The timing of these two articles makes you wonder if this is an attempt to get us all to volunteer to move to another planet...
Hawking: Humans must go to other planets
By MARIA HEGSTAD, Associated Press Writer
Thu Nov 30, 3:39 PM ET
"The long-term survival of the human race is at risk as long as it is confined to a single planet," he said in a radio interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "Sooner or later, disasters such as an asteroid collision or nuclear war could wipe us all out. But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe."
Because there are no other planets like Earth in our own solar system, Hawking said humans will have to travel to another star to find a hospitable planet to colonize. At the speed of chemical-propelled rockets like the Apollo, the trip to the next nearest star would take 50,000 years, he said.
While the warp drives described in science fiction are just that, Hawking said that using matter/antimatter annihilation, described in the TV series "Star Trek," would allow for travel at almost the speed of light.
When a particle and its antiparticle destroy each other, the entire mass is converted into energy. Some scientists, including Hawking, believe this process could be used to propel spacecraft.... READ MORE
Single massive asteroid wiped out dinosaurs: study
By Will Dunham Thu Nov 30, 7:09 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A single, gigantic asteroid slammed into Earth 65 million years ago, dooming the dinosaurs and many other species, scientists said on Thursday in a new study rebutting theories that multiple impacts did the deed.
An examination of rock sediments drilled from five sites at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean strongly supports the notion that one massive hunk of space rock caused the mass extinction, a research team led by University of Missouri-Columbia geology professor Ken MacLeod found.
"It's a completely straightforward, single-impact scenario," MacLeod, whose findings appear in the Geological Society of America Bulletin, said in an interview. "It was a haymaker that nobody saw coming. One shot, and that's all you need to explain it."
Scientists believe that an asteroid about 6 miles wide hurtled to Earth 65.5 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period, plunging into what is now Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula to carve out the Chicxulub (pronounced CHIK-shu-loob) crater measuring about 110 miles across.
To put it mildly, it was a bad day to live on Earth...READ MORE
This interesting post from Writer's Blog:
Google's book search project has had an unintended, interesting side effect: it has made it much easier to catch plagiarists.
As it turns out, even authors not living in this online age are in trouble. My fellow literary sleuth Alex MacBride recently revealed to me that he'd uncovered an old crime in a new way. MacBride, a linguist employed by Google, idly ran a phrase from England Howlett's 1899 essay Sacrificial Foundations through Google Book Search, his employer's massive digitization of millions of volumes from university libraries. The search had nothing to do with his job—like the rest of us, sometimes Alex just kills time by plugging stuff into Google—and rather than go to the trouble of digging out Howlett's book by name, he'd decided to call it up with a phrase. To his surprise, he got more back than just Howlett: The search also revealed a suspiciously similar passage in Sabine Baring-Gould's 1892 book Strange Survivals. A lot of suspiciously similar passages.
Perhaps it's not too shocking that a small-time amateur like Howlett swiped from Baring-Gould, a frenetically prolific folklore scholar who published hundreds of books and articles. But, the search results revealed, this was not quite the end of the story. "Charmingly," MacBride e-mails, "Baring-Gould seems to have had sticky fingers himself." The wronged author, you see, had in turn used the unattributed quotation from a still earlier work: Benjamin Thorpe's 1851 study Northern Mythology.
Some scholars are placing bets on which contemporary literary masterpiece will turn out to be full of plagiarized prose. Alas, the digital age is not going to be kind to those who lift paragraphs from the work of others.
Posted on 2006-11-24
Here's an article excerpt from Foreign Policy Magazine on the political assassinations that have occurred this year:
The shooting death of Lebanese Minister Pierre Gemayel and the poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko were the most prominent political murders of 2006. But, as this week’s List shows, their assassinations aren’t the only ones setting off political crises and stoking intrigue. To read more, go to: The List: The Political Assassinations of 2006
Former Russian KGB colonel and dissident, Alexander Litvinenko, speaking at Frontline shortly before he was poisoned in a London restaurant.
For an intriguing documentary that relates Alexander Litvinenko's relationship with Berezovsky and Putin go to this link:
10 min 40 sec - Nov 21, 2006
Description: Alexander Litvinenko was one of the Kremlin’s harshest critics. He accused the FSB of everything from mass murder to plotting the Moscow Theatre Siege. Has he now been silenced? We offer you two reports featuring controversial interviews with him. As a rising star in the FSB, Litvinenko was privy to some of its darkest secrets. “Our unit dealt in extralegal murder”, he alleges. “We received orders from top officials to liquidate people found disagreeable.” He also explains why President Putin is; “more guilty than Milosevic”.
