General Robots

Paul Davies, Alien-Kontakter am SETI

Der Guardian hat einen superinteressanten Artikel über Paul Davies, am SETI Vorsitzender der Post-Detection Task Group und sehr wahrscheinlich der Wissenschaftler, der als erster mit Aliens im Kontaktfall kommunizieren würde.

Paul is a British-born theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University. He lives his life at an incredibly high level of amazingness. He lectures at the Vatican, the Smithsonian, Davos and the UN. He has an asteroid named after him – the Pauldavies Asteroid. He’s a passionate scientific communicator and a grumpy man of enormous intellect.

A telephone near us keeps letting off a loud and unexpected ring, and whenever it does, Paul looks extremely cross and says, “This is terribly annoying.” I can’t help thinking that if the aliens do make contact, his automatic response will be to screw up his face in irritation and yell: “WHAT?”

First contact: The man who’ll welcome aliens (via MeFi)

Neill Blomkamp über Superzivilisationen und Aliens


(Youtube Direktaliens, via /Film)

Neill Blomkamp, Regisseur des fantastischen SciFi-Krachers „District 9“, war zur TEDxVancouver eingeladen. Leider hatte er keine Zeit, also hat er ein Video gedreht und hingeschickt. In dem erzählt er erstmal drei Minuten lang, dass er nicht kommen konnte und worum es in „District 9“ geht und solche Sachen, die man getrost überspringen kann. Danach verknotet er einem zehn Minuten lang das Gehirn par Excellence.

Er erzählt, warum wir keine Aliens finden und was das mit der Kardaschow-Skala zu tun hat, mir der man den technologischen Fortschritt einer Zivilisation misst (wir sind eine Typ 0-Zivilisation). Ich saß nach diesem Video 15 (naja… anderthalb, aber 15 klingt besser) Minuten mit offenen Mund vor dem Monitor, denn so wie es Blomkamp hier beschreibt, wird einem schlagartig klar, dass all die Veränderungen, die wir grade erleben (Internet, Klimawandel, Finanzkrise, Globalisierung) Ausdruck unseres Wechsels in die Typ 1 Zivilisation sind. Ich kannte die Kardaschow-Skala bereits, habe sie aber noch nie historisch so einordnen können. Wer sich auch nur ein bisschen für Futurismus interessiert: Anschaubefehl!

Außerirdische laut Vatikan bibelkonform

Das klingt jetzt alles ziemlich irre, ist aber alles super ernstgemeint: Dass sich die Kirche mit Aliens beschäftigt, ist nix neues. Diese Woche hat der Vatikan zu einer Astrobiologie-Konferenz geladen, auf der Wissenschaftler und Theologen zusammenkamen, um die Frage zu diskutieren, ob Außerirdische denn in Einklang mit der Bibel zu bringen sind. Sie sind, sagen manche. Und zwar weil, das muss man sich auf der Zunge zergehen lassen: Die kreative Freiheit Gottes nicht von Menschen beschränkt werden könne. Also kann er auch Aliens machen. Na klar.

Dass die Entdeckung von außerirdischem Leben religiöse Menschen und vor allem Christen arg in die Bredouille bringen würde, ist anderen superklar. Denn nicht nur heisst es in der Bibel, Gott habe den Menschen nach seinem Abbild geschaffen, womit Aliens eine Freizeitbeschäftigung und Spielereien des angeblichen Schöpfers wären und wenn die sich auf einmal als geistig ebenbürtig oder gar überlegen zeigen würden, dann wäre es auf einmal Essig mit Religion und verwandtes Gedöns. Snip vom Guardian inklusive Papst und Alien:

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Father Jose Funes, a Jesuit astronomer at the Vatican Observatory and one of the organisers of the conference, said: “As a multiplicity of creatures exists on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God.

“This does not conflict with our faith, because we cannot put limits on the creative freedom of God.”

Not everyone agrees. Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist and author of The Goldilocks Enigma, told The Washington Post that the threat to Christianity is “being downplayed” by Church leaders. He said: “I think the discovery of a second genesis would be of enormous spiritual significance.

