Carbon Dioxide Found on Extrasolar Planet

Are you interested in extreterrestrial life? There’s a good news for you. No, there’s no green creatures with antenna yet, but a prerequisite to their existence is found. Hubble space telescope found carbon dioxide on a planet in other solar system.

The Hubble Space Telescope has detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside of the solar system, a significant step in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Though the planet is more similar to Jupiter than Earth and is too hot to harbor life, the ability to identify organic compounds on other planets is key to being able to find other habitable worlds, and potentially life.

Nice job indeed.

United Kingdom Published UFO-Related Resources

If you are interested in UFO there is a good news for you: the United Kingdom government just released plenty of documents related to UFO. The documents contain information related to UFO covering the years 1986-1992. There are hundreds of megabytes of materials available there that will certainly keep you busy for pretty long time.

The documents are well organized. You can start with the highlights guide that will guide you to rest of the materials. You can also watch a videocast where a UFO expert explains the released documents.

Watch the First 24 Hours of Life

Have you ever wondered how life begins? Well, wonder no more. Now you can watch a video that shows you the first 24 hours of an embryo:

For the first time, it is possible to actually watch the initial 24 hours of the life of an embryo at the cellular level.

With a newly developed microscope that uses a sheet of light to scan a living organism from many different dimensions, scientists were able to track the complex cellular organization of a zebrafish embryo as it grows from a single cell to 20,000 cells.

This is interesting since the first 24 hours of an embryo is a stage where it’s still too small to be observed (normally). Thanks to the new technology though, it has now become a reality.

Hackers Attacked Large Hadron Collider’s Computer System

The brand new Large Hadron Collider was infiltrated by hackers:

Shortly after physicists activated the Collider on Wednesday, hackers identifying themselves as Group 2600 of the Greek Security Team accessed computers connected to the Compact Muon Solenoid detector, one of four key subsystems responsible for monitoring the collisions of protons speeding around the 18-mile track near Geneva, Switzerland.

Since LHC is perhaps the most expensive and complex scientific instrument ever built, this infiltration could be costly in the form of experiment disruptions. Some scientists were even worry that it could create artificial black hole though that is highly unlikely to happen.

U.S. Military May Create an Internet-Based Intelligent Machine

U.S. military may create an intelligent machine that will teach itself on the Internet:

Of the various possible types of AI, the “most revolutionary would be an intelligent machine that uses the Internet to train,” write the authors of a military-commissioned National Research Council report on emerging cognitive neuroscience. With so much information online and constantly updated, “If a system that reasoned like a human being could be achieved, there would be no limit to augmenting its capabilities.”

This is part of a report by National Research Council. It will be interesting to see how this initiative will lead to. With the exponential growth of technology, there is a danger that the “creature” will do more harm than good to humanity.

How to Create Your Own Nation - Like Pitcairn Islands

If you ever think about creating your own nation, there are many ways to do it:

A larger nation can colonize a smaller one and change the name, like the British did with Rhodesia. The opposite can take place; a colony can rebel against its colonial masters, like the Zimbabweans did against Britain. Another possibly less bloody method is to purchase an uninhabited island and secede from whatever nation owns it. Owning land offers more legitimacy to the movement, and since no one was living on the island, the new nation may see less resistance from the government it formerly belonged to. You, however, choose the land-based secessionist route, and this version of nation founding can require the most finesse.

This reminds me of the smallest nation (a British protectorate, actually) in the world that has only 50 people. The name of the country is Pitcairn Islands. Perhaps creating our own countries is not that far away in the horizon.

Smaller .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Size Thanks to .NET Framework Client Profile

Microsoft has good news for .NET developers: the size of .NET framework is reduced significantly by 86.5 percent from 197 MB to 26.5. It will simplify .NET applications deployment to client computers. This change comes along the release of .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1:

Microsoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Visual Studio 2008 SP1. These releases come just nine months after the release of the .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, and include a substantial number of updates based directly on customer feedback. The service packs continue to address the needs of the developer community by making it even easier to develop applications for the latest platforms, with new features such as the .NET Framework Client Profile for faster deployment of Windows-based applications, multiple enhancements to ASP.NET, and unparalleled support for database application development through the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and integration with SQL Server 2008.

It is .NET Framework Client Profile technology that enables the significant reduction of the framework size.

International Development Design Summit (IDDS) Aims to Help Developing Countries

Recently there was an interesting event held at MIT: International Development Design Summit. The goal of the event is to design technologies that can improve people’s lives in the developing country:

Using a bicycle wheel to thresh millet, making LEGO-like bricks from dirt, or hooking up an electric generator to an irrigation pump may not save the world, but such simple projects could go a long way toward improving the lives of millions of people living in the world’s developing countries. That’s the guiding principle behind a month-long summer workshop at MIT that wrapped up today. Its goal was to develop simple, inexpensive devices that can make a real difference for people and communities.

The goal of this initiative reminds me of Mohammad Yunus’s microloan initiative. The microloan idea seems simple but it has big impact. This initiative - hopefully - will have similar impact.

Stanford Study Shows That People Are Willing to Help Others

There is a good news for humanity: people are more willing to help others than what we usually think.

“Our research should encourage people to ask for help and not assume that others are disinclined to comply,” said Frank Flynn, associate professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Business. “People are more willing to help than you think, and that can be important to know when you’re trying to get the resources you need to get a job done, when you’re trying to solicit funds or what have you.”

This finding is interesting because it encourages us to be willing to ask. Since people are willing to help, if we don’t ask we will lose opportunities.

MIT Study Shows Ways to Reduce Fuel Consumption by 2035

Is it possible to reduce energy consumption without sacrificing the economy in the future? It’s challenging, but MIT thinks so:

…over the next 25 years, the fuel consumption of new vehicles could be reduced by 30-50 percent and total U.S. fuel use for vehicles could be cut to year 2000 levels, with greenhouse gas emissions cut by almost as much. But it will be challenging to meet those demands.

It will require not just developing improved and new engines, vehicles and fuels, but also convincing people that they don’t need to buy bigger, faster cars. Each step will be difficult, yet all must be pursued with an equal sense of urgency.

Developing future energy alternatives is a topic that’s always interesting for me. Between solar energy and fusion reactors, having abundant and clean energy sources in the future is the ultimate challenge of this century.