The brief synopsis of the mysterious Tunguska Event is that on June 30, 1908, a massive explosion occured above a remote region of Siberia, leveling over 80 million trees across a hundred square mile area.  The explosion is estimated to have been equivelant to several A-Bombs.  The catalyst for the explosion remains a big unknown.  Read more here.

Dr. Labvin, president of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, says he has evidence that the explosion was caused by an alien spacecraft colliding with a massive meteor on a collision course with earth.  By exploding the massive meteor before it crashed into our planet, Dr. Labvin says the aliens saved humanity.

Dr. Labvin’s evidence is several quartz slabs discovered at the site of the explosion which are engraved with strange symbols.  According to Dr. Labvin, we do not possess the technology to create the intricate geometric shapes carved on the quartz slabs.  Tests with lasers were unsuccessful at duplicating the designs.  He claims the slabs are debris from the alien spaceship, possibly part of the ship’s navigation controls.

Are these alien navigation controls?

We should all take a moment to think of the brave alien astronauts who saved our planet on that fateful day in 1908.  We don’t know about you, but we feel safer knowing extraterrestrial intelligences are looking out for us.  Read more here.

What do you think?

The report at the arXiv blog (read here), compares brains to computer chips.  There is a limit to the size of most computer chips because the larger the chip, the more cooling it requires.  The same can be said for our brains.  We encounter a size limit when the amount of energy required for cooling becomes unsustainable and inefficient.  Some computer chip makers say we are fools to produce faster and faster chips because of these inevitable cooling problems (once again, good news for anyone who fears a robot apocalypse).

But, calculations by theoritical neurobiologists show that our brains could be much larger.

Are our brains growing?  How can we tell?

1. High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System – You heard it here.  These are small high power laser weapons, i.e. weapons that shoot energy beams at the speed of light.  That’s fast.
2. High Productivity Computing Systems – a.k.a. Super computers a.k.a. SKYNET from the Terminator mythos.
3. Machine Learning – Cognitive machines.  Hmmm.  Again, we’ll reference SKYNET and Terminator.
4. Neuroscience – In specific, projects that’ll create brain-machine interfaces.  Is this putting us one step closer to The Matrix?
5. Real-Time Accurate Language Translation – Tower of Babel my ass.
6. Space – , here we come.

Scary, but real, stuff.  You can find the full report here.

Which one of these research projects would you most like to see come to fruition?

J.J. Abram’s Star Trek features a Hitchcockian macguffin like few we’ve ever seen before.  It’s a mysterious substance referred to as ‘red batter’ by the film’s villain, Romulan Captain Nero.  Now, there is some debate right now over whether Nero called it ‘red batter’ OR ‘red matter’, but for the sake of giving this amazing substance more identity, we’re calling it ‘red batter’.

‘Red batter’ has the ability to reduce itself and matter around it into a singularity at a rapid, exponential rate.  As a bomb explodes on impact, ‘red batter’ gravitationally sucks in everything around it on impact.  The end result is that most awesome of interstellar objects, the fearsome black hole.

In J.J. Abram’s Star Trek, Captain Nero uses the ‘red batter’ (or ‘red matter’) to create a black hole in the center of Spock’s home world Vulcan.  This black hole devours the planet in a matter of minutes in a sequence that is, in our opinion, much more terrifying than Star War’s Death Star’s planet destroying laser beam could ever be.

Besides creating black holes, the ‘red batter’ can also affect time travel.  If you’ve seen the new Star Trek, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Could such a matter exist in reality?  Perhaps.  A recent study, which you can read more about here, suggests that all particles are miniature black holes.  IF this is the case, than it is probable that there is a catalyst which would enable these miniature black holes, which are everything, to coalesce together at an exponential rate to create a rapidly growing black hole that devours everything in its path.

Could the Large Hadron Collider be a catalyst for such a reaction?  If so, what sort of defenses have we put in place?

And did Captain Nero say ‘red batter’ or ‘red batter’?  Personally, we think ‘red batter has a nicer ring to it.  What do you think?

When we hear the word Vulcan, our thoughts wander to the Star Trek character Spock, his home planet, and his people.  The VULCAN Engine Program is appropriately named since it is a “propulsion system demonstration effort to design, build, and ground-test an engine capable of accelerating a full-scale hypersonic vehicle from rest to Mach 4+.”

