Article: Unique moon may partner Sedna?| New Scientist: "Now a UK team has shown that if Sedna has a moon, it must be more like a gigantic, extinct comet than a planetary body.
Assuming the moon exists, Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University in the UK and colleagues calculated its maximum possible reflectivity on the basis that the space telescopes have been unable to see it. 'If there is a moon, it has to be the darkest object in the solar system,' Wickramasinghe says."
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Article: Unique moon may partner Sedna?| New Scientist
Article: DNA technique protects against 'evil' emails?| New Scientist
Article: DNA technique protects against 'evil' emails?| New Scientist: "A technique originally designed to analyse DNA sequences is the latest weapon in the war against spam. An algorithm named Chung-Kwei (after a feng-shui talisman that protects the home against evil spirits) can catch nearly 97 per cent of spam.
Chung-Kwei is based on the Teiresias algorithm, developed by the bioinformatics research group at IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Center in New York, US. Teiresias was designed to search different DNA and amino acid sequences for recurring patterns, which often indicate genetic structures that have an important role."
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Everything Space: Astronomy and Space News, Chat, Forums, Videos
Everything Space: Astronomy and Space News“There are thought to be millions of these WIMPs going through our bodies every second,” Newburg adds. “Because they are weakly interacting, detectors designed to look for them might detect only a few a day. The reason we think these WIMPs exist is that we see the effects of some unknown and unseen mass pulling at the stars of the Milky Way through gravity. Though each WIMP is very small, there are so many of them that their mass accounts for 90% of the mass in our galaxy. It is quite extraordinary to me that we might live in a sea of these barely-detectable particles, and that we scientists see this as the most likely explanation for our observations of the heavens.”
“Because the Earth is much more dense than the Milky Way galaxy, the WIMPs have very little effect on the gravity we feel, and as far as we know our lives are not directly affected by the tiny particles.”
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InformationWeek > Database Mixup > Terror List Ties Up Sen. Kennedy > August 20, 2004
InformationWeek > Database Mixup > Terror List Ties Up Sen. Kennedy > August 20, 2004: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top Homeland Security official has apologized to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who was stopped at airports because a name similar to his appeared on the government's no-fly list of terror suspects.
'If they have that kind of difficulty with a member of Congress, how in the world are average Americans, who are getting caught up in this thing, how are they going to be treated fairly and not have their rights abused?' Kennedy asked Homeland Security undersecretary Asa Hutchinson.
The Massachusetts Democrat said he'd been misidentified on the watch list when he tried to board airliners between Washington and Boston. Kennedy said he was stopped five times as he tried to board US Airways shuttles because a name similar to his appeared on a list or his name popped up for additional screening."
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Universe Today - Armadillo Aerospace Rocket Destroyed
Universe Today - Armadillo Aerospace Rocket Destroyed: "Summary - (Aug 10, 2004) Another X Prize contender's rocket crashed over the weekend. Armadillo Aerospace's lead engineer and funder John Carmack reported that their prototype rocket ran out of fuel on a test flight and crashed shortly after takeoff. The $35,000 hydrogen peroxide-powered 'Black Armadillo' lifted off from the launch pad and then ran out of fuel 180 metres (590 feet) into the air; it crashed into the ground and was completely destroyed. The team hopes to be flying again in September with a completely new vehicle."
T. rex owes its giant size to the ultimate teenage growth spurt
T. rex owes its giant size to the ultimate teenage growth spurt: "For the first time, scientists have determined the lifelong growth pattern for the Tyrannosaurus rex. T. rex reached its massive adult size due to an extraordinary growth spurt that stretched from about 14 to 18 years of age. Furthermore, the surge was followed by about 10 years of little or no growth as an adult, according to a study that will be the cover story of Nature Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004."
Yahoo! News - Caribbean, Florida on alert with two tropical storms on the way
Yahoo! News - Caribbean, Florida on alert with two tropical storms on the way: "MIAMI (AFP) - Two tropical storms raced toward the Caribbean and the US southern coast, forcing the evacuation of oil platforms and widespread hurricane alerts."
Article: First space test for solar sailing?| New Scientist
Article: First space test for solar sailing?| New Scientist: "A delicate material that could let spacecraft reach distant planets by harnessing the Sun's rays has been unfurled successfully in space for the first time.
The Japanese Institute of Space Astronautical Science tested two solar sail deployments launched aboard an S-310 rocket on 9 August. It is the first time a solar sail deployment has ever been tested in space.
By reflecting photons from Sun, the metallic solar sails should theoretically receive momentum in the opposite direction to propel a spacecraft forward. By gliding along, building up ever more speed, spacecraft should be able to reach distant space targets in record time."
RedNova - Your Sky Tonight - Astronomy Information and Education
RedNova - Your Sky Tonight - Astronomy Information and Education: "What Stars are in Your Sky Tonight?" Nice!
