanic region of Loki. The
second observation made by SSI consists of a series of color images
of the same hemisphere.
For more information on the Galileo spacecraft and its mission to
Jupiter, please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following
URL's:
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.govhttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo
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NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES
By Ron Baalke
24 January 2000
The following new images were taken by the Mars Global Surveyor
spacecraft of the Mars Polar Lander and Mars Pathfinder landing
sites:
Mars Polar Lander: The Search Continues
MOC's Highest Resolution View of Mars Pathfinder Landing Site
The images resides on the Mars Global Surveyor web site at
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/index.html
The image captions are appended below.
Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera
Mars Polar Lander: The Search Continues
MGS MOC Release #MOC2-198, 24 January 2000
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/1_24_00_polarlander/i
ndex.html
Since mid-December 1999, the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) onboard the
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft has been taking pictures of
Mars Polar Lander's landing zone near 76°S, 195°W, in hopes of
finding some evidence as to the fate of the spacecraft that went
missing during its December 3, 1999, landing attempt. To take these
pictures, the MGS spacecraft is pointed a few degrees off its normal,
nadir-looking (straight down) path. The first phase of imaging was
completed December 24, 1999, but nothing was found. A second,
expanded search was requested by the Mars Surveyor Operations Project
and was begun in early January 2000.
The MOC operations team at Malin Space Science Systems has been busy
with the Mars Polar Lander search since December 3rd--initial efforts
focused on the use of MOC as a buffer or "storage space" for data
relayed through the MGS Mars Relay (MR) system. It had been hoped
that the Polar Lander would try to communicate to Earth using its UHF
antenna to relay data through the MGS relay system. Data from the
relay come through the MOC and are received at Malin Space Science
Systems much in the same way that pictures from MOC are obtained.
The relay effort was concluded on January 17, 2000, with no word from
the Polar Lander. Meanwhile, the MOC operations team began to plan,
command, retrieve, and analyze images designed to look for the Polar
Lander. These pictures are taken at the highest spatial resolution
possible for MOC, 1.5 meters (5 ft.) per pixel. At this resolution,
the fuselage and wings of a jumbo jet can be distinguished, but a
Polar Lander would only be a few pixels, at most, in size.
The first illustration (A, above) shows the area being searched by
MOC. All images shown here are oriented such that north is up and
west is to the left, and all are illuminated by sunlight from the
upper left. The ellipses indicate the regions in which the Polar
Lander may have touched down. NASA's Langley Research Center (LaRC)
derived the larger ellipse; the Mars Polar Lander contractor,
Lockheed Martin Astronautics (LMA), calculated the two smaller
ellipses. The smallest ellipse is the target that was given to the
MOC team shortly after Polar Lander recovery attempts began in mid-
December 1999. All MOC images obtained through December 26, 1999,
were targeted to this smaller ellipse--images were taken both on the
"2:00 AM" and "2:00 PM" sides of Mars, with better sunlight
conditions, of course, being available on the 2:00 PM side. After
the first of the year (2000), further refinement of the entry
parameters and atmospheric conditions at the time of landing allowed
additional, different trajectories to be examined. LMA's revised
ellipses were offset from the original ellipse, and LaRC's were much
larger. The two larger ellipses shown above were given to the MOC
team for targeting on the 2:00 PM side of Mars starting during the
second week of January 2000.
The second figure (B, above) shows (in orange) the area covered by
MOC from mid-December through January 17, 2000. Gaps between and
within individual images have been caused by loss of data during
transmission to Earth, combined with occasional uncertainties in
spacecraft predicted positions.
The third picture (C, above) is a mosaic of the MOC images obtained
through January 17, 2000, that cover the Mars Polar Lander landing
ellipses. Available here are two views designed to fit on a page in
your web browser: one in which the 1.5 meter (5 ft) per pixel images
have been shrunk to 15 meters (49 ft) per pixel, the other in which
they have been shrunk to 30 meters (98 ft) per pixel. The most
obvious feature in the mosaic is toward the lower left--about one-
half of a crater-like circular depression is seen. More than 330
square kilometers (127 square miles) of south polar terrain have been
imaged at 1.5 meters per pixel for this effort.
The fourth picture (D, above) shows some samples of the variety of
terrains and textures present within Mars Polar Lander's landing
zone. Each of the six boxes shows an area of equal size. Knobs,
pits, ridges, gullies, and smooth intervening surfaces are all seen.
The task of finding the lander in these images is daunting. As shown
in our previous release, "Mars Polar Lander: The Search Begins,"
December 21, 1999, the lander is most likely to consist of only a few
square pixels within one of these images. Thus, the MOC team is
basically trying to distinguish one or two pixels from nearly 150
million. One team member has remarked that this is like "trying to
find a specific needle in... a haystack-sized pile of needles."
No trace of either the Polar Lander or its descent system (portions
of its aeroshell or parachute) have been seen, although this is not
surprising given the resolution of MOC and illumination conditions.
Indeed, recent results show that it is very hard to distinguish a
lander even if we know where it is located (which, in the case of
Polar Lander, we do not) as shown by the January 16, 2000, image of
the Mars Pathfinder landing site, "MOC's Highest Resolution View of
Mars Pathfinder Landing Site," January 24, 2000.
MOC imaging of the Mars Polar Lander ellipses shown above (Figures A
and B) will continue through the end of January 2000, at which time
the data rates and volumes for Mars Global Surveyor and MOC become so
low as to make further imaging prohibitive.
Image credits: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera
MOC's Highest Resolution View of Mars Pathfinder Landing Site
MGS MOC Release #MOC2-197, 24 January 2000
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/1_24_00_pathfinder/in
dex.html
This release includes 6 figures. Each pair is followed by caption
material discussing the effort to find Mars Pathfinder in Mars
Orbiter Camera
pictures.
Can Mars Global Surveyor's 1.5 meter (5 ft) per pixel camera be used
to find any evidence as to the fate of the Mars Polar Lander that was
lost on December 3, 1999? One way to find out is to look for one of
the other Mars landers and determine what, if anything, can be seen.
