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Entry Protocols Update

Entry Protocols blog post has triggered strong reactions and so it requires an update.First, it was never claimed that pre-Event entries into the Resistance will happen. It was stated that they may, or may not happen. Entry protocols were given to the ...

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Dept. of Defense Agency DARPA Confirms Thought to Computer Technology Research

January 22, 2016 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

New effort aims for fully implantable devices able to connect with up to one million neurons

(Note from Greg: Implantable devices does not in any way imply mechanical or physical implants are necessary. Ex-CIA scientist Dr. Robert Duncan states in his book Project: Soul Catcher, wireless implantable brain to computer technology already exists and is in use.)

From DARPA's official website

outreach@darpa.mil

1/19/2016

A new DARPA program aims to develop an implantable neural interface able to provide unprecedented signal resolution and data-transfer bandwidth between the human brain and the digital world. The interface would serve as a translator, converting between the electrochemical language used by neurons in the brain and the ones and zeros that constitute the language of information technology. The goal is to achieve this communications link in a biocompatible device no larger than one cubic centimeter in size, roughly the volume of two nickels stacked back to back.

The program, Neural Engineering System Design (NESD), stands to dramatically enhance research capabilities in neurotechnology and provide a foundation for new therapies.

“Today’s best brain-computer interface systems are like two supercomputers trying to talk to each other using an old 300-baud modem,” said Phillip Alvelda, the NESD program manager. “Imagine what will become possible when we upgrade our tools to really open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics.”

Among the program’s potential applications are devices that could compensate for deficits in sight or hearing by feeding digital auditory or visual information into the brain at a resolution and experiential quality far higher than is possible with current technology.

Neural interfaces currently approved for human use squeeze a tremendous amount of information through just 100 channels, with each channel aggregating signals from tens of thousands of neurons at a time. The result is noisy and imprecise. In contrast, the NESD program aims to develop systems that can communicate clearly and individually with any of up to one million neurons in a given region of the brain.

Achieving the program’s ambitious goals and ensuring that the envisioned devices will have the potential to be practical outside of a research setting will require integrated breakthroughs across numerous disciplines including neuroscience, synthetic biology, low-power electronics, photonics, medical device packaging and manufacturing, systems engineering, and clinical testing. In addition to the program’s hardware challenges, NESD researchers will be required to develop advanced mathematical and neuro-computation techniques to first transcode high-definition sensory information between electronic and cortical neuron representations and then compress and represent those data with minimal loss of fidelity and functionality.

To accelerate that integrative process, the NESD program aims to recruit a diverse roster of leading industry stakeholders willing to offer state-of-the-art prototyping and manufacturing services and intellectual property to NESD researchers on a pre-competitive basis. In later phases of the program, these partners could help transition the resulting technologies into research and commercial application spaces.

To familiarize potential participants with the technical objectives of NESD, DARPA will host a Proposers Day meeting that runs Tuesday and Wednesday, February 2-3, 2016, in Arlington, Va. The Special Notice announcing the Proposers Day meeting is available at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/DARPA-SN-16-16/listing.html. More details about the Industry Group that will support NESD is available at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/DARPA-SN-16-17/listing.html. A Broad Agency Announcement describing the specific capabilities sought is available at: http://go.usa.gov/cP474.
DARPA anticipates investing up to $60 million in the NESD program over four years.

NESD is part of a broader portfolio of programs within DARPA that support President Obama’s brain initiative. For more information about DARPA’s work in that domain, please visit: http://www.darpa.mil/program/our-research/darpa-and-the-brain-initiative.

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What Most Doctors Won’t Tell You About Cholesterol

August 6, 2015 / Steven Laniers Metaphysical Directory - Main Article Directory / 0 Comments

Dr. Ben Kim, GuestDuring my university years, I used to frustrate my parents by throwing away egg yolks and eating only the whites. No worries, I thought, as my parents just didn’t know enough to realize that I was reducing my risk of heart disease by avoiding cholesterol. Looking back, I’m sure that my parents were wondering how I could so easily toss away precious egg yolks that they were able afford only a few times a year when they lived in Korea.Today, I am grateful [...]

