A New Paradigm

Orion Spacecraft Goes for a Dive

2012-01-07T17:38:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, a mock-up of the Orion spacecraft was put into the worst landing scenarios a spacecraft can have while ascending down back to earth.
What the test encompassed is parachutes being deployed at an impact pitch of 42 degrees, which is a very high impact for something like that. The capsule got to around 47 MPH before it hit the water, flipped over, and reached the Stable 2 position. The video of the test can be seen below from a few view points. Enjoy!

SETI Detects First Signal

2012-01-06T19:39:00.001-08:00

But it's sadly not what we think it is. SETI has detected it's first signal from none other than ourselves. While they were focusing the planets that Kepler has found which have earth-like features, the transmission that SETI received was nothing more than terrestrial radio frequency interference, or RFI for short.

Now, this isn't ALL bad news, because what this has helped do was prepare scientists at SETI to understand and know just what a radio interference from another planet might be like. Hopefully, in the future they will have more experience in knowing whether a signal was, sadly, from our own planet or from another one in the great beyond.

We've created Chimera Monkeys!

2012-01-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

The first ever chimeric monkeys have been created at the Oregon National Primate Research Center by combining more than one embryo. Actually, they combined up to six! Now, they didn't combine more than one species of monkey. In fact, all the embryos were Rhesus monkey embryos, but that doesn't make this news story any less amazing.

The three monkey that were born, twins and a singleton, have up to 6 distinct genomes in them! The monkeys seem to be very healthy and have no birth defects, and considering how risky this controversial experiment was (which has never been done in primates before) this is good news.

Now, you might be wondering why we needed to create chimeric monkeys, and that's because we wanted to know whether or not stem cells that are injected into the body would turn into tissues. The answer? Not exactly. Chimeric monkeys were only created when they merged young embryos together, and not when stem cells were injected into an early-stage embryo.

This is bad news for us humans as well, because this means that we would face problems when trying to grow new tissues in humans from stem cells. Now of course, there are those that are against any type of stem cell research and are glad to know that this can't happen or else we'll have chimeric people walking around (even though we already do. Chimeric people can be formed when two early embryos in a mothers womb merge together. A video below will show you the cute little monkeys, although I suggest turning up your volume because I had trouble hearing what the scientists were saying.
Roku and Hex from OHSU News on Vimeo.

The Atra-Hasis

2012-01-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

Now, we all know that Mormons believe that God used to be a man, and the ascended to godhood. Therefore, God had parents, grandparents, grand-grandparents, and so on.

This belief was obviously not only held by Mormons, but a good example of someone else who did were the ancient Babylonians. In one Babylonian poem called Atra-Hasis, where there is the following line: "inuma ilu awilu" which means "when Gods were once men". The myth generally talked about how Gods and men were created, the tasks they did, and other things. The poem also reveals similar characteristics between men and Gods. It was also believed that men were made out of clay and the blood of a God of knowledge. Therefore, ancient Babylonians believed that they had the sacred gift of knowledge from the God, as long as an undying spirit.

Cloning a Mammoth?

2011-12-04T14:19:00.001-08:00

A recent report states that scientist might be able to clone a mammoth after finding well-preserved bone marrow in Siberia. Russian and Japanese scientist are stating that they will launch a joint research project next year with the scope of cloning the gigantic mammal.

This was all possible because with the increase in temperature because of global warming, there have been parts of Russia that have thawed which lead to the discoveries of a few mammoth skeletons.

The cloning will be possible by replacing the nuclei of an elephants egg cell with the ones that were taken from the mammoths marrow. As with almost all cloning, after that is done the embryo will be placed in the womb of an elephant, since the mammoth and elephant are close relatives.

Now, my question is if this would be an ethical thing to do. While it's not cloning humans, cloning in general is a very controversial subject. I'm all for it, but some people still resent the day Molly the sheep was successfully cloned. And even if the scientist will be able to find enough intact DNA, a lot of things can still go wrong in the process, so the chances of reviving a species that has been gone 10,000 years are still very, very slim.

Efforts to save Russian probe Phobos Grunt ceased!

2011-12-02T17:12:00.001-08:00

Russia's space probe that was headed for one of Mars' moons named Phobos Grunt malfunctioned on November 8 shortly after launch. The problem was with one of the probe's engine thrusters. This caused it to be stuck in Earths orbit since then.

