Sunday, September 27, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Ernst Haeckel remixed
Gene-splice the amazing illustrations of German biologist Ernst Haeckel with the reiterations of a computer-generated fractal and the results are both elegant and unaccountably alien . . .
More here.
(Thanks to Reality Carnival.)
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More here.
(Thanks to Reality Carnival.)
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This one really got my attention.
The DNA Mystery: Scientists Stumped By "Telepathic" Abilities
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In the study, scientists observed the behavior of fluorescently tagged DNA strands placed in water that contained no proteins or other material that could interfere with the experiment. Strands with identical nucleotide sequences were about twice as likely to gather together as DNA strands with different sequences. No one knows how individual DNA strands could possibly be communicating in this way, yet somehow they do. The "telepathic" effect is a source of wonder and amazement for scientists.
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Friday, September 25, 2009
A breakthrough to warm one's posthuman heart
Remote Control Cyborg Insects Now A Reality
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The awesome part is that this implant only steers the insect, and only when necessary. Once the bug is pointing in the right direction, the steering signal cuts out, and the bug self-stabilizes and gets back to the tricky business of flying, which it was just fine at before some roboticist stuck a bunch of wires into its optic lobe, thank you very much. As you can see from the video, the insect has no trouble landing itself on a vertical surface, a maneuver which would be, uh, a little bit difficult to code.
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Coast to Coast AM
I will be a guest on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory this Monday on Sep. 28. Here's a preview.
(It's a four-hour spot, so you better believe I'll be drinking coffee.)
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Thursday, September 24, 2009
Some recent (and semi-recent) UFO posts
I've assembled the following list for newcomers to this blog curious about my attitude about UFOs. It's by no means exhaustive, but summarizes my conviction that the phenomenon is a genuine mystery with the potential to challenge our deepest cosmic and existential certainties.
While I think the UFO enigma indicates some form of intelligence, I'm not sure where that intelligence originates. Certainly it could come from the interstellar neighborhood -- but the evidence, taken in its entirety, suggests we're dealing with something substantially stranger. (Of course, we could be confronted with myriad overlapping phenomena.) In any case, we'll likely never know until the rigid definitional framework that has come to dominate discussion of all things "paranormal" is relaxed to accommodate a genuinely agnostic approach.
Sagan and the Hill encounter
UFOs: Why no "open contact"?
UFOs, aliens and consciousness
The Roswell controversy
The persistent myth of UFO "disclosure"
The "Grays" as posthumans
Do aliens smoke cigarettes?
Talking flowers and other denizens of the imaginal realm
Strange "helpers"
Little green men
Asemic texts and "alien" writing
"Proof"?
(To view all posts tagged with "UFOs," click here.)
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While I think the UFO enigma indicates some form of intelligence, I'm not sure where that intelligence originates. Certainly it could come from the interstellar neighborhood -- but the evidence, taken in its entirety, suggests we're dealing with something substantially stranger. (Of course, we could be confronted with myriad overlapping phenomena.) In any case, we'll likely never know until the rigid definitional framework that has come to dominate discussion of all things "paranormal" is relaxed to accommodate a genuinely agnostic approach.
Sagan and the Hill encounter
UFOs: Why no "open contact"?
UFOs, aliens and consciousness
The Roswell controversy
The persistent myth of UFO "disclosure"
The "Grays" as posthumans
Do aliens smoke cigarettes?
Talking flowers and other denizens of the imaginal realm
Strange "helpers"
Little green men
Asemic texts and "alien" writing
"Proof"?
(To view all posts tagged with "UFOs," click here.)
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Drink up!
It's Official: Water Found on the Moon
Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.
The new findings, detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science, come in the wake of further evidence of lunar polar water ice by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and just weeks before the planned lunar impact of NASA's LCROSS satellite, which will hit one of the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's south pole in hope of churning up evidence of water ice deposits in the debris field.
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Further evidence that we inhabit a cosmic fractal
Ego City: Cities organized like human brains
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"Natural selection has passively guided the evolution of mammalian brains throughout time, just as politicians and entrepreneurs have indirectly shaped the organization of cities large and small," said Mark Changizi, a neurobiology expert and assistant professor in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer, who led the study. "It seems both of these invisible hands have arrived at a similar conclusion: brains and cities, as they grow larger, have to be similarly densely interconnected to function optimally."
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Link-dump #19
The Visible Human Project: Full Body MRI GIF
Scary alien hand in real estate listing photo?
Debunking roundup
The sexbots are coming
Roasted Crab Candy (Something the prawns from "District 9" might enjoy snacking on?)