There have been three successful Mars lander missions: Viking 1
(July 1976), Viking 2 (September 1976), and Mars Pathfinder (July
1997). Of these, the location of Mars Pathfinder is known the best
because there are several distinct landmarks visible in the lander's
images that help in locating the spacecraft. The MGS MOC Operations
Team at Malin Space Science Systems has been tasked since mid-
December 1999 with looking for the lost Polar Lander. Part of this
effort has been to test the capabilities of MOC by taking a picture
of the landing site of Mars Pathfinder.
An attempt to photograph the Pathfinder site was made once before, in
April 1998, by turning the entire MGS spacecraft so that the camera
could point at the known location of the Mars Pathfinder lander.
Turning the MGS spacecraft like this is not a normal operation--it
takes considerable planning, and disrupts the on-going, normal
acquisition of science data. It took 3 attempts to succeed, but on
April 22, 1998, MOC acquired the picture seen on the left side of
Figure A, above. The three near-by major landmarks that were visible
to the Pathfinder's cameras are labeled here (North Peak, Big Crater,
Twin Peaks). It was known at the time that this image was not
adequate to see the Pathfinder lander because the camera was not in
focus and had a resolution of only 3.3 meters (11 ft) per pixel. In
this and all other images shown here, north is up. All views of the
1998 MOC image are illuminated from the lower right, all views of the
2000 MOC image are illuminated from the lower left.
As part of the Polar Lander search effort, the Mars Pathfinder site
was targeted again in December 1999 and January 2000. Like the 1998
attempt, the spacecraft had to be pointed off of its normal, nadir
(straight-down) view. Like history repeating itself, it once again
took 3 tries before the Pathfinder landing site was hit. The picture
on the right side of Figure A, above, shows the new image that was
acquired on January 16, 2000. The white box indicates the location
shown in Figure B (above, right). The 1000 m scale bar equals 0.62
miles.
Figure B (above) shows a subsection of both the 1998 image (top,
labeled SPO-1-25603) and the 2000 image (bottom, labeled m11-2414)
projected at a scale of 3 meters (10 ft) per pixel. At this scale,
the differences in camera focus and sunlight illumination angle are
apparent, with the January 2000 image being both in focus and having
better lighting conditions. In addition, the MGS spacecraft took the
2000 image from a lower altitude than in 1998, thus the image has
better spatial resolution overall. The 500 m scale bar is equal to
about 547 yards. The white box shows the location of images in
Figure C, below.
The third figure (C, above) again shows portions of the April 1998
image (C, left) and January 2000 image (C, right), only this time
they have been enlarged to a resolution of 0.75 meters (2.5 ft) per
pixel. The intrinsic resolution of the January 2000 image is 1.5
meters (5 ft), so this is a 200% expanded view of the actual M11-
02414 image. The circular features in this and the previous images
are impact craters in various states of erosion. Some boulders (dark
dots) can be seen near the crater in the lower left corner. The
texture that runs diagonally across the scene from upper left toward
lower right consists of ridges created by the giant floods that
washed through the Pathfinder site from Ares and/or Tiu Vallis many
hundreds of millions of years ago. These ridges and the troughs
between them were also seen by the Pathfinder lander; their crests
often covered with boulders and cobbles (which cannot be seen at the
resolution of the MOC image). The 100 m scale bar is equal to 109
yards (which can be compared with a 100 yard U.S. football field).
The Mars Pathfinder landing site is located near the center of this
view.
The fourth picture, Figure D (above), shows a feature that was
initially thought to be the Mars Pathfinder lander by MOC
investigators. This and the following figures point out just how
difficult it is to find a lander on the martian surface using the MGS
MOC. Figure D was prepared early in the week following receipt of
the new MOC image on January 17, 2000, and for several days it was
believed that the lander had been found. As the subsequent two
figures will show (E, and F, below), this location appears to be in
error. How the features were misidentified is discussed below. Both
Figure D and Figure F, showing possible locations of the Pathfinder
lander in the MOC image, are enlarged by a factor of three over the
intrinsic resolution of that image (that is, to a scale of 0.5 meters
or about 1 ft, 7 inch per pixel). The right picture in Figure D
shows sight-lines to the large horizon features--Big Crater, Twin
Peaks, and North Peak--that were derived by the MOC team by looking
at the images taken by the lander in 1997. After placing these lines
on the overall image, there appeared to be two features close to the
intersection of the sight-lines. Based upon the consistency of the
size and shape of the lander as illuminated by sunlight in this
image, the northern of the two candidate features (the small "hump"
at the center of both left and right pictures) was considered, at the
time, to be the most likely. However...
Later in the week following acquisition of the January 16, 2000,
image (and over the following weekend), there was time for additional
analysis to determine whether the rounded hump identified earlier in
the week (Figure D, above) was, in fact, the Mars Pathfinder lander.
A computer program that estimates relative topography in a MOC image
from knowledge of the illumination (called "shape-from-shading" or
photoclinometry) was run to determine which parts of the landing site
image are depressions, which are hills, and which are flat surfaces.
The picture at the left in Figure E (above) shows the photoclinometry
results for the area around the Pathfinder lander. The picture at
the center of Figure E shows the same photoclinometry results
overlain by an inset of a topographic map of the Pathfinder landing
site derived by the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Branch
(Flagstaff, Arizona) from photogrammetry (parallax measurements)
using images from Pathfinder's own stereo camera. By matching the
features seen by MOC with those seen by the Pathfinder (the large
arrows are examples of the matching), the location of the lander was
refined and is now indicated in the picture on the right side of
Figure E. The large, rounded hump previously identified as
Pathfinder in Figure D (above), is more likely a large boulder that
was seen in Pathfinder's images and named "Couch" by the Pathfinder
science team in 1997.
Figure F is summary of the results of this effort to find Mars
Pathfinder: it shows that while the landing site of Mars Pathfinder
can be identified, the lander itself cannot be seen. It is too small
to be resolved in an image where each pixel aquired by the MOC covers
a square of 1.5 meters (5 feet) to a side, given the contrast
conditions on Mars and the MOC's ability to discriminate contrast.
At this scale, Pathfinder is not much larger than two pixels, and the
same is true of the lost Polar Lander.