“The real threat would come from the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, because if there are beings elsewhere in the universe, then Christians, they’re in this horrible bind.

“They believe that God became incarnate in the form of Jesus Christ in order to save humankind, not dolphins or chimpanzees or little green men on other planets.”

The Vatican joins the search for alien life (via io9)

Aliens mathematisch bewiesen

Diese Rechnung habe ich ähnlich auch schon aufgestellt, nur amateurhafter mit dem Faktor Unendlichkeit. Jetzt hat Astrophysiker Duncan Forgan ein Programm geschrieben, dass die bisher bekannten Zahlen zu den uns bekannten Planeten auf die Milchstraße extrapoliert. Voila: rund 40.000 Planeten sind „lebensfähig“, es existieren wahrscheinlich 300 Zivilisationen, die ähnlich entwickelt sind, wie wir. QED.

Er geht auch davon aus, dass wir noch 300 bis 400 Jahre brauchen werden, bis wir (oder sie) Kontakt aufnehmen. Dürfte mit der schon baldigen Mind-Upload-Technologie auch noch von uns erlebbar werden. Hach!

Researchers have calculated that up to 37,964 worlds in our galaxy are hospitable enough to be home to creatures at least as intelligent as ourselves.

Astrophysicist Duncan Forgan created a computer programme that collated all the data on the 330 or so planets known to man and worked out what proportion would have conditions suitable for life.

The estimate, which took into account factors such as temperature and availability of water and minerals, was then extrapolated across the Milky Way.

Mr Forgan believes that the life forms would not be amoeba wriggling on the end of a microscope but species at least as advanced as humans.

Mr Forgan, who believes it will take 300 to 400 years for us to make contact with our neighbours, said: “I believe the estimate of 361 intelligent civilisations to be the most accurate.

40,000 planets could be home to aliens (via Fanboy)

Warum der Mond relativ so groß wie die Sonne ist

Der Mond und die Sonne sind von der Erde aus gesehen genau gleich groß, was bei Sonnenfinsternissen im Diamantring-Effekt führt. (Der Mond ist übrigens nicht überall auf der Erde genauso groß, wie die Sonne, wie man auf diesem Bild einer Sonnenfinsternis sehen kann.) New Scientist hat jetzt jedenfalls ein Special über das „Unknown Solar-System“, darunter behandeln sie genau diese Frage: Warum ist der Mond relativ genauso groß, wie die Sonne?

It is all thanks to a striking coincidence. The sun is about 400 times as wide as the moon, but it is also 400 times further away. The two therefore look the same size in the sky – a unique situation among our solar system’s eight planets and 166 known moons. Earth is also the only planet to harbour life.

[...]

As Earth spins on its own axis, it has a natural tendency to wobble, owing to the varying pull on it from other bodies such as the sun. The unseen hand of the moon’s gravity gently damps that wobble, preventing rotational instabilities which would otherwise have caused dramatic changes in Earth’s climatic zones over time. Such instabilities would have made it much more tricky for life to get started on our planet.

Earth’s position in the “habitable zone” around the sun where liquid water is abundant is undoubtedly the single most important factor in its fecundity. But the presence of a large moon – one large enough to cause total eclipses – might also have been crucial. If so, that has important consequences for the search for life on other planets.

Our Unknown Solar System (via Digg)

Life On Mars… maybe, baby! (UPDATE)

Wie cool wäre das denn bitte? Die NASA hält in einer Stunde eine Pressekonferenz, erwartet wird nichts geringeres als die Nachricht von Leben auf dem Mars. Und das an meinem Geburtstag! Ein fetteres Geschenk könnte mir die Welt nicht machen.

Long story short: Es geht um Methan-Ausstöße, die schon länger von der NASA untersucht werden und die nicht auf Vulkane zurückgeführt werden können (weil es keine aktiven Vulkane auf dem Mars gibt). Jetzt scheinen sie bei diesen Untersuchungen etwas gefunden zu haben und das könnten Mikroorganismen sein, die unter der Oberfläche des Mars leben.

