The planet previously known as the RED planet...

NASA has declared it has given up its search for it Mars Polar Lander, which disappeared in December 1999 on entry into the atmosphere. The suspected crash site revealed no evidence of the craft.

Along with the fatally designed Beagle 2, the British led venture for Mars exploration, the red planet is becoming (as the British would say) somewhat of a tip! (a trash dump for interplanetary exploration).

Come on guys, isn't it bad enough that we are destroying our own planet... I don't suppose they were biodegradable fellas? Nope, thought not...

Lets hope there's no life on mars... I wouldn't like to try to explain to them why we are firing junk at them, out of their sky!

*RIP* Beagle 2 & Mars Polar Lander.

Sex that's Out-Of-This-World!

NASA may be shifting it's priorities it seems... According to New Scientist, a panel of "top-level scientists" have made a recommendation to NASA to study "sex and romantic entanglements" for future missions to the Moon and Mars.

"With the prospect of a very long term mission, it's hard to ignore the question of sexuality", says Lawrence Palinkas (Medical Anthropologist & author of the report published by the US National Academy of Sciences). It suggests that sex may normalise a mission, and would benefit missions such as the proposed Bush missions to Mars, which are likely to take 2-3 years (round trip). Therefore, Sex and masturbation are considered as an approach to "alleviate boredom and anxiety" experienced by the Astronauts on long missions. So it was posed that NASA should consider the "practical issues" of extraterrestrial sex. Carol Rinkleib Ellison (an independent psychologist specialising in sexuality and intimacy) put forward the following. He says "How do you have sex in weightlessness? And there's a lack of privacy - often they're monitoring pulse rate and temperature".

So it seems NASA needs to tackle this issue, and give it some consideration. Personally, feeling as passionately about the subject as I do, I bravely and without regard for my own health and safety dutifully, as a Scientist, offer myself up for research and experimentation on this subject... and swear to do my utmost to make sure the astronauts have a well researched activity to 'pass time' on such long journeys. I even offer myself as a 'bring-along' recreational activity for such missions... in fact I insist!

Dear God!!! Don’t eat me!!...

A ghastly turn has arisen in the search for the initial cause of mad cow disease.

According to Alan and Nancy Colchester at the universities of Kent and Edinburgh (respectively) in the UK, new evidence has arisen to suggest the disease did not originate in British cattle in the 1980’s, or from an exotic animal ground up and fed to them, but that the prion disease originated from a more gruesome source – dead people.

The Colchesters suggest that the disease BSE, found in British cattle, may have been caught from eating the remains of those who died from the related human prion disease CJD. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carcass scraps in the 1960s & 70s were imported by the UK for use in fertiliser and feed, around half of which came from India. Bone collectors from the country – who supply the carcasses – are believed to retrieve from rivers the incompletely cremated corpses which often end up there.

Like a barrel over stormy waters, it will calm you down

There is an old tradition amongst sailors of old to dump barrels of oil to calm stormy waters. It seems this tradition actually has a good scientifically basis. As a hurricane creates strong ocean waves, it causes large drops of water to become suspended in the air. This constructs a sandwiched layer (cloud of droplets) to act as a 3rd fluid between the air and ocean.

“Drops in the spray decrease turbulence and reduce friction, allowing for far greater wind speeds – sometimes 8 times as fast”.

• Alexandre Chorin. (University of California, Berkeley)

Hence, since the oil inhibits these droplets from forming, it would increase the friction in the air and reduce the force of the storm.

While at home recently, i found a piece of paper that said:
"Every marriage is a happy one. It's the living together that causes all the problems".
Experiments seem to confirm findings.

In combining these researches, I’ve found that a relationship's stormy waters can also be solved with oil…

*ahem*…

Research is still undergoing…

So does this mean only left-handed people are in their right minds?

Roughly 90% of humans are right-handed. “The phenomenon of a dominant side of the body appears to have developed in conjunction with the evolution of language”. To enhance communication ability, one side of the brain has developed to specialise in processing language. As each side of the brain is responsible for controlling its corresponding opposite side of the body, this has resulted in slightly poor muscle co-ordination on the side of the body that this hemisphere controls.

Seemingly, because left-handers have the language centre on the same side, it can lead to problems such as dyslexia and dyspraxia (both conditions are common in left-handers).