No evidence has been found in the January 2000 MOC image of the aft
portion of Mars Pathfinder's aeroshell or its parachute, either. If
the aeroshell is laying on its side, as interpreted from Mars
Pathfinder's images, then it would be very difficult to see this from
orbit. Because Pathfinder did not image the parachute, it is not
known how it may be configured on the surface--it could be wrapped
around the aeroshell or a boulder, for example.
This effort to photograph the Mars Pathfinder lander demonstrates
that it is extremely difficult to find a lander on the surface of
Mars using the Mars Orbiter aboard the MGS spacecraft. This analysis
suggests that it is not very likely that the December 1999 Polar
Lander will be found by MOC.
The 1998 MGS MOC image of the Mars Pathfinder landing site was
described in more detail in two previous MOC releases. Note that the
exact location of the lander has been refined with the acquisition of
the new January 2000 image as compared with the April 1998 image:
"Pathfinder Landing Site Observed by Mars Orbiter Camera," April
25, 1998
"Refined Landing Site Location in MOC Image 25603," July 3, 1998
The MGS MOC efforts underway at Malin Space Science Systems to find
Mars Polar lander are described in two other MOC releases:
"Mars Polar Lander: The Search Begins," December 21, 1999
"Mars Polar Lander: The Search Continues," January 24, 2000
Image credits: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
---------------------------------------------------------------------
MARS POLAR LANDER MISSION STATUS
JPL releases
25 January 2000
Mission managers have decided to send another set of commands to Mars
to investigate the possibility that a signal detected by a radio dish
at California's Stanford University came from Mars Polar Lander. The
commands were sent at 10:00 AM PST today. They will instruct the
lander, if it is operating, to send a signal directly to Earth to the
antenna at Stanford on Wednesday, January 26, at approximately 1:00
PM PST. The Stanford receiving station will listen again during the
window on Wednesday to see if it picks up a signal that could
originate from Mars. The results of this test will not be immediate
and it will take the team several days to process the data.
Mission managers sent commands several times in December and January
instructing Polar Lander to send a radio signal to the 45-meter (150-
foot) antenna at Stanford. Although no signal was detected in real-
time, the team in charge of the Stanford antenna says that after
additional processing of the data they may have detected a signal
that could have come from Mars during tests on December 18 and
January 4. Because the signal was so weak, it took several weeks for
the Stanford team to process their data and reach this conclusion.
"This week's test is a real long-shot, and I wouldn't want to get
anyone too excited about it," said Richard Cook, Polar Lander project
manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "The
signal that the Stanford team detected is definitely artificial, but
there are any one of a number of places it could have originated on
or near Earth. Still, we need to conduct this test to rule out the
possibility that the signal could be coming from Polar Lander."
If in fact the signal were from Polar Lander, two failures would have
had to occur. First, the lander's X-band radio that it would use to
transmit directly to Earth would have to be broken. Second, there
would have to be a problem somewhere in the relay with Mars Global
Surveyor that prevented the signal from being picked up and relayed
by the orbiter. It is unlikely that a broken transmitter on the
lander could be fixed, and unclear whether a problem with the relay
could be resolved.
Although the Stanford data from the previous tests took several weeks
to process, the team expects to have results within several days now
that they know what they are looking for. Even if the signal were
coming from the lander, there is little hope that any science could
be returned. However, it would give the team a few more clues in
trying to eliminate possible failure modes.
27 January 2000
Radio scientists at California's Stanford University are continuing
to process data from communications attempts made yesterday and today
to determine if they have picked up a signal coming from Mars Polar
Lander using their 45-meter (150-foot) antenna.
There were three 30-minute communications windows yesterday and three
more listening windows today. It takes about 18 hours to process the
data from each window. So far, Stanford scientists have looked at
one of the three data sets taken yesterday and say they have not
detected anything unusual. It will take several days to complete the
processing and the researchers do not expect to have confirmation of
a signal until some time next week.
"The signal we are looking for is very, very weak, about 1 watt of
power--or like looking for a Christmas tree light on Mars," said
Richard Cook, Polar Lander project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "Because of the weakness of the signal, we
want to be absolutely sure we have something so we will check and
double check these data before we will be willing to confirm there is
a signal."
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages Mars Polar Lander for NASA's
Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Lockheed Martin
Astronautics Inc., Denver, CO, is the agency's industrial partner for
development and operation of the spacecraft. JPL is a division of
the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
STARDUST MISSION STATUS
JPL releases
26 January 2000
NASA's Stardust spacecraft has successfully completed a three-part
deep space maneuver designed to keep it on target for an Earth
gravity assist in January 2001. That gravity assist will propel the
spacecraft toward its 2004 rendezvous with the Comet Wild-2. The
maneuver consisted of a trio of propulsion firings performed on
January 18, 20 and 22 to achieve velocity changes of 58, 52, and 48
meters per second, respectively (about 130, 116 and 107 miles per
hour). Each firing lasted for about 30 minutes. With these three
engine burns plus a short firing of 11 meters per second (25 miles
per hour) made in late December, the flight team changed the
spacecraft velocity by about 171 meters per second (383 miles per
hour), and put Stardust on target for next year's swingby of Earth.
Stardust's mission is to collect samples of comet dust from Wild-2
for return to Earth in 2006. While en route, the spacecraft will
also attempt to gather samples of interstellar dust particles for
study on Earth. Engineers plan to command Stardust to extend its
dust collector on February 22 in order to begin collecting
interstellar dust from a stream that flows into our solar system.
Stardust was launched on February 7, 1999. The principal
investigator for the Stardust mission is Dr. Donald C. Brownlee of
the University of Washington. The mission is managed by NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Space
Science, Washington, DC. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO,
built and operates the spacecraft. Its instruments were provided by
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Chicago, and the Max
Planck Institute, Garching, Germany. JPL is a division of the
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
28 January 2000
There were eleven Deep Space Network (DSN) passes to support the
completion of Deep Space Maneuver 1 (DSM-1) and transition to All-
Stellar attitude. The overall spacecraft performance for DSM-1 was
outstanding. The total burn was 5884.4 seconds and used 29.3410 kg
of propellant. The ending tank pressure was 157 psia, approximately
7 psia higher than expected. This means that the Comet Wild 2
encounter tank pressure has an additional 7 psia margin (a 100%
increase in margin). The total spacecraft measured delta V was
159.4279 meters/second while the Navigation Team estimates a delta V
of 159.013 meters/second. The power and thermal performance for all
three portions of DSM-1 was also better than predicted. Transition
to All-Stellar was accomplished. The actual transition was delayed
one day to provide DSN support for Mars Polar Lander command
activities.
