- Britain’s own Atlantis: Medieval metropolis swallowed by the sea is to be rediscovered.
- Searching the Sky for Aliens.
- As two spiral arms go missing, formerly elegant Milky Way is downclassed to a lousy bar galaxy. There goes the neighborhood.
- Dark, Perhaps Forever: After decades of effort, some scientists are beginning to despair of explaining the universe. Or is it universes?
- A chance observation by scientists studying the atmosphere above an Australian military transmitter suggests a new way to combat the damaging effects of solar flares on orbiting satellites.
- ‘Squeezed light’ may improve gravitational wave detectors.
- Brain evolution: New study links intelligence to complexity of synapses.
- Video gamers to vanquish villains, move mountains, with a thought — via new headset that translates brain signals into onscreen commands. ‘In time for Christmas’, for a mere $299.
- Mind reading by MRI scan raises ‘mental privacy’ issue.
- Rather than beating a path to the door of better-mousetrap designers, the world seems to actively avoid them. More.
- Water For All: New desalination technology is 600 to 700 percent more efficient, and can be powered by solar panels.
- Food riots. Scores of panicked people protesting, burning effigies and chanting. Shops being ransacked, supplies running out as soon as they come in, and stricken communities stockpiling rice, bread and water for fear of going without. The global food shortage is a growing problem
- Playing the Odds: A mind-bending crash course in probability and statistics. Leonard Mlodinow’s The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives is available at Amazon US & UK.
- The pros and cons of broadcasting “Here we are!” into space — will we get the visitors we want?
- Transparent humanoid in Mexico. Or does RPJ need to eat more vegetables?
- Thai politics are still in the grip of the spirits and the stars.
- New Dungeons & Dragons rolls a 20 for playability. More.
- Update: Dune Genesis by Frank Herbert. ‘The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC.’
Thanks, Rick — glad you’re back online!
Quote of the Day:
What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.
Mark Twain