Last week, a signal from Phobos-Grunt was picked up by an European tracking station in Australia and since then the European Space Agency has been trying to help Russia in salvaging the lost probe.

Now, the probe wont be able to reach Mars at all, because the window of opportunity which requires the Earth and the Red Planet to be aligned in a specific way is gone, but that doesn't mean that we can just leave a $165 million piece of metal floating in our orbit. While the ESA had been sending the probe signals to boost its atmosphere, no response was given.

Today, the ESA stated that in an agreement with the probe's mission managers, the ESA will stop trying to contact the probe. Now, the ESA stated that all efforts have not been lost and that if conditions seem to change they will offer their full support once again. What seems to be extremely interesting is that since 1960, Russia has launched 18 spacecrafts towards Mars, and Phobos Grunt was supposed to be the 19th one. Out of all those missions, none have been 100% successful. Definitely something the Russians should look into in my opinion.

Humans to get to Mars by 2030?

2011-11-29T18:30:00.001-08:00

Charles Bolden, a NASA administrator stated that president Obama and the congress have been constantly making ambitious plans for the space agency.

Bolden says that Obama's plan challenges NASA to accomplish very big things. First, Obama expects the space agency to rendezvous with an asteroid by 2025. Secondly, and what is one of the biggest things on the agenda, Obama wants NASA to land people on the red planet, Mars, in the 2030s.

Charles Bolden also adds that low-orbit transportation will be handed off to private companies, while NASA will be focusing on inventing new technologies that will allow for better deep-space exploration, and make quieter, cleaner, and safer planes! Kind of odd that he would add that in a statement about deep-space exploration, but the safer the better.

Light created from nothing!

2011-11-28T17:26:00.001-08:00

The dynamic Casimir effect has finally been proven true after more than 40 years since it was predicted. A team of scientist in Sweden lead by Chris Wilson are the ones that made it possible. Wilson said that "they were very happy when it worked" and I'm not surprised.

How'd they do it? Well first, they got a SQUID, or Superconducting Quantum Interface Device, and made it move at the speed of light in a vacuum. The rapid movement of the SQUID starts transferring its kinetic energy to virtual particles. What did this yield? Photons, also know as light started appearing, therefore proving that space is not empty, even though it is a vacuum.

That being said, I don't think we're gonna have any light sources made out of virtual photons any time soon, because Wilson and the team aren't yet sure as to how many "real" photons they can get get out of the "virtual" ones.

Numerology explains central message of Bible

2011-11-27T19:58:00.001-08:00

Many fans of numerology have noticed odd coincidences in the Bible. For example, Psalm 118 is the middle chapter of the bible. Immediately before Psalm 118, Psalm 117 is the shortest chapter in the bible and Psalm 119 in front of it is the longest.

Furthermore, the Bible has 594 chapters before Psalm 118, and 594 after it. Add up all the chapters except 118 and what do you get? 1188 chapters. If you would interpret this as Psalm 118, verse 8, then the message would be "It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in humans."

There it is, the central message of the Bible, at least in terms of numerology.

Others predict 2012 doomsday?

2011-11-27T17:59:00.001-08:00

Tom Horn, an American writer, says that not only the Mayan calendar says the end of the world is in December 2012, but also other ancient calendars. Tom Horn strongly believes in the Bible and is the author of the book Apollyon Rising 2012. He never said he did not believe in the Mayan calendar and the end of the world in 2012 but became aware that there are many other calendars and prophecies that predict the end of the world is on the same date, December 2012. He says these calendars have no connection with the Mayan calendar.
Despite having no telescopes, the Mayans made fine measurements of the heavens above. "The Maya understood the phenomenon of precession of the equinoxes is not the end of an era but the beginning of a new one," said Tom Horn. According to the author, the Maya associated December 21, 2012 with the advent of a new man and the return of their god dragon, a flying snake which has the power of air. Tom Horn noted that the Aztecs also had a flying snake, Quetzalquatl, and that their calendar also ends in December 2012. The Hindus’ Kali Yuga provides global and major changes in 2012. The Chinese I-Ching book known as the "Book of Changes" provides the entire world end in 2012.