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Nuclear Experimentation Year 70 – Playing With Madness

May 5, 2015 / Steven Laniers Metaphysical Directory - Main Article Directory / 0 Comments

Ethan Indigo Smith, ContributorThe recent “news” on the nuclear situation in Iran brings to light the madhouse of cards on which the postmodern world is built. Or rather, it would bring the madness to light if the major media outlets of the world were not bought up and sold out to the military industrial complex, and therefore completely misinformed on the actions and dangers of the nuclear experimentation industry.The story is not just about [...]

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Hubble’s Other Telescope And The Day It Rocked Our World

April 30, 2015 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

The Hooker 100-inch reflecting telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory, just outside Los Angeles. Edwin Hubble's chair, on an elevating platform, is visible at left. A view from this scope first told Hubble our galaxy isn't the only one.

Courtesy of The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science Collection at the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

Excerpt from hnpr.org

The Hubble Space Telescope this week celebrates 25 years in Earth's orbit. In that time the telescope has studied distant galaxies, star nurseries, planets in our solar system and planets orbiting other stars.

But, even with all that, you could argue that the astronomer for whom the telescope is named made even more important discoveries — with far less sophisticated equipment.

A young Edwin Hubble at Mount Wilson's 100-inch telescope circa 1922, ready to make history.

Edwin Hubble Papers/Courtesy of Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble was working with the 100-inch Hooker telescope on Mount Wilson, just outside Los Angeles. At the time, it was the largest telescope in the world.

On a chilly evening, I climb up to the dome of that telescope with operator Nik Arkimovich and ask him to show me where Hubble would sit when he was using the telescope. Arkimovich points to a platform near the top of the telescope frame.

"He's got an eyepiece with crosshairs on it," Arkimovich explains. The telescope has gears and motors that let it track a star as it moves across the sky. "He's got a paddle that allows him to make minor adjustments. And his job is to keep the star in the crosshairs for maybe eight hours."

"It's certainly much, much easier today," says John Mulchaey, acting director of the observatories at Carnegie Institution of Science. "Now we sit in control rooms. The telescopes operate brilliantly on their own, so we don't have to worry about tracking and things like this."

Today, astronomers use digital cameras to catch the light from stars and other celestial objects. In Hubble's day, Mulchaey says, they used glass plates.

"At the focus of the telescope you would put a glass plate that has an emulsion layer on it that is actually sensitive to light," he says. At the end of an observing run, the plates would be developed, much like the film in a camera.

The headquarters of the Carnegie observatories is at the foot of Mount Wilson, in the city of Pasadena. It's where Hubble worked during the day.

A century's worth of plates are stored here in the basement. Mulchaey opens a large steel door and ushers me into a room filled with dozens of file cabinets.

"Why don't we go take a look at Hubble's famous Andromeda plates," Mulchaey suggests.

The plates are famous for a reason: They completely changed our view of the universe. Mulchaey points to a plate mounted on a light stand.

"This is a rare treat for you," he says. "This plate doesn't see the light of day very often."

This glass side of a photographic plate shows where Hubble marked novas. The red VAR! in the upper right corner marks his discovery of the first Cepheid variable star — a star that told him the Andromeda galaxy isn't part of our Milky Way.

Courtesy of the Carnegie Observatories

To the untrained eye, there's nothing terribly remarkable about the plate. But Mulchaey says what it represents is the most important discovery in astronomy since Galileo.

The plate shows the spiral shape of the Andromeda galaxy. Hubble was looking for exploding stars called novas in Andromeda. Hubble marked these on the plate with the letter "N."

"The really interesting thing here," Mulchaey says, "is there's one with the N crossed out in red — and he's changed the N to VAR with an exclamation point."

Hubble had realized that what he was seeing wasn't a nova. VAR stands for a type of star known as a Cepheid variable. It's a kind of star that allows you to make an accurate determination of how far away something is. This Cepheid variable showed that the Andromeda galaxy isn't a part of our galaxy.

At the time, most people thought the Milky Way was it — the only galaxy in existence.

"And what this really shows is that the universe is much, much bigger than anybody realizes," Mulchaey says.
It was another blow to our human conceit that we are the center of the universe.

Hubble went on to use the Mount Wilson telescope to show the universe was expanding, a discovery so astonishing that Hubble had a hard time believing it himself.

