Whether discussing the universe’s origin as host of NOVA’s “scienceNOW” or asserting that Pluto is a not a planet on “The Colbert Report,” astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson translates the universe’s complexities for a broad audience.
In the following hilarious (and interesting) video presentation, Tyson explains what would happen if a large asteroid would hit earth, and how we could avoid such a calamity. Also, he describes how a human being would die if sucked in by a black hole.
This looks downright dangerous! Lockheed Martin developed the Multiple Kill Vehicle-L (MKV-L) to hover and kill. It was put to the test on December 2nd at Edwards Air Force Base.
During an engagement with the enemy, the MKV-L with its cargo of kill vehicles will maneuver into the threat complex to intercept all lethal targets, along with any countermeasures the enemy may deploy in an attempt to trick the system. With tracking data from the Ballistic Missile Defense System and its own seeker, the MKV-L will dispense and guide the kill vehicles to destroy multiple targets.
The full-scale prototype flew at an altitude of approximately 23 feet (7 meters) for 20 seconds, maneuvering while simultaneously tracking a target.
This will be the star of my nightmares tonight.
[Thanks, PAgent!]
It’s here, it’s big, and it looks mean! After many small videos that didn’t show very much, a new full-length Terminator Salvation trailer has finally hit the web. For now, I’ll keep my opinion to myself and wait to see what you guys thought of the new trailer before saying anything.
In the highly anticipated new installment of The Terminator film franchise, set in post-apocalyptic 2018, Christian Bale stars as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.
[Via Trailer Addict]
Back in 1955, a Sears store had an advertisement listing Santa Claus’ phone number, prompting children to call and speak with the generous old man. Naturally, thousands of children tried to call. What they didn’t know is that the number had been misprinted, and was actually the emergency number for CONAD, NORAD‘s ancestor.
The man in charge of the organization, in an act of generosity, asked his team to verify Santa’s location using radar echoes, and when children called the number, they were given the speculated position of Santa’s sleigh. From this point, it became a tradition at NORAD to follow Santa’s movement across the world. Naturally, as years passed, NORAD has modernized its technique to follow the bearded fellow, using 47 radar installations and multiple geostationary satellites to carefully monitor his progress.
So this year again, on December 24, for the fiftieth consecutive year (1958 – 2008), NORAD will be following Santa Claus’s journey across the world, inviting kids to follow him on a Web site dedicated to the task, noradsanta.org. And for the second time, the site will be using Google Maps and Google Earth to display the location of the gift-filled sleigh.
Last year, NORAD Tracks Santa received over 10 million unique visitors from 212 different countries.
[Via Branchez-Vous (French)]
By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Two days ago, the Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report that details the (apparently shocking) phenomenon that about half of American adults play videogames (53%, to be exact). Sounds about right to me, though I just skimmed through a good dozen articles from all over the net that are making it sound like this is some big news. I agree with this Forbes blogger in that it isn’t the numbers that are surprising but how surprised everyone seems to be about them (must be that other 47%). It just goes to show how little understood gaming really is outside of itself.
After all, gaming permeates our culture. Look at Nintendo’s latest ad campaign. Gaming isn’t just for geeks anymore–Carrie Underwood plays Nintendogs! However, the problem, I think, is that this survey doesn’t differentiate between “gamers” and “people who play videogames.” At least, most of the reports on it aren’t. I mean, my mom plays Solitaire constantly on her iPhone, and so she fits into that 53%, but I would never in a million years refer to her as a “gamer.” I think the other 47% are seeing the headline “MORE THAN HALF OF AMERICANS ARE GAMERS” and picturing the other half of the country locked in their basements playing Halo and World of Warcraft.
There were a couple of detailed findings from the survey that I found interesting. For example, older adults (65+) who play games are about 10% more likely to play every day than younger people. Also, college graduates are about 20% more likely to play videogames than those without a high school diploma (the research specialist at Pew says that there’s no obvious reason for this one, but it seems to me that income level might be a skewing factor). And a score for recognition of girl gamers–50% of women play versus 55% of men.
Right now, age is the biggest demographic factor. Nearly every teenager plays videogames (97%) versus 81% of those 18-29 (that’s my box!) and 23% of the senior crowd (65+). My prediction is that this difference will just continue to flatten over time, as it’s more an issue of culture than circumstance. By the time digital natives (those born after 1980) are seniors, I suspect that most of us will be spending our retirements playing whatever the future equivalent of World of Warcraft is (I’m hoping for a metaverse myself).
[Image Source: Flickr]
The music you’re about to hear doesn’t come from what most people would consider to be a regular musical instrument. It is generated via a pair of high powered 7-foot tesla coils, which can shoot sparks up to 12 feet in the air. Each coil is attached to a laptop via a fiber optic cable (for obvious reasons), and plays the notes it receives from the non-conductive link.
