Quote:Cassini spacecraft discovers ocean in Saturn moon

[color="#0000FF"]Slide 1: Nasa's Cassini spacecraft and Deep Space Network have uncovered evidence that one of Saturn's moons contains a large underground ocean of liquid water.

Slide 2: The discovery on Enceladus extends scientific interest in the moon as a potential home to extra-terrestrial microbes. It supports the belief that Enceladus is among the most likely places in our solar system to host microbial life.[/color]

Slide 3: Doppler Effect. Using the Doppler Effect and measurements from Cassini, scientists estimate an ocean about six miles (10km) deep, beneath an ice shell that is around 25 miles (40 km) thick.



[...]

Quote:Caroline Porko (sp?) - who from interviews reminds me of the blueprint/the inspiration for the awesome Capt Kathryn Janeway; there's certainly some facial resemblance IMO - was on the team that did the preparations/planning for the Cassini mission, I believe.

Quote:Is it a baby goat? Is it a baby sheep? No, it's a newborn 'geep'

Ewe what?! A rare birth of a goat-sheep on an Irish farm has led the animal to be crowned a 'geep'.



Stunned farm owner Pat Murphy said the arrival of the hybrid animal two weeks ago came as a "shock to the system" after generations of farming.

The cross-breeding was accidental but appears to have not hindered the happy and healthy young animal.

Quote:Could life have arisen on Europa? It's hard to guess until more is known about how life began on Earth. How easily did life emerge? Was it a miracle never to be repeated?

To answer that, you have to travel back in time to the beginning of Earth's history.



Steve Mojzsis: "Life must have arisen after the formation of the planet, about 4.5 billion years ago. But how soon after, how quickly after? These are questions that we are trying to answer from studying the geological record of the oldest rocks."



Steve Mojzsis is a geologist turned fossil hunter. To probe the earliest secrets of the planet, he travelled to Greenland, where a rare outcrop of ancient rock survives almost unscathed from when the Earth was young. In those rocks, he hoped to find microscopic traces of the most ancient life forms imaginable. During a field trip in 1995, he gathered a haul of sedimentary rocks, minerals that had formed at the bottom of the world's first ocean.



S Mojzsis: "The rocks that are the oldest sediments of all have been through everything you can do to a rock without quite melting it. They've been thrust up, regurgitated, ground up, heated, crushed..."

When he broke open the rocks, he found in them tiny mineral grains.

He suspected they might be the charred remnants of primitive microbes.



S Mojzsis: "It's a preserved kind of a time capsule, this little mineral."

Mojzsis put some grains into a machine called an ion-probe, which deciphers the precise make-up and age of the minerals. If the small lumps were once living things, they'd have a specific chemical fingerprint.

"We found out it was spot on. A veritable stamp ... of ... life that's unique to it."

But the real surprise was the age: the ion-probe showed that the fossils were nearly 4 billion years old.

"As far back as we can go, 3.9 billion years ago, there IS evidence of life, that life DID exist here. And it existed soon after the Earth formed. And that became something of a surprise to us."



It had been thought that the Earth was uninhabitable for nearly a billion years. But now it seems that life sprouted almost as soon as the Earth itself came into being.

[color="#0000FF"]"As long as life appeared here so quickly, then perhaps it's a kind of cosmic imperative, that life *should* appear as a chemical consequence of the evolution of a planet."[/color]



Life took hold *here* [color="#800080"](on early Earth)[/color], not in the temperate cradle of today's Earth, but when the planet was a steaming cauldron.

If life began so easily, then perhaps the Earth isn't so special after all.

If life began when the Earth was to all intents an alien world, what happened billions of years ago on the other planets? [color="#800080"](<- While it's largely speaking of our solar system in the specific context, the principle applies to any other solar system's planets too, of course.)[/color]



[...]

We now know that pieces of Mars have been raining down on Earth for billions of years. Could life have once travelled with them?



[color="#0000FF"]Chris McKay, NASA AMES Research Centre: "If life was present on Earth at the end of the formation of the Earth, well at that period, the impacts would have been much more numerous than they are today. And so material would've been constantly been/being knocked off the planets - all of the planets - and exchanging between the planets. So they could have carried organisms from one planet to another. The planets would Not have been biologically isolated. This material going back and forth would have been sort of like swapping spit between the planets."[/color]



(B-TP-7)

Quote:As the Sun continues to heat up [color="#800080"](over 2 or 3 billions of years from now, when the Sun is on its way to the Red Giant state)[/color], this little moon [color="#800080"](Saturn's moon Titan)[/color] will also come into its own.



Greek (?) scientist, Dr Athena Coustenis, Observatoire de Paris**: "It's the only other planetary object that looks like our own Earth. It's the only other object we know of that has an atmosphere of Nitrogen. And also we know that there is an organic chemistry taking place inside this atmosphere, and we have the creation of all those molecules that we find on earth. The only thing that is lacking is a little bit of temperature, a little bit of heat and a little bit of oxygen."