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RedNova News: Quantum Entanglement and Deep-Space Propulsion
RedNova News: Quantum Entanglement and Deep-Space Propulsion:
"While quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation experiments have to date been confined to entangled specimens of materials within the same laboratory, there is no theoretical limitation on how great a distance quantum entanglement can operate across. In other words, once two groups of atoms have been entangled, that entanglement would still be in effect were one of the entangled specimens moved to the other side of the earth.or the solar system.
Therefore, were two specimens of cesium (to take one example; other materials would also work) to be entangled on earth, then one of the specimens lofted into space, exciting the earthbound cesium sample to produce ions would result in the space-traveling cesium sample becoming energetically excited and producing ions like its earthbound counterpart."
Hard Stuff: Cooked diamonds don't dent: Science News Online, Feb. 28, 2004
Hard Stuff: Cooked diamonds don't dent: Science News Online, Feb. 28, 2004: "Popping diamonds into a high-pressure oven for a few minutes can render the famously hard minerals even harder, researchers have found. In particular, pressure-cooking a recently developed type of synthetic diamond has yielded the hardest single-crystal diamond material ever tested, claims Russell J. Hemley of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (D.C.). Single-crystal diamond has a consistent geometric order of atoms throughout, making it desirable for uses ranging from jewelry to electronics."
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Judicial Watch - Because no one is above the law!
Judicial Watch - Because no one is above the law!: "15. DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE DEATH OF RON BROWN - Judicial Watch petitioned the three judge panel which appoints independent counsels to 'reopen' the inquiry of Ron Brown to determine the cause of his death. Pathologists in the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology believe that a bullet hole was found in Brown's head, yet an autopsy was not conducted at the direction of The White House. At the time of his death, Brown was a key witness in Judicial Watch's case against the Commerce Department and a likely defendant in a criminal proceeding."
U.S. Judges Getting Disclosure Data Deleted (washingtonpost.com)
U.S. Judges Getting Disclosure Data Deleted (washingtonpost.com): "Nearly 600 times in recent years, a judicial committee acting in private has stripped information from reports intended to alert the public to conflicts of interest involving federal judges.
The committee decided that the information removed might tend to endanger a particular judge or put his or her financial investments at risk, according to a study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress."
The Big Guys Work For The Carlyle Group
The Big Guys Work For The Carlyle Group: "Are you the sort of person who believes in conspiracies--the Trilateral Commission secretly runs the world, that sort of thing? Well, then, here's a company for you. The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C., buyout firm, is one of the nation's largest defense contractors. It has billions of dollars at its disposal and employs a few important people. Maybe you've heard of them: former Secretary of State Jim Baker, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, and former White House budget director Dick Darman. Wait, we're just getting warmed up. William Kennard, who recently headed the FCC, and Arthur Levitt, who just left the SEC, also work for Carlyle. As do former British Prime Minister John Major and former Philippines President Fidel Ramos. Let's see, are we forgetting anyone? Oh, right, former President George Herbert Walker Bush is on the payroll too.
The firm also has about a dozen investors from Saudi Arabia, including, until recently, the bin Laden family. Yes, those bin Ladens. Is it any wonder that Internet sites with names like paranoiamagazine.com are rife with stories about Carlyle's shadowy, corrupt global network? And it's not just wackos. 'Be careful,' a tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley wrote in an e-mail when he learned I was doing a story on Carlyle. 'The rabbit hole runs really deep on this one.''
Leaving aside the conspiracies for a moment, what exactly does the Carlyle Group do? Start with the basics: It's one of the world's largest and most powerful private-equity investment firms, meaning it buys and sells privately held companies and divisions of large public companies for big profits. Founded in 1987 (and named after the favorite New York hotel of the firm's first investors, the Mellon family), Carlyle has raised a total of $14 billion from investors in just the past five years--more than any other private-equity firm has attracted in the same period, except the Blackstone Group and CSFB Private Equity. Profits, too, have been pretty terrific. Not counting the standard 20% cut that goes to Carlyle's partners and managing directors, the firm's average annual rate of return has been 36%."
Thursday, August 05, 2004
local6.com - Problem Solvers - Woman Fired For Eating 'Unclean' Meat
local6.com - Problem Solvers - Woman Fired For Eating 'Unclean' Meat: "Lina Morales was hired as an administrative assistant at Rising Star -- a Central Florida telecommunications company with strong Muslim ties, Local 6 News reported.
However, 10 months after being hired by Rising Star, religious differences led to her termination.
Morales, who is Catholic, was warned about eating pizza with meat the Muslim faith considered 'unclean,' Local 6 News reported. She was then fired for eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, according to the report."
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• Key Players in the Plame Affair