Obama Lays Out New Vision For The Future Of Space Travel
“Speaking at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center April 15, President Obama outlined a new plan for the space agency that would forgo sending astronauts back to the moon, but would send humans to an asteroid in 2025 and into orbit around Mars a decade later.
The strategy would rely on private aerospace companies to ferry crew and supplies into space. It would also cancel a program known as Constellation, which is aimed at developing a heavy-lift rocket and vehicles to carry astronauts back to the moon, in favor of pursuing a new rocket that would take humans beyond well beyond that destination.
“I am very happy about the introduction of new innovative commercial approaches in human space flight, because we’ve been trapped into a very bad cul-de-sac for 40 years,” says planetary scientist and former NASA associate administrator for science Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. Stern predicts that Congress is likely to approve Obama’s plan.
In Obama’s blueprint, NASA would get an additional $6 billion over the next five years to begin developing new space technologies, refocusing its efforts away from designing space transportation vehicles. The plan would, however, keep plans to develop the Orion crew vehicle, which would be the only U.S. space transport vehicle once the shuttle is retired later this year. And in 2015, the agency would evaluate plans for a rocket that would carry astronauts into deep space.”
Read more at Wired
Thailand’s Police Monkey Is On The Beat
“Becoming a police officer demands agile dexterity, mammoth strength and big balls of steel, which is why it’s no wonder so few of us ever achieve such an esteemed status. And besides us humans, the only other mammal allowed to patrol the streets is the domesticated canine, aka the dog. This fact has recently changed, however, thanks to Santisuk the monkey.
Santisuk Phromdao is a pig-tailed macaque monkey from Sai Buri district, Patttani province, southern Thailand. Although only five years old, Santisuk patrols the streets of Thailand everyday dressed in a blazer with the words ‘Monkey Police’ laced across it.
According to Thailand’s Nation newspaper, Santisuk was adopted by Pol Col Yutthapol Phromdao Yutthapol, who, after discovering the injured monkey at a local clinic, recruited him into his squad, thereby turning the simple-minded primate into the first-ever monkey cop.
Satisuk’s tour of duty began at a local checkpoint, where Yutthapol taught him how to collect coconuts and other fruits from locals by enticing him with bottles of delectable Vitamilk. Soon afterward, Satisuk’s duties grew from mundane tasks into full-fledged public relations.”
Read more at Weird Asia News
7 Simple Mind Hacks To Ace A Test
“How would you prepare for a chess match? Would you pick up a book on advanced chess strategy and read like a fiend? Or would you imagine specific moves and patterns of moves you might make in a match? A recent study indicates that chess players who practice very specific techniques in preparation for a tournament perform equally or better than opponents who prepared by attempting to improve their general skills.
So what does this mean for you and your upcoming Biology exam? Don’t read over your notes eight times over…Instead, try to imagine the open-ended questions that might show up on the test and prepare specific answers for each. Operationalizing the information you already know into specific answers will help you access it correctly and efficiently during test time, even if the exact questions you predicted don’t show up. Stop practicing becoming a better note reader and start practicing becoming a better test taker.”
Read more at Rasmussen College
Happy Birthday David Tennant
Picture from derrenbrownart.com
At the age of three, Tennant told his parents that he wanted to become an actor because he was a fan of Doctor Who. Although such an aspiration might have been common for any British child of the 1970s, Tennant says he was “absurdly single-minded” in pursuing his goal.
He adopted the professional name “Tennant” — inspired by Neil Tennant, the lead singer of the Pet Shop Boys — because there was another David McDonald already on the books of the Equity union. His second choice for a stage name was David Brandon and his third choice was Chris McDonald.
David Attenborough Reaches North Pole
“Veteran wildlife broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has reached the North Pole for the first time at the age of 83, the BBC said Saturday.
The naturalist and presenter made it to the top of the world while filming in the Arctic Circle for a new BBC nature series highlighting the impact of global warming on the Earth’s extreme regions.
Attenborough, who also recently visited the South Pole, said: ‘The Poles – North and South – look superficially very similar.
‘But when you visit them within a few weeks of one another, as I have just done, you realise how profoundly different they are and how what is happening to them is going to affect the entire planet,’ he added.
‘A century ago, the poles were just about the most inaccessible place on Earth. Today that has changed. Nonetheless, to have visited them both within a few weeks of one another is a huge privilege.’
The BBC presenter, the brother of acclaimed actor Richard Attenborough, is famous for acclaimed nature programmes including ‘Life on Earth,’ ‘The Living Planet’ and ‘The Trials of Life.’”
Read more at Yahoo News
Online shoppers sell souls to company
“Answer this question honestly – do you read the small print when you buy games on the internet?