[color="#800080"][** IIRC, she came up with a way to work out the elements that made up a distant planet's atmosphere. Still spectroscopy, but the traditional technique used for starlight couldn't be applied directly, since planets don't tend to burn gas/don't tend to give off light of their own (we don't tend to see distant planets of other systems) unlike the light we see from stars/suns.][/color]



In Paris, Athena Coustenis and Chris McKay [color="#800080"][were][/color] studying some of the [color="#800080"][then-][/color]latest telescope images of Titan.

Chris McKay: "Right now it's very cold [color="#800080"](on Titan)[/color]. But it has all the ingredients to being a very nice place to live. In some sense it's like a pie frozen in the freezer, and when the sun gets more bright, it will warm up and bake, and have a nice water-rich environment, with a nitrogen atmosphere. And we know today that there is rich organic chemistry occurring in the haze in Titan's atmosphere. That organic chemistry could in fact be the seeds for life, so even if life from earth doesn't migrate to Titan, Titan could initiate life of its own when the Sun becomes bright enough to cook that pie."





Dr David Black, Lunar and Planetary Institute: [color="#0000FF"]"One of the things we've learned in astronomy is that all young stars have discs associated with them. Now we believe these discs are the precursors, the things out of which planets are formed."

How many of these discs of dust actually go on to form planets is unknown.[/color]

[...] [color="#800080"]<Planet Hunting segment. Back then they were apparently averaging one new planet discovered in our galaxy per month. Found from deduction/inference based on astronomical data, using method well-described long ago in CS-C.>[/color]



Dr David Black is chairman of the NASA "Origins" programme, a programme designed to search for the signs of life in space.

[color="#800080"]<Origins telescope - space telescope of NASA Origins programme - can show tiny images of planets, as dots>[/color]

But what can a dot of light tell us about another planet far away in the universe? Before the probe Galileo headed for Jupiter, it looked down on Earth to see if life could be detected from space.

[...]

Dr David Black, Lunar and Planetary Institute: "What Galileo [color="#800080"](NASA mission to Jupiter)[/color] showed us was that, in fact, these molecular signatures - that we think are indicative of life on the planet - were really there and you could separate them out, so it gave us some confidence that by looking for similar signatures when we look at the atmospheres of other planets, that we could maybe infer from those signatures that life was there as well."



The signs of life as we know it are universal. The combinations of chemicals on Earth could be repeated on any planet in space. And all of these chemicals are now identifiable from a distance.



[color="#0000FF"]Dr David Black: "And we'll be looking for things like signs of water in the atmosphere; carbon dioxide - which would indicate that it's got a substantial atmosphere; ozone, which says that there is oxygen in the atmosphere. And all these taken together, each one tells you something about the likelihood that the planet is either inhabited or maybe habitable.

If you can find methane, especially with oxygen in the atmosphere, it's a slamdunk - as we say in America in basketball - that you can conclude that life is on that planet."[/color]



And in the right place in a solar system, many now believe that the combination of these elements will almost certainly mean life.



Professor Geoff Marcy, San Francisco State University: "If you hand a biochemist [color="#0000FF"]a planet with a rocky surface[/color], with a temperature that's not too cold so that the water is frozen into ice, and not so hot that the water is evaporated into steam, but [color="#0000FF"]a temperature that[/color] - in the words of Goldilocks - [color="#0000FF"]is 'just right' for the liquid form of water, it will pool into lakes and rivers and streams and of course oceans. And the biochemists are unanimous that the laws of chemistry will take over. You'll end up with complicated organic molecules that we in fact would call life."[/color]



But we've yet to find a planet that falls within this Goldilocks zone, and is rocky and small enough to be suitable for life - like the Earth.



[color="#800080"]<IIRC, it here goes off into potential considerations like Jupiter's moon Europa? Forgot to check.>[/color]



(B-TP-8)

Quote:NASA discovers Earth-sized planet that may sustain life



By Josh Levs, CNN

April 18, 2014 -- Updated 0558 GMT (1358 HKT) |



An artist's rendering of Kepler-186f, the first discovered Earth-sized planet that may be habitable

STORY HIGHLIGHTS



* Researchers find an Earth-sized planet that may be habitable

* It "proves the existence of worlds that might be similar to our own," institute says

* Scientists are looking for emissions that could suggest extraterrestrial life

* Previously discovered worlds were larger than Earth



(CNN) -- It's like finding a needle in a universe-wide haystack. Researchers have located a planet roughly the size of Earth that could be habitable.



Designated Kepler-186f, the planet is 490 light-years away. But in the search for worlds similar to ours, nothing has come closer.



"This is the first definitive Earth-sized planet found in the habitable zone around another star," said Elisa Quintana of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute at NASA. "Finding such planets is a primary goal of the Kepler space telescope."

Photos: Where life might live beyond Earth

Photos: 2011: Searching for life beyond Earth



"This discovery not only proves the existence of worlds that might be similar to our own but will undoubtedly shape future investigations of exoplanets that could have terrestrial surface environments," the institute said in an announcement Thursday.



After spotting it, the institute wasted no time searching for emissions that could indicate the presence of ETs. So far, no emissions have been found.



