- CENSUS BREAKDOWN...03/23/00
- Computer Uses Cat's Brain To See...10/10/99
- Shuttle Finds Ancient Scottish Roads...09/26/99
- Drought Scofflaws Turned In...08/18/99
- Earth may have 'twin' somewhere...07/01/99
- Fearing Y2K panic, Venezuela hires psychiatrists...06/22/99
- Bar Codes for the Body Make It to the Market...06/21/99
- Archaeologists find base of statue...06/14/99
- Old footprints found in French cave...06/10/99
- Drunvalo: Children of the New Dream...06/05/99
- Bacteria can grow in simulated Mars...06/02/99
- Physicists observe first events at Asymmetric B Factory...05/28/99
- U.S. company plans to test 'flying car'...05/28/99
- Mystery along Mexico's coast...05/18/99
- DNA will help determine fate of 'extinct 'fish...05/16/99
- Companies seek chip implants to control staff...05/11/99
- Ice jam causes flooding in Russia...05/10/99
CENSUS BREAKDOWN...03/23/00
CITIZENS TELL SAM TO SHOVE IT OVER PROBING QUESTIONS; WILL PAY FINE
Americans from coast to coast are expressing shock and outrage over the level of detailed questioning from the federal government and the 2000 Census, with thousands of citizens vowing to pay fines rather than submit to the private nature of the inquisition, according to congressional sources.
"The census count is already breaking down," said one Hill source. "People are in revolt! Calls are flooding into our office... They are very upset about the intrusive nature of the questions, such as how a person gets to work, whether they have any disabilities, how many cars they own, what their income was and who they work for!"
The Constitution of the United States grants the government authority to count population, but a "long form" being sent to 1 out of 6 American households strays far from that goal; requiring answers to more than 53 personal questions or risk penalty.
U.S. Code, Title 13, Section 221 states citizens must fully comply with the census or face a $100 fine. There is a $500 penalty for giving false information.
Census officials received more than 600,000 phone calls on Tuesday, according to officials. The majority of the callers lodged complaints about the probing nature of the census questions.
And thousands of calls to Capitol Hill took staffers by surprise.
"It's a firestorm," said one congressional aide.
"Is this Al Gore's idea of 'reinventing government?'" one angry caller complained to a receptionist for a besieged senator. "I have to tell Washington how I got to work last week? In what type of car? And the location of my office? Screw it. I'll pay the 100 bucks!"
Congressmen on Wednesday were referring complaints to the Census Hotline [1-800-471-9424].
A cover letter accompanying the long form states that no one will have access to the information other than the Census Bureau. Yet many questions appear to violate a citizen's right to privacy:
10. What is this person's ancestry or ethnic origin?
11. a. Does this person speak a language other than English at home? b. What is this language? c. How well does this person speak English?
12. Where was this person born?
13. Is this person a citizen of the United States?
14. When did this person come to live in the United States?
15. a. Did this person live in this house or apartment 5 years ago? b. Where did this person live 5 years ago?
16. Does this person have any of the following long-lasting conditions: blindness deafness or a severe vision or hearing impairment? A condition that substantially limits one or more basic physical activities such as walking, climbing stairs, reaching, lifting or carrying?
18. Was this person under 15 years of age on April 1, 2000?
19. Does this person have any of his/her own grandchildren under the age of 18 living in this house or apartment? Is this grandparent currently responsible for most of the basic needs of any grandchildren under the age of 18 who lives in this house or apartment? How long has this grandparent been responsible fort these grandchildren?
22. At what location did this person work LAST WEEK?
23. How did this person usually get to work LAST WEEK?
24. What time did this person usually leave home to go to work LAST WEEK?
25. LAST WEEK, was this person on layoff from a job? LAST WEEK, was this person TEMPORARILY absent from a job or business? Has this person been informed that he or she will be recalled to work within the next 6 months or been given a date to return to work?