Accordingly, it seems left-handers evolved to avail of the benefit this would bestow in battle. As well as Lefties having unusual angles of attack, right-handed warriors being so used to fighting other right-handers would be overcome by the element of surprise that would take place upon encountering a left-handed fighter.

“Clan of the Kerr’s”
But the Kerrs were aye the deadliest foes
That e’er to Englishmen were known
For they were all bred left-handed men
And ‘fence against them there was none.

So, contrary to popular belief, it appears I’m a fighter, not a lover.

That lamp post picked the fight with ME!

So it seems all those students who can’t remember the night before are actually not just trying to cover their backs.
Alcohol affects the Hippocampus, at low levels disrupting its ability to lay down complex memories, while at high levels struggling with anything new or unusual.
At least, that what a study of rats has shown, and my own studies seem to…
um…
err…
What was I doing??

Learning without a clue

According to researches in California, Humans can learn without even knowing it. "volunteers with severe memory loss were capable of learning while preforming simple tasks". When presented with a range of objects, and repeatedly asked which object was the 'correct'' one, they were able, several weeks later, to select the correct item, not knowing why they picked it.

So bad news for all you class-disrupting-skewl-hating teens, who think they’re too kewl for skewl.

Well, personally, I’ll never feel guilty again for not paying attention in lectures.

Streptococci Europea

So all this bacteria in the world, and what do they all do? I mean, in a crowded world, does it get boring? Or is there always someone new to chat/conjugate with? But only some bacteria move about, so imagine being landed with a real annoying cell mate. It’d take a lot of mitosis to get some space.

Well, I do know that if you’re reading this, and you’re a bacterium, then the place to be this year is good old People’s Republic of Cork, in the south of Ireland. It’s European Capital of Culture 2005. So get those flagella waving, and get on down there, if you haven’t yet been. Activities to entertain all types, cocci and bacilli alike. Fun for all the family, so there’s no need to find a ‘sitter for those nanobacteria. Exhibitions, Music, Craic and Photosynthesis Picnics in the park.

Be there, or be a Eukaryote.

Proxima Centauri Multiplex

If there is Alien life out there… would we even recognised it if we stepped on it?? (or it on us). We don’t know half of what life we share our own planet with, so if somith that has developed from completely different origins as ours came along… are we even gonna realise? What if they’re already here? (I could nominate a few candidates).

And if they are out there… I wonder what they got showing in their cinema… it’s gotta be a sight better than what Humanity has to offer at the moe. I think our race is in a bit of a cinematic depression… Productivity is far exceeding Creativity, that’s for sure. But then again, if we wouldn’t even recognise Alien life, there's no way we’d be able to tell the actors from the set… so guess Alien cinema’s out of the question, for now at least…

P.A.Y.E God

Imagine those billions and billions of galaxies out there…Each with million and millions of stars….
Majority of these stars are of a similar type trend as our star…With at least half of these with planetary systems…

Now try and put a good case forward for us being the only ones out here in the Universe….
Seems like an awful waste of ‘space’ if so…

If God was a gardener, on a botanical garden (e.g. Kew) scale, why would he only fertilise one flower pot? He’d be fired by the ‘Powers That Be’ lickety split. He’d never hold down a stable job.

Yeah, microchips, but what... is it good for?

"Yeah, microchip, but what... is it good for?"
- an IBM senior engineer, 1968

Just Imagine the computer processing power that’s not being used as you sit there surfing the net… your computer probably has at least a GHz just sitting there not being used…

Now multiply that by millions of computer users just sitting out there, processors lazing about…

So how about putting that power to use? And for a good cause too! Let your computer live up to its full potential. Join up with Grid.org and help cancer research!
http://www.grid.org/home.htm

Give one good excuse as to why not!?!

Thanx!

Blessed be,
Jó

There is nothing wrong with your browser software.
Do not attempt to adjust the web address.
I am controlling the internet connection.
If I wish to make it faster, I will raise up the MBps.
If I wish to make it slower, I will tune it to a 56k modem.

I can reduce the font to a soft blur,
or sharpen it to crystal clarity.
I can barely walk horizontal.
I find it hard to stay vertical.
For the next however long you spend here,
sit quietly and I will control all that you see and read.
You are about to experience the awe and mystery
which reaches from My Inner Mind to...
My Outer Exterior

(cue theme music)