The size -- estimated to be 10% larger than Earth -- and distance from its star don't just make for interesting factoids. They give scientists hope that Kepler-186f might sustain life as we know it.



Of nearly 1,800 "confirmed exoplanets" that have been found, approximately 20 orbit their host stars within habitable zones, where it's believed surface water would not freeze or boil. In 2011, NASA announced that Kepler had observed five planets approximately the size of Earth and in the habitable zone.



But the "previously discovered worlds are larger than Earth, and consequently their true nature -- rocky or gaseous -- is unknown," the SETI Institute said in a written announcement on Thursday. "On the basis of the observed dimming of starlight from Kepler-186, the authors estimate that this newly discovered planet is roughly the same size as the Earth."



Theoretical models and observations tell scientists that planets the size of Kepler-186f likely have a composition of iron, rock and ice, like Earth, Quintana told reporters Thursday.



Even if Kepler-186f is rocky, it's not necessarily habitable, scientists warned Thursday. First, a lot would depend on the atmosphere, if it has one, Thomas Barclay of NASA's Kepler mission said. And scientists right now don't have the technology to know what the atmosphere is.



The star's size -- it's an M-dwarf star, smaller and less hot than our sun -- also could come into play. Because it is smaller, the habitable zone is closer, so radiation could prevent life if the atmosphere isn't dense enough, said Victoria Meadows of the University of Washington Virtual Planetary Laboratory.



But the Webb space-based telescope, now under construction, should be able to gather images of planets around closer dwarf stars and study their atmospheres.



Scientists are especially keen about checking dwarf stars because their habitable planets are more easily detectable, and because they are the most abundant type of star in our galaxy, Barclay said.



For researchers, the discovery of Kepler-186f is like a beginning. It's a first but "not a record we wish to keep," Quintana said. "We want to find more of these."



It's likely they will. Astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Hawaii, using data from Kepler, estimate there are tens of billions of Earth-size, possibly habitable planets in our Milky Way galaxy.



CNN's Jason Hanna contributed to this report.

Quote:Theoretical models and observations tell scientists that planets the size of Kepler-186f likely have a composition of iron, rock and ice, like Earth, Quintana told reporters Thursday.

Quote:Even if Kepler-186f is rocky, it's not necessarily habitable, scientists warned Thursday. First, a lot would depend on the atmosphere, if it has one, Thomas Barclay of NASA's Kepler mission said. And scientists right now don't have the technology to know what the atmosphere is.

The star's size -- it's an M-dwarf star, smaller and less hot than our sun -- also could come into play. Because it is smaller, the habitable zone is closer, so radiation could prevent life if the atmosphere isn't dense enough, said Victoria Meadows of the University of Washington Virtual Planetary Laboratory.

Quote:But how much can be found out about these other worlds? With Michel Mayor, Athena Coustenis [color="#800080"][Observatoire de Paris][/color] is looking at extraordinary new data from 51 Pegasus [color="#800080"][constellation or something where an early planet discovery was made][/color]. She has developed a new technique that identifies the chemical make-up of the star's planet, something that was previously thought impossible to measure from such a distance.



Michel Mayor: "Three years ago, we had absolutely no idea that we can have access to the chemistry of a planet. Sometimes science is exciting."

Athena Coustenis: "The idea we had was to use the star itself to push forward its planet and tell us something about what its planet is made of."



They cannot see the planet itself, but they can see changes in the light from the star.



Michel: "The interaction between the wind of the star [color="#800080"][its stellar/solar wind][/color] and the atmosphere of the planet create a big tail flowing away from the planet [color="#800080"][similar to comet tails][/color], and IF the line of sight goes through this tail, you have access to the chemistry of the planet."





By analysing the changing spectroscopy of light from the star, they hope to find out exactly what the [color="#FF0000"]atmosphere[/color] of the planet is made of.



(BTP-8)

Quote:[color="#0000FF"]NASA discovers Earth-sized planet that may sustain life[/color]



April 18, 2014 -- Updated 0558 GMT (1358 HKT) |



STORY HIGHLIGHTS



[color="#0000FF"]* Researchers find an Earth-sized planet that may be habitable

* It "proves the existence of worlds that might be similar to our own," institute says

* Scientists are looking for emissions that could suggest extraterrestrial life[/color]

* Previously discovered worlds were larger than Earth

Quote:Since Coustenis and Mayor some 1.5 decades ago already came up with what sounds to me like a reasonable method that could potentially tell us about the chemical composition of an exo-planet's atmosphere, is there a reason that - as per the CNN article further in this post - we don't know much/anything/sufficient info about the promising new planet's atmosphere and how habitable or not it may be for surface-dwelling earthlings?

Quote:Michel: "The interaction between the wind of the star [its stellar/solar wind] and the atmosphere of the planet create a big tail flowing away from the planet [similar to comet tails], and IF the line of sight goes through this tail, you have access to the chemistry of the planet."