This post, courtesy of ArmsControlWonk
Assassination by Polonium
posted 2 days ago under covert ops, russia by jane
Everyone has probably caught the bits and pieces of headlines on the former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned and died last week. There is little conclusive information and the assassination has been linked in the press both to the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the Yukos affair. It’s a James Bond style mystery, but in that great BBC news voice.
The interesting part is that he was poisoned with polonium-210, an extremely rare and highly radioactive element. It is even rarer in quantities that could be used for poisoning, since they would have to be manmade. Most of the news sources are quoting experts as saying that the Po-210 could have only been produced in major laboratory. This point makes the theories (which I will describe below) about Litvinenko’s death very troubling from the standpoint of securing access to radioactive materials.
What’s Polonium-210 and where do I get some?
Polonium-210 is highly radioactive with a half life of 138 days. A very small amount, about the size of a pin head, would be enough to kill an exposed person. Exposure means swallowing or inhaling; although polonium-210 releases large amounts of alpha particles as it decays, these particles would not for example be able to penetrate your skin. (Take a look at this basic overview on Po-210 which the Royal Society of Chemistry put up on the web recently.)
Polonium-210 is often used as a neutron initiator in nuclear weapons, although it does have some civilian uses (batteries for satellites). Iran was found to have done Po-210 experiments in 2004, raising IAEA concerns. Polonium-210 of a substantial quantity would had to have been produced with a particle accelerator or nuclear reactor. Here is where all eyes turn to Russia. (Oh, beside of course Litvinenko also being a Russian spy and blaming Putin for poisoning him. That’s too obvious.)
The Observer (UK) points out why Russian institutes seem like a like source:
Such material, it is believed by experts, could only have come from the massive nuclear structures of the old Soviet Union where, during the collapse of the empire, security was often sacrificed. Polonium can only be gained from such reprocessing plants or equally complex nuclear research plants. You cannot buy this stuff from local criminals.
The speculations about this case generally fall into two groups: intentional the Russian government (or governmental organization) or intentional by someone who just had it out for this guy. (There is no evidence yet that the material did come from Russia. They detected Po-210 in Litvinenko’s body, the restaurant where he ate day he got sick, a hotel, his home, and a few other locations.)
Neither of these theories makes me feel any better about the security of radiological materials.
Assassination Theory 1 – The FSB, or someone otherwise acting on orders of the Kremlin.
The Kremlin wanted Litvinenko gone, they gave the word to someone (FSB, etc) and voila. The access to the radioactive material was easy though a number of Russian nuclear facilities.
There are several problems with this theory. If the material does turn out to be Russian, and traceable, then why would any government sponsor have chosen this particularly self incriminating method of assasination? The Moscow Times quotes Alexander Pikayev on this point:
[Alexander] Pikayev said that if a Russian intelligence agency had wanted to kill Litvinenko, it would have been foolish to use polonium because its source could probably be traced.
This of course does not rule out the FSB involvement. They could have just gotten non-Russian polonium-210, or even acted without Kremlin directive or approval. The government-sponsor or government agency theory leads to two possible conclusions: 1) Russian secret services like using overly elaborate and exotic assasination techniques 2) to high powered buyers, radioactive materials are available from either in Russia or perhaps even other sources. Since polonium is very difficult to make, only countries with highly developed nuclear programs have this capability. So where else did it come from?
note: Jeffrey pointed out that polonium-210 may be very difficult to detect, especially in a poisoning case where symptoms may suggest other substances, making this not such a crazy sounding approach after all. Perhaps those carrying out the attack actually hoped that it would leave not evidence, but miscalculated on dosage.
Assassination Theory 2 – One of Litvinenko’s many many enemies
No one denies that Litvinenko had many enemies. Perhaps one or several of these enemies acquired some polonium-210 from a less than perfectly guarded or bribe-able source, and carried out the attack independantly.
However, some experts argue that this kind to lone attack would not be possible without government sponsorship and sophisticated technology.
So far, experts have not found prior cases where polonium-210 was used as a poison.“No individual could do this,” said John Large, an independent nuclear consultant. “What you are talking about is the creation of a very clever little device, a designer poison pill, possibly created by nanotechnology. Without nanotechnology you would be talking about a fairly big pill, a pea-sized pill. Either way you are looking at intricate technology which is beyond the means and designs of a hired assassin without a state sponsor.”