The All-Stellar transition had one multiple thruster firing, captured
in high rate attitude telemetry that is now being analyzed. The
background flight sequence, SC013 Part 4, was modified to collect
high rate attitude data at selected times in order to provide
additional insight into the multiple firings. The plan is to remain
in All-Stellar attitude this week to collect sufficient data to
determine the statistics of multiple firings. Contingency commands
are available to return to Gyro Based attitude determine if
necessary.
Flight sequence SC013 is the active sequence. Sequence SC014 has
been reviewed, and includes the aerogel deployment for the first
Interstellar Collection Period.
A review was completed of the science activities to obtain existing
reduced earth-based Comet Wild 2 observations, taken during the 1997
apparition, project-produced comet models of dust production,
particle lifetime as a function of size, and nucleus albedo and
rotation properties. A Stardust-organized Wild 2 Observation and
Modeling Workshop and Peer Review will be held later this year
For more information on the Stardust mission--the first ever comet
sample return mission--please visit the Stardust home page at
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
End Marsbugs Volume 7, Number 4
David J. Thomas, PhD, FBIS
Assistant Professor of Biology
Biology and Chemistry Division
Lyon College
2300 Highland Road
Batesville, AR 72503
Phone: (870) 698-4269 Fax: (870) 698-4622
E-mail: dthomas@... or marsbugs@...http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/index.html
Editor of Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter
http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/marsbugs/marsbugs.html
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 13:19:53 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: mini-air@...
Originator: mini-air@...
Sender: mini-air@...
From: Marc Abrahams <marca@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list MINI-AIR <mini-air@...>
Subject: mini-AIR Jan 2000 - Minimal bureacracy; between the beginnings
PLEASE FORWARD/POST AS APPROPRIATE
================================================================
mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
Issue Number 2000-01
January, 2000
ISSN 1076-500X
Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the
----------------------------------------------------------------
A free newsletter of tidbits too tiny to fit in
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR),
the journal of inflated research and personalities
================================================================
-----------------------------
2000-01-01 TABLE OF CONTENTS
2000-01-01 Table of Contents
2000-01-02 mini-Housekeeping
2000-01-03 What's New in the Magazine
2000-01-04 Minimal Bureaucracy
2000-01-05 Economic Fits, Starts, Misfits, Stops
2000-01-06 Between the Beginnings
2000-01-07 Masses of Evidence
2000-01-08 Up With Down With Evolution
2000-01-09 Pianist Wanted
2000-01-10 AIRhead SciFaiku -- The 1st Load
2000-01-11 Rules Guy
2000-01-12 Windy Observations in the Rigging
2000-01-13 Ear-ly Warning System
2000-01-14 Calculating Forever
2000-01-15 Loads of HotAIR
2000-01-16 Project AIRhead 2000: Wipe and Fly
2000-01-17 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Certificates and Claws
2000-01-18 AIRhead Events
2000-01-19 How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
2000-01-20 How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)
2000-01-21 Our Address (*)
2000-01-22 Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.
mini-AIR is
a free monthly *e-supplement* to AIR, the print magazine
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-02 mini Housekeeping
Come to the AIR events in February in New Mexico, Maryland, DC,
and NJ. See section 2000-01-18 for details.
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-03 What's New in the Magazine
AIR 6:1 (January/February 2000) is the long-awaited (and typically
delayed) special annual IG NOBEL ISSUE. It includes, among other
things:
<> Full, graphic, detailed, hard- and soft-hitting reports on
the Ninth 1st Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony.
<> "How to Quantify Failure," by Martin J. Murphy.
<> "Feline Reactions To Bearded Men: Czar Goes Through the Gate."
These and many, many other articles and features are in the
current issue of AIR. You are, of course, invited to
subscribe to that splendid magazine. (What you are reading
at this moment, of course, is mini-AIR, a tiny, monthly,
electronic supplement to the print magazine.)
[OUR TRADITIONAL LATE JANUARY ABJECT NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS: As
usual, the Ig Nobel issue, with its avalanche of photographs and
masses of detail, has wandered its way through the production
process a little later than we expected it to. Your issue should
be arriving in the mail either this week or within the next
several, depending on the trade winds and the kindness of your
local postal authorities.]
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-04 Minimal Bureaucracy
This month's Scientific Precision Survey concerns mathematics:
What is the minimum number of people needed
to constitute a bureaucracy?
Please send your answer, with an explanation not exceeding 25
words in length, to <marca@...>.
IMPORTANT: Send duplicate, etc., reports to your own bureaucracy,
not to ours.
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-05 Economic Fits, Starts, Misfits, Stops
Investigator Lois Malone has developed a credible theory to
explain why the business world has slowed considerably since
January 1. Here, in its public debut, is that theory:
"The big buying spree at the end of 1999 was rooted
in the belief that the world was going to end and
they'd never have to pay the bills. Now the world is
still going on, and, aw, heck, they have to pay the bills."
[METHODOLOGY, for the .00035% of readers who want to know:
Ever since we did or did not enter a new millennium, Malone has
been surveying businessmen and polling businesswomen. The
resultant data were compared with those obtained by polling
businessmen and surveying businesswomen. The data were then
normalized and jiggered.]
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-06 Between the Beginnings
People have already started sending in quibbles and corrections to
last month's "when does the new millennium start?" compromise.
(Rather than January, 2000 or January 1, 2001, the new millennium
beginning is July 1, 2000.)
Our solution made the sensible assumption that the month is the
smallest practical unit of millennial time, and the optimistic
assumption that no one really cares about this problem.
Investigator Ivan Zezula (echoed by others) objects:
"It is a typical physical (or physicists') approximation,
with mean done only by months. Exact solution must take
into consideration number of days in the leap year:
2000-01-01 + 366/2 = 2000-07-02.
So the true compromise is July 2nd."