The methane, which was detected alongside water vapour, could have been a waste product from organisms called methanogens living in water beneath underground ice, experts believe.

Professor Colin Pillinger, whose Beagle 2 craft crashed on Mars in 2003 while on a mission to seek signs of life, said the discovery could prove important.

“Methane is a product of biology. For methane to be in Mars’ atmosphere, there has to be a replenishable source,” he told The Sun.

“The most obvious source of methane is organisms. So if you find methane in an atmosphere, you can suspect there is life.

“It’s not proof, but it makes it worth a much closer look.”

Nasa will announce the full results of the study at a briefing in Washington today.

Mars methane discovery hints at presence of life (via Spreeblick)

[update] Die NASA hält sich stark zurück, führt die Methangas-Ausstöße entweder auf geothermische Reaktionen – oder eben Lebensformen zurück, will hier aber keine Wahrscheinlichkeiten aussprechen. Also eher: Meh. Wobei ich immer noch davon überzeugt bin, dass ich noch in diesem Leben die Entdeckung außerirdischen Lebens mitbekommen werde. Die Pressekonferenz läuft noch.

The Stuff of Life on Titan

Titan, the sixth and largest moon of the planet Saturn, is thought to be made largely of ice. Some of that ice may melt during meteor impacts or in underground processes, producing “ice volcanoes” that emit a “lava” containing ammonia mixed with water.

Could tholins formed in Titan’s atmosphere react with liquid water temporarily exposed by meteor impacts or ice volcanoes to produce potentially probiotic complex organic molecules – before the water freezes? Until this year, no one knew.

Link (via /.)

The White House is Briefed: Phoenix About to Announce “Potential For Life” on Mars

t would appear that the US President has been briefed by Phoenix scientists about the discovery of something more “provocative” than the discovery of water existing on the Martian surface. This news comes just as the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) confirmed experimental evidence for the existence of water in the Mars regolith on Thursday. Whilst NASA scientists are not claiming that life once existed on the Red Planet’s surface, new data appears to indicate the “potential for life” more conclusively than the TEGA water results. Apparently these new results are being kept under wraps until further, more detailed analysis can be carried out, but we are assured that this announcement will be huge…

Link

We may be extraterrestrials after all

Scientists from the Imperial College of London claim to have found evidence that life on our planet did not originate from Earth itself. For the first time, the scientists say, it is confirmed that an important component of early genetic material found in meteorite fragments is of extraterrestrial origin.

Link

Will We Be the Alien Space Invaders?

This is interesting because there is already some thinking that we may have contaminated Mars with the Viking probes from the 70s:

Do other star systems need protection from Earth life?

“The technology needed to send a robotic probe to another solar system is far in the future at best. But one scientist says it’s not too soon to start thinking about how to avoid contaminating extrasolar planets with hitchhiking microbes from Earth.”

Link

The Color of Plants on Other Worlds

Ich habe ja zuerst „The Color Out Of Space“ gelesen und erwartete eine Abhandlung zu H.P.Lovecrafts Shortstory von 1927, ist aber nur ein Artikel über die Farben von Alien-Pflanzen. Der ist aber dafür auch sehr, sehr interessant.

What color will alien plants be? The question matters scientifically because the surface color of a planet can reveal whether anything lives there—specifically, whether organisms collect energy from the parent star by the process of photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is adapted to the spectrum of light that reaches organisms. This spectrum is the result of the parent star’s radiation spectrum, combined with the filtering effects of the planet’s atmosphere and, for aquatic creatures, of liquid water.

Light of any color from deep violet through the near-infrared could power photosynthesis. Around stars hotter and bluer than our sun, plants would tend to absorb blue light and could look green to yellow to red. Around cooler stars such as red dwarfs, planets receive less visible light, so plants might try to absorb as much of it as possible, making them look black.

Link zum Artikel
Link zur Illu-Strecke

Saturn’s Titan: A Mirror Image of Earth Before Life Evolved?

