Above: image of the coronal mass ejection on February 26th, 2010 from NASA

Van’s Hardware Journal points out that the 2010 Chile earthquake was preceded by a Coronal mass ejection.

(via Fadereu)

Space.com’s FAQ states “The question of a solar disturbance/magnetic field change related to earthquakes has been thoroughly investigated and found to be unproven,” and cites the conclusions of a 1996 conference on the subject.

However, Russian and Chinese scientists continue to study the possibility of a connection.

As you’ve probably already heard, this earthquake altered the axis of the earth. So, if it IS true that this earthquake was caused by the sun (and I’m not saying that it was), that means that the sun actually caused a change in the earth’s axis.

See also: Reza Negarestani work such as Cyclonopedia.

(My noise art piece “Thirst for Annihilation” from my album Return to the Wasteland was created using NASA’s recording of radio interference caused by sunspots, inspired by Negarestani’s work and named after a book, which I have not read, by his collaborator Nick Land)

Scientists say that a meteorite that crashed into Earth 40 years ago contains millions of different carbon-containing, or organic, molecules.

Although they are not a sign of life, such organic compounds are life’s building blocks, and are a sign of conditions in the early Solar System.

It is thought the Murchison meteorite could even be older than the Sun.

The results of the meteorite study are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read More – BBC: Space rock contains organic molecular feast

See also: Professor claims life on earth came from space

(via Disinfo)

New evidence from astrobiology “overwhelmingly” supports the view that life was seeded from outside Earth, a scientist has claimed.

Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University says the first microbes were deposited on Earth 3,800m years ago.

The astrobiologist has helped developed the panspermia theory which suggests an extra-terrestrial origin for life.

He argues for a cycle of life as microbes find their way into comets and “multiply and seed other planets”.
In the article, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, Monday, he argues humans and indeed all life on Earth is of alien origin, brought onto the planet by comets hitting the planet.

BBC: Professor’s alien life ’seed’ theory claimed

(via HipGnosis)

This image looks remarkably like groves of trees growing among Martian dunes. But, the trees are an optical illusion. They are actually dark streaks of sediment on the downwind side of the dunes. They were created by escaping gas from the evaporating carbon dioxide ice below. The bottom of the ice melts into vapor and moves toward holes in the ice, carrying dark sediment along with it that is then deposited when the gas escapes.

Wired Science: Strange Places on Mars: What Do You Want to See Next?

According to the last order by Federal Aviation Administration—issued on December 10—BAASS is now the organization to contact if you are a pilot or an air traffic controller who gets close to an Unidentified Flying Object:

“Persons wanting to report UFO/unexplained phenomena activity should contact a UFO/ unex­ plained phenomena reporting data collection center, such as Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) (voice: 1-877-979-7444 or e-mail: Reporting@baass.org)”

Gizmodo: Federal Aviation Administration Officially Says Who to Call After UFO Contact

(via Brainsturbator)

A relatively small planet orbiting a star not far from Earth may be made mostly of water, new observations show.

“This planet is the most Earthlike planet yet discovered,” comments Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley. The observations are reported in the Dec. 17 Nature. [...]

The discovery comes on the heels of other exoplanet sightings, two of which may also be superEarths. All three newly found possible superEarths fall in a mass range between that of Earth and Uranus — a range not represented in the solar system. “This is completely unexpected,” says Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, a coauthor of the two papers reporting the other findings. “It tells us that planets really form very easily.”

Science News: SuperEarth found close by, may host water

(via Social Physicist)

There is water on the Moon, scientists stated unequivocally on Friday, and considerable amounts of it.

“Indeed yes, we found water,” Anthony Colaprete, the principal investigator for NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, said in a news conference.

The confirmation of scientists’ suspicions is welcome news both to future explorers who might set up home on the lunar surface and to scientists who hope that the water, in the form of ice accumulated over billions of years, could hold a record of the solar system’s history.

New York Times: Water Found on Moon, Scientists Say

(Thanks Bill!)

Vint Cerf, Google’s internet evangelist, has unveiled a new protocol intended to power an interplanetary internet.

The Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol emerged from work first started in 1998 in partnership with Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The initial goal was to modify the ubiquitous Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to facilitate robust communications between celestial bodies and satellites. [...]

The core issue is that TCP assumes a continuous (and fairly reliable) connection. DTN makes no such assumptions, requiring each node to buffer all of its packets until a stable connection can be established. Whereas TCP will repeatedly attempt to send packets until they are successfully acknowledged, DTN will automatically find a destination node with a reliable connection, and then send its payload just once. Given the latency of space communications and the minimal power restrictions placed upon satellites, DTNs approach seems prudent.