27. Industry or Employer -- Describe clearly this person's chief job activity
or business last week. If this person had more than one job, describe the one
at which this person worked the most hours. If this person had no job or business
last week, give the information for his/her last job or business since 1995.
For whom did this person work? What kind of business or
industry was this? Is this mainly manufacturing? wholesale trade? retail trade?
Other (agriculture, construction, service, government, etc.)
31. Income in 1999: Wages salary, commissions, bonuses or tips from all jobs;
Self-employment from own non-farm businesses, including proprietorships and
partnerships; Interest dividends, net income, royalty income, or income from
estates and trusts.
32. What was this person's total income in 1999?
Questions 33 through 42 deal with type of housing, whether someone rents or owns, and how many bedrooms, whether there are plumbing facilities, etc.
43. How many automobiles, vans, and trucks of one-ton capacity or less are kept at home for use by members of your household?
46. What is monthly rent? Does the monthly rent include any meals?
47. Do you have a mortgage, deed of trust, contract to purchase or similar debt on this property? How mush is your regular monthly mortgage payment on this property? Does your regular monthly mortgage payment include payments for real estate taxes on this property? Does your regular monthly mortgage payment include payments for fire, hazard, or flood insurance on this property?
48. Do you have a second mortgage or a home equity loan on this property? How much is your regular monthly payment on all second or junior mortgages and all home equity loans on this property?
49. What were the real estate taxes on this property last year?
50. What was the annual payment for fire, hazard and flood insurance on this property?
51. What is the value of this property; that is how much do you think this
house and lot, apartment or mobile home and lot would sell for if it were for
sale?
***
One out of 100 households are to receive an even more detailed questionnaire,
The American Community Survey. That form requires answers on "physical,
mental, or emotional conditions lasting 6 months or more."
Computer Uses Cat's Brain To See...10/10/99
By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse In what is bound to become a much debated and highly controversial experiment, a team of US scientists have wired a computer to a cat's brain and created videos of what the animal was seeing. According to a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Yang Dan, Garret Stanley and Fei Li of the University of California at Berkeley have been able to "reconstruct natural scenes with recognizable moving objects." The researchers attached electrodes to 177 cells in the so-called thalamus region of the cat's brain and monitored their activity. The thalamus is connected directly to the cat's eyes via the optic nerve. Each of its cells is programmed to respond to certain features in the cat's field of view. Some cells "fire" when they record an edge in the cat's vision, others when they see lines at certain angles, etc. This way the cat's brain acquires the information it needs to reconstruct an image. Recognisable objects The scientists recorded the patterns of firing from the cells in a computer. They then used a technique they describe as a "linear decoding technique" to reconstruct an image. To their amazement they say they saw natural scenes with recognisable objects such as people's faces. They had literally seen the world through cat's eyes. Other scientists have hailed this as an important step in our understanding of how signals are represented and processed in the brain. It is research that has enormous implications.
Artificial brain extensions
It could prove a breakthrough in the hoped-for ability to wire artificial limbs directly into the brain. More amazingly, it could lead to artificial brain extensions. By understanding how information can be presented to the brain, some day, scientists may be able to build devices that interface directly with the brain, providing access to extra data storage or processing power or the ability to control devices just by thinking about them. One of the scientists behind this current breakthrough, Garret Stanley, now working at Harvard University, has already predicted machines with brain interfaces. Such revolutionary devices should not be expected in the very near future. They will require decoding information from elsewhere in the brain looking at signals that are far more complicated than those decoded from the cat's thalamus but, in a way, the principle has been demonstrated.
Shuttle Finds Ancient Scottish Roads...09/26/99
Radar data gathered by the American space shuttle has uncovered a network of largely buried ancient roads on a Scottish island. Islay was the stronghold of the Clan McDonald, the legendary Lords of the Isles, from about 1000 A.D. to the early 1600s. The data came from a special type of radar that uses different wavelengths to produce images in different colors.