If Hubble could make such important discoveries with century-old equipment, it makes you wonder what he might have turned up if he'd had a chance to use the space telescope that bears his name.

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New Development in the Controversy of the ‘Yeti’ Hair Samples — Here’s the Latest

March 17, 2015 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

In this undated photo made available by Britain’s Channel 4 television of Oxford University genetics professor Bryan Sykes posing with a prepared DNA sample taken from hair from a Himalayan animal.

Excerpt from theblaze.com

A new study that re-analyzed so-called “yeti” hair samples from previous research that had identified them as belonging to an “anomalous ursid” might have disappointing news for those who thought the findings last year meant a “bigfoot” of sorts was still out there. Yet, the author of the original findings stands by his claims.

Research published in the journal ZooKeys found that the hair samples said to be from Central Asia and the Himalayas belong to a known species in those regions.

“We have concluded that there is no reason to believe that the two samples came from anything other than brown bears,” the authors wrote in the study abstract.

After scientists analyzed more than 30 hair samples reportedly left behind by Bigfoot and other related beasts like Yeti, they found all of them came from more mundane animals like bears, wolves, cows and raccoons. Two samples were said to have been from an “anomalous ursid,” but new analysis suggests that the samples were from brown bears. (AP/Channel 4)

These authors used mitochondrial 12S rRNA sequencing on the same samples that Oxford University’s Bryan Sykes and his fellow authors used in their study published last year. The issue Eliecer Guiterrez, a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and his colleagues found with Sykes research was that his team used a fragment of DNA.

“We made this discovery that basically that fragment of DNA is not informative to tell apart two species of bears: the brown bear and [modern-day Alaskan] polar bear,” Gutierrez told Live Science.

At the time of his 2014 study, Sykes et al. wrote “[...] it is important to bear in mind that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and this survey cannot refute the existence of anomalous primates, neither has it found any evidence in support. […] The techniques described here put an end to decades of ambiguity about species identification of anomalous primate samples and set a rigorous standard against which to judge any future claims.”

And Sykes still holds his ground, despite the more recent findings.
“What mattered most to us was that these two hairs were definitely not from unknown primates,” Sykes told Live Science in light of the recent research. “The explanation by Gutierrez and [Ronald] Pine might be right, or it might not be.”

To NBC News, Sykes said that Gutierrez’ findings are “entirely statistical.”

“The only way forward, as I have repeatedly said, is to find a living bear that matches the 12S RNA and study fresh material from it,” he continued. “Which involves getting off your butt, not an activity I usually associate with desk-bound molecular taxonomists.”

Daniel Loxton, an editor for Junior Skeptic, which is produced by the Skeptics Society, told Live Science that people will continue to believe in and seek out yetis, bigfoots and the like, because they are”fascinated by monsters, and they’re fascinated by mysteries in general.”

Blake Smith, in a blog post for the Skeptics Society laid out the whole saga involving Sykes research and the more recent analysis by Guiterrez. Smith ultimately concluded that he’s “still convinced that Yeti and Bigfoot are not to be found in the forests and mountains of the Earth, but in the minds of people.”

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This Awesome 3D View Of Deep Space May Be The Best Ever

March 2, 2015 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

The background image in this composite shows the Hubble Space Telescope image of the region known as the Hubble Deep Field South. The boxes show distant galaxies that were invisible to Hubble.Excerpt from huffingtonpost.comAlong with Earthrise ...

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Yes, that 3D-printed mansion is safe to live in

February 13, 2015 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

WinSun claims that their new 3D printed five-story building is the tallest of its kind in the world.

Excerpt from

washingtonpost.com

Back in April, a team of Chinese construction workers used a 3D printer to construct houses. By day’s end, there were 10 standing. They were compact and fairly bare bones — nothing much to look at besides the “wow!” factor of there being as many as — count them — 10. But this time around, those same builders have taken the wraps off an achievement that’s roundly more impressive.

In Suzhou Industrial Park, adjacent to Shanghai, stands a five-story structure that the WinSun Decoration Design Engineering firm claims is “the world’s tallest 3D-printed building.” Next to it is the equally massive 3D-printed mansion, which measures 11,840 square feet. Like the previous buildings, the walls are comprised of a mix of concrete and recycled waste materials, such as glass and steel, and formed layer by printed layer. The company stated that the total cost for the mansion was roughly $161,000.

