Earth Must Prepare for Close Encounter with Aliens, Say Scientists...

UN should co-ordinate plans for dealing with extraterrestrials – and we can't guarantee that aliens will be friendly.
World governments should prepare a co-ordinated action plan in case Earth is contacted by aliens, according to scientists.
They argue that a branch of the UN must be given responsibility for "supra-Earth affairs" and formulate a plan for how to deal with extraterrestrials, should they appear.
The comments are part of an extraterrestrial-themed edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A published today. In it, scientists examine all aspects of the search for extraterrestrial life, from astronomy and biology to the political and religious fallout that would result from alien contact.

Hong Kong Researchers Store Data in Bacteria

HONG KONG - The US' national archives occupy more than 800km of shelving; France's archives stretch for more than 160km of shelves, as do Britain's.
Yet a group of students at Hong Kong's Chinese University are making strides towards storing such vast amounts of information in an unexpected home: the E.coli bacterium better known as a potential source of serious food poisoning.
Biostorage - the art of storing and encrypting information in living organisms - is a young field, having existed for about a decade.
In 2007, a team at Japan's Keio University said they had successfully encoded the equation that represents Einstein's theory of relativity, E=MC2, in the DNA of a common soil bacterium.
They pointed out that because bacteria constantly reproduce, a group of the single-celled organisms could store a piece of information for thousands of years.
The group has developed a method of compressing data, splitting it into chunks and distributing it between different bacterial cells, which helps to overcome limits on storage capacity.
"Bacteria can't be hacked," points out Allen Yu, another student instructor.
"All kinds of computers are vulnerable to electrical failures or data theft. But bacteria are immune from cyber attacks. You can safeguard the information."
They are also able to 'map' the DNA so information can be easily located. This opens up the way to storing not only text, but images, music, and even video within cells. -- AFP

Picture of the Day

Greece has the bigest merchant marine fleet in the world,despite crisis

The Greek owned fleet is the largest in the world as it was recently restated in the “Posidonia international Maritime congress” 2010 (www.posidonia-events.com) a festivity around maritime affairs that is being organized every year in Athens since the mid-60’s. The Greeks hold today 16.1% of world’s tonnage which is by far the largest international merchant fleet the world has ever witnessed.

Greece is way ahead than its nearest competitors when it comes to modernizing fleets. In 2006, Greece sunk a total of $8.7 billion in ship investments, followed by the Norweigens at $3.5 billion and the Germans $3.2 billion. Second to Greece is Japan, which manages vessels with a capacity of 183.2 million dwt, followed by Germany with 104.1 million dwt, China with 101,9 dwt and Korea is fifth with 44.4 million dwt.  

Why is it that members of a small European nation of eleven million people operate the biggest fleet in the world surpassing economic giants like Japan or the United States? And why would a fleet sailing under various flags and carrying cargoes for many nations is identified as `Greek-owned'? What does being Greek have to do with the operation of such multinational shipping enterprises?  

Don't use that story as an excuse...

Χάρρυ Κλυνν: «Η συμμορία Παπανδρέου χειρότερη από τους Τούρκους!»

Ο Χάρρυ Κλυνν δεν δίνει συχνά συνεντεύξεις, αλλά όταν αποφασίσει να μιλήσει προκαλεί… σεισμικές δονήσεις. Μιλώντας αποκλειστικά στο “newsbomb.gr” ο ανατρεπτικός καλλιτέχνης κάνει λόγο για εξευτελιστική σκλαβιά στην οποία έχει οδηγήσει το λαό η συμμορία – όπως την αποκαλεί - του Γιώργου Παπανδρέου και καλεί τους Έλληνες σε κοινωνικές εξεγέρσεις που δεν θα έχουν προηγούμενο. Αίσθηση προκαλούν και οι απόψεις του για τον Αντώνη Σαμαρά, τα κόμματα της αριστεράς, την Ντόρα Μπακογιάννη και τον Γιώργο Καρατζαφέρη.
Πώς βλέπετε τα φετινά Χριστούγεννα;
Είναι τα πιο σημαδιακά για μια εποχή πάρα πολύ δύσκολη που θα έρχεται και την οποία δεν υποπτεύεται καν ο ελληνικός λαός. Με τον καινούργιο χρόνο μπαίνουμε σε μια περίοδο εξευτελιστικής σκλαβιάς. Ο Γιώργος Παπανδρέου και η συμμορία του, εθελοντικά, μας μετέτρεψαν σε δούλους.