When they are combined, the images can reveal archaeological sites and landscapes buried beneath dense vegetation and shallow soil. The Islay roads are from 20 to 40 feet wide. "As soon as we'd processed the images, it was obvious there was something odd," says Gary McKay, a former NASA scientist who is working closely with the departments of geography and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. "At first we thought it was a natural river course -- but it ran across hills and ignored the local geological structure completely. It just had to be man-made." He and Mike Cressey of the university's Center for Field Archaeology confirmed the presence of roads that were invisible on the ground.
The scientists believe the roads date to the early Middle Ages. The roads surround the island headquarters of the Lords of the Isles at Finlaggan Castle and connect lead and silver mines at Lochs Ballygrant and Lossit to what may be galley ports at Fionnphort and Port Bhoraraic. That indicates that mining may have played an important role in the Lords' economies at an early date -- the Lords of the Isles were the predominant economic, military and political power in the Irish Sea area during the early Middle Ages. Ian Donnachie, a Scottish history expert with Britain's Open University, says, "My impression is that the power base of the Lords of the Isles was being consolidated in the 11th and 12th centuries, the time when these finds date from."
First known as a maritime kingdom that was started by Somerled in 1150, the Lords of the Isles declined in the 15th century. Until now, the earliest documented mines were dated back to the 16th century, after the influence of the Lords of the Isles had diminished. Donnachie adds that the radar technique involved in the discovery of the hidden roads "is really quite remarkable and has enormous potential" for archaeology. New radar imaging technology due to be carried on an upcoming space shuttle mission should provide even better images.
By Michael de Laine, Discovery News Brief
Drought Scofflaws Turned In...08/18/99
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. (AP) - The restrictions on water use in the drought-stricken Northeast are turning neighbors into snitches. Since the rules went into effect in Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania earlier this summer, calls have been pouring in to police and public works departments from citizens pointing out their neighbors' too-green lawns and too-clean automobiles. A woman in Queen Anne's County, Md., asked if it was legal for her neighbor to collect condensation dripping off her air conditioner for sprinkling her plants. (It's legal.) In suburban Washington, police investigated neighbor complaints of a man washing his car and found him dousing the lime-green Mercedes with bottled water. (Legal, just expensive.)
Earth may have 'twin' somewhere...07/01/99
(AP) - The Earth may have had a twin or even more planetary siblings when the solar system was born, only to lose them in the vast darkness of deep space, an astronomer says. These Earth-like planets are still out there somewhere, and despite their wanderings through the cold, dark void, they may be capable of supporting life, according to David Stevenson, a planetary physicist at the California Institute of Technology. Stevenson advances the theory in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. According to this theory, these extra Earth-like planets were jettisoned into deep space by gravity when they got too close to Jupiter or other large planets.
Fearing Y2K panic, Venezuela hires psychiatrists...06/22/99
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Recession-hit Venezuela, fearing the Year 2000 computer bug could spark public panic, has hired psychiatrists to design Y2K policy to fit the Latin American nation's "mentality," a senior government official said Monday. Withdrawing a little cash, and having some canned food on hand might come in handy if Year 2000 computer glitches cause temporary disruptions in oil-dependent Venezuela, Hugo Castellanos, head of the government's Year 2000 task force, told a summit co-sponsored by the United Nations. But Venezuelans are already jumpy about their financial situation, and any official suggestion of withdrawals would have people running for the banks, Castellanos said.
Bar Codes for the Body Make It to the Market...06/21/99
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 21, 1999;
Page A01
HOUSTON—Jordan Pearce stood before the Bank United cash machine, stared at a blinking light for perhaps three seconds, waiting quietly while a hidden camera scanned his eyeball. The machine's television screen spasmed once and opened for business. Moments later Pearce pocketed $40 and departed, just like millions of other Americans who stop at their local ATM to get money every day. Except that Pearce, 18, a rising freshman at nearby Rice University, didn't have an ATM card. Instead, he simply allowed the camera mounted in the top of the cash machine to examine his iris -- the colored part of the eye -- and check its characteristics against an earlier scan stored in Bank United's iris database.