Investigator Barry Simon goes a partial step further:
"Too bad it's a leap year because if the year had only 365
days, the millennium would begin at noon which would be
convenient."
Investigator Irving Lerch opts for the basic compromise, but
points out an exception:
"Yes, I agree, since most organizations begin their
fiscal year on July 1. However, the Federal Government
begins its fiscal year on October 1. Therefore, for most
of America, the new millennium begins on July 1, 2000.
However, for the Federal Government, the new millennium
will be delayed until October 1, 2000."
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-07 Masses of Evidence
An alternative, democratic Millenium starter system was developed
by investigator Hauke Reddmann:
"Wouldn't it be fairer to statistically weight by the
number of followers? I've done this tentatively and come
upon a date of February 15, 1999, which is just incidentally
the date when the Chinese celebrate the new millennium."
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-08 Up With Down With Evolution
Investigator John Mark Rothfuss objects to one of the recently
awarded Ig Nobel Prizes:
"I have to take exception with your inclusion of the
Kansas and Colorado School Boards for their attempts to
reign in scientific elitism. After having reviewed their
recommendations I find that there was nothing offensive
about their conclusions. It also seems that you
felt it allowable to disregard your own guidelines in
this instance. I am referring to the guideline: First,
do no harm. Please don't try to defend your position
on this, as you clearly had no regard for their careers
or endeavors."
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-09 Pianist Wanted
If you are a good pianist with a sense of humor and a full
complement of fingers and would like to be part of the big AIR
show in Washington, DC on Friday night, Feb. 18, please get in
touch with Marc at <marca@...>.
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-10 AIRhead SciFaiku -- The 1st Load
Last month we made the mistake of asking for new poetry that is
compressed, intriguing, and about science. Many of you made the
mistake of writing and sending some. Here is the first selection
of this non-art non-form called Scifaiku:.
Test tubes -- don't listen
To taunts. They're just trying to
Get a reaction
--Alice Waugh
Repulsive pole!
You give me but half
A moment
--Steve Brunt
My red, ripe tomato
has altered genetics...
What smells like fish?
--Bob Wakulich
I have posted my
Findings on a friends web site
So I must be right
--David Emigh
Uncle Henry's wife
Broke her hip. A victim of
Auntie gravity
--Gary Hallock
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-11 Rules Guy
Investigative poet Marcus Chang has issued a plea:
"I find the restrictions of Haiku a wonderful exercise
in creativity. We writers (I, professionally) often fear
total freedom and a blank page the most. I find it very
disappointing that the scientific community, with its
myriad rules, regulations, procedures, etc., chooses to
do away with the very rules that make haiku haiku. Without
those delineations, the words become free verse and, in
my humble opinion as a writer, pretty darn suck city.
Bring back the rules and watch your contributors blossom."
We agree with investigator Chang. Therefore, please read and obey
the following
NOTICE
Henceforth, we will publish only Scifaiku that
conforms to rules. Please include, with each of your
Scifaiku submissions, a list of rules to which it conforms.
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-12 Windy Observations in the Rigging
The Statistics Certification Institute certified the results of
last month's Statistical Reliability Survey. The survey question
was: "Do you think that mini-AIR survey's are all rigged?"
The results:
141% say yes
302% say no
Thus, a clear majority expressed an opinion. Minorities, too, were
heard from. Here are some of their observations:
"No. Rigging requires organization."
--Bill Llewellin
"Yes, for sure! A lot of people conspire to this end; they all
maliciously send in their votes, and the outcome is cunningly
decided by the statistics of their opinions. By this insidious
scheme, the result often is rigged to deviate from the truth,
supremely represented by my opinion."
--Anders Eriksson
"Yes, I believe all of the mini-AIR surveys are rigged. This is
because I have never seen any of my witty and poignant, yet
scientifically relevant, responses in e-print to this point."
--Scott Taylor
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-13 Ear-ly Warning System
The following is an Ear Alert.
mini-AIR readers in the London area are urged to take themselves,
their paper airplanes, and some snack food to Savoy Place at 2:45
pm on March 2. There they will see D.J. Hurley, M.S. Nixon and
J.N. Carter of the University of Southampton present a paper
entitled "AUTOMATIC EAR RECOGNITION BY FORCE FIELD
TRANSFORMATIONS." (Thanks to investigator Edwin Spector for
bringing this to our attention.) For details, see
http://www.iee.org.uk/Events/e02mar00.htm
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-14 Calculating Forever
We proudly announce Project Forever. Project Forever is a contest
to determine the exact value of the physical constant "forever."
Here is how to participate:
1. Obtain a one-kilogram diamond.
2. Using the well-known law of nature "Diamonds Are Forever" and
the laws of thermodynamics, calculate the effects of entropy on
your diamond. Report the exact date on which that diamond's
constituents will have attained a state of complete dissociation.
The winner -- the person or team reporting the most accurate value
-- will receive a dissociated two-kilogram diamond.
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-15 Loads of HotAIR
Speaking of forever, we assure you that the load of exciting and
dull new features on the AIR web site, the beloved HotAIR
(http://www.improbable.com), will indeed begin appearing any day
now. Honest. Really. Golly. Shucks. Etc.
----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-16 Project AIRhead 2000: Wipe and Fly
Here are further selections from our vast collection of items that
inexplicably have 2000 as part of their name.
ITEM 60204 (submitted by investigators Alison Brown and Barbara
Rohrhofer)
HAKLE 2000, Austrian toilet paper.
ITEM RY-5306 (submitted by investigator Graham de Vahl Davis)
K-2000, an airline that, until its demise several weeks ago,
offered cheap flights between Australia and New Zealand.
-----------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-17 MAY WE RECOMMEND: Certificates and Claws
Research reports that merit a trip to the library.
(For a much larger collection, see any issue of AIR.)
CERTIFICATION CAUTION
"Avoidable mistakes in filling out death certificates" [Article in
German], Zeitschrift Fur Arztliche Fortbildung, J. Berndt and H.
Zschoch, vol. 66, no. 8, April 15, 1972, pp. 424-7. (Thanks to
Robert Feld et al. for bringing this to our attention.)