The Cassini spacecraft observations of Saturn’s largest moon, the orange-colored Titan, have given scientists a glimpse of what Earth might have been like before life evolved. They now believe Titan possesses many parallels to Earth, including lakes, rivers, channels, dunes, rain, snow, clouds, mountains and possibly volcanoes.

“Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material — it’s a giant factory of organic chemicals,” according to Ralph Lorenz of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. “We are carbon-based life, and understanding how far along the chain of complexity towards life that chemistry can go in an environment like Titan will be important in understanding the origins of life throughout the universe.”

Link

Which Parts of the Galaxy Do Aliens Hang Out In?

Here at the Astrobiology Science Conference 2008 in Santa Clara, Charley Lineweaver, a Senior Fellow at the Planetary Science Institute is trying to figure out where in a galaxy aliens might live – the so-called “galactic habitable zone.” Planetary habitable zones are well-known – for our sun Sol, we think it’s roughly between Venus’ orbit and the asteroid belt outside Mars’ orbit. Galactic habitable zones are little tougher to pin down – as usual you’ve got to worry about having liquid water (or liquid something), but things get interesting when you consider the risk of getting blown up by a supernova.

Link

Wie die echten Aliens aussahen, 1951

Ich habe mal auf Arte eine sehr schöne Doku gesehen, in der Astrobiologen Planeten konstruierten (also, Modelle, nicht echte) und dann aufgrund der Atmosphäre, der Masse und der Gravitationswirkung Lebensformen auf diesen Planeten ableiteten. Aliens auf Planeten mit größerer Masse und deshalb größerer Schwerkraft wären also nicht so hochgewachsen und eher breit. Lebende Schleimpfützen, oder sowas. Der Blob. Wie auch immer.

Dieser Artikel von 1951 bei Modern Mechanix macht genau dasselbe, nur mit den Planeten unseres Sonnensystems:

Now let’s leap to Mars and observe a Martian as described by Major James R. Randolph, engineer, mathematician and physicist, who taught at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N. Y., and Rhode Island State College and lectures extensively on interplanetary subjects. This is his conception of a Mars inhabitant: He has slender arms and legs, a large chest, wide, flaring nostrils and a broad mouth. His head would be about a quarter the size of his body; his eyes would be dark-adapted, with wide pupils. His size is problematical— Major Randolph’s guess is that he would be about four feet tall but he frankly admits there is no real basis for the assumption.

Now, why would a Martian look like this? Gravity on Mars is only 38 per cent of what it is on earth, hence everything would be easier to push, pull, pick up and carry. If everything weighs less, there would be less need for muscle, hence the reed-like limbs.

Why the large chest, the wide mouth and nostrils? There is considerable evidence that Mars has an atmosphere but it is extremely thin and the pressure is very low. Now, says Major Randolph, since air occupies more space if there is less pressure, a Martian would have to take much more air into his lungs than we do and oversize organs would result.

The mouth and nostrils would be wide for the same reason—larger air spaces would be required. The head, encompassing a normal brain, would be the size of an earthman’s thus disproportionate to the rest of his body.

Link

Sky Whales & Pagoda Forests -Scientists Study Possible Course of Evolution on Planets Beyond Our Solar System

skywhale_2.jpeg

What form would evolution take on life-bearing planets similar in size to earth? With the intense effort of the world’s astronomers in their search for earth-like planets beyond our solar system, scientists are putting extra thought into the concept of alien evolution and have come up with some interesting results.

Link

Der verborgene Ozean des Titan

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Paläoklimatologen und Astrobiologen gehen davon aus, dass sich Titan heute in einem Zustand befindet, der dem der Erde vor 4,6 Mrd. Jahren ähnelt. Das macht Untersuchungen dieses Saturnmondes besonders spannend. Titan kreist zwar als natürlicher Satellit um Saturn, passt aber von seinen Eigenschaften her mehr in die Kategorie der Planeten.

