Star Trek Movie Posters Released!

Cold Fusion or sequel to ‘The Saint’?

 

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is “significant” evidence of cold fusion, apotential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community.

The scientists on Monday described what they called the first clear visual evidence that low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR), or cold fusion devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists say are indicative of nuclear reactions.

“Our finding is very significant,” said analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss of the US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, California.

“To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device,” added the study’s co-author in a statement. The study’s results were presented at the annual meeting of theAmerican Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah. The city is also the site of an infamous presentation on cold fusion 20 years ago by Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons that sent shockwaves across the world.

Despite their claim to cold fusion discovery, the Fleishmann-Pons study soon fell into discredit after other researchers were unable to reproduce the results. Scientists have been working for years to produce cold fusion reactions, a potentially cheap, limitless and environmentally-clean source of energy.

Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss’s published work, said the study did not provide a plausible explanation of how cold fusion could take place in the conditions described.

“It fails to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how fusion could occur at room temperatures. And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons,” he told the Houston Chronicle.

“The whole point of fusion is, you?re bringing things of like charge together. As we all know, like things repel, and you have to overcome that repulsion somehow.”

But Steven Krivit, editor of the New Energy Times, said the study was “big” and could open a new scientific field. The neutrons produced in the experiments “may not be caused by fusion but perhaps some new, unknown nuclear process,” added Krivit, who has monitored cold fusion studies for the past 20 years.

“We’re talking about a new field of science that’s a hybrid between chemistry and physics.”

First Ever Photos – Liquid Water found on Mars!?

Liquid Saltwater is Likely Present on Mars, New Analysis Shows

Salty, liquid water has been detected on a leg of the Mars Phoenix Lander and therefore could be present at other locations on the planet, according to analysis by a group of mission scientists led by a University of Michigan professor. This is the first time liquid water has been detected and photographed outside the Earth.

“A large number of independent physical and thermodynamical evidence shows that saline water may actually be common on Mars,” said Nilton Renno, a professor in the U-M Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences and a co-investigator on the Phoenix mission. “Liquid water is an essential ingredient for life. This discovery has important implications to many areas of planetary exploration, including the habitability of Mars.”

Renno will present these findings on March 23, 2009 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston.

Droplets on a leg of the Mars Phoenix lander are seen to darken and coalesce. Nilton Renno, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences says this is evidence that they are made of liquid water. Previously, scientists believed that water existed on Mars only as ice or water vapor because of the planet’s low temperature and atmospheric pressure. They thought that ice in the Red Planet’s current climate could sublimate, or vaporize, but they didn’t think it could melt. This analysis shows how that assumption may be incorrect. Temperature fluctuation in the arctic region of Mars where Phoenix landed and salts in the soil could create pockets of water too salty to freeze in the climate of the landing site, Renno says.

Photos of one of the lander’s legs show droplets that grew during the polar summer. Based on the temperature of the leg and the presence of large amounts of “perchlorate” salts detected in the soil, scientists believe the droplets were most likely salty liquid water and mud that splashed on the spacecraft when it touched down. The lander was guided down by rockets whose exhaust melted the top layer of ice below a thin sheet of soil.

These images were acquired by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s Surface Stereo Imager on the 21st and 25th days of the mission, or Sols 20 and 24 (June 15 and 18, 2008). These images show sublimation of ice in the trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” over the course of four days. In the lower left corner, lumps disappear, similar to the process of evaporation. Some of the mud droplets that splashed on the lander’s leg appear to have grown by absorbing water from the atmosphere, Renno says. Images suggest that some of the droplets darkened, then moved and merged — physical evidence that they were liquid.

The wet chemistry lab on Phoenix found evidence of perchlorate salts, which likely include magnesium and calcium perchlorate hydrates. These compounds have freezing temperatures of about -90 and -105 Fahrenheit respectively. The temperature at the landing site ranged from approximately -5 to -140 Fahrenheit, with a median temperature around -75 Fahrenheit. Temperatures at the landing site were mostly warmer than this during the first months of the mission.

Thermodynamic calculations offer additional evidence that salty liquid water can exist where Phoenix landed and elsewhere on Mars. The calculations also predicts a droplet growth rate that is consistent with what was observed. And they show that it is impossible for ice to sublimate from the cold ground just under the strut of the lander’s leg and be deposited on a warmer strut, a hypothesis that has been suggested. Certain bacteria on Earth can exist in extremely salty and cold conditions.

“This discovery is the result of the talent and dedication of the entire Phoenix team and NASA, whose strategy for Mars exploration and the Phoenix mission is ‘follow the water,’” Renno said.

Phoenix landed on Mars on May 25, 2008, and transmitted data back to Earth until Nov. 10. Scientists are still analyzing the information Phoenix gathered. The mission was led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Arizona. Among its preliminary findings, Phoenix verified that water ice exists in the just beneath the surface of Mars. It sent back more than 25,000 photos and deployed the first atomic force microscope ever used outside Earth. The lander was the first Martian spacecraft to document a mildly alkaline soil and perchlorate salts. It also observed snow falling from clouds on the Red Planet.