This could be our first steps towards a “warp drive” propulsion system like the one that propels the Enterprise across vast distances in space.

Read the DARPA News Release here (via DARPA’s news room.)

The project at the Lawrence Livermore National Ignition Facility plans to ignite a miniture star in a controlled lab environment using lasers.  This tiny nuclear reactor could produce tremendous amounts of energy.  For example, our sun blasts about 386 BILLION gigawatts of energy into space.  A large nuclear reactor generates 1 gigawatt.  Do the math.  Even if we could create a star hundreds of billions times smaller than our sun, the energy output would still be massive.  This could solve all of our energy problems as long as we can control the nuclear fusion and harness to power of a star.  Worst case scenario = the destruction of earth if the star we build powers out of control.

This building could soon be home to a man-made baby star.

Robot twitterati could be next.

Social media users worry they will not be able to discern between their “human” and “robot” friends.  Jackie Topovowitz from the organization Anti-Android Research & Development Team (AARDT) said, “We cannot blur the line any more between man and machine.  The simple fact is, robots should be taught to be subservient to humans.  Allowing them to interact with people on social networks puts us on equal footing, and we cannot let that happen.”

Members of the group Robots Deserve Rights 2, (RDR2), say the comments made be AARDT are robo-racist.  Jeffrey Gottchalk said, “we welcome robots to online social networks with open arms.  This is a positive step forward in robot rights.”

What do you think?  Do robots have a fundamental right to social media?

As we continue to wonder what might cause the 2012 apocalypse infamously predicted by the Mayans, this report has caused a stir because of the following quote from the article in the Times Online: “From 2012, however, PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the internet an ‘unreliable toy’”.

Could a frustratingly slow internet cause the infamous 2012 apocalypse?  This is a possibility according to an internet researcher who wishes to remain nameless.  The reseacher said, “We’ve become so dependent on the internet that a reduction in its performance could lead to global chaos.  Banking systems, transportation, utility grids could all come crashing down.  I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all to think the ensuing mayhem could snowball into the end of the world.”

While these points are relevant to this theory, psychologist Dr. Eddie Eddington Jr. says he is more concerned about the psychological damage a slow and evaporating internet would have on the world.

Dr. Eddington said the following when reached for comment: “The instant gratification we’ve become used to with the internet and the immediacy with which we can connect to a world of information has made us extremely ADD.  Take for instance the Twitter phenomena.  Our attention spans and patience are dwindling at exponential rates.  If reports that the internet will start slowing to a sudden halt around 2012 are true, then we could very well see our collective psychology short circuit.  The results of such a short circuit could be widespread insanity, which would snowball into chaos, riots, and general anarchy.  It very well could trigger a sort of ‘social apocalypse’.  Perhaps this is what the Mayans predicted.”

What do you think?  Could a slow internet in 2012 be the spark that lights the fire of an apocalypse?

The video says it all. What’s next? Can you imagine a world full of glow in the dark humans?

Some say this could be a solution for the energy crisis and global warming.

“If humans glowed in the dark, they wouldn’t need lights. Lights in our homes, cities, et cetera eat up a tremendous amount of energy,” says Physicist Peter Pablano. “Glow in the dark powers could save the climate, since the reduction in energy consumption would lead to a massive reduction in carbon emissions.”

What do you think? Should the Obama administration push forward with a policy of genetically engineering the American populace to glow in the dark as part of their energy policy?

DARPA is moving project ISIS into its demonstration phase.  ISIS (Integrated Sensor Is Structure) is a military project with goals to launch an autonomous statospheric-based airship equipped with supercharged sensors for surveillance.  The lightweight structure will hover high above earth for years and be capable of tracking objects as small as a child from up to 300 km away.

But, the idea of hovering surveillance structures troubles privacy groups like the Anti-Satellite Sympathizers.  A.S.S. founder and president Neil Kaminskigee said the following: “It’s just one more step towards a totalitarian police state, in which every square inch of earth has a dedicated ‘surveillance camera’ to watch over citizens.”

Others see this as another step towards floating airbases and cities.  Population control organizations have promoted the idea of permanent, stratosphere based structures to help alleviate overcrowding on the surface of our planet.

Read the press release from DARPA here.