Once the match was made, Pearce was free to use the machine. He needed neither ATM card nor identification number: "They told me about it when I was making a deposit," Pearce said. "It sounded pretty cool." The cash machines at Bank United, Texas's largest financial institution, have pushed the science of biometrics -- identifying people by their unique physical characteristics -- to a new frontier, transforming what began as a James Bond fantasy into everyday commerce.
Bank United's use of iris scanning, which is harmless to the eye, represents the first time a large private company has attempted to use biometrics as a consumer tool. Whether it's iris scanning, fingerprints, voice prints, hand geometry, face geometry or signature authentication, biometrics are rapidly becoming a cheaper, easier and more secure way to conduct business.
Archaeologists find base of statue...06/14/99
ROME (AP) - There once stood a colossus a giant's throw from the Colosseum. Or so think archaeologists, excited by the discovery of a huge hole and a slab of travertine during excavation of Rome's Imperial Forums. The experts believe they were for the base of an enormous bronze statue of a horse and rider probably depicting Emperor Trajan, who ruled the Roman Empire from A.D. 98 to 117, the newspaper La Repubblica reported Sunday. Archaeologists unearthed the site a short stroll from the Colosseum and only a few steps from Trajan's Market and Trajan's Column, a memorial just off Piazza Venezia, Rome's main, traffic-clogged square.
Old footprints found in French cave...06/10/99
PARIS (AP) - French archaeologists exploring a cave renowned for its ancient rock art believe they have discovered the oldest human footprints in Europe. The scientists found four footprints, which they say appear to belong to a young boy walking barefoot 25,000 to 27,000 years ago, inside the so-called Chauvet cave in the Ardeche region of southern France. Archaeologists studying the site said Thursday there was no way to precisely date the prints in the damp clay, but that carbon datings nearby in the cave make their case "very strong." The cave, discovered five years ago by an amateur spelunker, contains the world's oldest reliably dated prehistoric wall paintings.
Drunvalo: Children of the New Dream...06/05/99
When I went to WESAK at Mt Shasta the last weekend of April, Drunvalo was one of the speakers and he spoke about the Indigo Children....and the words shown below are almost word for word what he said about these children.
Thought you would like to see it too!!!
Much Love and Light to each of you!!! Date: Sunday, May 30, 1999 8:10 AM Subject: Long and absolutely fascinating on children
Children of the New Dream
Interview with Drunvalo Melchizedek
By Diane Cooper
This is a telephone interview which took place just prior to Drunvalo's travels to Europe in March 1999. Because Drunvalo was excited about so many things we chose to focus on one of Drunvalo's favorite subjects...children.
Diane: So Drunvalo...who are these "Children of the New Dream" that you are so excited about?
Drunvalo: Well there are 3 different kinds of children emerging in the world today that I have been able to identify. The first are called the "Super Psychic Children of China". The second are called the "Indigo Children" and the third are called the "Children of AIDS".
The first one, the "Super Psychics of China", we talked about in the Flower of Life seminars. If you remember, the first one was discovered in 1984 when a child was found who was psychic beyond belief. Researchers conducted every psychic test you could imagine and he was 100% correct every time. You could turn cards over in another room and that didn't matter. He could perfectly know what was on the card.
So Omni magazine went to China and wrote an article on this discovery. They found one child and then another. When they went in 1984 they assumed it was a hoax so they did experiments like putting 100 kids in a room and taking a book and randomly pulling out a page. They would crumple it up and stick it under their arm. These kids could read every word on the page.
They did test after test, and the response was flawless. The phenomena didn't stop there. These kids are not just in China. They have spread all over the world. I personally have been talking to parents who ask me, "...what do we do.. I have a kid who knows everything?" I believe Lee Carroll is calling the children being born here in the U.S. "the Indigo Children". I personally think the two groups are coming from the same source, however, I don't know that for sure. There appears to be two separate groups, incredibly psychic and amazing.
