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Interesting approach to the topic.


Do aliens exist? Carlo Rovelli, a founder of loop quantum gravity theory and author of the best-selling book “Seven Brief Lessons on Physics,” says it’s an easy question.

“There is so much space up there that it is childish to think that in a peripheral corner of an ordinary galaxy there should be something uniquely special,” he writes. “Life on Earth gives only a small taste of what can happen in the universe.”

Humans do have a long history of thinking they are special, though we’re gradually learning otherwise.

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I love contract season with the US Government because you get to see all of the cool projects being awarded.


CAMBRIDGE, MA — The U.S. military’s unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) depend on stealth as they conduct surveillance and reconnaissance and other missions in the deep oceans. With Global Positioning System (GPS) signals unable to penetrate the ocean’s surface, these UUVs can rely on inertial sensors to provide acceptable positioning information during short missions. On longer missions, however, inertial sensors accumulate error, forcing the vehicles to risk exposing themselves to enemies as they periodically surface to obtain a GPS fix.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is addressing this issue by funding the development of a small number of acoustic transmitters that can be anchored to fixed locations around ocean basins to serve as an undersea navigation constellation, according to a May 10 release by the Cambridge-based nonprofit company Draper.

By measuring its range to multiple signals emanating from known coordinates, an undersea vehicle can operate continuously with accurate navigation information without needing to surface for GPS fixes or to use high cost inertial systems that are typical of current UUVs. DARPA awarded a contract on March 15 to a Draper-led team to begin development of a solution for the Positioning System for Deep Ocean Navigation (POSYDON).

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Not saying that the whole Apple situation cause this; it just odd timing.


The Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission have asked mobile phone carriers and manufacturers to explain how they release security updates amid mounting concerns over security vulnerabilities, the U.S. agencies said on Monday.

The agencies have written to Apple, AT&T and Alphabet, among others, in order “to better understand, and ultimately to improve, the security of mobile devices,” the FCC said.

The FCC sent letters to six mobile phone carriers on security issues, while the FTC ordered eight mobile device manufacturers including BlackBerry, Microsoft, LG Electronics USA and Samsung Electronics America to disclose “the factors that they consider in deciding whether to patch a vulnerability on a particular mobile device.”

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DARPA was tied to this; and when you click on the article the page states content was removed. I will keep trying to track down because it is a great report; so not sure if someone has intervene.


Forget telltale finger grease prints: researchers have come up with a robot that mimics the swipe touch gestures we use to get into our phones.

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NASA just made a new announcement regarding the findings made by the Kepler Space Telescope.

NASA just announced that they have found 1,284 new planets. This is the most exoplanets that have ever been announced at one time, and it doubles the number of known Kepler exoplanets (informally known as ‘alien planets’).

“This announcement more than doubles the number of known exoplanets,” says Timothy Morton, associate research scholar at Princeton University, and a member of the study.

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