Simply astronomical – the Square Kilometre Array

Australia is in the running to host a giant new radio telescope, the astronomical equivalent to the Large Hadron Collider which has been called the biggest science experiment in history.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope will be too complex and costly (A$2.9 billion) to be built by any one country. Instead an international consortium of 19 countries has been formed to plan and build it. In October 2006, the consortium announced that two countries had been short listed to host the SKA – Australia and South Africa.

What is the SKA?

In the early 1990s astronomers posed the question: What sort of telescope will we need to investigate the astronomical questions of the new millennium? The answer: A radio telescope with 50 times the sensitivity of any existing telescope and with a total collecting area of one square kilometre, hence the name (Box 1: What is a radio telescope?).

The SKA will not be a single instrument but will consist of several thousand antennas all linked together to form one giant array. The design currently favoured for the array consists of many small dish antennas approximately 10 metres in diameter, and a large number of a new type of flat panel known as an aperture array or 'tile'. The dishes will receive high frequency radio waves and the tiles low frequencies, giving the SKA an exceptionally wide radio 'window' to observe the universe.

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The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello

Who Were (Or Are) The World's Maddest Scientists?

I have a secret; as much as I enjoy reading about the latest advancements in biology and physics, I sometimes like reading about the darker side of experimentation.

Most scientists have a fundamental basis for experimentation and results but then there were (and are - we'll get to them in future installments) others who ran with their own rules and avoided opposition by keeping the results mostly secret. These are the people I am referring to as 'Mad Scientists' rather than using the more colloquial 'crazy' meaning of the term.

We all know most doctors are around to help patients, for example, but those who perform their own twisted experimentation make this list. Some will be more controversial (you may not think they are mad at all) but they made my list of "World's Maddest Scientists" and we can discuss it. (dun dun dun...)

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What Was The First Computer Game?

Do you know the name of the first computer game? I confess I didn't and I learned programming on a Univac 1100/62 so I am a lot closer to the origination date of computer games than most people who will read this.

I assumed it was a kind of punchcard-loaded word game, like a 1960s Leather Goddesses of Phobos only without the divine genius of Dostoyevsky that game possessed, but the history of video games is much more elaborate than that.

So depending on how you look at it, the first computer game may be a Brookhaven tennis game that recently turned 50; as you will see, it looked pretty terrific. Or it may be something no one outside a patent office has ever seen.

Like all awesome things, video games began as a science experiment. In the case of William Higinbotham (1910-1994), a physicist at Brookhaven National Lab who had worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, he wanted to 'liven up' science for visitors during the Lab’s annual visitors’ days. On October 18, 1958, his vision was realized and hundreds of people, not surprisingly a lot of enchanted high school students, lined up to play what they called Tennis For Two. So at least in terms of a video game that got attention, this would seem to be first.

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Online Game Harnesses The Collective Brainpower Of Scientists

The American Chemical Society's (ACS) 238th National Meeting here will be the site of a rare "thought experiment" intended to focus the creative genius of hundreds of scientists on solutions to one of the 21st Century's most daunting problems: Finding sustainable new sources of energy. The exercise will use a computer game format in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where more than 12,000 chemists and others will gather this week. "This is a whole new trend in tackling problem solving," says April Orr, Assistant Director of Member Research and Technology for the ACS — the world's largest scientific society — and the experiment's manager. "It is a 'collaborative think' project," Orr added. "It leverages the intellectual power of chemists for the greater good. The idea is to get chemists to engage and think about how to solve future energy challenges. It is a computer game, but one with serious goals."

Players use their own computers to register on a Web site using an alias or an avatar. The computer asks players to consider a fictitious yet plausible scenario in which there is a rich abundance of cheap, efficient, and "green" energy sources in the year 2026, which happens to be the 150th anniversary of the Society. The game asks players to imagine the implications of this scenario of abundant, sustainable energy, including its benefits and challenges. Key questions include:

• What are the implications of massive energy storage?
• What inventions are possible?
• Risks associated with expanded use of metal ion batteries?
• Implications for mining and municipal solid waste disposal?
• What if the entire network of wires becomes obsolete?