CLAWS AND EFFECTS
"The effect of processing treatments on the radiation-induced ESR
signal in the cuticle of irradiated Norway lobster (Nephrops
norvegicus)," E.M. Stewart, M.H. Stevenson, R. Gray, and C.H.
McMurray, Radiation Physics and Chemistry, vol. 42, nos. 1-3,
1993, pp. 367-70. (Thanks to Iris Danner et al. for bringing this
to our attention.)
------------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-18 AIRhead Events
==> For details and updates see http://www.improbable.com
==> Want to host an event? <marca@...> 617-491-4437.
NEW MEXICO TECH, SOCORRO Thurs, Feb 3
7:30 pm. at the Macey Center.
AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS. Sponsored by the New Mexico Tech
Graduate Student Organization. Includes "Professor Lipscomb Makes
a Cup of Tea."
DETAILS: http://www.nmt.edu/mainpage/pas/abrahams.html
INFO: Ronna Kalish <RKalish@...> (505) 835-5688
NEW MEXICO STATE UNIV, LAS CRUCES Fri, Feb 4
3:30 (preceded by refreshments at 3:00)
The Gerald Thomas Building, room 200.
(For a campus map see http://www.nmsu.edu/General/Maps/ )
AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS and 1999 Ig Nobel
Biology Prize winner PAUL BOSLAND.
Includes "Professor Lipscomb Makes a Cup of Tea."
Info: Paul Bosland <pbosland@...> 505-646-5171
UNIV OF NEW MEXICO, ALBUQUERQUE Mon, Feb 7
7 pm. Anthropology room 163.
(For a campus map, see http://www.unm.edu/campusmap.html )
AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS. Includes "Professor Lipscomb Makes a Cup
of Tea."
INFO: Dennis Lai Chao <dlchao@...> 505-277-5957
LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LAB Tues, Feb 8
1:10 pm. Director's Colloquium. AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS.
Location TBA. INFO: Juanita Salazar <jsal@...> 505-667-9087
UNIV OF MARYLAND AT COLLEGE PARK Wed, Feb 16
4:00, Physics Building, the large lecture hall (room 412).
Preceded by departmental tea at 3:30.
(For a campus map, see http://www.umd.edu/visitors/ )
AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS. Sponsored by the Univ of Maryland
Society of Physics Students. Lab coats and paper airplanes not
required, but strongly encouraged.
Includes "Professor Lipscomb Makes a Cup of Tea."
INFO: Sara Mitchell <saram@...>
NASW PLENARY SESSION (at AAAS), WASHINGTON Thurs, Feb 17
8-10 am. AIR editor Marc Abrahams will be part of the National
Association of Science Writers (NASW) plenary session panel.
This event is open to NASW members only.
Info: Mary Knudsen <mary@...>
AAAS ANNUAL MEETING, WASHINGTON DC Fri, Feb 18
9:00 pm. AIR authors will present their traditionally improbable
session at the American Association for the Advancement of
Science's annual meeting. Featuring, among other things:
<> AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS;
<> Studmuffins of Science creator KAREN HOPKIN;
<> "A Briefer History of Time" author ERIC SCHULMAN;
<> "The Curious Deaths of Museum Curators" author SALLY SHELTON;
<> Intelligent crab author ROBERT REID;
<> "Feline Reactions to Bearded Men;"
<> "Professor Lipscomb Makes a Cup of Tea;" and
<> live performance of songs from the Ig Nobel ceremonies.
Further details TBA.
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, PRINCETON UNIV Tues, Feb 22
Details TBA. ACS dinner at 6 pm to be followed by
a public lecture at 8 pm by AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS.
INFO: Warren Warren <wwarren@...> (609)258-3910
TUFTS VET SCHOOL, PHI ZETA AWARDS CEREMONY Thurs, Feb 24
AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS.
INFO: Don Brown <DBrown@...> 508-839-5395 X84655
NEW ENGLAND SKEPTICAL SOCIETY -- YALE UNIV SEPT.
Date and exact location TBA. AIR editor MARC ABRAHAMS et al.
INFO: Jon Blumenfeld <jon@...>
http://www.theness.com/member.html
TENTH FIRST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY THURS, OCT 5
Sanders Theatre, Harvard University.
Tickets will go in sale in August.
IG LECTURES SAT, OCT 6
MIT (room TBA)
The 2000 Ig Nobel Prizewinners will attempt to explain themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------
2000-01-19 How to Subscribe to AIR (*)
Here's how to subscribe to the magnificent bi-monthly print
journal The Annals of Improbable Research -- (the real thing, not
just the little bits of overflow material you have been reading
here in mini-AIR)
...............................................................
Name:
Address:
Address:
City and State: Zip or postal code:
Country
Phone: FAX: E-mail:
...............................................................
SUBSCRIPTIONS (6 issues per year):
USA 1 yr/$23 2 yrs/$39 3 yrs/$59
Canada/Mexico 1 yr/$27 US 2 yrs/$45 US 3 yrs/$67 US
Overseas 1 yr/$40 US 2 yrs/$70 US 3 yrs/$99 US
...............................................................
BACK ISSUES are available, too:
First issue: $8 USA, $11 Canada/Mex, $16 overseas
Add'l issues purchased at same time: $6 each
...............................................................
Send payment (US bank check, or international money order, or
Visa, Mastercard or Discover info) to:
The Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA
617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927 <air@...>
-----------------------------------------------------
2000-01-20 How to Receive mini-AIR, etc. (*)
What you are reading right now is mini-AIR. Mini-AIR is a (free!)
tiny monthly *supplement* to the bi-monthly print magazine.
To subscribe, send a brief E-mail message to:
LISTPROC@...
The body of your message should contain ONLY the words
SUBSCRIBE MINI-AIR MARIE CURIE
(You may substitute your own name for that of Madame Curie.)
----------------------------
To stop subscribing, send the following message: SIGNOFF MINI-AIR
-----------------------------------------------------
2000-01-21 Our Address (*)
Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
PO Box 380853, Cambridge, MA 02238 USA
617-491-4437 FAX:617-661-0927
EDITORIAL: marca@...
SUBSCRIPTIONS: air@...