Die Kosmologen gehen nicht davon aus, dass heute Leben auf Titan existiert, denn dafür sind die Bedingungen auf der Oberfläche unter den dicken, orange schimmernden Wolkenschichten zu unwirtlich (es herrscht eine Temperatur von minus 180 Grad Celsius), aber sie hoffen, die Vorbedingungen erforschen zu können, die die Entstehung von Leben ermöglichen. Methan und Stickstoff-Moleküle könnten sich auf dem eisigen Mond zu komplexen organischen Materialien wie Kohlenwasserstoffen oder sogar Aminosäuren – den Grundbausteinen des irdischen Lebens – zusammenschließen.

Link

Links vom 3. 10. 07: Wallace and Gromit, X-Wing-Fighter, Porno-Nudeln und Leben auf dem Saturn-Mond Titan

Music

Das wollte ich hören – Radiohead Spokesperson: Fans Paying Close to Retail for Pricing-Optional Album
Fans can pre-order the digital version of Radiohead’s upcoming In Rainbows album for any price they want, but most of them have ponied up an amount similar to what would be charged at a retailer, according to band spokesperson Murray Chalmers.
Chalmers also said that rather than choosing the digital-only version of the album, most pre-orders have been for the $80 “discbox” collection, which includes the CD, a second CD with extra material, a heavyweight vinyl version of the album, and a hardcover booklet with lyrics and other material.

Get Entire New Charlatans Album For Free With Xfm
We want ‘the people’ to own the music and we want the artist i.e. us, to own the copyright. Why let a record company get in the way of the people getting the music?

Sony BMG’s chief anti-piracy lawyer: “Copying” music you own is “stealing”
Pariser has a very broad definition of “stealing.” When questioned by Richard Gabriel, lead counsel for the record labels, Pariser suggested that what millions of music fans do is actually theft. The dirty deed? Ripping your own CDs or downloading songs you already own.

RIAA anti-P2P campaign a real money pit, according to testimony
A Sony executive said what many observers have suspected for a long time. The RIAA’s four-year-old lawsuit campaign is costing the music industry millions of dollars and is a big money-loser for the record labels. The revelation came during the first day of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, the first file-sharing case to go to trial.

Study: file-sharing leads to “chart churn,” helps indie acts
More albums from the independent labels appear on the charts, and those that appear survive longer than they had before. Releases from indie labels are still at a disadvantage compared to those from the majors, but the gap between them appears to have narrowed. Those who predicted that file-sharing would help popularize more obscure titles appear to have been on to something.

A Fistfull of DJ-Sets:
Pitchforkmedia Crystal Castles mix
Described by pitchfork as an 8-bit terror duo, which frankly I’m a bit confused by, Crystal Castles make the aural equivalent of a strobe light flooding. Using modified microKorgs, the toronto based group experiment with a sound palette rich in nintendo era bleepery though miraculously avoid the sort of gimmick one sees from that asian kid who plays the mario theme on piano.

A Bunch of Bootlegs:
Guns And Roses 7/12/88 Live In Nakano Sunplaza @ 224
Guns And Roses 02/02/88 Silver Bullet – Live At The Ritz @ 192
The Verve Boston Harbor lights @ 256
Johnny Thunders – Play With Fire
Radiohead – Black Session 1993
Weezer – DC Demos 5-27-01
Radiohead – Glastonbury 26-08-97
Blur – Live in Boston Avalon 11-02-1996
Amy Winehouse- The Astoria; London, UK 2-19-07
Amy Winehouse – Coachella Festival 27.04.2007

Movies

Speed Levitch’s The Cruise
The Cruise, director Bennett Miller’s timeless portrait of New York City, free thinking and the 1990s as lived by Timothy “Speed” Levitch. In eleven beats on youtube.

John Waters on the mainstreaming of gay culture
After decades of notoriety, can anyone be shocked by John Waters anymore? Probably not: This year has been very good to the one-time underground filmmaker who has seen his 1988 movie Hairspray turned into a Broadway smash, and in turn, a hit mainstream Hollywood film.
Waters is justly proud of the multiple versions of Hairspray. And yet, the man who made his cinematic reputation with a scene involving the consumption of dog excrement in 1972’s Pink Flamingos doesn’t see the difference between the family-friendly tale and his more … esoteric films.