Going with the non-government independent assassin theory is perhaps even more disturbing than FSB agents running around poking people with umbrellas or what not. It means that an extremely well prepared person or group of people managed to get their hands on a deadly radioactive substance which most seem to think is nearly impossible to acquire.
Regardless of which theory is true (and of course there are others), this incident also shows that it was clearly possible to smuggle polonium-210 into the UK. (Alpha particles do not set off radiation detectors.)
Lastly, and interesting side note. The Russian press is covering this story a bit differently. The papers are generally not touching the theory of a Kremlin sponsored assassination. Rather, they focus on other theories including some of their own, involving even Chechen militants, and comment on the British investigation.
When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,
I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.
What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.
Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation.
Why then innocence
On paradisal beaches,
An impeccable sky
Over the church of hygiene?
Is it because that
Was long ago?
To a saintly man
--So goes an Arab tale--
God said somewhat maliciously:
"Had I revealed to people
How great a sinner you are,
They could not praise you."
"And I," answered the pious one,
"Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you."
To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?
Don't think, don't remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.
Totally enigmatic.
Impossibly intricate.
Better to stop speech here.
This language is not for people.
Blessed be jubilation.
Vintages and harvests.
Even if not everyone
Is granted serenity.
- Czeslaw Milosz
Berkeley
To hear Milosz recite this poem, Click Here
Many thanks to the Internet Poetry Archive, for the audio link!
Doctors treating former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, who fell ill in Ireland last week, are saying that they believe he was poisoned. Valery Natarov, a spokesman for Gaidar, said today: "Doctors don't see a natural reason for the poisoning and they have not been able to detect any natural substance known to them, so obviously we're talking about poisoning…it was not natural poisoning.”
Medical officials have not yet been able to determine the specific cause of Gaidar’s illness. A spokesman for National University of Ireland at Maynooth, where the conference was held, said Wednesday that medical personnel treating him initially suspected complications from Gaidar's diabetes as the cause of his illness.
Gaidar, 50, returned from Ireland to Moscow for treatment earlier this week, and was feeling better as of today, Natarov said. "His condition is stable and improving. Doctors say there is no threat to his life at the moment." After he became sick, Gaidar’s aides requested more information from medical experts in Dublin.
Gaidar was at a conference in Dublin, Ireland to promote his book, The Death of Empire: Lessons for Contemporary Russia. During the conference, his nose began to bleed, then he started vomiting before he fainted. He was rushed to a nearby intensive care unit.
Gaidar was one of the leaders of a liberal opposition party who served briefly as prime minister in the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin. He is an economist best known as the architect of the sweeping free-market, “shock therapy” reforms that were instituted in the early years of former President Boris Yeltsin's administration. He is one of the leaders of the liberal opposition party Union of Right Forces. Gaider heads a think-tank called the Institute for the Economy in Transition. Gaider has publicly criticized Putin's economic policies, but he is viewed as a marginal political figure.
Gaider’s daughter, Maria, is a well-known liberal youth activist and a fierce Kremlin critic. She responded to her father’s condition by saying, "The doctors think that they don't find any other reason of his condition that he was poisoned with some strange poison they cannot identify, but to have an official conclusion they're still waiting for the information of the doctors of Dublin." She stated that her father had eaten a "simple breakfast of fruit salad and a cup of tea." She speculated that if the diagnosis was that her father was poisoned deliberately, "it could be a political poisoning because there are no personal or business reasons why someone would want to do that." She told reporters that her father was speaking, but looked pale and thin.
His illness follows the poisoning of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London just one day before Gaidar fell ill; however, as of the time of this writing, officials have not connected the two cases in any way. The Russian government and President Putin have strongly denied any involvement in Litvinenko's death.
The Irish government said it had no reason to believe there was anything suspicious about Gaidar's illness.
For more information, see the Financial Times Article: Mystery Illness Hits Former Russian PM
MOSNEWS article: Top Russian Reformer Sees Plot Behind Ex-PM’s Illness
The pound climbed to $1.9661 in afternoon New York trading from $1.9462 late Wednesday in New York, marking its strongest showing against the dollar since September 1992.
One of the most inspirational stories I've encountered. See the Team Hoyt Website
