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Raver32 writes:
SCIFI.COM announced the launch of a new 10-part series of Battlestar Galactica webisodes, "The Face of the Enemy," starting Dec. 12 at noon ET.
Two webisodes will debut weekly, leading up to the on-air return of the series on Jan. 16, 2009.
Each of the three- to four-minute chapters will complement and enhance the action broadcast on SCI FI and give viewers more insight into characters and events from the fourth and final season.
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Raver32 writes:
A team of astronomers announced they have discovered the smallest and potentially most Earth-like extrasolar planet yet. Five times as massive as Earth, it orbits a relatively cool star at a distance that would provide earthly temperatures as well, signaling the possibility of liquid water.
"The separation between the planet and its star is just right for having liquid water at its surface," says astronomer and team spokesperson Stephane Udry of the Observatory of Geneva in Versoix, Switzerland. "That's why we are a bit excited."
But researchers do not yet know if the planet contains water, if it is truly rocky like Earth, which might make it hospitable to life as we know it, or whether it is blanketed by a thick atmosphere. "What we have," Udry says, "is the minimum mass of the planet and its separation" from its star.
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Raver32 writes:
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic — and worrying — examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
"From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water," said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.
If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.
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Raver32 writes:
At the party's congress this weekend, party members had to vote on a motion that would legalize the uploading and downloading of copyrighted material for personal use, as long as it is not for commercial purposes.
"To many of us in the Left Party, file sharing is something positive in the same obvious way that public libraries are," the motion read, going on to describe the general opinion on file sharing in Sweden.
In addition, the motion stated that the various measures taken for trying to stop file sharing, such as big brother-like surveillance, or arbitrary sentences against individuals, are unacceptable.
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Raver32 writes:
The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites.
That's good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered June 1-6 to talk about "Solar Variability, Earth's Climate and the Space Environment."
The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual.
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Raver32 writes:
At the recent World Science Festival in New York City, Ray Kurzweil outlined why he is certain that the future isn't as dreary as it's been painted, and why we are closer to the incredible than we think: Exponential upward curves can be deceptively gradual in the beginning. But when things start happening, they happen fast. Here are a selection of his predicted trajectories for these "miracles" based on his educated assessment of where science and technology is at in the present.
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Raver32 writes:
Calgary doctors have made surgical history, using a robot to remove a brain tumour from a 21-year-old woman.
Doctors used remote controls and an imaging screen, similar to a video game, to guide the two-armed robot through Paige Nickason's brain during the nine-hour surgery Monday.
Surgical instruments acting as the hands of the robot -called NeuroArm — provided surgeons with the tools needed to successfully remove the egg-shaped tumour.
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Curlsman writes:
Goodbye from the STARTREK.COM Team
Sadly, we must report that CBS Interactive organization is being restructured, and the production team that brings you the STARTREK.COM site has been eliminated. Effective immediately.
We don't know the ultimate fate of this site, which has served millions of Star Trek fans for the last thirteen years.
If you have comments, please send them to editor @ startrek.com — we hope someone at CBS will read them.
Thank you for your loyal fandom over the years. It has been a pleasure to serve you.
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/2316633.html
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