Star Wars Rube Goldberg Machine
Using action figures, string, pulleys, balls, buckets of water, dominoes and other misc props within two rooms, these fans put together the ultimate Star Wars Rube Goldberg machine.

H.P. Lovecraft film may be next for Guillerma del Toro
Good news for fans of Guillermo del Toro – and after Pan’s Labyrinth, that should be all of you.
For it seems that after the great man finishes his current pet project, the currently-shooting Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, he’ll move onto another pet project: his long-awaited adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains Of Madness.

25 Moving Movie Moments for Men
Real men don’t cry, right? Heck, they don’t show any emotion at all. The average guy is a rock steady super-human, who, in the infamous words of Dennis Leary, is a “suburbanized slob” who likes “football and porno and books about war.” Indeed.
So, following that line, men definitely don’t cry during movies. Instead, it is said, at the most they get “choked” up. Getting “choked up” is infinitely more manly and far more accepted than crying.

Wallace and Gromit are to return in a half-hour television adventure – the first since 1995’s A Close Shave.
Aardman Animations has announced that the cheese-loving inventor and his loyal dog will star in Trouble at’ Mill – to screen on BBC One in late 2008. Creator Nick Park said: “The story takes Wallace and Gromit in a direction we haven’t seen before – both emotionally and technically.” Shooting starts in January at Aardman studios in Bristol.

Rocket-Powered 21-Foot Long X-Wing Model Actually Flies (Updated: Built-in R2-D2)
Andy Woerner and his crazy rocketeer friends have built a 21-foot long X-Wing model that can actually fly. Yes, this is a real X-Wing powered by four solid-fuel rocket engines complete with radio-controlled moving wings.

Dokumentation: The iPod History

Undersea Kingdom: Chapters 1 – 4
Undersea Kingdom (1936) is a Republic Pictures film serial released in response to Universal’s Flash Gordon. It was the second of the sixty-six serials made by Republic Pictures.

Design

The Propaganda Remix Project
475 remixed Propaganda Poster

Up, Down and All Around – 9 Brilliant Outdoor Ads
Everywhere you look, you are surrounded by advertising. So, being inundated with advertising what would make you stop and pay attention to an ad? If you are on the streets, something witty and playful may do the trick.

72 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena
These pages demonstrate visual phenomena, and »optical« or »visual illusions«. The latter is more appropriate, because most effects have their basis in the visual pathway, not in the optics of the eye. When I find the time I will expand the explanations, to the degree that these phenomena are really understood; any nice and thoughtful comment welcome.

Typografische Stadtbesichtigung in New York
This past weekend, Tobias Frere-Jones led a typography tour of lower Manhattan for the AIGA

Marilyn Monroe Lamp
Marilyn Monroe inspired lamp designed by the Italian Slide Design company.

Zion Design
Grafik Design aus Stockholm

Und so

Cup Nude
We all know that Japanese people fucking love noodles, but did you know they also love fucking noodles? Cup Nude is an “adult toy” purchased in a naughty book shop in Akihabara. Don’t forget the “flavor packet”, full of soothing “Gently Acid lotion.”

Be careful
The World is a very dangerous place. Here’s a short list of some of the many animals that may or may not pose a threat to you on a daily basis. Each animals name is linked to a poster that details the specific dangers associated with that beast.

Rambos im Krieg
Eine wilde Schießerei in Bagdad, zehn tote Zivilisten: Wegen eines Einsatzes in Cowboy-Manier hat ein Kongress-Ausschuss den Chef der US-Sicherheitsfirma Blackwater zur Anhörung geladen. Doch längst geht es um mehr: um die Privatisierung des Krieges.

Youtube: Peter Irish- Master Juggler/Juggling Video
Hacky Sack/Jonglier-Mashup

Web Celeb 25
The Forbes Web Celeb 25 is a list of the biggest and brightest stars on the Web. From penniless bloggers to geek entrepreneurs, these are the folks who are capturing eyes, influencing opinion and creating the digital world from the bottom up. Our list consists of people who are known primarily for creating or appearing in Web-based content. Unlike Hollywood, Web celebrity is about who links to you, how often you’re mentioned and what kind of traffic you can pull.