In a broader sense, this latest feat is yet another indication of how rapidly additive manufacturing techniques are advancing. Once used primarily as a means to quickly render miniature model versions of products, the technology has reached a point where large-scale printers are now capable of making life-sized working creations, such as automobiles, in mere days. For instance, it took less than 48 hours for start-up Local Motors to print a two-seater called the Strati into existence and drive it off the showroom.

Many of these designs, however, typically don’t amount to much beyond being passion projects meant to push 3D printing into new frontiers and drum up some publicity along the way. One example of this is the massive 3D Print Canal House that’s being constructed entirely on-site along a canal in Amsterdam, a process that’s slated to take longer and is less feasible than standard construction, Phil Reeves of UK-based 3D printing research firm Econolyst recently told CNN.

More promising, though, is a system developed by Behrokh Khoshnevis, a University of Southern California engineering professor. His concept machine, called Contour Crafting, involves a clever combination of mechanical cranes and 3D layering to print and assemble entire homes simultaneously — complete with insulation and indoor plumbing — in less than a day.

Assembling 3D printed buildings is quite similar to erecting prefab homes.

The approach employed by WinSun isn’t anywhere near that level of sophistication, but it may well prove to be the most practical – at least thus far. There is some labor and equipment costs that comes from trucking in and piecing together the various sections on-site, though the manner in which it all comes together is comparable to the ease of prefab assembly. It’s also reportedly greener thanks to the addition of recycled materials.

To pitch the advantages of their technology, the company held a news conference to announce that they had taken on orders for 20,000 smaller units as well as highlight some significant cost-cutting figures. According toindustry news site 3Der:

The sheer size of the printer allows for a 10x increase in production efficiency. WinSun estimates that 3D printing technology can save between 30 and 60 percent of building materials and shortens production times by 50 to even 70 percent, while decreasing labor costs by 50 up to even 80 percent. Future applications include 3D printed bridges or tall office buildings that can be built right on site.

WinSun did not respond to a request to disclose how they arrived at those numbers, but Enrico Dini, an Italian civil engineer and chairman of competing start-up Monolite, says that he suspects the calculations may be a tad bit inflated. Still, he emphasized that his own data does back up the claim that, compared to conventional methods, layering may boost overall efficiency.

“It would be very difficult to fabricate such large sections with traditional concrete casting,” he says. “With 3D printing, you have a lot less waste because you’re only printing out as much material as you need and you can custom shape whole sections on the spot, which can be a big challenge.”

WinSun’s 3D-printed villa has several rooms and has been deemed to be up to China’s national safety standards.

One major concern is whether these large-scale dwellings can hold up over time against the elements. According to 3Der, Ma Rongquan, chief engineer of China Construction Bureau, inspected the building’s structural integrity and found them to be up to code, but was careful to note that state officials have yet to establish specific criteria for assessing the long-term safety of 3D printed architecture.

And as Dini, who supports the technology, points out, there is the possibility that the use of additive manufacturing may pose some degree of risk. “The only issue is that as the layers of concrete are bonded together, they’re drying at slightly different rates and that’s not very ideal,” he explains. “So there’s maybe a higher chance of it fracturing at the contact point if there’s a strong enough force at play.”

Regardless, Dini says he’d feel completely safe going inside any floor of either building since construction materials used today are likely to contain special additives to enhance strength and resistance. One such formulation, fiber-reinforced Ductal, has been shown in some tests to be 10 times stronger and last twice as long as regular concrete. He stressed that walls should also be tested to ensure that other properties, such as acoustics, ventilation and thermal insulations are on par with existing buildings.

“In Italy, building standards are extremely strict,” he noted. “But I can’t say I can say the same about China.”