American Government Wants Private Twitter Information

U.S. officials are demanding the details of WikiLeaks' Twitter account, according to court documents obtained Saturday, a sign of the scope of the case the American government is trying to build against the secret-spilling website. The Twitter activity of other alleged WikiLeaks associates has also been requested by U.S. investigators, while the site's founder, Julian Assange, said he believed other American Internet companies may have been ordered to hand over information about his online activities.
Assange blasted the moves, saying they amounted to harassment.
"If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out," he said in a statement.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has ordered Twitter Inc. has been ordered to hand over private messages, billing information, telephone numbers and connection records of accounts run by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and others - including Pfc. Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst suspected of supplying the site with classified information, and Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic parliamentarian and one-time WikiLeaks collaborator.

You think he needs a new keyboard?

At Least 10 States Have Introduced Gold Coins-As-Currency Bills

Legislators in at least ten states have introduced bills in the past few years to allow state commerce to be conducted with gold and silver.
As we reported, Georgia state Rep. Bobby Franklin (R) recently reintroduced legislation to force his state to conduct all monetary transactions with U.S. gold or silver coins -- including the payment of taxes.
The Georgia bill has a long way to go before become law -- but it's by no means the only state that's considering a future in gold. Lawmakers in Montana, Missouri, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington have proposed legislation, mostly in 2009, to include gold and silver in its accepted currency forms.

Constitutionaltender.com, a site dedicated to tracking and promoting these bills, explains:

Fluoride in Water Linked to Lower IQ in Children

Is this the end of water fluoridation?
NEW YORK-- Exposure to fluoride may lower children's intelligence says a study pre-published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Fluoride is added to 70% of U.S. public drinking water supplies.
According to Paul Connett, Ph.D., director of the Fluoride Action Network, "This is the 24th study that has found this association, but this study is stronger than the rest because the authors have controlled for key confounding variables and in addition to correlating lowered IQ with levels of fluoride in the water, the authors found a correlation between lowered IQ and fluoride levels in children's blood. This brings us closer to a cause and effect relationship between fluoride exposure and brain damage in children."

Is Breathing Air Still Free?

I Can't Understand why the news presenters laughing...is so funny?

Reactivation of Stem Cells in Bald Scalp may Cure Male Pattern Baldness

Hundreds of thousands of men who worry about that bald patch on their scalps can hope for a cure, if  further studies confirm what researchers have found,  is the root cause of male pattern baldness.
According to researcher Luis A. Garza of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and his colleagues,  a genetic defect resulting in failure to convert hair follicle stem cells in the scalp into mature progenitor cells  that create hair follicles, might be the underlying cause of male-pattern baldness.
The researchers studied the scalps of nine men undergoing hair transplants and compared the hair follicles in the bald areas to those found in the hairy areas of the scalp. The number of hair follicle stem cells were abundant in the bald as well as in the hairy areas, but they noticed a deficiency in the progenitor cells  in the bald patch  which had .28% of the scalp cells as progenitor cells. Men with hair had 2.3% of scalp cells as progenitor cells. Progenitor cells are mature stem cells and are responsible for further cell differentiation to grow into normal hair follicles. The researchers observed that the hair follicles in the bald areas shrink and make hairs that are microscopic rather than normal hair.

Go home Πάγκαλε..

Σύμφωνα με την εφημερίδα "Πρώτο Θέμα" ο κριτής και γνώστης των πάντων Θεόδωρος Πάγκαλος πέρασε το βράδυ της πρωτοχρονιάς σε... σουίτα του "King George" στο Σύνταγμα αξίας 5.400€.. Έτσι είναι η ζωή.. Άλλοι δουλεύουν για 700€ το μήνα και άλλοι που δεν ξέρουν τι θα πει εργασία τα ξοδεύουν αλόγιστα σε μια βραδιά.. Συγχαρητήρια κ. Πάγκαλε.. Για ακόμη μια φορά αποδεικνύεται πόσο φελλός είστε!!

trelokouneli.gr

Apple Not Quite on Time in 2011

by Propaganda

Things are not starting in a celebrating mood for Apple this year as more and more people have complained that the Apple iPhone’s clock alarm had failed to do its’ job and wake people up on a fresh new year working Monday. The problems with Apple’s iPhone alarm started a few days ago when the company received some complaints that the alarm is not working properly and has failed to go off according to people’s scheduling. Apple reassured complainers that the problem will be solved until Monday morning but it seems that for some unlucky iPhone users the alarm did not go off this time either so many of them were late for work and started complaining on the internet’s social network.  Apparently the iPhone alarm did not register, nor distinguished the savings made by people during daylight in 2010.

US, Germany developing secret spy satellites?