Quote:2 April 2014 Last updated at 01:22



Modern lions' origin revealed by genetic analysis

By Matt Walker



Editor, BBC Nature

[image caption:] Not all lions are equal





Unravelling the history of the lion has been difficult. Animals living in tropical areas tend to leave fewer fossilised remains behind.



Lions have also been persecuted during their recent history, with whole populations being wiped out by human activity.



Such gaps in the fossil record, and in the distribution of lions, makes it difficult to reconstruct their past.





So an international team of scientists turned to the ancient DNA within lion specimens held in collections and museums around the world.



Led by Dr Ross Barnett of Durham University, UK, the team sequenced mitochondrial DNA from museum-held specimens, including from different subspecies, including the extinct Barbary lion of North Africa, the extinct Iranian lion, and lions from Central and West Africa.



The researchers compared these with genetic sequences drawn from other lions living in Asia, and across other parts of Africa, and then worked out how the different subspecies of lion evolved.



The study revealed that the single species of lion that persists today, Panthera leo, first appeared in Eastern-Southern Africa, supporting the conclusions of earlier research.



Around 124,000 years ago, in the Late Pleistocene, different subspecies began to evolve.





Around that time, tropical rainforests expanded across equatorial Africa, and the Sahara region turned to savannah.



Lions living in the south and east of the continent became separated from, and began to diverge from, those living in the west and north.



The genetic differences between these two groups of lions remain today.



[color="#0000FF"]Around 51,000 years ago, the continent dried and the Sahara expanded, cutting off lions in the west from those in the north.



At the same time, lions in the west expanded their range into Central Africa, which became more inhabitable.



Since then, Africa's great rivers, including the Nile and Niger, have helped keep these lions apart.



Another detail only revealed by the study of ancient DNA in specimens, is that modern lions began their exodus out of Africa just 21,000 years ago.



At the end of the Pleistocene, lions left North Africa, eventually reaching as far as India.[/color]



[color="#800080"][Refresher from wackypedia: "The Pleistocene (symbol PS[1]) is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world's recent period of repeated glaciations."

whereas we're living in the subsequent, current, interglacial period:

"The Holocene /ˈhɒlɵsiːn/ is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene[1] (at 11,700 calendar years BP) [2] and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words ὅλος (holos, whole or entire) and καινός (kainos, new), meaning "entirely recent".[3] It has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1 and based on that past evidence, can be considered an interglacial in the current ice age."][/color]



[color="#0000FF"]Much later, just around 5,000 years ago, another group of lions left the continent, reaching what is today Iran, in the Middle East. These lions are now extinct.[/color]



[color="#800080"](So having wandered all the way to India from Africa, some more wandered all the way to Iran from Africa again thousands of years later. But then, it's not like humans were the first to ever make such large treks. We just marvel at ours more.)[/color]



These discoveries may have important implications for the conservation of modern lions.



[color="#0000FF"]Fewer than 400 Asian lions (P. leo persica) survive, living on the Kathiawar Peninsula of India, with the subspecies listed as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.[/color]

[color="#800080"](Did notice long ago that Indian lions look different - esp in terms of skull structure - to the usual kind of African lions I've seen in docos.)[/color]



[color="#0000FF"]"Lion populations in West Africa and Central Africa, which have drastically declined over the past few decades, are actually more closely related to the Indian lion than to lions in, say, Somalia or Botswana," Dr Barnett told BBC Nature.[/color]



Despite the large geographical distances between them, these lions also seem closely related to Iranian lions and the Barbary lions of North Africa.





"I was most surprised by the incredibly close relationship between the extinct Barbary lion from North Africa and the extant Asian lion from India," said Dr Barnett.





[color="#800080"]image caption:[/color] A possible Barbary lion once living in Leipzig Zoo, Germany.



The Barbary lion is one of the most enigmatic of all large predators, both due to its impressive appearance and uncertainty over its fate.



Once numerous across North Africa, the Barbary lion was the most physically distinctive type of lion, including those living elsewhere in Africa and Asia.



It had an extensive mane, and differences in the shape of its head included a more pointed crown and narrow muzzle. People at the time also talked of it being larger, with different coloured eyes to other lions, though it is unclear whether either difference was real.



It remains uncertain whether any Barbary lions exist today, and conservationists have talked of resurrecting the subspecies.



Circumstantial evidence suggested some may have survived in captivity, as part of a collection held by the royal family of Morocco.



But previous research and that by Dr Barnett's team suggests there were not in fact true Barbary lions.



If so, and Barbary lions are in fact extinct, then the new study suggests that closely-related Indian lions could be reintroduced to their habitat, as a way to best restore lions to North Africa.



"This has implications for any future attempts to reintroduce lions into North Africa," said Dr Barnett. "They could probably be re-seeded with Indian lions."

[color="#800080"](Hey, no kidnapping Indian lions to transplant them to Africa. Indian lions are rare themselves and need to be preserved/grow in numbers in their own homeland.)[/color]



Around a third of African lions are thought have disappeared in the past 20 years.



Of special concern, say Dr Barnett and colleagues, are West and Central African lions, which may be close to extinction in the wild, with around 400-800 and 900 lions living in each region respectively.



