Archive for March 2004

Cash Prize for Space

Tuesday, March 30th, 2004

The X Prize is US$10,000,000 for the first privately funded team to launch three people to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles), safely return them to Earth, and do it all over again within two weeks using the same spaceship. The prize is meant to stimulate interest and investment in space tourism and may help advance technologies [...]


The Weak-Jawed Mutants

Monday, March 29th, 2004

Imagine that you are a new parent. Your baby is a strange-looking creature: obviously human, but with much more delicate features than the norm. At first you worry, but he grows into a [...]


A New Day, a New Mars

Monday, March 29th, 2004

First there was evidence of fossil bacteria in a Martian rock found in Antarctica. Next came confirmation of liquid water on the surface of Mars in the distant past. Now three separate scientific [...]


Population Future

Friday, March 26th, 2004

Most of world will live in cities by 2007, UN says (AFP). - UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Urban areas are growing so quickly that for the first time in [...]


Nine Lives are Not Enough

Thursday, March 25th, 2004

Cute CC is the clone of a calico cat and looks absolutely nothing like the original. This apparently is only a problem with cloning calico cats in particular, and other cats should clone more exactly.
Genetics Savings and Clones is now commercializing their cat cloning project. They offered to clone up to six cats per client [...]


MESSENGER Delayed

Thursday, March 25th, 2004

The launch of MESSENGER, the first mission to Mercury since 1974, has just been delayed until after June 30, 2004. The planetary gravity-assist flyby schedule has changed because of the delay. MESSENGER will now fly once around the Earth, twice around Venus, and three times around Mercury before entering orbit around Mercury in March 2011 [...]


Spinning Webs and Microstructures

Thursday, March 25th, 2004

Betterhumans has a story about a new technology for “printing” 3-D devices as small as one that could fit inside a human [...]


Mars - Liquid Water on Surface in Distant Past

Wednesday, March 24th, 2004

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell - “Eyeing ‘Eagle Crater’“
How beautiful the view is now…how beautiful it must have been then. NASA announced yesterday evidence from its Opportunity Rover of a salty sea in the distant past. The evidence is quite compelling. Even though the current rovers are not best equipped to look for signs of ancient and [...]


Building a Brand New Home in 24 Hours

Sunday, March 21st, 2004

Marshall Brain has suggested that in about 30 years we will be at 50% unemployment because of robotics and automation. He specifically predicted robots building our homes and structures in his “Robotic [...]


Science, Pseudoscience, and My Love of the End of the World

Friday, March 19th, 2004

I have a morbid fascination with Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. He interviews guests regarding topics such as ghosts, UFOS, governmental conspiracies, and end-of-the-world [...]