Tom Horn talks about the fact that 38 years ago two researchers named Terrence and Dennis McKenna created a line chart inspired by the book I-Ching and found that on December 21, 2012 the time line on the graph stopped suddenly. This is amazing considering that this research was published in 1973 while no one knew anything about the Mayan calendar and the end of the world in December 2012.
But above all the Zohar, a mystical Jewish book made comments about the Torah speaks about the Messiah at the end of 2012 "All the kings of the world will gather in the great city of Rome and the Holy city will catch on fire and brn until it will destroy all..."

Gene that controls sleep found at last!

2011-11-26T15:33:00.001-08:00

Everyone knows someone that can get as little as 4 or 5 hours of sleep and be more energized than you would be with 8. Why is it that they can do that and not us? A group of German scientists might have the answer to our question. Named ABCC9, this gene seems to allow you to sleep for significantly shorter periods of time and be just as energized.

To prove that this gene is what differs from a short energizing sleep and a long tedious one, the scientists conducted an experiment on more than 4,000 people that lived across seven European countries. Part of the experiment was filling out a questionnaire about the sleeping habits the people had. The other part? Seeing if they had the correct version of gene ABCC9.

Lo and behold, the people with two copies of the "less sleep" version of ABCC9 slept for a shorter period of time, while people with two copies of the "more sleep" version of ABCC9 slept for much longer.

To test the results they got form the questionnaire, they modified the gene in fruit flies with the help of scientists from the Leichester University in England. The flies also had different sleep cycles now with their new ABCC9 genes, and Till Roenneberg said - one of the study's authors - said that this is means that the same mechanism might work in a wide variety of species.

Why do we have wisdom teeth?

2011-11-23T15:25:00.001-08:00

Why do we have wisdom teeth has been a question that I've personally asked myself many times and always wanted a good answer to the question. It finally seems like that answer has come, and it might surprise you.

A new study that was published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences basically says that our wisdom teeth are there because of our ancestors diets. Hunter-gatherers had a longer, narrower jaw-bone, which in turn allowed for another set of molars, the wisdom teeth for better chewing of the relatively hard foods that they were eating.

On the other side, there were those who got their food from agriculture and the food was often cooked and much softer. This lead to a smaller jaw-bone and no space for that extra set of molars that hunter-gatherers had. This can also explain dental crowding and teeth misalignment. Now that my question has finally been answered, all I need to know is why they call them wisdom teeth.

Water found on Europa?

2011-11-22T21:00:00.001-08:00

NASA has long thought that there was a gigantic lake larger in volume than all the oceans on earth combined hiding in the depths of Jupiter;s moon, Europa, bu it would be miles upon miles below the surface.

New research suggests that the moon actually has a body of water the size of the Great Lakes only about 2 miles below the surface! Does that mean that life exists below Europa's icy surface? Scientists can't say yet because there are so many variables to take into consideration, but one thing is for sure - the probability of there being life on Europa has increased.

New data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft has made some scientists make a correlation between a lake-like body of water under Europa's surface and strange areas made up of bumpy and irregular terrain on the surface of Europa called "chaos terrains".

The video below should put everything into perspective pretty nicely and will allow you to see just how scientists think that these "chaos terrains" form.

NASA's Curiosity to launch on November 26

2011-11-21T15:03:00.001-08:00

NASA's new rover called Curiosity will launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force station located in Florida.
Curiosity's destination and mission objective? It's supposed to land inside the Gale crater on planet Mars. There, it will look for signs on whether Mars' environment was ever suitable for microbial life.

Source: NASA

Much longer and also much heavier than its two predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity weighs in at 900kg and is 3 feet long. It boasts ten scientific tools that all together weigh 15 times more than Spirit or Opportunity's scientific tools.
Curiosity is supposed to get to Mars in August of next year, after a long and treacherous 8 month journey through our solar system.

Peruvian Mummy is Extraterrestrial?

2011-11-20T19:19:00.001-08:00

A new discovery has been made in Peru, in which archaeologists found a mummy with a head almost 20 inches long. Its body? Also 20 inches long.

The mummy was found by Renato Davila Riquelme, who works at the Privado Ritos Andinos museum found in Cusco. What Renato says is interesting about the head is that while it has a soft spot (commonly seen in babies) it also has wisdom teeth. Another interesting observation he makes is how large the eye sockets of the skeleron head are. Below is a video with more info on the subject.