WEB SITE: www.improbable.com
---------------------------
2000-01-22 Please Forward/Post This Issue! (*)
Please distribute copies of mini-AIR (or excerpts!) wherever
appropriate. The only limitations are:
A) Please indicate that the material comes from mini-AIR.
B) You may NOT distribute mini-AIR for commercial purposes.
------------------------------------------------------------
(c) copyright 2000, Annals of Improbable Research
------------------------------------------------------------
-------------
mini-AIRheads
-------------
EDITOR: Marc Abrahams (marca@...)
MINI-PROOFREADER AND PICKER OF NITS (before we introduce the last
few at the last moment): Wendy Mattson <wendy@...>
WWW EDITOR/GLOBAL VILLAGE IDIOT: Amy Gorin
(airmaster@...)
COMMUTATIVE EDITOR: Stanley Eigen (eigen@...)
ASSOCIATIVE EDITOR: Mark Dionne
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Gary Dryfoos, Ernest Ersatz, Craig Haggart, Nicki
Rohloff
MAITRE DE COMPUTATION: Jerry Lotto
AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon
Glashow, William Lipscomb, Richard Roberts
============================================================
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 15:48:32 -0500 (EST)
To: lklaes@...
From: "What's New" <whatsnew@...>
Subject: What's New for Jan 28, 2000
WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 28 Jan 00 Washington, DC
1. THE STATE OF SCIENCE: A SUCCESS STORY FOR A JOINT EFFORT.
"To accelerate the march of discovery across all disciplines of
science and technology, my budget includes an unprecedented $3
billion increase in the 21st Century Research Fund, the largest
increase in civilian research in a decade." It came toward the
end of the longest State-of-the-Union speech in history, and went
unremarked upon by the media, but the President's call reflected
three years of intense lobbying by scientists. Three years ago,
President Clinton's budget request marked five straight years of
decline in science investment. On 4 Mar 97, representatives of
23 scientific, mathematical and engineering societies met with
reporters to call for an across-the-board increase in research
(WN 7 Mar 97). They stressed the interconnectedness of modern
science. APS President D. Allan Bromley predicted that economic
growth would pay for the increase. That message has gotten
through to the White House. Now we must convince Congress.
2. THE STATE OF THE WORLD: MAKING EARTH A SAFER PLANET. In his
initiative-laden speech, President Clinton stressed the need to
continue reducing nuclear arsenals and help Russia safeguard its
remaining weapons and materials. He called for development of a
missile defense, while preserving the ABM treaty, and pleaded for
a constructive dialogue on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He
"put to rest" the notion that you can't expand the economy while
protecting the environment and declared global warming to be the
greatest environmental challenge of the new century.
3. SPY HYSTERIA: DOE PREPARING TO ANNOUNCE COLOR-CODED BADGES.
A DOE spokesperson said the new policy is "not ready to be
released to the public." According to our information, the new
badge rules will go into effect at all DOE labs, not just the
weapons labs, and are to be worn by all employees. The color
will not signify level of security clearance, but whether the
person is a citizen. Their country of origin will be displayed
prominently on the grounds that people should know who they're
dealing with. Perhaps employees could also wear religious icons.
4. TRAINING PSYCHICS: IT'S HARD TO SEE WHERE THIS IS HEADED.
According to the New York Times this morning, New York City's
Human Resources Administration has been recruiting and training
welfare recipients to work as telephone psychics. The minimum
starting salary is $10 per hour plus bonuses, and you can work at
home. Had the HRA looked further ahead, however, it would have
seen that there's not much of a future for telephone psychics.
They are suffering rapid technological displacement by Internet
psychics. Unfortunately, they never seem to see it coming.
5. MARS: EARTHLINGS REPORT A MYSTERIOUS MARTIAN SIGNAL. Could
this be the vanished Mars Polar Lander trying to call home?
THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY (Note: Opinions are the author's
and are not necessarily shared by the APS, but they should be.)
Search for Life
Scientists in various disciplines have formed the UK's Astrobiology
Forum, dedicated to looking for life beyond Earth. Listen to this
report to learn about the group's ideology and its plans to explore
the great unknown.
EcoWatch/London Radio Service (5:04)
Full Story:
http://www.enn.com/enn-multimedia-archive/2000/01/01312000/lrs_9539.asp
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 09:32:26 -0500
From: Listserv@...
To: lklaes@...
Subject: New from Princeton University Press
For Members of Princeton University Press's E-mail List for
Biological Sciences
We are pleased to send you the following information about this
newly published book:
The Biomechanics of Insect Flight
Form, Function, Evolution
Robert Dudley
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/6881.html
>From the rain forests of Borneo to the tenements of
Manhattan, winged insects are a conspicuous and abundant
feature of life on earth. Here, Robert Dudley presents the
first comprehensive explanation of how insects fly. The
author relates the biomechanics of flight to insect ecology
and evolution in a major new work of synthesis.
The book begins with an overview of insect flight
biomechanics. Dudley explains insect morphology, wing
motions, aerodynamics, flight energetics, and flight
metabolism within a modern phylogenetic setting. Drawing on
biomechanical principles, he describes and evaluates flight
behavior and the limits to flight performance. The author
then takes the next step by developing evolutionary
explanations of insect flight. He analyzes the origins of
flight in insects, the roles of natural and sexual selection
in determining how insects fly, and the relationship between
flight and insect size, pollination, predation, dispersal,
and migration. Dudley ranges widely-from basic aerodynamics
to muscle physiology and swarming behavior-but his focus is
the explanation of functional design from evolutionary and
ecological perspectives.
The importance of flight in the lives of insects has long
been recognized but never systematically evaluated. This
book addresses that shortcoming. Robert Dudley provides an
introduction to insect flight that will be welcomed by
students and researchers in biomechanics, entomology,
evolution, ecology, and behavior.
Robert Dudley is Associate Professor in the Section of
Integrative Biology at the University of Texas and the
author of numerous articles on the biomechanics of insect
flight. He is also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian
Tropical Research Institute in the Republic of Panama.
0-691-04430-9 Cloth $49.50 US and L31.00 UK
468 pages , 6 x 9 , 10 tables.
35 line illus. , 6 color plates.
