Wow
The north pole of Saturn, courtesy of the Cassini spacecraft:
Our Earth is about the size of a marble held up to this. Awesome.
via IO9
The last, best hope for humanity…
A nifty article on space warfare linked by Instapundit, in which my old favorite Babylon 5 gets some props. Though dated, that show had some of the best science-fiction writing ever featured on television. Though it was a a struggle (I’m sure my kids remember me trying to track down episodes when it only came on at 3AM on the Atlanta UPN station) I’m glad J. Michael Straczyniski got to tell his five-year story in full.
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(click pic for slideshow)
Skynet draws closer
Via IO9, a DARPA robot has set a new robotic land speed record
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From the comments: “Dammit! I’m gonna need a chain gun.”
Beam me up, Scotty?
Well, no. But instant communication over interstellar distances? That may be in the cards after all- no more 20 minute time lag in talking to Mars, for example. From ZDNet–
This month, two major studies on quantum teleportation have made it through peer review and been published, breaking previous distance records. Chinese scientists report teleporting photons over 97km and now a team working in the Canaries report doing the same thing, but between the islands — a distance of over 140km. Both experiments were completed earlier this year and have now been published in Nature.
The researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Vienna, say their work paves the way for global quantum communications.
Lead scientist Anton Zeilinger said: “Our experiment shows how mature quantum technologies are today and how useful they can be for practical applications. The next step is satellite-based quantum teleportation, which should enable quantum communication on a global scale.”
Albert Einstein reportedly referred to this as “spooky action at a distance”. If Quantum Entanglement (which they attempt to explain in the article) works anything like it’s being suggested, the possibilities are mind-boggling.
Of course, to be honest, the whole concept of Quantum Mechanics leaves me muttering to myself… but it looks like the payoff in tech could be huge. Now we need to discover and learn how to use wormhole technology and my whole Stargate universe can come into being (though hopefully without the Goa’uld).