Lightest Material on Earth

2011-11-19T23:04:00.001-08:00

Scientists have invented the lightest material on Earth. Dubbed "ultralight metallic microlattice", it consists of 99.99% air. The material is easiest to make out of nickle, but it can also be made out of other metals.

How light is this material? Well to put it into perspective, it is 100 times lighter than Styrofoam, and when dropped from shoulder height, it acts like a feather and takes about 10 seconds to touch the ground. If that wasn't crazy enough, if it is placed on top of a dandelion, it does not damage the fluff at al, as seen in the picture below.

Now, for its uses? Well, Lorenzo Valdevit (UCI's principal investigator on this project) says that it can be used for anything ranging from battery applications to acoustic dampening and even impact protection. Definitely an interesting material.

Russian keeps an Alien in her fridge for two years?

2011-11-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

There have been way too many UFO sightings in Russia as of late. I'm pretty sure that with the vast amount of s called aliens found in Russia, if Aliens really were to come down to Earth they would use Russia as their spaceport.
The story goes like this, Marta Yegorovnam kept the body of a dead alien in her fridge in the town of Petrozavodsk for over two years, and lo and behold she only took five pictures to prove that the thing is actually real. No video, nothing. Here is the first picture of this beast.

God, Russia seems to be the most alien-ridden place on Earth.

All jokes aside, it seems like its hands would be useless, and could be compared to twigs. Its very small as well. Marta says that she found the alien resting dead by a pile of extremely hot, twisted metal. Unexplained Mysteries says that two men turned up at Marta's house two days ago and confiscated to body. Who were they? Not the Men in Black, if that's what you were thinking. Apparently, they came from the Karelian Research Center. What do you guys think? Real or hoax? Judging by Russia's past credibility of so called alien encounters (see Kirill Vlasov's bread alien hoax) I'd say that we don't have a dead alien at Martas house just yet. But, you never know!

There Was The Fifth Giant Planet In Our Solar System?

2011-11-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

Astronomer David Nesvorny of Southwest Research Institute from Texas believes that our solar system may have had a fifth planet once near Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. He believes that this planet was designed in the depths of our galaxy in a moment of cosmic disorder. After carefully studying the Kuiper Belt and craters from the Moon, Nesvorny concluded that about 600 millions years ago in the life of our solar system unstable orbit dynamics appeared that affected giant planets and made smaller celestial objects scatter. So, some of them moved in the Kuiper Belt and others moved on the inside of the galaxy.There also existed an impact with the Moon and other planets. If things would have been like that, then changes in the orbit of Jupiter would have had devastating effect on large and small planets like the Earth, the last one being able to collide with Mars or Venus.

So, something was wrong. "My colleagues have suggested another way to solve this problem", said Nesvory in a press conference.

It was assumed that Jupiter's orbit could change very quickly and not too slowly. But it didn't solve the problem because all the computer simulations performed have shown that sudden change of Jupiter's orbit would have made the planets Uranus and Neptune to be expelled from our solar system. So, probably in our solar system there was a fifth giant planet. Introducing another giant planet with a mass similar to that of Uranus or Neptune made perfect computer simulations that is the result of today's solar system as we know it. With Jupiter remaining in his place the inner planets remained unaffected and the outer planets remained behind.

"The possibility that our solar system had more than four giant planets in the beginning and then some of them were ejected seem to be feasible conditions because recently scientists discovered a large number of free floating planets in interstellar space indicating that the process of ejection of planets is one that is currently happening", said Nesvorny.

Therefore, is this scenario were true this fifth planet could be Planet X?

Is The Egyptian Government Trying To Cover Up The "Hall of Records"?

2011-11-13T13:54:00.000-08:00

There is a new conspiracy theory afoot that says that the Egyptian government is trying to cover up the Hall of Records, which is rumored to contain information on Atlantis and how the city sunk.

Edgar Cayce, a renowned psychic says that there are three such halls spread across the globe, one in the Yucatan Peninsula, one in Egypt under the Great Sphinx, and one in Atlantis (but it's sunken, so we obviously won't be able to find it). Cayce thought that there were small groups of inhabitants that escaped before it sunk and settled in present-day Mexico and Egypt.