If you wish to place an order, we encourage you to do so through your
local bookseller. If that is not possible, you can order through our
website by clicking on the link above.
Thank you for participating in our e-mail list. You can look forward to
receiving more announcements of this kind as new books are released in
the subject areas you have selected. You may un-subscribe from this list
at any time by sending a message to Leslie@....
We're very interested in your comments and suggestions on this new service.
Feel free to e-mail us at Leslie@....
The following is an announcement that my friend Steve Flinn has asked that I
pass on to the list. I encourage folks with the interest and requisite
skills to contact Steve.
<}{><}{><}{><}{><}{><}{><}{><}{><}{><}{><}{><}{><}{><}{>
ManyWorlds Consulting, Inc. is looking for talented individuals to assist us
in developing a commercial content management software package, AdaptiveConten
t™, that has the potential to revolutionize knowledge-based Internet portal
development and management.
ManyWorlds is focused on helping its clients create "blow-out" value for
their shareholders, through delivery of what we call Business Model
Solutions™. Business Model Solutions includes assisting with business
strategy formulation, as well as delivering key process and IT components
that enable the strategy.
Clients range from leading companies such as Cisco Systems and Royal
Dutch/Shell Group to very high potential start-ups.
We are a company that embraces extropian/transhumanist principles, and Max
More is currently assisting us in the development of what will be the leading
business strategy hub on the Internet, which will be launched on February 14.
The first generation of AdaptiveContent will be generating that portal.
We are already at work architecting next generation capabilities of
AdaptiveContent. We need additional application development talent, with
particular expertise in database-driven web applications. Deep expertise
with SQL/Server and ASP is a must. We would be interested in hiring
individuals with the right skill sets on a full-time or part-time basis, and
as either an employee or on an independent contractor basis. You can be
located just about anywhere in the world, as long as you have access to a
high-speed Internet connection (our headquarters is in Houston, TX). Our
preference is for people who are available to work with us in the very
near-term.
We would also be interested in discussing our technology with individuals or
companies that might be interested in developing applications that complement
the core AdaptiveContent package. We would be prepared to help market your
applications to our customers.
If interested, send me an e-mail at s.flinn@....
Steve Flinn
President
ManyWorlds Consulting, Inc.
Mark Schlegel writes:
> I've wondered this for a while about Beowulf style systems:
> instead of buying a whole bunch of ATX cases, power supplies,etc
> wouldn't it be a lot cheaper and save space to just mount the
> bare Mboards in a big box and run it off one big power supply?
There is a way of packing more motherboards (on-board networking and
video) into a custom case, but you'll still need the case and the
power supplies.
As long
> It would seem that quite a few Mboards could be stacked,
> with just enough gap to allow circulation. Maybe some boxes
Of course you need extra fans for this.
> would have a hinged mount on one side so the boards could
> open like a book to add cards.
No cards. Cards add to the height. For the same reason, the CPU should
be in sockets, not slots. Next Athlon will be socketed.
> Or is the problem that such a power supply (maybe 2500 watts)
> is more expensive than the 10 cases would be? (maybe no
> one makes such a thing)
As soon as you deviate from COTS, you pay through you nose. I've payed
four times the money for a rackmount case ($200) than for the 19"
rack, which I've gotten surplus.
If you go for density, you get a 19" ($700-$1000), and get 1U
rackmount cases ($600 apiece) with matching motherboards. There are
rackmount shelves which allow you to mount motherboards (I have a
source), but there you'll be paying $2000-$3000 for ~40 (?) mobos, of
course you'll still need the power supplies.
The cheapest way is get a wire shelf at Costco on casters, and just
fill it up with standard ATX cases. People who make several 100 nodes
are using this setup.
I've got my 19" for $50, and can't afford more than 4..8 nodes (about
as much as you can get in a single 19" with 4U rackmounts). So the
$200 rackmount cases do not really hurt here. At 128 nodes, however...
> > Are you going rackmount? Siliconrax, or have you found another vendor?
> > Which switch? Which motherboard? (You're aware there is a new
> > incompatible generation of Athlons coming out in March, are you?).
>
> For ten nodes, I think I'll use standard ATX cases and stack them under
> my desk. I don't know which switch or mobo, and I don't know whether
> Athlon's higher price will be worth it. Do you have any idea about how
> Athlons stack up against K6-IIIs and Celerons?
I've wondered this for a while about Beowulf style systems:
instead of buying a whole bunch of ATX cases, power supplies,etc
wouldn't it be a lot cheaper and save space to just mount the
bare Mboards in a big box and run it off one big power supply?
It would seem that quite a few Mboards could be stacked,
with just enough gap to allow circulation. Maybe some boxes
would have a hinged mount on one side so the boards could
open like a book to add cards.
Or is the problem that such a power supply (maybe 2500 watts)
is more expensive than the 10 cases would be? (maybe no
one makes such a thing)
Mark
From: "Benjamin Black" <black@...>
> >From my reading on IPv6, it is far from overengineered; indeed, it
> dropped a number of IPv4 features because it thought they were
> overengineered, and simplified a number of others so they were easier
> to implement.
>
And at the same time added in all manner of thorny (and unsolved) problems,
such
as source address selection. I got involved in a lengthy flamewar on the
ipng list last year which essentially revealed that the largest proponents
and designers of IPv6 were a completely seperate group from the network
operators who would be deploying it.
> I think that rolling out new network protocols is very difficult. IP
> multicast still isn't deployed at most commercial NSPs, and it's many
Numerically, that is correct. However, that is a bit misleading as a few
ISPs represent the vast majority of traffic. Sprint, UUNet, Exodus,
AboveNet, etc...all participate in MBone and use MBGP for multicast
reachability distribution. A key difference between IPv6 and multicast is
that multicast provides something people actually can use, namely efficient
streaming content delivery. IPv6 provides longer addresses which we won't
need for at least another 10 years. If you want to issues such as the
mobility support in IPv6, please see your own comments about it not being
overengineered.
I will say that one feature I *really* like about IPv6 is the reason for the
source address selection problem: the seperation of node *identity* from
node *locality*. IPv4 merges the 2 concepts which allows end stations to
source packets blindly, but allows no way to identify that multiple
addresses belong to the same host.
Ben
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