It is the third group that I am most interested in - the Children of AIDS. About 10 or 11 years ago in the US, there was a baby born with AIDS. They tested him at birth and at 6 months and he tested positive for AIDS. They tested him a year later and he still tested positive. Then they didn't test him again until he was 6, and what was amazing is that this test showed that he was completely AIDS free! In fact, there was no trace that he ever had AIDS or HIV whatsoever!
He was taken to UCLA to see what was going on and those tests showed that he didn't have normal human DNA. In the human DNA we have 4 nucleic acids that combine in sets of 3 producing 64 different patterns that are called codons. Human DNA all over the world always has 20 of these codons turned on and the rest of them are turned off, except for 3 which are the stop and start codes, much like a computer. Science always assumed that the ones that were turned off were old programs from our past. I've always seen them like application programs in a computer. Anyway...this boy had 24 codons turned on - 4 more than any other human being. Then they tested this kid tosee how strong his immune system was.
They took a very lethal dose of AIDS in a petri dish and mixed it with some of his cells and his cells remained completely unaffected. They kept raising the lethalness of the composition and finally went up to 3,000 times more than what was necessary to infect a human being and his cells stayed completely disease free. Then they started testing his blood with other things like cancer and discovered that this kid was immune to everything! Then they found another kid with these codons turned on - then another one - then another one - then 10,000, then 100,000, then a million of them - and at this point, UCLA, by watching world-wide DNA testing, estimates that 1% of the world has this new DNA. That breaks down to approximately 60 million people who are not human by the old criteria.
Diane: Is this new codon activation found only in newborn children?
Drunvalo: Well, it's mostly children, but now they are finding adults with it too - just like the hundredth monkey theory. Now all kinds of people are being affected by it and it's spreading fast. Remember, it started just 5 years ago with almost no one and now it's spreading - just like a disease.It's like an outbreak and this is only the beginning.
The other part of this concerns the new book entitled "Cracking the Bible Code" - which has to do with running the Hebrew Books of the Bible through a specialized computer program. If you go to page 164 of this book, it shows where these researchers put the word 'AIDS' into the program to see what would happen. When they did, the program translation provided words like "HIV", "in the blood", "the immune system", "death" - all the things you would think you'd see around the word AIDS, but down in the corner was this sentence that they didn't understand and it said - "the end of disease", and that is what I believe is happening here.
Science has stated that there are so many people showing up with this new alien DNA that they now believe that a new human race is being born on the earth today and apparently they can't get sick. Now what is really incredible - they believe that it is a very specific emotional, mental body response - a waveform coming off the body that is causing the DNA to mutate in a certain way.
I've sat with Gregg Braden who was one of the first persons to write about this and what we believe is that there are 3 parts to this phenomenon. The first part is the mind that sees unity. It sees the Flower of Life. It sees everything interconnected in all ways. It doesn't see anything as separate.
And the second part is being centered in the heart - to be loving.
And the third thing is to step out of polarity - to no longer judge the world. As long as we are judging the world as good or bad, then we are inside polarity and remain the fallen state. I believe these people (with the new DNA) have somehow stepped out of judging and are in a state where they see everything as one and feeling Love.
Whatever they are doing within themselves is producing a waveform that when seen on computer screens looks almost identical to the DNA molecule. So the researchers think that by the very expression of their life that these people are mapping with the DNA - resonating it - and are changing these 4 codons and in so doing become immune to the disease.
What they don't know and this is where a lot of research gets to happen is so maybe they are immune, but is there anything else? They might be immortal, who knows. Maybe there are other characteristics that we haven't even dreamed of. I often wonder if they are all linked together? Is there some form of telepathic connection that goes on?
Diane: Have you met any of these people? Are they accessible?
Drunvalo: Well, I've known about this for over two years and I have personally followed this path and I think I've moved into what they are doing. I have gone into the merkabah and asked my subconscious mind to change my codons in the same way and ever since I began to do this over two years ago, I haven't been able to get sick. I don't know if I've been able to change them or not. I guess the only way I'd know is with a DNA test.
