Archive for the ‘Tomorrow is Here’ Category

December6

ESA Gets Ten Billion Euros Space Exploration

By: Tim Neale

Ministers agree to finance most of the European Space Agency wish list.

Ministers responsible for space exploration from the 18 European Space Agency (ESA) countries plus Canada met last week. They agreed to fund 9.9 billion euros (US$12.7 billion) of the requested 10.4 billion euro ($13.34 billion) budget. The ESA Council meets once every three years to decide funding on a list of proposed projects. The meeting took place in The Hague on 25-26 Nov.

ISS showing Jules Verne ATV (NASA)

ISS showing Jules Verne ATV (NASA)

Afterwards French education minister Valerie Pecresse said, “Investing money in long-term space projects is an appropriate answer to the economic crisis.” ESA director general Jean-Jacques Dordain said, “These are investments that can help the economy. This is the right time invest in the future.”

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November22

Europeana's Popularity Far Exceeds Expectations

By: Tim Neale

The European Union’s digital library, Europeana, opened on Thursday Nov. 20, only to be overwhelmed and crash. Inspired by ancient Alexandria’s attempt to collect the world’s knowledge, Europeana objective is to bring Europe’s cultural heritage out of its museums and libraries and onto the internet.

The European Commission is behind Europeana and provides the annual budget of 2.5 million euros (US$3.15 million). At its launch commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said, “Europeana is much more than a library; it is a veritable dynamo to inspire 21st century Europeans to emulate the creativity of innovative forbears like the drivers of the Renaissance.”

The site was designed to handle up to five-million users per hour. It was receiving 10-million hits an hour when it crashed on its first morning. Despite increasing the number of servers from three to six, the site crashed again early that evening. It is now offline and displays the message, “We are doing our utmost to reopen Europeana in a more robust version as soon as possible.” It hopes to be back online by mid-December 2008.

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September3

The 2008 Alien Invasion of the UK

By: Tim Neale

alienIt started in May, when the British Government released previously secret UFO files to the National Archives. The files included corroborated reports from reputable sources of UFOs hovering over British cities.

In one amazing incident from 1984, air-traffic controllers describe a, “brilliant solid ball of light, bright silvery in colour,” land on a runway in front of them, then takeoff in a near vertical climb. These stories appearing in both the national press and on TV caused quite a stir.

What happened next depends on your point of view. In one narrative, worried by their pubic exposure, the UFOs decided to step up their invasion plans, with the UK the center of the attack.

Another point of view has it that once UFOs became newsworthy, UFO stories multiplied. When people saw these reports, things they once dismissed as mundane they now perceived as UFOs. With more sightings publicized, people become more likely to report their own experiences, as they were no longer are worried about being labelled as “weird.” It was a self-reinforcing process.

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February4

The Human Race is not Devolving

By: Tim Neale

Evolution is about change. It has no direction, goal or yardstick. Therefore, in purely biological terms this question is meaningless. Over time, organisms have tended to become more complex. But it is a mistake to define the loss of complexity that sometimes occurs as devolution. Certainly, it is wrong to assume that human beings represent the peak of evolution. Evolution is a very slow process; it is not noticeable in the time span of recorded human history. We are merely a step on a long journey to who knows where.

Recent research suggests that human evolution is speeding up. A team led by John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin, suggested in 2007, that an acceleration in human evolution started around 40,000 years ago. The human population explosion and rapidly changing lifestyles due to the adaption of settled agriculture are likely to be behind this acceleration. Five thousand ago, we were evolving 30 to 40 times faster than before, and are likely to be evolving at the same rate today.

Devolution or degeneration is a social-philosophical concept. It was influential from 1850′s to 1950′s and is now largely discredited.

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