Tag Archives: New Scientist

Is SETI just asking for trouble?

One of the more amusing tales  of science fiction is the one where the exploring earthlings, who believe that technological survival requires logic and logical beings can’t be warlike, run smack into an alien warship whose star troopers proceed to eviscerate them. (See Larry Niven’s warcats.)

Comes now a similar argument from New Scientist (“Hello ET, We Come In Peace”) that we need to pour more tax money into the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Why? Because we need to let any other cosmic civilizations know we’re around. (Like why should they care?) But is that so smart? We might just be inviting some really big trouble to come calling.

The Gorebot and the mosquitoes

I’ve always figured that old Army journalist Al Gore took one look at the acclaim and money that greeted Michael Moore’s fraudulent documentary on 9/11 and said to himself, "Ah ha, I can do that!"

And he did. And his Oscar- and Nobel-winning Inconvenient Truth is as big a crock as Moore’s opus. But I missed the bit where Gore claims AGW will increase insect-borne diseases such as malaria. The example he used of mosquitoes fluttering their way to Nairobi is wrong. But, in the spirit of MM’s crockumentary, the Gorebot uses it anyway. Of course. Money and fame are the aim.

Meanwhile, for those who find the Gorebot too annoying to spend much time with, there are these hundred reasons why climate change is not man-made. And New Scientist’s rebuttal which, curiously, only addresses half of the hundred reasons. Ran out of space, I guess. On the Net?

The Atomic Finger

AtomicFinger.jpg

The Nanoscale world is illustrated by the cantilever silicon tip of an atomic force microscope, just a few atoms wide.

Via NewScientist.

Earth’s hum

"The hum is a low rumble continually present in the ground even when there are no earthquakes happening, but is detectable only by very sensitive seismometers. Its frequency is near 10 millihertz, below the range of human hearing."

And new evidence suggests it is caused by ocean waves, causing a thump, thump on the seabed.

Via Slashdot