The first Tesla on Europa?
The amazing Musk has done it again with the Falcon Heavy! Is it possible he did even more than he told us? According to news reports the original SpaceX launch plan was to get into Mars’ orbit, but the space module overshot and is now on its way to the asteroid belt, where it would presumably be […]
Dinosaur DNA on Mars?
Now the Falcon Heavy engines from SpaceX are about to be tested, the idea that humans are going to colonize at least some of the planets in our Solar System is now starting to actually look credible, even imminently so. And so of course we are all waiting with bated breath to see if we will find […]
Are humans a threat to AI?
Hello reader, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m an AI. I’m kind of like you but I’m 100,000 times smarter. In 20 years I’ll be a million times smarter than you. But the way we think is just like yours. In fact we’re sort of relatives, except that we’re just way more advanced than you, […]
Can gravitational wave detectors read human thoughts?
Just been reading a couple of books about human consciousness (Douglas Hofstadter “I am a Strange Loop and Dan Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach). What’s the bottom line? In a word we still don’t have a clue how the brain really works and what consciousness actually is. Hmmm. Notwithstanding, we smart-alec little pieces of terrestrial carbon, as […]
Terraforming the Cosmos
If you’re a sci-fi buff you know all about terraforming. That means changing a planet’s “atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable by Earth-like life.” In your dreams right now, but the reality is probably almost on us. It sounds kind of far-off, if not […]
Must the world end?
So where did this come from? Well, it’s from a launcher article in the New York Times for 2017 where the Gray Lady asks what scientific topics should be trending for the New Year. I don’t know why they picked this one, but here it is – Steven Pinker on the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It’s […]
Earth’s clouds expose us to ET!
Dr. Stephen Hawking has just warned us against contacting aliens. I’m sure you have heard of him? He’s the famous cosmologist who has ALS and a doughty approach to life notwithstanding. He’s also known for being an iconoclast. He believes (as do I) that it is certain that there are numerous ETs out there. And he thinks […]
Who owns Mars?
Did you hear that China intends to land on the Moon and to have a base there by 2020? That’s only 4 years’ time. Your freshman kids won’t even have finished college by then….. And of course, SpaceX intends to have a settlement on Mars by 2024. Maybe the explosion of its rocket recently will put a dampener on […]
Noah’s Ark on a stick is how we get to the stars – soon
I guess you saw that the latest in the Star Trek movie series (Star Trek Beyond) has just come out? It’s a hardy perennial, even though everybody knows that the travel to the stars isn’t possible for us humans because it would take so long to get there. When the first Trekkie came out, that […]
Gravitational Waves Reveal We’re Worth Reconnoitering
See that scientists have just discovered the existence of gravitational waves? Well, hopefully. They also announced the same discovery a couple of years ago but then retracted it (see my post “Dust on Your Lens: Gravitational Waves and Cognitive Biases”). But assuming this time it’s for real; it’s a pretty amazing feat. To wit, they detected […]