However, I've been exposed to all kinds of things and when someone gets sick I purposely get close to them and try to get it. I've been trying to get sick - and I can't. I feel something come on - it will last maybe an hour and then it's gone.
What is interesting is that hardly any of this new DNA is found in the Super Psychic Children of China - almost zero. It is, however, being found in Russia and the U.S. There seems to be pockets of it and if what we are thinking is right - it has to do with a very specific response which is where most people in the New Age are headed for.
Diane: Do you think these people are creating the DNA changes unconsciously?
Drunvalo: I think someone has made the path - one child did it somewhere. Then he put it into the grids and it is now in the subconscious of the earth and is accessible to anyone. Once that happened I think somehow or another other people have connected to this on a subconscious level in deep meditation and prayer and made the change. A new race is being born and it is one of the most remarkable phenomenon that has happened on the planet! It's incredible that no one seems to know about this until now!
Diane: Well, you are the only one I've ever heard speak about this.
Drunvalo: Well, I've been tracking this for about 2 years and I've waited to say anything because I wanted to make sure it was real. In the book called "The Indigo Children" there has been extensive research on these children. There are websites you can go to if you're a parent where they begin to interview you about exactly what's going on with your child. Like I said earlier, these kids know exactly what you're feeling and what you're thinking. You can't hide anything from them. It's really amazing! I see it as a phenomenon like the ET's except they aren't coming here in spaceship form - they are coming here in spirit form making it personal by coming into the earth's evolutionary cycle and joining with us. I've often thought that when spirits come in on the right side of the planet - Japan, China, and Tibet for instance, the incarnating being takes on the psychic characteristics (of those people), and if they come in on the western side - the logical side (i.e., physical characteristics) - then the DNA comes in changed. But that's just speculation on my part. I'm just looking at this and trying to understand what is occurring.
At the workshops I'm going to do in Seattle and Denver in June, I'm going to bring everything I've learned together and teach people to actually access this and make the change. I think I know - or I'm very close.
Diane: And that has to do with putting yourself in a certain state of consciousness?
Drunvalo: Yes, a very specific state of consciousness produces a change in your DNA - and I think it's just the beginning of much more than that. The fact that it could be the end of disease is just a tiny bit of the total picture.
Diane: How would this particular kind of work and discovery affect the DNA activation work that seems to be popping up all over?
Drunvalo: Well, if you know your light body and you know how psychic energy works and if you understand the connection of the subconscious to all life on this planet, then you can go in and ask your subconscious. Your subconscious knows exactly which codons those kids have changed and if you ask for those things to happen through your light body and in the presence of God, it should occur. It also requires dropping polarity - no longer thinking in terms of good or bad, but seeing the wholeness and completion and perfection of life. It is a very definite mind, emotional and body response. The body response is the one where your body simply does not acknowledge good or bad, but sees that there is a higher purpose behind itall. We all know this stuff - everyone from Jesus to Krishna to Sai Baba has been talking about this for a long time, but this is the first I'm aware of where something actually is changing in the outer environment.
People's DNA is really changing. Barbara Marciniak talked about going to the 12-strand DNA, and I've talked about chromosome changes. There have been many of us who have talked about this - but none of this had been seen by science. Now it has been seen and it has been documented.
Diane: So, if that's the case, then what significance does that have on our lives today?
Drunvalo: I believe that all of us have the choice to follow this particular pattern that the children have set up or not. It is said that the children will lead the way. If we wish to and we trust these children, as I do - one of the side effects is the immunity to disease.
Diane: There are a lot of us who are choosing immortality. However, some people would say that to be immune to disease is also to upset the life/death cycle which has supposedly helped to keep the planet in balance. How would you answer that?