However most people don’t have a need for regular satellite communication (well, our columnist Warren Ellis has that death ray of his), but Cerf sees his robust protocol having more down-to-Earth applications. Mobile networks, for example, must regularly cope with long periods of delay or loss – a train tunnel rudely interrupting a YouTube stream, for example. Perhaps looking to gain an edge on its competitors, Google has already integrated DTN into Android’s networking stack.

Wired UK: Google unveils protocol for an interplanetary internet

(via Wade)

The Virtual Apollo Guidance Computer emulates the computer system used by the Apollo program’s lunar missions. It is available for Windows, Linux, and OSX (and there’s a demo of it running on a Palm Centro but I didn’t see a place to download it).

Virtual AGC and AGS

(via Bram Pitoyo

That’s the surprising conclusion of a NASA-funded study by the National Academy of Sciences entitled Severe Space Weather Events—Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts. In the 132-page report, experts detailed what might happen to our modern, high-tech society in the event of a “super solar flare” followed by an extreme geomagnetic storm. They found that almost nothing is immune from space weather—not even the water in your bathroom.

Full Story: NASA

(via OVO)

Sky-watchers in Asia, Australia, and the Pacific islands welcomed a surprise guest Monday: an asteroid that passed just 41,010 miles (66,000 kilometers) above Earth.

Discovered only days ago, asteroid 2009 DD45 zipped between our planet and the moon at 13:44 universal time (8:44 a.m. ET). The asteroid was moving at about 12 miles (20 kilometers) a second when it was closest to Earth.

“We get objects passing fairly close, or closer than this, every few months,” Timothy Spahr, director of the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts, said in an email.

“Also, though, note these are only the ones that are discovered. Many more pass this close undetected”—as asteroid 2009 DD45 nearly did.

Full Story: National Geographic

(via Xtal)

Q: What can we expect?

A: Pretty much what you read about in New Scientist every week. Climate change, dust bowls caused by over-cultivation necessitated by over-population, resource depletion in obscure and irritatingly mission-critical sectors (never mind oil; we’ve only got 60 years of easily exploitable phosphates left — if we run out of phosphates, our agricultural fertilizer base goes away), the great population overshoot (as developing countries transition to the low population growth model of developed countries) leading to happy fun economic side-effects (deflation, house prices crash, stagnation in cutting-edge research sectors due to not enough workers, aging populations), and general bad-tempered overcrowded primate bickering.

Oh, and the unknown unknowns.

Q: Unknown unknowns? Are you talking about Donald Rumsfeld?

A: No, but I’m stealing his term for unprecedented and unpredictable events (sometimes also known as black swans). From the point of view of an observer in 1909, the modern consumer electronics industry (not to mention computing and internetworking) is a black swan, a radical departure from the then-predictable revolutionary enabling technologies (automobiles and aeroplanes). Planes, trains and automobiles were already present, and progressed remarkably well — and a smart mind in 1909 would have predicted this. But antibiotics, communication satellites, and nuclear weapons were another matter. Some of these items were mentioned, in very approximate form, by 1909-era futurists, but for the most part they took the world by surprise.

We’re certainly going to see unknown unknowns in the 21st century. Possible sources of existential surprise include (but are not limited to) biotechnology, nanotechnology, AI, climate change, supply chain/logistics breakthroughs to rival the shipping container, fork lift pallet, bar code, and RFID chip — and politics. But there’ll be other stuff so weird and strange I can’t even guess at it.

Q: Eh? But what’s the big picture?

A: The big picture is that since around 2005, the human species has — for the first time ever — become a predominantly urban species. Prior to that time, the majority of humans lived in rural/agricultural lifestyles. Since then, just over 50% of us now live in cities; the move to urbanization is accelerating. If it continues at the current pace, then some time after 2100 the human population will tend towards the condition of the UK — in which roughly 99% of the population live in cities or suburbia.

This is going to affect everything.

It’s going to affect epidemiology. It’s going to affect wealth production. It’s going to affect agriculture (possibly for the better, if it means a global shift towards concentrated high-intensity food production, possibly in vertical farms, and a re-wilding/return to nature of depopulated and underutilized former rural areas). It’s going to affect the design and layout of our power, transport, and information grids. It’s going to affect our demographics (urban populations tend to grow by immigration, and tend to feature lower birth rates than agricultural communities).

There’s a gigantic difference between the sustainability of a year 2109 with 6.5 billion humans living a first world standard of living in creative cities, and a year 2109 with 3.3 billion humans living in cities and 3.2 billion humans still practicing slash’n'burn subsistence farming all over the map.

Q: Space colonization?

A: Forget it.