A paper on this research, written by Renno and dozens of his colleagues on the Phoenix mission, including principal investigator Peter Smith, is under review at the Journal of Geophysical Research. 

http://www.astrobio.net/news/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3074&theme=Printer

The Origin of the McMannes!

The Irish surname McManus is an anglicized form of the Gaelic MacMaghnuis. The prefix ‘mac’ means ’son of’ and indicates that the name is of patronymic origin – that is, it is derived from a father or ancestor. The first name Manus is derived from the Latin Magnus and came to Ireland from Northern Europe and simply means ‘great’. Thus the surname denotes the son of Manus. Collins Guide To First Names has this to say about the first name Magnus:

‘This is the Latin adjective meaning ‘great’. The spread of this name was due to the Emperor Charlemagne, Carolus Magnus. Some of his admirers took Magnus for a personal name, and among those who christened their sons after him was St. Olaf of Norway. The name spread from Scandinavia to Shetland and Ireland. From Shetland the name became well established in Scotland. In Ireland it became Manus, hence the common Irish surname McManus.’

So, who was this Charlemagne from whom we seem to have taken our name? The name derives from Charles the Great, King of the Franks (Germanic nation or coalition which conquered France in the 6th. century) from 768-814 and Holy Roman Emperor from 800-814. As ruler of Western Christendom, he introduced legal reforms, standardised coinage and weights and measures; organised and reformed the church; and after his death became the hero of a cycle of medieval romances.

It is a popularly held belief that there are two distinct McManus families – one emanating from the Maguires’ in Fermanagh and the other from the O’Connors of Roscommon. This fact and other facts relating to the antiquity of these families is clearly proved again and again in the text of ‘The Annals of the Four Masters’, held in Dublin Castle and which is full of entries relating to the McManus’. However, it must not be accepted without challenge that members of the McManus Clan only originated from these two areas of Ireland. That the name denotes son of the once popular Norse Christian name Magnus or Manus clearly indicates the name was more widespread than just these two Irish regions.

Looking back along the hard road of our local history in North Roscommon, one is struck by the changes in fortune suffered by the MacManuses, and so many other families who once enjoyed property, power and privilege. Of the Gaelic families still with authenticated lineage, only one, the senior MacDermot branch, is still represented in the area. The MacManuses, and other leading Gaelic families of the region, have not been able to preserve their pedigree beyond the eighteenth century. What follows is a very brief historical insight into the demise of these noble and ancient clans, with particular reference to the MacManuses. But demise is hardly an appropriate word to use in this story – for the word may only be appropriate to describe property, power and privilege. In no way does it portray those other irremovable concepts of family which lie deep and impenetrable in the human soul – honour, dignity and pride.

The McManuses of North Roscommon were descended from Manus Miogharan, the ninth son of Turlough More O’Connor, monarch of all Ireland.(The Book of Lecan: fol 72, b, col.4). Tir-Tuathail gets its name from Tir-Tuathail-Maoilgairbh, i.e. ‘the country of Tuathal Maelgarbh’ who was monarch of Ireland from the year 533 to 544. (O’Faherty’s Ogygia part 3 c93). This territory was later subordinate to MacDermot of Moylurg. The pedigree of the McManuses of Tir-Tuathail has not been preserved beyond the eighteenth century (Southeran, 1871:73) and after their decay the land fell into the possession of MacDermot Roe who held it under MacDermot of Moylurg.

• The Irish are very fair people; they never speak well for one another.
• God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world.
• Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat.
• The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scotts as a joke, but the Scotts haven’t seen the joke yet.
• The Irish ignore anything they can’t drink or punch.
• When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.
• He is bad that will not take advice, but he is a thousand times worse that takes every advice.
• One of the worst things that can happen in life is to win a bet on a horse at an early age.
• A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.
• Every St. Patrick’s Day every Irishman goes out to find another Irishman to make a speech to.
• An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold onto one blade of grass to keep from falling off the earth.
• As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never point in the wrong direction!
• If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.
• Here’s to our wives and girlfriends: May they never meet
• I can resist everything except temptation.
• My mother’s menu consisted of two choices: Take it or leave it.
• The Irish don’t know what they want and are prepared to fight to the death to get it.
• God is good to the Irish, but no one else is; not even the Irish.
• If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.
• The Irish forgive their great men once they are safely buried.
• Irish Alzheimer’s: you forget everything except the grudges.
• Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis.

How do ‘I’ Learn? I shock myself…often!

‘The Unexpected Outcome’ Is A Key To Human Learning
ScienceDaily (2009-03-15) — The human brain’s sensitivity to unexpected outcomes plays a fundamental role in the ability to adapt and learn new behaviors, according to a new study by psychologists and neuroscientists. Using a computer-based card game and microelectrodes to observe neuronal activity of the brain, the Penn study, published March 13 in the journal Science, suggests that neurons in the human substantia nigra, or SN, play a central role in reward-based learning, modulating learning based on the discrepancy between the expected and the realized outcome… > read full article

New Trailer for ‘Star Trek’ Breaks All Existing Records!

