When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all.
Addressing scientists Feb. 15, 2008 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication, presented new survey results that show religion exerts far more influence on public views of technology in the United States than in Europe. “Our data show a much lower percentage of people who agree that nanotechnology is morally acceptable in the U.S. than in Europe,” says Scheufele, an expert on public opinion and science and technology.
Okay thats not good at all.
In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable. In European surveys that posed identical questions about nanotechnology to people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, significantly higher percentages of people accepted the moral validity of the technology. In the United Kingdom, 54.1 percent found nanotechnology to be morally acceptable. In Germany, 62.7 percent had no moral qualms about nanotechnology, and in France 72.1 percent of survey respondents saw no problems with the technology.
Ohh so it´s a small study but still credible and the numbers are kinda scary..
Why the big difference?
The answer, Scheufele believes, is religion: “The United States is a country where religion plays an important role in peoples’ lives. The importance of religion in these different countries that shows up in data set after data set parallels exactly the differences we’re seeing in terms of moral views. European countries have a much more secular perspective.”
The catch for Americans with strong religious convictions, Scheufele believes, is that nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together as means to enhance human qualities. In short, researchers are viewed as “playing God” when they create materials that do not occur in nature, especially where nanotechnology and biotechnology intertwine, says Scheufele.
This is not good, I hope this doesn´t reflect the whole American population but if it does that could mean that the US is going to be left in the dust while the other countries go high tech.
Or maybe even a holy war on that type of tech, you never know…
Check this out, this is some freaky shit and the music doesn´t make it better.
The TASER® ShockwaveTM system is the first generation of new TASER Remote Area Denial (TRAD) technology. Shockwave devices integrate TASER’s field-proven Neuro Muscular Incapacitation (NMI) technology into the first anti-personnel area-target system capable of not only denying personnel, but also incapacitating personnel with reversible effects. With the push of a button at a stand-off distance of up to 25 feet, the Shockwave unit deploys multiple TASER cartridges that are oriented across an area arc. Full area coverage is provided to instantaneously incapacitate multiple personnel within that region.
Okay where is my Thor Shield I want it now, because that is kinda scary.
Sure I would gladly be tased rather then being shot with a gun but I don´t like the Shockwave it´s scary.
Rocky planets, possibly with conditions suitable for life, may be more common than previously thought in our galaxy, a study has found.
New evidence suggests more than half the Sun-like stars in the Milky Way could have similar planetary systems.
There may also be hundreds of undiscovered worlds in outer parts of our Solar System, astronomers believe.
Wow thats alot of planets in our solar system, I thought it was between 8 and 14 or something.
Speaking at the AAAS meeting, Nasa’s Alan Stern said he thought only the tip of the iceberg had been found in terms of planets within our own Solar System.
More than a thousand objects had already been discovered in the Kuiper belt alone, he said, many rivalling the planet Pluto in size.
“Our old view, that the Solar System had nine planets will be supplanted by a view that there are hundreds if not thousands of planets in our Solar System,” he told BBC News.
He said many of these planets would be icy, some would be rocky, and there might even be objects with the same mass as Earth.
“It could be that there are objects of Earth-mass in the Oort cloud (a band of debris surrounding our planetary system) but they would be frozen at these distances,” Dr Stern added.
“They would look like a frozen Earth.”
Yes lets haul one of the frozen planets into the warmth of the sun and then populat.
Excitement about finding other Earth-like planets is driven by the idea that some might contain life or perhaps, centuries from now, allow human colonies to be set up on them.
Both are good things, life on a second planet in our solar system then the univers might not be so lonely as we thought, colonization kinda speaks for itself.
