Tag Archives: REALLY!

Invisibility Cloak?

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Invisibility carpet cloak can hide objects from visible light

June 15, 2011 by Lisa Zyga

Invisibility carpet cloak can hide objects from visible lightEnlarge

When an input beam (black arrow) reflects off (a) a bump without a cloak, the bump causes a perturbation. When the beam reflects off (b) a bump covered by a cloak, the cloak masks the bump, and the reflected beam is reconstructed as if the bump did not exist. (c) Light after reflection from a flat mirror, a bump without a cloak, and a cloaked bump, at three different wavelengths. Image credit: Majid Gharghi, et al. ©2011 American Chemical Society

he researchers, led by Prof. Xiang Zhang at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have published their study in a recent issue of .

As the researchers explain, most previous invisibility cloaks have used metallic metamaterials for cloaking at . But at , the metal absorbs too much  and leads to significant metallic loss, and Berkeley and other groups have had to design dielectric cloaks at infrared frequencies. More recently, researchers at University of Birmingham (UK) have experimented with using uniaxial  as the cloak material, which can enable cloaking in visible frequencies, but only for a certain polarization of light.

to read more, go to:    http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-invisibility-carpet-cloak-visible.html

 

Bigger Ash Clouds Coming?

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Ash clouds? You ain’t seen nothing yet

June 13, 2011

The recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland upset airline bosses and caused a lot of fuss, but they were trivial by comparison with what could happen next, according to Clive Oppenheimer’s new book.

End of the Delusion – Climategate exposed the fraud But climate hucksters carry on – www.heartland.org

If you thought the Icelandic volcano was bad – think again. According to a new study, the recent ash clouds that grounded aircraft and marooned holiday-makers were “just a taste” of the widespread air pollution, public health problems and agricultural crises that future, bigger eruptions could bring.

These are just a few of the conclusions of what, rather ironically, claims to be a “non-catastrophist” new book by the University of Cambridge volcanologist, Dr. Clive Oppenheimer, entitled Eruptions That Shook The World and published by Cambridge University Press.

to read more, go to:    http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-ash-clouds-aint.html

 

 

Correlation-Roundup & Birth Defects

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by Lucia Graves

Roundup Birth Defects: Regulators Knew World’s Best-Selling Herbicide Causes Problems, New Report Finds

Roundup Ready

WASHINGTON — Industry regulators have known for years that Roundup, the world’s best-selling herbicide produced by U.S. company Monsanto, causes birth defects, according to a new reportreleased Tuesday.

The report, “Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?” found regulators knew as long ago as 1980 that glyphosate, the chemical on which Roundup is based, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals.

But despite such warnings, and although the European Commission has known that glyphosate causes malformations since at least 2002, the information was not made public

to read more go to:    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/roundup-birth-defects-herbicide-regulators_n_872862.html

 

Tiny Satellite Spies

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U.S. Army Wants Tiny Satellites as Orbital Spies

Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
Date: 25 May 2011 Time: 07:00 AM ET
The SMDC-ONE is a 10-inch long, 10-pound satellite that is the first in a family of Army nanosatellites that SMDC/ARSTRAT engineers hope to launch as a new capability for the war fighter.

The SMDC-ONE is a 10-inch long, 10-pound satellite that is the first in a family of Army nanosatellites that SMDC/ARSTRAT engineers hope to launch as a new capability for the war fighter.
CREDIT: Kari Hawkins/USAG Redstone

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The United States Army is making a serious push to launch swarms of tiny, inexpensive spy satellites, which would serve as eyes and ears for soldiers on the ground.

The move is an attempt to adapt to the changing nature of warfare, which increasingly requires small bands of American soldiers to hunt down elusive targets in rough, isolated terrain, such as the craggy hills of Afghanistan. The new satellites could help reduce the difficulty and danger of such operations.

to read more go to:

http://www.space.com/11771-military-space-army-tiny-spy-satellites.html

The first of these nanosatellites launched in December 2010, marking the first time an Army-built satellite made it to orbit since 1960. And many more could be coming soon, Army officials said. [Video: Defense Satellites to Watch Entire World – All the Time]

 


Nassim Nicholas Taleb & the Black Swan

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A book by Taleb, THE BLACK SWAN, sounds interesting and definitely thought (if not angst) provoking.