Relatively few lions of these subspecies are held within zoos for conservation.



"If you think of lion diversity as two distinct branches then the regions where lions are doing ok, in Eastern and Southern Africa, reflect only half the total diversity," said Dr Barnett.



"The other half is represented by the diversity in India, West Africa, and Central Africa.



"If the West and Central African populations were to slip away, that whole branch would only survive in the tiny Indian lion population."

Quote:The lions of London

Two Barbary lions once held in Britain's Tower of London have helped reveal the origin of modern lions.

The skulls of these lions were discovered preserved in the Tower's moat.

Dated as living in the 14th and 15th Centuries, they are the earliest recorded lions in the British Isles since the extinction of the Pleistocene cave lion.

Around just a dozen confirmed Barbary lions skulls are known anywhere in the world.

DNA from the two skulls helped scientists establish the close link between Barbary lions and those living in India.

Quote:Research article

Revealing the maternal demographic history of Panthera leo using ancient DNA and a spatially explicit genealogical analysis

Ross Barnett19*, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi2, Beth Shapiro3, Simon YW Ho4, Ian Barnes5, Richard Sabin6, Lars Werdelin7, Jacques Cuisin8 and Greger Larson1



* Corresponding author: Ross Barnett drrossbarnett@gmail.com



Abstract

Background

Understanding the demographic history of a population is critical to conservation and to our broader understanding of evolutionary processes. For many tropical large mammals, however, this aim is confounded by the absence of fossil material and by the misleading signal obtained from genetic data of recently fragmented and isolated populations. This is particularly true for the lion which as a consequence of millennia of human persecution, has large gaps in its natural distribution and several recently extinct populations.



Results

We sequenced mitochondrial DNA from museum-preserved individuals, including the extinct Barbary lion (Panthera leo leo) and Iranian lion (P. l. persica), as well as lions from West and Central Africa. We added these to a broader sample of lion sequences, resulting in a data set spanning the historical range of lions. Our Bayesian phylogeographical analyses provide evidence for highly supported, reciprocally monophyletic lion clades. Using a molecular clock, we estimated that recent lion lineages began to diverge in the Late Pleistocene. Expanding equatorial rainforest probably separated lions in South and East Africa from other populations. West African lions then expanded into Central Africa during periods of rainforest contraction. Lastly, we found evidence of two separate incursions into Asia from North Africa, first into India and later into the Middle East.



Conclusions

We have identified deep, well-supported splits within the mitochondrial phylogeny of African lions, arguing for recognition of some regional populations as worthy of independent conservation. More morphological and nuclear DNA data are now needed to test these subdivisions.



Keywords: Barbary lion; Panthera leo; Extinction; Mitochondrial DNA; Ancient DNA; Phylogeography

Quote:Our universe may be a Matrix-like computer game designed by aliens, says NASA scientist

WELCOME to The Matrix. You've lived here all your life.



By Aaron Brown

PUBLISHED: 09:28, Mon, May 11, 2015 | UPDATED: 09:30, Mon, May 11, 2015





Everything you have ever done or will do could simply be the product of a highly-advanced computer code.



Every relationship, every sentiment, every memory could have been generated by banks of supercomputers.



This was the terrifying theory first proposed by British philosopher Nick Bostrom.

(Uh? Even considering all things western alone, the Matrix movie preceded the IIRC 2003 paper of Bostrom. Oh wait, I'm anticipating the article text



The shocking hypothesis was penned four years after Andrew and Lana Wachowski wrote and directed The Matrix, a film set in a dystopian future in which humans are subdued by a simulated reality.



In his paper, Dr Bostrom suggested a race of far-evolved descendants could be behind our digital imprisonment.



The futuristic beings – human or otherwise – could be using virtual reality to simulate a time in the past or recreate how their remote ancestors lived.



Sound crazy? Well, it turns out NASA thinks Dr Bostrom might be right.



GETTY: The Standard Model of Physics does not yet hold an explanation for the force of gravity



Many theorists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you explain this



Rich Terrile, director at NASA



Rich Terrile, director of the Centre for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has spoken out about the digital simulation.



"Right now the fastest NASA supercomputers are cranking away at about double the speed of the human brain," the NASA scientist told Vice.



"If you make a simple calculation using Moore's Law [which roughly claims computers double in power every two years], you'll find that these supercomputers, inside of a decade, will have the ability to compute an entire human lifetime of 80 years – including every thought ever conceived during that lifetime – in the span of a month.



"In quantum mechanics, particles do not have a definite state unless they're being observed.



"Many theorists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you explain this.



"One explanation is that we're living within a simulation, seeing what we need to see when we need to see it.



"What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us – and that's cool."

(Wait, are they lamely ending with "We may not be the originals, but at least we're somehow connected to the originals via n degrees of separation"? Sad. Honestly, who cares about originality? Even back when we were certain we were not simulations - or didn't ponder the question - later generations were simply repeating the experiences of earlier ones. I think most of the chances for any 'originality' died a long time ago anyway. Very few original conceptions spooking around humanity's brain now. It's "been there, done that", or at least "imagined it a long time ago already".)