LOS ANGELES, March 11 /PRNewswire/ — The new trailer for J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” had more than 1.8 million downloads during its first 24 hours on Apple.com and has gone on to become the most popular HD download ever on the site with more than five million downloads in its first five days. The trailer made its exclusive debut on Apple.com/trailers on March 6th giving fans a sneak peak of this summer’s highly anticipated “Star Trek” for viewing on their Mac or PC, iPhone or iPod with video.

From J.J. Abrams (“Mission: Impossible III,” “Fringe,” “Lost” and “Alias”), producer Damon Lindelof and executive producers Bryan Burk and Jeffrey Chernov and screenwriters and executive producers Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman (“TRANSFORMERS,” “MI: III”) comes a new vision of the greatest adventure of all time, “Star Trek,” featuring a young, new crew venturing boldly where no one has gone before. “Star Trek” opens nationally on May 8, 2009.

Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment Present a Bad Robot Production “Star Trek” starring John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Winona Ryder, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana and Leonard Nimoy. The film is directed by J.J. Abrams (“Mission Impossible III,” “Lost,” “Alias”), written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman (“MI: III,” “Transformers”).

Based upon “Star Trek” Created by Gene Roddenberry. The film is produced by J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof. The executive producers are Bryan Burk, Jeffrey Chernov, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. The director of photography is Dan Mindel, ASC. The production designer is Scott Chambliss. The film is edited by Maryann Brandon, A.C.E. and Mary Jo Markey, A.C.E. The costume designer is Michael Kaplan. The visual effects & animation are by Industrial Light and Magic. The music is by Michael Giacchino. This film has not yet been rated.

The Thriller Begins…Again!

For days rumors have circulated that Michael Jackson was startin’ somethin’. And Thursday afternoon, before a couple of thousand screaming fans at London’s 02 arena, the King of Pop revealed what has been referred to as “the worst kept secret in the world”….a 10-concert residency beginning July 8 — his first full tour in 12 years.

“I love you so much,” said Jackson, 50, barely audible over the whooping of his loyal supporters who crowded outside of the arena. “This is it. I just want to say that these will be my final show performances in London.” (See pictures of Michael Jackson at 50.) Jackson arrived on stage nearly an hour and a half late (London’s rush hour traffic was reportedly the reason) and spoke for just over three minutes. “I’ll be performing the songs my fans want to hear. This is the final curtain call.”

British media are speculating that Jackson, who has been staying at the $11,000-a-night Royal Suite at the Lanesborough Hotel, is staging the comeback — tickets go on sale on March 13 — to help pay off the debts he has incurred since a court cleared him of sexual abuse charges in June 2005 (he hasn’t performed a full concert since then). In November 2008, the singer reached an undisclosed settlement with Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the prince of Bahrain who was suing Jackson for $7 million over claims he reneged on a contract for a new album, autobiography and a stage play. Jackson has maintained that these were gifts.

At Thursday’s announcement Jackson wore a black, military-style top with silver sequins and looked predictably wan. Despite his rather expressionless face, he seemed sincerely moved by the audience’s warm reception and, during an erratic exit, once again conveyed his affection to his fans. “I love you. I really do,” he said in breathy pants. “You have to know that. I love you so much. Really. From the bottom of my heart.” He then made two peace signs, turned, pumped his fist, turned again, struck a fierce pose and blew a kiss before disappearing. (Watch Jackson at the Grammys.)

Fans and journalists had lined up for hours, clutching memorabilia and wearing t-shirts, and numerous individuals posing as journalists were removed from the media line. “I’m sorry, but you’re not on the list,” the doorman told one blond woman with a slight accent, to which she replied, “But I’ve come all the way from Norway!”

Rebecca Kellner, 17, left school early to attend the event

“It’s like meeting one of your childhood heroes, even if I just got to see him,” she says between gasps. “He was more collected than I thought he was going to be, and that made me more confident that he can do the shows.”Jackson underwent rigorous health checks to prove his fitness ahead of the announcement, and AEG, the group that owns the O2 arena, has reportedly obtained insurance to protect against Jackson falling ill and canceling performances. Last year, photographers captured Jackson in a wheelchair wearing pajamas as his children pushed him. Nevertheless, AEG Live chief Randy Phillips said Jackson had a three-year plan with the company — worth $400 million — that could include concerts and the development of a 3-D movie based on the legendary Thriller.

The O2 is the venue Prince played for 21 nights in 2007, and where Britney Spears is doing eight nights this June. As for Jackson (who hasn’t released an album of original material since 2001), his last substantial series of shows came in 1996-97, when he played 82 concerts in 58 cities as part of the HIStory tour. And, of course, there have been some embarrassing moments that infamously earned him the nickname Wacko Jacko. Stories about personal, health and financial problems have constantly cropped up and he’s currently trying to stop an auction of thousands of his personal possessions. (See pictures of the auction items for sale.)

But Jackson’s music may well prove to be the driving force behind the brand. Gemma Lal, 18, traveled four hours from Northhampton and believes Jackson’s music, particularly Earth Song, is as relevant as ever. “It’s not just a song,” she says. “He talks about the earth and how we can help people.” For a singer who has faced some very public lows, the first person to benefit could be Jackson himself.