Intel is researching how to power devices in ways that are both more convenient and greener. They’re in the process of developing technology that can capture ambient sources of energy, such as sunlight, body heat, radiation from cell phone towers, and even the human energy expended to operate a hand-held device. Move that finger around, and you’re simultaneously turning a tiny generator.
These inventions could eventually lead to cell phones that recharge themselves from their environment, relegating that all-too-familiar “low batt” warning to the pages of gadget history.
They haven’t refined the technology to provide enough power for that yet, though. What they’re working on right now are tiny sensors that can be installed and never need maintenance — they power themselves from the environment, and report whatever they’re sensing over wireless.
One application is monitoring temperatures in data centers. Self-powering sensors installed in the wall can report temperatures in various areas of the data center back to a central computer — that can then balance the air conditioning and server processing load to maximum advantage, and even predict where hot spots may occur and act preemptively.
Another application: implants in humans to monitor important bodily functions and wire your doctor if there’s a problem. No need for a clunky battery pack, because it powers itself from your body heat.
When you think about it, our present technology is rather wasteful with its use of energy. For instance, data centers consume about 1% of the world’s electricity, much of which is used for cooling — in other words, the part of the energy consumed that was converted to heat requires even more energy to transfer it elsewhere. Wouldn’t it be great if data centers could convert that heat back into electricity instead? That might make a real dent in our fossil fuel consumption, which would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, clean up the environment, and perhaps even decelerate global warming. If we deploy enough devices that power themselves from ambient heat, maybe they’d even cool down the planet! Huh? huh? OK, maybe not.
But at least we’d be that much greener. Cue Mr. Green: :mrgreen:
By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
The comic book series Fables, created by Bill Willingham and published by DC’s Vertigo imprint (the same as Sandman and V for Vendetta among others), is being turned into an hour-long television drama for ABC.
The comics are about fairy tale characters who live in exile in modern-day New York. It’s a great combination of whimsical and gritty. For example, the first storyline is about the (reformed, now Sheriff) Big Bad Wolf’s investigation of the murder of Snow White’s sister Rose Red (including a blood-soaked crime scene).
The planned show’s writers, Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner, haven’t said which characters will be featured, but did mention that Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf will still play a central role.
The comic is currently at 79 issues. The most recent paperback collection, War and Pieces (containing issues 70-75) was published just last month.
[Via Underwire]
Did you know that the black robotic torture sphere featured in Star Wars: Episode IV was actually a doctor, and one with quite a strong sense of morals and and ethics it seems.
Natural selection favors the intelligent. The evidence is right here in our civilization. We are smarter than our distant ancestors, Australopithecus, Homo erectus, Cro-Magnon — that is a given. The question is, did intelligence evolve because the smarter members of the population could avoid getting killed off? In prehistoric times, this would involve finding the best foods and avoiding enemies; in modern times this means staying in shape, not smoking, and avoiding violent lifestyles. Or were intelligent people more likely to reproduce because they attracted mates? We all know intelligence is sexy, but has it always been so? Or are intelligence, health, and reproductive ability linked genetically, even before the connection to behavior?
As reported in The Economist, a study led by Rosalind Arden of King’s College in London might bring us a tad closer to the answer. Her team analyzed data taken in 1985 from 435 Vietnam veterans that included intelligence scores based on Spearman’s g AND sperm samples that were tested at the time for sperm count, concentration, and motility.
Ms Arden found 425 cases where samples had been collected and analysed from unvasectomised men who had managed to avoid spilling their seed during the collection process and had answered all the necessary questions for her to test her hypothesis, namely that their g values would correlate with all three measures of their sperm quality.
They did. Moreover, neither age nor any obvious confounding variable that might have been a consequence of intelligent decisions about health (obesity, smoking, drinking and drug use) had any effect on the result. Brainy men, it seems, do have better sperm.
This doesn’t tell us what caused the correlation. Vietnam veterans are, intelligent or not, the product of millions of years of natural selection. There may be something deep in our limbic systems that causes us to seek out intelligent mates when we can get them, at least someone more intelligent than our prehistoric ancestors, for childbearing purposes. Or the traits may have been linked genetically many generations ago, and continue no matter who mates with who, because people of below average intelligence are still reproducing (which explains why you often feel surrounded by idiots). The Economist article posits the possibility that intelligence is just another manifestation of general healthiness, as is sperm count and attractiveness as a mate. Better specimens are just plain better specimens all over.
Still, it’s nice to know that brainy men have better sperm. Should you ever be in a position to use that as a pickup line, it’s available with citable research.