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Transcendent machines
"Someone once said plants invented animals to carry them around. Well, I think the Earth invented human beings to build machines; and those machines will be the consciousness of the Earth. Have you not noticed that these machines are made of the Earth? They are made of gold and silver and arsenic and copper and iridium. They are the stuff of the Earth, organised by primate fingers into more complex arrangements than the Earth could achieve through geological folding, glaciation, volcanism, what have you. We do the fine-tuning; but the Earth is beginning to think."
--Terence McKenna
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More Roswell "insider" testimony
Former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Supervisor Says the Roswell Object was an Alien Spacecraft
Click here to read Greg Bishop's thoughtful synopsis.
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Just ignore it and maybe it will go away.
Human-made Crises 'Outrunning Our Ability To Deal With Them,' Scientists Warn
"Energy, food and water crises, climate disruption, declining fisheries, ocean acidification, emerging diseases and increasing antibiotic resistance are examples of serious, intertwined global-scale challenges spawned by the accelerating scale of human activity," say the researchers, who come from Australia, Sweden, the United States, India, Greece and The Netherlands.
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Can't afford your own private wormhole?
Never fear! Thanks to augmented reality, the next-best thing is a download away!
(Hat tip: Beyond the Beyond.)
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(Hat tip: Beyond the Beyond.)
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Thursday, September 17, 2009
Skywatchers, take note.
New class of UAVs look more like UFOs
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Moveable flaps on sections of the lifting surface provide yaw control to allow the UAV to turn left or right. And flaps on the outside of the craft use the lift airflow to provide directional control, causing the craft to tilt and move in the direction of the tilt.
AESIR say their designs have inherent stability as a surveillance platform, thanks to a sustained hover capability, and can survive low speed impact with the ground, buildings and other fixed objects. They also have a large payload capacity when compared to similar sized fixed wing craft and have been designed to be flexible using "plug-and-play" payloads.
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A Ballardian moment
Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession anchored just east of Singapore
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Then I have it - his 750ft-long merchant vessel is standing absurdly high in the water. The low waves don't even bother the lowest mark on its Plimsoll line. It's the same with all the ships parked here, and there are a lot of them. Close to 500. An armada of freighters with no cargo, no crew, and without a destination between them.
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I always suspected.
Reading Kafka Improves Learning, Suggests Psychology Study
Reading a book by Franz Kafka -- or watching a film by director David Lynch -- could make you smarter.
Enough said.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Martians!
Here's an astonishingly clever Disney animation depicting hypothetical plants and animals on the surface of Mars. (One of my favorites is the organic flying saucer that fries its prey before enveloping the carcass.)
(Thanks to John Shirley for the tip.)
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(Thanks to John Shirley for the tip.)
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Sunday, September 13, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
A ribofunk moment
Nepalese Teen Invents Cheap Solar Panel Using Human Hair
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Did you know that melanin, the pigment in hair, is light sensitive and can be used as a conductor? Well, that's what an 18 year old in Nepal recently discovered, and is now using human hair to replace silicon in solar panels.
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Link-dump #17 (Fortean edition)
Friday, September 04, 2009
Baby universes, white holes and parallel worlds
Physicist Michio Kaku expounds on the prospect of parallel universes in this short, insightful discussion.
Could the UFO phenomenon represent visitors from parallel worlds? I find the notion at least as palatable as the more popular Extraterrestrial Hypothesis.
(Thanks to Reality Carnival.)
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Could the UFO phenomenon represent visitors from parallel worlds? I find the notion at least as palatable as the more popular Extraterrestrial Hypothesis.
(Thanks to Reality Carnival.)
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Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Synthetic landscapes
The following photos are taken from this fine pictorial by Next Nature.
I like the quiet surrealism of these arboreal phantasms; my favorites are the ones that don't look like their designers cared particularly if they resembled real trees . . .
Imagine entire forests of such transmitter-laden simulacra.
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I like the quiet surrealism of these arboreal phantasms; my favorites are the ones that don't look like their designers cared particularly if they resembled real trees . . .
Imagine entire forests of such transmitter-laden simulacra.
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"Artificial Paradise, Inc."
ARTIFICIAL PARADISE, Inc from Jp Frenay on Vimeo.
This posthuman fable is far too cool to pass up. Be sure to watch on full-screen mode.
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Today's dose of entropy fetishism
Feral Houses
I've seen "feral" used to describe dogs, cats, even goats. But I have wondered if it couldn't also be used to describe certain houses in Detroit. Abandoned houses are really no big deal here. Some estimate that there are as many as 10,000 abandoned structures at any given time, and that seems conservative. But for a few beautiful months during the summer, some of these houses become "feral" in every sense: they disappear behind ivy or the untended shrubs and trees planted generations ago to decorate their yards. The wood that framed the rooms gets crushed by trees rooted still in the earth. The burnt lime, sand, gravel, and plaster slowly erode into dust, encouraged by ivy spreading tentacles in its endless search for more sunlight.
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Tuesday, September 01, 2009
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