A few excerpts:

The Black Swan: Quotes & Warnings that the Imbeciles Chose to Ignore

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (April 2007)

For the last 12 years, I have been telling anyone who would listen to me that we are taking huge risks and massive exposure to rare events. I isolated some areas in which people make bogus claims –epistemologically unsound. The Black Swan is a philosophy book (epistemology, philosophy of history & philosophy of science), but I used banks as a particularly worrisome case of epistemic arrogance –and the use of “science” to measure the risk of rare events, making society dependent on very spurious measurements. To me a banking crisis –worse than what we have ever seen — was unavoidable and NOT A BLACK SWAN, just as a drunk and incompetent pilot would eventually crash the plane. And I kept receiving insults for 12 years!

Quotes From the Black Swan (written b. 2003-2006) that the IMBECILES did not want to hear

to read the quotes, go to:    http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/imbeciles.htm

 

 

Australia’s UFO Files – Lost

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Australia’s military loses its UFO X-Files?

Posted 2011/06/07 at 10:59 am EDT

CANBERRA, June 7, 2011 (Reuters) — Australia’s military has lost its X-Files, detailing sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, across the country, a newspaper report said on Tuesday.

After a two-month search in response to a newspaper Freedom of Information (FOI) request, which forces government officials to release documents of public interest, Australia’s Department of Defence had been unable to locate the files, the Sydney Morning Herald said.

“The files could not be located and Headquarters Air Command formally advised that this file is deemed lost,” the department’s FOI assistant director, Natalie Carpenter, told the paper. Defence officials could not be contacted by Reuters.

The only file Defence had been able to locate was a folder called: “Report on UFOs/Strange Occurrences and Phenomena in Woomera,” a military weapons testing range in the center of Australia’s vast outback, Carpenter said.

to read more go to:http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre7560x4-us-australia-ufo/

 

Monsanto At it Again

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Will another one bite the dust????

_________________________

Monsanto signs royalty deals with Argentine farmers

By Hugh Bronstein

Posted 2011/06/07 at 1:50 pm EDT

BUENOS AIRES, June 7, 2011 (Reuters) — Bruised by a lengthy battle over royalties in Argentina, U.S. seed giant Monsanto is asking the nation’s farmers to sign contracts promising to pay to use the company’s new seed technology.

A farmer sows soy in the Pergamino district of the Buenos Aires province October 29, 2010. REUTERS/Nicolas Misculin

Argentina is one of the world’s biggest soybean exporters and production is growing, making it a huge potential market for Monsanto’s new genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready 2 Yield soy variety.

The company, however, is wary of Argentine laws because its original Roundup Ready soy variety was never patented in the South American country — although it became ubiquitous — provoking years of legal wrangling with the government.

to read more go to:http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre75656v-us-argentina-monsanto-soy/

 

“Dumbocracy”

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I could not resist:

Dumb Politicians, Celebrities And Criminals: Reader’s Digest ‘Dumbocracy’ Suffers Fools Gladly

First Posted: 05-28-11 09:15 AM   |   Updated: 05-31-11 08:17 AM

‘s Memorial Day weekend, a time to remember some of the country’s heroes who have made this a great democracy. But when the Reader’s Digest gang surveyed the land from sea to shining sea, they found enough boneheaded behavior to make it seem at times as though we live in a “dumbocracy”.

You know who they’re talking about: dimwitted crooks, airhead celebrities and mindless politicians. Time and time again, these goofy citizens get away with — or at least try to get away with — the kind of half-baked ideas that make the rest of us wonder how common is common sense. (We’re looking at you, Charlie Sheen.)

“No one really feels sorry for these people,” said Reader’s Digest editor Andy Simmons. “People love to laugh at them. It makes you feel better that you’re not the only schmuck making mistakes.”

A full mind-boggling list of blunders, boo-boos and boners comes out in the magazine’s June/July issue. But while you kick back this holiday weekend, relax with a sneak peak and feel fortunate that you didn’t bungle your way into this group of clueless underachievers.

To read more, and see the images, go to /http://weirdnews.aol.com/2011/05/28/readers-digest-dumb-criminals-celebrities-lawsuits_n_867981.html#s284440&title=Dumb_Idea_Smart

 


 

UFO’s in California?

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UFOs Spotted Over California?

Benjamin Radford, Life’s Little Mysteries Contributor
Date: 01 June 2011 Time: 04:40 PM ET

A short night-vision video posted on YouTube depicting three lights in the night sky over California has been getting attention on the Web. The video was allegedly recorded in Oakland a few days ago by someone using the handle “KevinMC360.”

Was it a UFO?

Almost certainly, since KevinMC360 was unable to identify the flying objects.

Was it an alien spacecraft?

Probably not. [See the video here]

to read more go to:   http://www.space.com/11850-ufo-oakland-california.html