Drunvalo: Well, I just don't judge it. This is happening and if it is going to upset the cycle and it probably will in some way - everything that is occurring in life has a reason and purpose for it. Perhaps these people who don't get sick anymore - perhaps they won't even die anymore and maybe their consciousness is so aligned with the original purpose of earth that ultimately it would mean an earth that is whole and complete and not one that is polluted and deadly and over taxed. We could easily live with 6 billion people or 20 billion...if...we live differently. There is plenty of space and it's just that we are using our resources in ways that are killing the planet. If we were to choose to live in different ways, that might change. Maybe through these people the answers might become apparent. For someone to move into a state where they are immune to disease is a very powerful indication that they are definitely in harmony with life somehow. We can equate this process with the mutation of bacteria and viruses. We attack their systems with pollutants such as penicillin for instance, and it kills them all except for a few. Those few get stronger. Now what's happening is that these bacteria are getting to the place where they are immune to the poisons we are giving them. And have we not done the same thing? We are mutating to a point where we are not affected by pollution or viruses or by disease. And you know, there is another thing that happened last year - AIDS dropped something like 47% - the largest drop of a single disease in the history of the world. I believe that it had a lot to do with this very thing we are talking about.
Diane: That's exciting!
Drunvalo: Yes, it is. I just let the earth prompt me where to go. Of course, it is important to know our light bodies and how to use them, but the children are very carefully saying - come this way - and see where this leads.
Diane: So is this what your future workshops will be focused on?
Drunvalo: Yes. I will be putting everything I've learned in the last two years from my research and the Earth/Sky work, into a simple response where anyone can move into the place that the children accessed. I'll do my best!
U.S. company plans to test 'flying car'...05/28/99
(CNN) A U.S. aviation company is planning to test a revolutionary new "flying car" that will hover above the ground and could change the way people travel in the future. Moller International, of California, plans to take the so-called Skycar on its maiden journey in the next few weeks and could reveal it to the press by the end of the year, New Scientist magazine said Wednesday.
Physicists observe first events at Asymmetric B Factory...05/28/99
By David F. Salisbury (Stanford University)
Physicists working through the night on the new particle collider under construction at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) have achieved a major milestone: In the early morning of May 26 they successfully recorded the first events in the detector that surrounds the point where the massive machine`s two particle beams collide. These events indicate that the new Department of Energy facility, called the Asymmetric B Factory, is working as planned.
``Now that the B Factory is up and running, it can provide valuable evidence that will extend our understanding of the fundamental composition of the universe,`` said Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson. ``I applaud the contributions of the three DOE Labs and the international collaboration of 600 scientists from nine nations that built this particle collider and its detector.``
The collider was constructed by SLAC, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with $177 million in U.S. government funding. It brings energetic beams of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, called positrons, into collision at the core of a 1,2000-ton particle detector called BaBar. The energies of the beams soon will be precisely tuned to produce large quantities of heavy subatomic particles known as B mesons.
A novel feature of the new collider is that the two beams have different energies: 9 billion volts for the electrons and 3.1 billion volts for the positrons. This disparity greatly enhances experimenters` opportunities to extract new and interesting information about these exotic, short-lived particles.
The BaBar detector was built by scientists and engineers from 73 institutions in the United States, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Norway and Russia. It has cost about $110 million in all, with 40 percent of the total coming from foreign sources. Its goal is to study the phenomenon that physicists call CP violation - a fundamental difference between matter and antimatter.
``This is the first big step in our attempt to measure CP violation with B mesons and thereby understand why the universe contains so much more matter than antimatter,`` said Caltech physicist David Hitlin, the spokesman of the BaBar collaboration.
But it will require the observation of millions of B mesons before the scientists involved can reach any definitive conclusions about this elusive phenomenon. That is why so many physicists from around the globe have come to work on the B Factory, which promises to generate these intriguing particles in profusion. The first published results are anticipated by next year.