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VIDEO: Paris Catacombs "Dense in Death"

August 25, 2009—In underground passageways that snake underneath the French capital, nearly six million people who died of disease in the Middle Ages share a final resting place.

© 2009 National Geographic (AP)

Unedited Transcript The vaults, packed with skulls and bones dating from as far back as the Middle Ages, are located on Paris' Left Bank near Place Denfert Rochereau (plass done-fair roe-che-roe), and are part of the nearly 185 miles of underground passageways that are believed to be part of the catacombs network. SOUNDBITE (English) John Mamburg, tourist from Grand Rapids, Michigan: "I think this is astounding. I've never been around so many, like you've been to cemeteries and things like that, I've never been to anything that is so insanely dense in death. It's amazing." The catacombs have their origin in the late eighteenth century, when city officials were searching for a solution to health problems caused by the city's overflowing cemeteries. The 200 or so cemeteries located in Paris at the time were the source of numerous diseases which were contaminating the city's soil and water supply. The then Lieutenant General of Police, Alexandre Lenoir (len-waar), suggested that the bones from the cemeteries would be transferred underground into the abandoned gypsum and limestone quarries at the southern edge of the city. SOUNDBITE (French) Laure Urgen, Tour Guide, Carnavalet Museum "Here, we find close to six million, close to six million Parisians. There are bones that are extremely old, which date from the Middle Ages, and this is a place that is really moving. In the end, it's a place that has passed through many centuries and six million people and well, and through it all we can imagine the Paris of that age." After snaking through these eerie, dark and moist passageways stacked with skulls, visitors will no doubt view the splendor of Paris in a different light.

[Video Here]

Beware of the 'Grinning Man'

If you are walking along a lonely road late at night, you might encounter the Grinning Man.

The Grinning Man is a name given to one or more mysterious creatures that have been reported over the past 40 or so years. Some say the Grinning Man is an alien from outer space while others believe he might be some kind of unknown creature similar to Bigfoot. What is certain is that those who have seen the Grinning Man have never quite gotten over the experience.

One night in October 1966, two boys, James Yanchitis and Marvin Munoz, were walking home along Fourth Street in their hometown of Elizabeth, N.J. They soon reached a corner that runs parallel to the New Jersey Turnpike. A large wire fence ran along the edge of the other street below where the boys were walking. It was young Yanchitis who first saw what has become known as the Grinning Man. And even though it was dark, he could clearly see the weird figure, according to a Web site.

"He was standing behind that fence," Yanchitis later told investigators. "I don't know how he got there. He was the biggest man I ever saw."

Yanchitis then nudged his friend and pointed out the weird entity. Munoz later stated, "I looked around and there he was behind that fence. Just standing there. He pivoted around and looked right at us. Then he grinned a big old grin."

The two boys had heard about a resident of the neighborhood being chased by a "tall green man" down that same street. The frightened boys got out of there quickly.

Three days later, John A. Keel, a well-known author and paranormal investigator, visited the two boys in Elizabeth, N.J. Keel would also write a popular book about the Mothman legend of West Virginia.

UFO lecturer James Moseley and actor Chuck McCann also came along for the interview. Keel talked to the two boys separately and both gave the exact same story.

They both described the humanoid creature as standing more than 6 feet tall and dressed in a sparkling green coverall costume. The street lights were reflected off the shimmering outfit. A wide black belt was fastened around his waist.

"He had a very dark complexion, and little round eyes, real beady, set far apart," said one of the boys.

But the strangest thing about the Grinning Man was he did not have any hair, ears or a nose, the two boys maintained.

[Read More at McDowellNews.com]

Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why

Wired has a great article about placebos. It seems that the placebo effect has a real physiological effect. And yes, it IS all in our minds.