The idea that our Universe is a fiction generated by computer code solves a number of inconsistencies and mysteries about the cosmos.



GETTY: Professor Fermi known for achieving the first controlled nuclear reaction, leads a lecture



AP: Enrico Fermi outside an atomic energy plant in Newport in October 1957



The first is the Fermi Paradox – proposed by physicist Enrico Fermi during the 1960s – which highlights the contradiction between the apparent high probability of extraterrestrial civilisations within our ever-expanding universe and humanity's lack of contact with, or lack of evidence for, these alien colonies.



"Where is everybody?" Mr Fermi asked.



It could simply be that Earth and mankind truly is the centre of the universe.



Another mystery explained by Dr Bostrom's Matrix-like theory is the role of Dark Matter.



US theoretical cosmologist Michael Turner has called the hypothetical material "the most profound mystery in all of science".



Dark Matter is one of many hypothetical materials used to explain a number of anomalies in the Standard Model – the all-encompassing theory science has used to explain the particles and forces of nature for the last 50 years.



The Standard Model of particle physics tells us that there are 17 fundamental particles which make up atomic matter.





GETTY: A scientist works within the ATLAS control room, part of the Large Hadron Collider facility



GETTY: Scientists hope to prove the existence of Dark Matter within the CERN accelerator



The Higgs boson, which was first theorised by scientists during the 1960s, is amongst these 17 fundamental particles.



In summer 2012, scientists at CERN observed what is now believed to be the elusive "God particle".



But the Standard Model is as-yet unable to explain a number of baffling properties of the universe – including the fact that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing speed.



Dark Matter is believed to be a web-like matter that binds visible matter together.



If it exists, it would explain why galaxies spin at the speed they do – something which remains unexplained based only on what we can currently observe.



The Standard Model does not yet hold an explanation for the force of gravity.



The as-yet unproven existence of Dark Matter could be explained by a virtual universe.



But not everybody is convinced about The Matrix explanation.



Professor Peter Millican, who teaches philosophy and computer science at Oxford University, thinks the virtual reality explanation is flawed.



"The theory seems to be based on the assumption that ‘superminds’ would do things in much the same way as we would do them," he said.



"If they think this world is a simulation, then why do they think the superminds – who are outside the simulation – would be constrained by the same sorts of thoughts and methods that we are?

(I don't understand the argument. Because if "Superminds" were simulating less capable ancestors confined to a more limited context i.e. universe, maybe they do need to restrict their thinking to a limited number of n dimensions or whatever limitations are necessary to match the simulation's world. Isn't the [Ancestor Simulation] theory about how those who are running the simulation are looking backward (to their own more primitive pasts) and not looking forward in doing so? And if their past need not be as advanced as their present, the simulation would therefore not depict anything as advanced as what they're capable of, but just the minimum necessary to produce a reasonably realistic illustration of their more limited ancestors and the latter's more limited [perceptions of] the world/their setting?)



"They assume that the ultimate structure of a real world can't be grid like, and also that the superminds would have to implement a virtual world using grids.



"We can’t conclude that a grid structure is evidence of a pretend reality just because our ways of implementing a pretend reality involve a grid."

Related articles



Large Hadron Collider: World-changing Dark Matter could be discovered in just TWO MONTHS

Stunning RING of FIRE photographed in deep space was predicted by Einstein in 1915

Einstein RING of FIRE proves Dark Matter is NOT dark after all, claims new research

NASA tests WARP DRIVE capable of blasting ships from Earth to the Moon in just FOUR hours

(Woo. Tomorrow we'll be Building the Enterprise. The day after, Voyager.)



Professor Millican does believe there is worth in investigating the idea.



"It is an interesting idea, and it’s healthy to have some crazy ideas," he told The Telegraph.



"You don’t want to censor ideas according to whether they seem sensible or not because sometimes important new advances will seem crazy to start with.



"You never know when good ideas may come from thinking outside the box.



"This Matrix thought-experiment is actually a bit like some ideas of Descartes and Berkeley, hundreds of years ago.



“Even if there turns out to be nothing in it, the fact that you have got into the habit of thinking crazy things could mean that at some point you are going to think of something that initially may seem rather way out, but turns out not to be crazy at all."

Quote:Does the universe actually exist? We might all be living in one big computer game, scientists say

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by Sarah Spickernell



5 August 2015 4:59pm



Who's to say the universe isn't being controlled by aliens? (Source: Getty)



We always talk about the robots replacing humans, but what if we actually are robots, with brains that are programmed just like computers to think in a certain way?



Read more: Did the big bang happen? Scientists call theory into question



Our universe behaves suspiciously similarly to a simulated computer, obeying a series of mathematical formulas that all link up together, and according to some physicists this means the world as we know it may be one big lie.



Just as a computer is unaware of humans' superior existence, we might be unaware of a higher technological force controlling all that goes on in the universe, including our thoughts and actions.



Technology expert Ray Kurzweil told Space.com: "maybe our whole universe is a science experiment of some junior high school student in another universe."