How Big is the Universe?
How big is the universe? Could it be infinitely large? If the universe has an edge, what is beyond the edge? And if the universe had a beginning, what was going on before that?

WTFCollective: So, what’s the future?
That’s right. The future of London. The future of you. It’s out there, but what does it look like? In this original collective, we’ll be bringing together cutting-edge, urban creatives who all have their own special view on our future.
Barclaycard have produced some fantastic vistas showing how London might look in the Future. The visuals were shot and illustrated by Jean-Marie Vives & Mathieu Raynault.

Welcome to Encyclopedia Of Stupid
All things stupid. May include this website.

Dragon-like Dinosaur Named After Hogwart
A dragon-like dinosaur named after Harry Potter’s alma mater has performed a bit of black magic on its own family tree, say paleontologists who unveiled the “Dragon King of Hogwarts” on Monday in Albuquerque. The newly described horny-headed dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia lived about 66 million years ago in South Dakota, just a million years short of the extinction of all dinosaurs.

die faz und das urheberrecht
kann auch sein, dass der faz das mit fremden urheberrechten scheissegal ist, denn die faz verkauft rechte an texten an denen sie gar keine rechte besitzt. sehr witzig (perlentaucher), bei der faz kann man beispielsweise die rechte an der nobelpreisrede von günter grass kaufen und wird aufgefordert den text folgendermassen auszuzeichnen: „Alle Rechte vorbehalten. © F.A.Z. GmbH, Frankfurt am Main“. mutig. wo die rechte doch bei der nobel-stiftung liegen die den nobelpreisträgern die rechte abkauft um die texte kostenlos für alle verfügbar zu machen. auch die dankesrede von günter grass.

New York Times: 9/11 Is Over
9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

Spiegelfechter: Quo vadis, Burma?
Die Sanktionen des Westens haben Myanmar keine andere Wahl gelassen, als sich noch enger an China zu binden. Der „internationale“ Druck auf die ASEAN-Staaten, die neben China die besten wirtschaftlichen Verbindungen zu Myanmar haben, wurde von denen mit dem Hinweis abgeblockt, man würde mit einem Boykott nur erreichen, dass Myanmar so zwangsläufig zu einem „Wurmfortsatz“ Chinas würde – was logisch erscheint, welche Wahl hätte die Junta in Yangon auch sonst?

Mindblowing: Flying to the moons of Saturn: Carolyn Porco on TED.com
Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco says, “I’m going to take you on a journey.” And does she ever. Showing breathtaking images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, she focuses on Saturn’s intriguing largest moon, Titan, with its deserts, mudflats and puzzling lakes, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice. Could one of these places harbor water — or life?

Online wie Offline. Zimmermann über Online-Öffentlichkeiten
In der aktuellen Ausgabe des Berliner Journals für Soziologie schreibt Ann C. Zimmermann in einem Beitrag über »Online-Öffentlichkeiten als Gegenstand empirischer Forschung«. Zugespitzt geht es darin um die Frage, inwiefern sich internetspezifische Öffentlichkeiten von massenmedialen Öffentlichkeiten (hier: Printpresse) unterscheiden.

Ermittlungen gegen alle, die die Internetseiten aufgerufen haben
Interview mit Patrick Breyer vom AK Vorratsdatenspeicherung zur Berichterstattung über die Berliner Demonstration, der Musterklage gegen die Speicherung von IP-Nummern und der Kampagne “Wir speichern nicht”

Q&A: The creators of Digg, StumbleUpon and Netvibes on Web 2.0’s future
Kevin Rose and Tariq Krim, the respective founders of online social network and news aggregation sites Digg and Netvibes, and Garrett Camp, founder of Web browser plug-in site StumbleUpon fielded questions from Jason Pontin, publisher of MIT’s Technology Review magazine.

Scientists: Life on Mars Likely

Not so long ago it was unthinkable for respectable scientists to talk about life on Mars. Such talk was best left to X-Files fans. But no longer.