OSLO — Germany and the United States are jointly developing secret spy satellites under the guise of a commercial programme despite opposition from France, leaked US diplomatic cables showed Monday.The project, named HiROS, envisions the construction of an undetermined number of high-resolution observation satellites capable of spotting any object on the planet down to a size of just 50 centimetres (about 1.5 feet), according to classified cables from US embassy in Berlin leaked to WikiLeaks and obtained by Norwegian daily Aftenposten.
The satellites will have the capacity to take infrared images at night and to send images much quicker back to earth than the satellites currently in service, the cables showed.
Due to the controversial nature of the programme, US and German officials have decided it should be presented as a civilian project with environmental aims, run by commercial entities.
But in reality it is "under the total control" of the German intelligence service BND and the German aerospace centre DLR, the cables showed.

Picture of the Day

Κύριε πρόεδρε της δημοκρατίας δεν ΑΚΟΥΓΑΤΕ τι σας έλεγε η Κυρία Μπενάκη τότε όταν αναλαμβάνατε?

Αν όχι, τώρα δεν αντιλαμβάνεστε την πραγματικότητα? 

12 Μαρτίου 2005 - Ορκομωσία του Κάρολου Παπούλια ώς 7ος Πρόεδρος της Ελληνικής Δημοκρατίας.

Αναλαμβάνετε, κύριε Πρόεδρε, την Προεδρία της Ελληνικής Δημοκρατίας για μία πενταετία όπου θα σημειωθούν σημαντικά γεγονότα και εξελίξεις:

"Η ευρωπαϊκή ενοποίηση θα προωθηθεί με την ψήφιση, ενδεχομένως, και της συνταγματικής συνθήκης, τα εθνικά σύνορα και ένα μέρος της εθνικής κυριαρχίας θα περιορισθούν χάριν της ειρήνης, της ευημερίας και της ασφάλειας στη διευρυμένη Ευρώπη, τα δικαιώματα του ανθρώπου και του πολίτη θα υποστούν μεταβολές, καθώς θα μπορούν να προστατεύονται, αλλά και να παραβιάζονται από αρχές και εξουσίες πέραν των γνωστών και καθιερωμένων και πάντως, η δημοκρατία θα συναντήσει προκλήσεις και θα δοκιμασθεί από ενδεχόμενες νέες μορφές διακυβέρνησης, ανέφερε η κ. Μπενάκη Πρόεδρος της Βουλής των Ελλήνων τότε.

Archytas of Tarentum-The world's first model aeroplane flew in Greece in 425 BC.

by Propaganda

Archytas of Tarentum (428–347 BC) was a Greek mathematician, political leader and philosopher, Archytas is sometimes called the father of mathematical mechanics.

While the flight of Daedalus and Icarus was probably mythical (opinion is divided), the feat of Archytas by contrast was truly revolutionary: in 425 BC he constructed the first flying machine in history. His "pigeon" (as he called it) was powered by a system of jet propulsion, and in one experiment it flew a distance of 200 metres. Once it fell to the ground, however, this machine could not take off again. Evanghelos Stamatis thinks it must have been some sort of jet-propelled craft driven by a compressed air system.

This, then, was an early application of aerodynamics, that is, the harnessing of the force of compressed air; and it is not a legend: Archytas' experiment is attested in literature and is a matter of fact. The inventor of the "pigeon" was an exceptional mathematician and engineer, an avid builder of mechanical constructions, and is held to be the inventor of the screw, the pulley and a child's rattle. He is also credited with an amazing account of a journey around the world in a hermetically sealed sphere! Archytas' "pigeon", which is chronicled by Favorinus and by Aulus Gellius (in his Attic Nights), represents the realisation of the Hellenic passion for flight. The world's first model aeroplane flew- if only for a short distance - in Greece in 425 BC.

SETI Institute-Internet Rumor of Inbound 2012 Spaceships Untrue

NO Spaceships Headed for Earth
Has the SETI Institute discovered three objects en route to our world?  Alien spacecraft that will arrive in 2012?
If you believe a widespread story now being circulated on the internet, and published by the ironically named “Pravda” [http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/22-12-2010/116314-giant_spaceships-0/], you might think so. 
But it’s all nonsense – it’s a rumor, a hoax, and a fabrication that uncritical web sites have reprinted without checking.
A few aspects of the story that are obviously suspect:

Magnetic North Pole Shifts, Forces Runway Closures at Florida Airport

The planet's northern magnetic pole is drifting slowly but steadily towards Russia -- and it's throwing off planes in Florida.

Tampa International Airport was forced to readjust its runways Thursday to account for the movement of the Earth's magnetic fields, information that pilots rely upon to navigate planes. Thanks to the fluctuations in the force, the airport has closed its primary runway until Jan. 13 to change taxiway signs to account for the shift, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The full article here