Oxford University philosophy professor Nick Bostrom has a similar view, and compares human life to being in The Matrix:





Instead of having brains in vats that are fed by sensory inputs from a simulator, the brains themselves would also be part of the simulation.



It would be one big computer program simulating everything, including human brains down to neurons and synapses.





Unfortunately, the questions of what we are and where we come from are going to remain unanswered for the time being, as we currently have no way of finding out whether the universe is definitely real.





Did the big bang happen? Scientists call theory into question

Aliens will be discovered within 10 years, says Nasa scientist

Aliens hit South London

Quote:ARE YOU LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION?

BY NICK BOSTROM



Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University



Published in Philosophical Quarterly (2003) Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.



[simulation-argument.com]



pdf-version: [PDF]



ABSTRACT



This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.



[...]

A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; (2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.



If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation. In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3).



Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.

Quote:How super AI could end the age of humans – podcast

Professor Nick Bostrom discusses the existential threats posed by a superintelligent computer and why we will only get one chance to control such a powerful machine

Quote:Has NASA discovered life on Mars? Space agency calls urgent briefing to announce major discovery about Red Planet



Updated 18:00, 26 Sep 2015

By Chris Richards



NASA is preparing to unveil a "major science finding" on Monday that has raised speculation we are closer to discovering LIFE ON MARS



Life on Mars? NASA is to announce that is has solved a major mystery about the Red Planet



Speculation is mounting among space watchers that Nasa is about to announce it has found life on Mars.



The US space agency is to host an urgent press conference at its Washington headquarters where it will announce that is has solved a major mystery about the Red Planet.



NASA has used previous briefings to announce ground-breaking discoveries - such as in July when it revealed the existence of the Earth-life planet Kepler-452b, outside our solar system.



Read more: 'Mars Henge'? Is mysterious stone circle found on Red Planet clearest indication yet of alien civilisation?



Jim Green, Nasa's director of planetary science and Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program, will be among the experts present at Monday's event.



It is believed the agency could announce that it has discovered microbial life on Earth's near neighbour or alternatively that it has found evidence of flowing water.



The latter theory is due in part to the fact that Lujendra Ojha, of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, will also be present at next week's press conference.





Scientist Mr Ohja first came up with the theory that Mars has liquid salt water flowing through it during its warmer months.



Until earlier this year, boffins thought there was ice on Mars but that it was too cold to host water.



However, in April NASA's four-wheel drive Curiosity Rover discovered that the soil was damp with liquid brine, which lowers the freezing point.



And last month the vehicle - which has been based on the Red Planet for the past three years - identified rocks a metre under the surface which contained up to four times as much water as previously thought .



A brief statement on the space agency's website read: "NASA will detail a major science finding from the agency's ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28 at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington.



"The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website."

Quote:It's official: Native Americans and Siberians are cousins

February 23, 2016 Aram Ter-Ghazaryan, special to RBTH

After more than a century of speculation, an international group of geneticists has conclusively proven that the Aztecs, Incas, and Iroquois are closely related to the peoples of Altai, the Siberian region that borders China and Mongolia.





(Picture of cute and happy looking Siberian man with eagle-friend, and a very handsome N-American native American

cdn.rbth.com/468x312/0x0/1024x683/all/2016/02/17/altai_people_and_american_indians_b.jpg



...in late 2015 the famous Russian geneticist, Oleg Balanovsky, finally confirmed the theory. In addition, Dr. Balanovsky'sstudies also proved that some Native Americans have kinship with the indigenous populations of Australia.



The first study analyzed 48 people from Brazil. The second study analyzed 31 genomes from peoples in the U.S. and Siberia. Results from both studies confirmed that the ancestors of Native Americans left Siberia about 20,000-30,000 years ago.





After these publications Dr. Balanovsky decided to conduct a larger study

[....]



As a result, scientists proved beyond a doubt that Native Americans are closely related to the peoples of Altai. But during the study another discovery was made.



"Besides Siberian ancestors, some Native Americans showed a puzzling relation to the indigenous peoples of Australia and Melanesia in the Pacific Ocean,'' remarked Dr. Balanovsky. "This is astounding because they are located in an almost opposite part on the planet.''



[...]

He added that it's still not clear whether migration from Australia and Melanesia to the Americas was directly across the ocean, or by going up along the coast and via the Aleutian Islands. Archaeologists continue to study this issue.

Quote:Large Hadron Collider on paws after creature chews through wiring

LHC to be out of action for a week while connections to transformer are replaced following visit from hungry fouine

Friday 29 April 2016 20.14 BST



The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator has been brought to its knees by a beech marten, a member of the weasel family, that chewed through wiring connected to a 66,000-volt transformer.



In an in-house report on the incident, managers at Cern, the European nuclear physics laboratory that runs the LHC, described the incident at the transformer unit as being caused by a “fouine” – a beech marten native to the region. The report concluded it was “not the best week for the LHC”.



The glitch echoes a similar event in 2009 when the power was cut to one of the LHC’s cooling plants leading to unwelcome temperature rises in the collider’s apparatus. That incident was blamed, at least tentatively, on a bird dropping part of a baguette on a compensating capacitor where the mains supply entered the LHC from the ground.