According to sources, there is a little nit of evidence that the Hall of Records might actually indeed exist. More than 20 years ago, a radar scan was conducted my the Great Sphinx and found a strange anomaly under one of the Sphinxes paws. There appeared to be a small chamber right where Cayce said the Hall of Records would be hidden. There is another piece of evidence which as that there is a network of caves and tunnels that run all around the Giza plateau. and some very close to the Sphinx and where the Hall of Records is believed to be located. Some say that a group of archaeologists were able to dig through and get to the hall, but covered it right back up when they found it.

Now, why would Egypt try and hide such a great discovery? Well I think that if the truth came out about how the ancient Egyptians were helped by citizens of Atlantis, then everything we knew about them would be changed and they would seem much less advanced than previously thought. Now as always, these are just conspiracies and the chances of them being true are very slim, but what if they are? Hopefully, the truth will come out and we'll know for sure.

CERN: GOD PARTICLE WILL BE FOUND BY NEXT YEAR

2011-10-08T10:37:00.000-07:00

Remember the LHC? Well the director general at CERN, Rolf Heuer, said that if the Higgs boson exists, it will be found in the next twelve months. Pier Oddone of Fermilab which last week shut of it's Tevatron accelerator (after 26 years of smashing particles together) also agrees with Rofl, and are both also skeptic about the news from about two weeks ago that say that the speed of light was broken by a particle known as a neutrino.

SUPER MOON TO TAKE PLACE ON SEPTEMBER 27TH!

2011-09-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

A few people believe that comet Elenin might create 3 days of full darkness on planet earth, starting on September 26 and ending on September 28. Also, president Obama is going to be in Denver on September 27th, and there are reports that there might be a DEFCON 1 maximum readiness alert drill overseen by him from one the U.S.'s most secure bunkers located underneath Denver International Airport. On the same day, a Super Moon is supposed to take place. Super Moons occur when the Earth, moon and sun are all in a line at the same time that the moon is at its closest approach to Earth. Now, they're not rare. Around two to a dozen can happen each year, but there's just something odd when so many supposedly unusual things happen at once. Many think that Obama is going to the DIA to hide from a catastrophic event that will happen when the Supermoon and Elenin come. Even if these things do happen, no one could possibly hide from them.

NASA recommends 'No-Fly Zones' on the Moon

2011-09-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

By the end of the month, it is said that NASA will come up with a list of 'recommendations' for any spacecraft or astronauts what will be going to the moon. They include the landing sites for the Apollo 11 and 17 lunar landers. Now, these recommendations will not be legally binding because of a treaty that was made in 1967 that states that the Moon has no real owner, but are still there to try and preserve the more than 30 historical sites that have been made on the moon by the U.S.

What made NASA make these recommendations to begin with was the Google Lunar X contest that consists of landing a robot on the Moon, having it travel 500 meters and take a picture or video of the lunar surface. Since taking pictures of one of the landing sites would most likely win the grand prize, NASA decided to try and stop the teams from doing so since it might ruin the original landing sites. Now, not everyone will want to follow these recommendations. For example, studying bacteria in the feces and food left by astronauts on the moon will show if the bacteria died out or how it mutated to survive the harsh radiation from the sun. Any metallic objects will show how they have degraded over time due to all the radiation exposure from the sun. NASA remains hopeful that people will try and respect these limits and that they try and preserve such historic artifacts.

Alert - Scientists Say NIBIRU Is Responsible For The Mass Extinctions !

2011-07-05T20:11:00.000-07:00

This segment from the cable TV show: "Universe: Unexplained Mysteries features UC Berkeley's Dr. Richard Muller who has for decades predicted a "Dark Star" binary twin to our Sun, which he calls "Nemesis," whose elliptical orbit he believes it is responsible for the strong cycle of mass extinctions which occur every 26 million years on Earth.

Nibiru Pictures Taken on May 26, 2011 - OR Lens Flare?

2011-06-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a guy who really believes that the photos he's taken
of a large object behind the Sun are NOT lens flares. What do
YOU think?

Russian Military Helicopter Transports UFO

2011-06-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

Some Russian commentators say that this could be a
UFO that crashed near the Siberian town of Irkutsk.
Others say it's a hoax.

There's a lot disinformation on the Internet coming out
of Russia. I don't know what to make of this footage
but it is definitely an interesting shot!

What do you think ?