Part of the problem was that response to placebo was considered a psychological trait related to neurosis and gullibility rather than a physiological phenomenon that could be scrutinized in the lab and manipulated for therapeutic benefit. But then Benedetti came across a study, done years earlier, that suggested the placebo effect had a neurological foundation. US scientists had found that a drug called naloxone blocks the pain-relieving power of placebo treatments. The brain produces its own analgesic compounds called opioids, released under conditions of stress, and naloxone blocks the action of these natural painkillers and their synthetic analogs. The study gave Benedetti the lead he needed to pursue his own research while running small clinical trials for drug companies.

Now, after 15 years of experimentation, he has succeeded in mapping many of the biochemical reactions responsible for the placebo effect, uncovering a broad repertoire of self-healing responses. Placebo-activated opioids, for example, not only relieve pain; they also modulate heart rate and respiration. The neurotransmitter dopamine, when released by placebo treatment, helps improve motor function in Parkinson's patients. Mechanisms like these can elevate mood, sharpen cognitive ability, alleviate digestive disorders, relieve insomnia, and limit the secretion of stress-related hormones like insulin and cortisol.

In one study, Benedetti found that Alzheimer's patients with impaired cognitive function get less pain relief from analgesic drugs than normal volunteers do. Using advanced methods of EEG analysis, he discovered that the connections between the patients' prefrontal lobes and their opioid systems had been damaged. Healthy volunteers feel the benefit of medication plus a placebo boost. Patients who are unable to formulate ideas about the future because of cortical deficits, however, feel only the effect of the drug itself. The experiment suggests that because Alzheimer's patients don't get the benefits of anticipating the treatment, they require higher doses of painkillers to experience normal levels of relief.

[Read More via BoingBoing.net]

Northern Minnesota farm house haunted by thieving ghosts

A couple of ghosts lurking in the walls of a rural Roseau County, Minnesota, home have a woman hanging on to her husband’s pants - literally.

Betty Ann Morken says two ghosts, named John and Sam, are haunting her 80-year-old farm house. They make their presence know mostly by swiping personal belongings when no one is looking.

But, strangely, what the ghosts seem most interested in is her husband’s Levi “501” blue jeans.

“We’ve lost three pair already,” Betty Ann said. “On a scale of one to 10, I am convinced to the point of 10 that the jeans are being taken by ghosts. There is just no other explanation.”

Betty Ann, her husband and children are third-generation owners of a stolid rural farm house on the back roads of northeastern Roseau County. She moved into the house in 1987, which is owned by her husband, Doug.

At the time, Doug was remodeling the old farm house. As long as the work continued, nothing was wrong.

“It’s when the remodeling stops that things start disappearing,” Betty Ann said, suggesting that the ghosts like the renovations for some reason. At first it was mostly tools that were missing. Of course, tools are easy to misplace, and even though Doug and Betty Ann felt something a bit stranger was going on, they shrugged it off. But then a pair of 501 blue jeans disappeared.

[Read More via ParanormalDailyNews.com]

Ghost Hunting 101: how do I protect myself during a paranormal investigation?

Examiner.com-- Let’s talk about psychic protection for paranormal investigators. In my opinion, it’s essential to shield and ground properly before and after each investigation. I can hear the groans of the scientific types now – but this is one area where those of us who lean more towards the psychic end of the scale have the advantage over the scientists. We know this stuff exists, we know that rituals work, and we don’t mind looking silly.

Paranormal investigating can be an exciting and somewhat anxiety-producing experience. Every time we do an investigation, we’re venturing into the unknown. Practicing psychic protection is an important precaution that’s often overlooked. Many of us have our own private protection rituals that we use, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that we have to do this as a team. A team is only as strong as its weakest link and if you have someone who’s vulnerable it affects everyone. There are many reasons why a particular individual could be vulnerable at any given time. They could be exhausted, nervous, recovering from a recent illness, feeling stressed because of family or work pressures, having financial difficulties, going through a divorce or other kind of break-up, feeling the aftereffects of an argument with someone, or taking medication for depression or some other type of mental or physical problem. One or more of these factors can deplete an investigator’s energy and leave them open to negative influences that might not normally be a problem.

There are generally three main problem areas associated with investigating paranormal activities. These are:

• Psychic Attack
• Spirit Attachment
• Obsession

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Government Admits to Aliens Being Real