(Novel use for a bit of a baguette.)

Quote:Cern spokesman Arnaud Marsollier told the BBC it would take a few days to repair the damage caused by the weasel, which did not survive its high-voltage encounter.

Quote:How China is rewriting the book on human origins



Fossil finds in China are challenging ideas about the evolution of modern humans and our closest relatives.

Jane Qiu



12 July 2016

Quote:Not everybody is convinced. “Fossil interpretations are notoriously problematic,” says Svante Pääbo, a palaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. But DNA from Eurasian fossils dating to the start of the human race could help to reveal which story — or combination — is correct. China is now making a push in that direction. Qiaomei Fu, a palaeogeneticist who did her PhD with Pääbo, returned home last year to establish a lab to extract and sequence ancient DNA at the IVPP. One of her immediate goals is to see whether some of the Chinese fossils belong to the mysterious Denisovan group. The prominent molar teeth from Xujiayao will be an early target. “I think we have a prime suspect here,” she says.

Quote:sen darbi

•

2016-07-18 09:12 PM



The book on human origins was already rewritten (and then discarded) with the discoveries in Hueyatlaco, modern humans in North American at least 250,000, and perhaps as early as 300,000 to 400,000 years ago, according to four dating methods. They just weren't supposed to be there. But those finds had to be denied and ignored, because they proved conventional scientific beliefs about human origins to be myths, and would have effectively demolished the status quo of the scientific establishment regarding ancient humanity. It's really hard to admit, isn't it, that you haven't known what you're talking about through the course of your professional life. And others must go along, or be out on the street. So it's also a question of money. And that of course is not science. We are so much worse off then, those of us who simply seek the truth about such a fascinating and mysterious riddle—where did we come from? Science, alas, is not science, not on the big questions. It is politics, money, and human pride.

Quote:Hueyatlaco

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Hueyatlaco is an archeological site in the Valsequillo Basin near the city of Puebla, Mexico. After excavations in the 1960s, the site became notorious due to geochronologists' analyses that indicated human habitation at Hueyatlaco was dated to ca. 250,000 years before the present.[1][2]



These controversial findings are orders of magnitude older than the scientific consensus for habitation of the New World (which generally traces widespread human migration to the New World to 13,000 to 16,000 ybp). The findings at Hueyatlaco have mostly been repudiated by the larger scientific community, and have seen only occasional discussion in the literature.[3]



...

Biostratigraphic researcher Sam VanLandingham has published two peer-reviewed analyses that confirm the earlier findings of ca. 250,000ybp for the tool-bearing strata at Heyatlaco. His 2004 analysis found that Hueyatlaco samples could be dated to the Sangamonian Interglacial period (ca. 80,000 to 220,000ybp) by the presence of multiple diatom species, one of which first appeared during this era and others that became extinct by the era's end.[10] VanLandingham's 2006 paper[11] refined and re-confirmed his 2004 findings.

Quote:Humans do NOT originate from Africa – teeth discovery shows race evolved from CHINA

THE idea that modern day humans evolved in Africa is under question by Chinese academics who claim to have fossil evidence showing our ancestors stemmed from the east Asian country.

By Sean Martin

PUBLISHED: 13:08, Mon, Jul 25, 2016 | UPDATED: 13:18, Mon, Jul 25, 2016





The discovery of three human teeth in an ancient limestone cave in the district of Bijie in China could blow our understanding of human origin wide open.



The teeth, according to the researchers, are between 112,000 years and 178,000 years old – which is shockingly 75,000 years older than the first modern human fossils found in Africa.



When the teeth were first discovered, it was thought they belonged to an extinct ancestor of humans known as homo altaiensis, or Denisovian.



But new analysis shows that they belonged to homo sapiens.

...

Quote:human remains older than those in Africa have also been found in Afghanistan

Quote:Snodgrass

This has long been an issue. The Chinese have been very confident that the Chinese race developed seperately. They reject the African basis for all Homo Sapien Sapien. I understood the genetic evidence supported the Out Of Africa theory and western scientists in the main do so , but genetic evedence is so easily corrupted a find like this so early could change everything..... If western gentic markers are missing from these finds we have lot of work to do....

Quote:Ancient dormant virus lurking in YOUR DNA which could RESURRECT itself at any moment

AN ANCIENT virus is lurking within our DNA which could spring back into action at any moment, scientists have discovered.

By Sean Martin

PUBLISHED: 17:25, Thu, Mar 24, 2016 | UPDATED: 17:41, Thu, Mar 24, 2016





[...] After analysing the genome of some 2,500 people, the team found nineteen new pieces of non-human DNA within our genome, taking the total of us which isn’t human to a whopping eight per cent, which is largely made up of viruses.



[...]



Some of this newly discovered DNA could have been passed along through humans for as long as 670,000 years, and some of which may influence diseases in our bodies today.



However, most startlingly is the fact that the experts have found a piece of viral code which is still completely intact and may spring an ancient virus into life once more.