High Street retailing giant GameStation decided to put this to the test and inserted a new clause into their terms and conditions earlier this month that granted them legal rights to the immortal souls of thousands of their online customers. Here, in darkest legalese, is how they got away with such a heinous act:
“By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamestation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions.”
GameStation’s fiendish clause specified that they might serve such notice in “six foot-high letters of fire” too, but also offered customers an option to opt out, rewarding them with a £5 money-off voucher if they did so.
Alas, hardly anyone noticed the clause, let alone the substantial bonus for spotting the gag. More to the point, the fact that it passed more or less unnoticed raises an important issue – too few people actually read the small print when they make online purchases.
According to GameStation, around 7,500 customers carelessly signed their souls away on the day. Were you one of them…?”
Read more at Yahoo News
Lazy days
Two sublime, silent days resting in Dublin. Euro-less, I have not left the hotel (except for the show), but awoken late, taken breakfast at the end of the allotted time or in my room, and shuffled everywhere in my slippers at one-third speed. I have been reading Thomas Mann, drinking honey and lemon, barely existing in a kind of limp reverie, quite at odds with the spirit of this vibrant, rowdy city, whose inhabitants pass by on the other side of the hotel windows with the augmented velocity of characters in a silent movie.
As Ash Wednesday lingers over us, we are forced to take an impossibly early ferry tomorrow morning in order to get to Cardiff to build the show. Last night’s Dublin audience was delightful: surprisingly less rowdy than Thursday’s, although I imagine that tonight’s will prove a force with which to be reckoned.
Rested to the the point of inconsequence, I must dig deep to summon the necessary energy for tonight. Perhaps a quiet little stroll.
Why NASA Is Sending A Robot That Looks Like You To Space
“A humanoid robot will visit space for the first time in September aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, NASA announced Wednesday.
The Robonaut 2, which was co-developed by NASA with General Motors, will serve as an assistant to the humans on board the International Space Station, using the same tools developed for astronauts.
While plain old robots, such as the Mars Phoenix Lander, are a major part of NASA’s operations, humanoid robots are a different story. There is significant science-fiction appeal to the idea of humanoid robotic helpers for humans, but does the idea makes more than literary sense? Yes, said Jeffrey Hoffman, an MIT aerospace professor and former astronaut.
‘I’m a very strong believer in human-robotic interaction. You can build up a synergy to accomplish what neither humans nor robots could accomplish on their own,” Hoffman said. “That’s the inspiration behind Robonaut.’
Many successful robots, like Kiva’s product-distribution robots or the military’s little helpers look nothing like humans. And some space researchers like MIT historian and policy analyst David Mindell don’t think humanoid robots are a very good idea. But the International Space Station may be the perfect place for a humanoid robot.
‘It’s incredibly important that Robonaut have a humanoid form factor because he’s being sent into space, and it’s incredibly expensive, and he has to do a lot to pay himself off,’ said former roboticist Daniel Wilson (author of How to Build a Robot Army). ‘It has to be able to pick up any tool that an astronaut could use and go outside.’”
Read more at Wired
Massive Fireball Reported Across Midwestern Sky
“Authorities in several Midwestern states were flooded Wednesday night with reports of a gigantic fireball lighting up the sky, the National Weather Service said.
The fireball was visible for about 15 minutes beginning about 10 p.m., said the National Weather Service in Sullivan, Wisconsin, just west of Milwaukee.
‘The fireball was seen over the northern sky, moving from west to east,’ said the NWS in the Quad Cities area, which includes parts of Iowa and Illinois.
‘Well before it reached the horizon, it broke up into smaller pieces and was lost from sight,’ the service said. ‘Several reports of a prolonged sonic boom were received from areas north of Highway 20, along with shaking of homes, trees and various other objects including wind chimes,’ it said.
It said the fireball was seen across parts of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. CNN affiliate WISN-TV said that people in Ohio also saw it.’
Read more at CNN (thanks, DG)
Botox May Diminish The Experience Of Emotion
“DO you smile because you’re happy, or are you happy because you are smiling? Darwin believed that facial expressions are indeed important for experiencing emotions. In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, he wrote that “the free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it…[whereas]…the repression…of all outward signs softens our emotions.” This idea was subsequently elaborated by the great psychologist William James, who suggested that “every representation of a movement awakens in some degree the actual movement which is its object.”
Botox, which is used by millions of people every year to reduce wrinkles and frown lines on the forehead, works by paralyzing the muscles involved in producing facial expressions. A study due to be published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that by doing so, it impairs the ability to process the emotional content of language, and may diminish the quality of emotional experiences.”
Read more at Neurophilosophy Blog