Full Story: Charlie Stross’s web page

(via Grinding)

For those who don’t know, tonight is the first Full Moon of the year. It’s also the biggest Full Moon of 2009. It’s “The Wolf Moon”, so don’t be surprised if you hear some people howlin’.

“What does tonight’s first Full Moon of 2009 foretell? This one is called the Wolf Moon, a Full Moon in Cancer, and it is indeed a precursor to a year that will be full of werewolf news.

“Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” – The Wolf Man, 1941.

The word is slipping out.”

(via Cryptomundo. h/t: The Anomalist)

A little over a month after NASA scientists announced that they were finding more familiar elements than alien ones in the soil on Mars from test results sent back by the Lander, researchers now have discovered evidence that that might not be the case after all. They’re also double-checking to make sure that the Earth-like elements found by Phoenix on the northern pole of Mars weren’t actually brought from Earth and deposited there when the Lander touched down.

“We are committed to following a rigorous scientific process. While we have not completed our process on these soil samples, we have very interesting intermediate results,” Peter Smith, Phoenix’s principal investigator, said in a written statement released today. Smith, who is a senior research scientist at the University of Arizona, added that while the initial analyses from the wet chemistry laboratory onboard Phoenix suggested that Martian soil was like that of Earth, “further analysis has revealed un-Earthlike aspects of the soil chemistry.”

Full Story: Computer world

(via dysnomia.us)

My friend and co-conspirator Johnny Brainwash has been running an excellent blog called Dysnomia (named for the Greek goddess of lawlessness and daughter of Eris). According to the about page, he’s covering “Piracy, space and post-Soviet conflicts. Also treehugging, mayhem and high weirdness. Outbreaks of old-fashioned politics may occur.” And to be clear, he’s not talking about data piracy or cute Disney pirates. He’s talking about real life cut-throat pirates who actually rob ships today.

It’s a great place to get some international perspective and find stuff that might otherwise slip through the cracks.

dysnomia.us

It takes three days to travel to the moon and six months to get to Mars. But the real challenge is not getting there, it’s what to eat.

“Space agriculture is what’s required for long-term space exploration,” Mike Dixon, director of the controlled environment systems research facility at the University of Guelph, said Tuesday during a space conference in Montreal. “We can’t afford to keep shipping water, oxygen and Kraft dinner to the moon indefinitely.”

Full Story: Dysnomia

From the ever wonderful Japan blog, Pink Tentacle:

Space transportation provider Rocketplane Kistler Japan has teamed up with wedding planner First Advantage to begin hosting weddings aboard the Rocketplane XP suborbital spaceplane. A cool 240 million yen ($2.2 million) buys you a wedding ceremony aboard a 1-hour space flight that reaches an altitude of more than 100 kilometers (62.1 miles), as well as a photo and video album, original dress, wedding certificate and other ceremonial items. The otherworldly price tag also includes the cost of transportation to and from the launch site, accommodations, a live broadcast of the ceremony to friends and family at a reception hall on the ground, and 4 days of rehearsal. The space wedding services are scheduled to begin in 2011, but the group will start accepting applications early next month.

(post title swiped from Tomorrow Museum, who saw the post first)

Scientists have confirmed for the first time that an important component of early genetic material which has been found in meteorite fragments is extraterrestrial in origin, in a paper published on 15 June 2008.
The finding suggests that parts of the raw materials to make the first molecules of DNA and RNA may have come from the stars.

The scientists, from Europe and the USA, say that their research, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, provides evidence that life’s raw materials came from sources beyond the Earth.

The materials they have found include the molecules uracil and xanthine, which are precursors to the molecules that make up DNA and RNA, and are known as nucleobases.

The team discovered the molecules in rock fragments of the Murchison meteorite, which crashed in Australia in 1969.

Full Story: Physorg

(via Warren Ellis)

The launch of China’s third manned space flight, the Shenzhou VII, with a crew of three “taikonauts” has been set for October, state media reported on Thursday.

A short-list of six “taikonauts” or astronauts had already been selected for the flight and would be whittled down to a crew of three before the October launch, Xinhua news agency said, citing a spokesman for the mission.

“One member of the flight crew will undergo a space walk and undertake relevant scientific experiments,” the spokesman said.

Full Story: Breitbart

(via dynomia.us)

An, *ahem* slightly less green means to lay the dead to rest but it does have its appeal:

The moon could become a final resting place for some of mankind thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers, the company said on Thursday.

Celestis, Inc., a company that pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets, said it would start a service to the surface of the moon that could begin as early as next year.

The cost starts at $10,000 for a small quantity of ashes from one person.

Full Story: Reuters

(via Nerdshit)

A new study is challenging the long-standing notion that the whole solar system formed from the same raw materials.