Bacteria can grow in simulated Mars...06/02/99
CHICAGO (AP) - A methane-making, oxygen-hating microbe is able to thrive in Mars-like laboratory conditions, according to a researcher who says the experiment raises fresh hope about the possibility of life on the red planet. The microbe, said Timothy A. Kral of the University of Arkansas, "grows just fine and dandy" in a simulated Martian environment that would kill most every other forms of Earth life. Kral said he and a colleague, Curtis Bekkum, created an environment in culture dishes that closely mimics the environment of Mars. The dishes contained no oxygen, but were bathed in carbon dioxide and hydrogen gases. The soil in the experiment resembles what is known about Martian dirt, with no organic nutrients.
Mystery along Mexico's coast...05/18/99
(ENN) Gray whales are long-distance swimmers, migrating between Alaska and Mexico, but 65 of them swam their last lap this year and died along beaches in Mexico. This is the highest number of fatalities recorded in 24 years and the reason is not known.
DNA will help determine fate of 'extinct 'fish...05/16/99
(CNN) Advances in genetic technology will allow scientists to determine whether a fish already declared extinct is still alive after all, a government scientist said Friday.The blue pike, once Lake Erie's most popular catch, was declared extinct in 1983, having been virtually wiped out by the late 1950s because of over-fishing. But a close relative, the walleye, is still around.Recently, a blue-colored fish closely resembling the blue pike started appearing in smaller lakes in Canada.
Companies seek chip implants to control staff...05/11/99
by Steve Bevan
The Sunday Times (of London) BIG BROTHER could soon be watching from the inside. Several international companies are consulting scientists on ways of developing microchip implants for their workers to measure their timekeeping and whereabouts.
The technology, which has been proven on pets and human volunteers, would enable firms to track staff all around a building or complex. The data could enable them to draw up estimates of workers' efficiency and productivity.
Professor Kevin Warwick of Reading University, a leading cybernetics expert, has been approached by several firms including a leading software company with a British subsidiary and Blackbaud Inc, the American software giant.
Warwick hit the headlines last summer when he had a silicon chip transponder surgically implanted in his forearm. He was subsequently able to show how a computer could monitor every move he made using detectors that were scattered around the building in which he worked.
In his experiment, Warwick showed how the system could also benefit workers by programming it to switch on lights, computers and heating systems as he entered a room - and turning them off when he left.
The technology is likely to have a strong appeal to companies with high labour costs, for which small increases in staff productivity can have a big impact on profits. It is also relatively cheap - just a few pounds for each person, according to Warwick.
"For a business the potential is obvious," he said. "You can tell when people clock into work and when they leave the building. You would know at all times exactly where they were and who they were with."
Warwick admits that people will be "shocked" by the idea of companies asking their employees to have such implants. He said: "It is pushing at the limits of what society will accept but it is not such a big deal. Many employees already carry swipecards. I think this is just a step on from that."
His research follows earlier experiments by companies such as the telecommunications firm AT&T that showed how smart cards carried by staff could be programmed to relay a worker's position back to a central computer. AT&T Laboratories in Cambridge has been working on its "smart badges" for two years. They use ultrasound to tell the main computer exactly where the wearer is, allowing their desktop computers and phone calls to "follow" them around the building.
The company has, however, stopped short of suggesting staff should have devices inserted into their bodies.
The first practical application of such technology is, however, not in humans but in pets. Under the government's new "passports for pets" scheme, which replaces the quarantine system from 2001, dogs will have a microchip implanted beneath their skin to identify who they belong to.
Representatives from police forces in Britain and the United States have also expressed interest in the implant technology, according to Warwick.
He believes that submitting to an implant could be made a condition, for example, of being granted a gun licence.
Ice jam causes flooding in Russia...05/10/99
MOSCOW (AP) - A Siberian town and the surrounding countryside was flooded after blocks of tumbled ice jammed a river, a news agency reported Monday. The jam on the Yenisei River was caused by melting ice piling up along a two-mile stretch as the spring thaw set in, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. The jam caused the river to overflow its banks, flooding the nearby town of Vorogovo Sunday. No injuries were reported in the town of 1,400, the report said. Demolition experts were brought in by helicopters to dynamite the ice jam so the river could start flowing normally again.