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Eight New Goldilocks Planets that May Host Alien Life Found

February 4, 2015 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

Eight New Goldilocks Planets that May Host Alien Life Found

Excerpt from utahpeoplespost.com
By Frank Smith

Scientists from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) recently reported that they identified eight new exoplanets orbiting their host stars in the so-called “Goldilocks” zone. Researchers also said that many of these objects have an increased chance to be Earth-like, rocky planets with a high potential of hosting alien life.
The “Goldilocks zone,” or the habitable zone, is a patch of space around a Sun-like star that allow planets orbiting within it hold liquid water on their surface if they also have the necessary atmospheric pressure for it. Most Goldilocks planets are Earth-sized so scientists hope that one of them may host life, even microbial forms of life.
The new discovery of the exoplanets doubles the number of known planets located in the habitable zone of their host stars. Scientists explain that the habitable zone implies that the planets within it receive as much solar as our planet does. Too much radiation and heat would boil the water on their surface and even blow away their atmosphere. Too little radiation would lead to a small icy world.
The authors of the discovery also reported that two of the newly found planets are the most akin to Earth than any other known exoplanets to this date. The two planets were named Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b after the space telescope that had discovered them.
Kepler-438b is located 470 light-years from our planet, while Kepler-442b stands in the constellation Lyra at a 1,120 light-year-long distance away from Earth. Kepler-442b is also the most remote exoplanet of the eight.
The two planets have also an extremely short orbit because they are very close to their host stars. On Kepler-438b, which has a diameter only 12 percent than the Earth’s, a year lasts only 35 days, while on Kepler-442b, which is nearly one third larger than our planet, a year passes every 112 days.
Scientists estimate that Kepler-438b has a 70 percent increased chance of having a rocky core, while Kepler-442b has only a 60 percent chance.
However, the two planets being in the habitable zone of their host stars is not a certain fact. For instance, astronomers estimate that Kepler-438b has only a 70 percent chance of being located in the Goldilocks zone, while Kepler-442b has a 97 percent chance of being a Goldilocks planet.

We don’t know for sure whether any of the planets in our sample are truly habitable. All we can say is that they’re promising candidates,”

David Kipping of the CfA and co-author of the discovery said.

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Elon Musk Attempts Landing a Rocket on a Boat

January 10, 2015 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

Picture of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands ready to boost a Dragon capsule on its fifth commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station. If all goes as planned, the rocket will land on a barge on Saturday.

Excerpt from
news.nationalgeographic.com

SpaceX chief aims to make rockets reusable by guiding them to a barge instead of letting them splash down.

Rockets have landed on the moon and on Mars, but now SpaceX rocket maven Elon Musk aims to land one someplace really exotic—a barge floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

The barge, or "autonomous spaceport drone ship" as SpaceX calls it, is scheduled to land its returned rocket on Saturday, about 17 minutes after the planned 4:47 a.m. (EST) launch of a Dragon cargo spacecraft heading to the International Space Station from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The point of the barge landing is to recover the rocket's expensive engines and reuse them. Until now, rocket engines have typically been allowed to burn up on reentry or plummet into the ocean, either for disposal or recovery later by boat. If SpaceX pulls off the barge landing, it will be a first for ocean landings.

The barge's landing site, just 300 feet by 170 feet in size (about 90 by 50 meters), will act as the outfielder's glove to catch the massive first stage of the Falcon 9 launch rocket, maneuvered into place by remote control.

"Our main mission is to get cargo to the space station," said SpaceX's Hans Koenigsmann, speaking last week at a NASA briefing. "I'm pretty sure it will be pretty exciting," he said of the attempted controlled landing of the 14-story-tall first stage of the rocket on a flat floating platform.

Failure an Option

SpaceX has successfully landed rocket stages on land, and made a controlled landing on water after a past cargo launch, which still led to the loss of the rocket stage in the drink. Musk has previously suggested that barge landings of stages would expedite their reuse, leading to cheaper rocketry.

Musk gave 50 percent odds of the barge landing working out. ("I pretty much made that up. I have no idea," he added in a recent web chat on Reddit.)

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Intention and the Rite of Disengagement

August 30, 2014 / Steven Lanier's Journey - Main Research Blog / 0 Comments

What we participate in is pretty much the name of the game. What do we spend our time, energy and intention on? What are we consciously and/or subconsciously empowering that’s leading to our own dis-empowerment? Where attention and thus intention goes, energy flows. Where is ours going, collectively and individually? Something to seriously consider on a continual basis in this massively manipulated energetic world.I’ve been blown away recently by the rapid rise in consciousness [...]

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