Until now most scientists had believed that the inner solar system bodies-Mercury, Venus, Earth, its moon, and Mars-had the same composition as primitive meteorites called chondrites.

But, problematically, Earth’s chemistry doesn’t quite match.

Now, French researcher Guillaume Caro, from Centre de Recherches P?trographiques et G?ochimiques in France, and his colleagues say that the makeup of Mars and the moon don’t correspond either.

It turns out the three bodies may be more similar to each other than the chondrite-rich asteroids located between Mars and Jupiter.

Full Story: National Geographic

“Dr HongSheng Zhao, of the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, has shown that the puzzling dark matter and its counterpart dark energy may be more closely linked than was previously thought. Only 4% of the universe is made of known material – the other 96% is traditionally labelled into two sectors, dark matter and dark energy. A British astrophysicist and Advanced Fellow of the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council, Dr Zhao points out, ‘Both dark matter and dark energy could be two faces of the same coin.

‘As astronomers gain understanding of the subtle effects of dark energy in galaxies in the future, we will solve the mystery of astronomical dark matter at the same time. Astronomers believe that both the universe and galaxies are held together by the gravitational attraction of a huge amount of unseen material, first noted by the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky in 1933, and now commonly referred to as dark matter. Dr Zhao reports that, “Dark energy has already revealed its presence by masking as dark matter 60 years ago if we accept that dark matter and dark energy are linked phenomena that share a common origin.’

(via PhysOrg)

(Related: virtual tour of the Large Hadron Collider via Popular Science Blog)

“Two groups of man-made cup markings carved on a pair of boulders found in the Italian Alps may represent the Pleiades star cluster, according to the archaeo-astronomer Guido Cossard. The carvings have been found near the Plan des Sorci?res – literally ‘The witches’ plateau’ – at Lillianes, in Val d’Aosta (Italy). According to Mr Cossard, who made the discovery, the series of cup markings have the same shape as the famous star cluster, and it may represent ‘the most ancient star map ever found’. “Even the archaeo-astronomical orientation of the site is a confirmation, because it’s clearly aligned to the rising point of the Pleiades,” added Cossard.”

(via Archaeo News)

Life Extension – As covered previously here on Technoccult, aspirin is the best life extension drug on the market. And it’s cheap. See: Top Ten Life Extension Drugs.

Intelligence amplification – Mind machines and smart drugs never did live up to the hype, which is probably why you don’t hear much about them anymore. I actually conducted some trials with volunteers using a brain entrainment machine for my cognitive science class in college. The results: the machine didn’t do jack. I was only ever able to experiment with self-medication with smart drugs, but my general conclusion is that some of them work as stimulants (piracetum, vassopressin) but they’re not worth the money.

The good news is, there are some new high tech intelligence amplification tools on the market: “brain fitness” games like Brain Age and Lumosity. I’m not sure how much good it will do, though. See Seed Magazine’s coverage.

Virtual Reality – We’re still waiting on decent immersive VR, but the Nintendo Wii has brought some elements of VR to homes.

Brain Backups – There’s no wetware brain backup, but if you want to preserve your knowledge for all of eternity, you can try posting the contents of your brain on the web. Google and the Internet Archive (backed by Amazon) are both attempting to archive and back-up the entire web.

Space Migration – Like brain backups, this remains vaporware. But space tourism and private space programs are taking off, including one by Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos.

Received a link from Mr. Zaitsev’s comment on the “Who Speaks For Earth” post. Since it’s no longer on this page I thought I’d post the link to his earlier paper for those who would like to read it.

“There is a close interrelation between Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI). For example, the answers to the questions “Where to search” and “Where to send” are equivalent, in that both require an identical selection from the same target star lists. Similar considerations lead to a strategy of time synchronization between sending and searching. Both SETI and METI use large reflectors. The concept of “magic frequencies” may be applicable to both SETI and METI. Efforts to understand an alien civilization’s Interstellar Messages (IMs), and efforts to compose our own IMs so they will be easily understood by unfamiliar Extraterrestrials, are mutually complementary. Furthermore, the METI-question: “How can we benefit from sending IMs, if a response may come only thousands of years later?” begs an equivalent SETI-question: “How can we benefit from searching, if it is impossible now to perceive the motivations and feelings of those who may have sent messages in the distant past?” A joint consideration of the theoretical and the practical aspects of both sending and searching for IMs, in the framework of a unified, disciplined scientific approach, can be quite fruitful. We seek to resolve the cultural disconnect between those who advocate sending interstellar messages, and others who anathematize those who would transmit.”

(Sending and Searching for Interstellar Messages)

(Link to other papers written by Alexander Zaitsev)

(Thanks to Alexander Zaitsev!)