News 9 November 2015

I have been reading a lot of strange things lately and what makes them even stranger is some of the statements contained in what I am reading are coming from respected scientists and other respected people. Recently a statement was made by some NASA scientists which really surprised me. They were speculating on what the dominant force in the universe is and somehow they came to the conclusion there are super-intelligent robots out there which are at the top of the life pyramid. I do have to wonder why they would come to this conclusion when there is no way to know if there are super-intelligent biological beings or even pure minds out there. Being a Trekkie I have seen just about every conceivable idea the science fiction writers have about life and I have to think they may have a better idea of what life could be than the scientists. The problem is the scientists seem to have forgotten the most powerful computer is the human brain and it just might be possible to enhance it to a point where we would be far ahead of machines, so this also has to be considered. We need to consider the fact there could be pure logic out there in some form we don’t recognize, which we might consider a god and who has the ultimate power.

One of the most sacred beliefs in science is Darwin was correct with his theory of evolution. It is so sacred that any scientist who publically disagreed with it was summarily ridiculed and never taken seriously again. This may be coming to an end. Some scientists are saying now Darwin’s Tree of Life “misleads us because the theory limits and even obscures the study of organisms and their ancestries.” This would have been considered heresy a few years ago. The scientists who disagree with the Tree of Life diagram, which was drawn about 150 years ago, say that science has advanced so much the diagram is outmoded. One scientists stated, "For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life. We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality." The discovery of DNA made things a lot more complicated. When DNA was originally discovered it was thought it would prove the Tree of Life diagram was correct, but this is not what happened.

We now have some scientists bucking the fossil fuel industry. This would have been unheard of years ago, but it has come to the point where they believe the fossil fuel industry, if allowed to continue the same way, will be responsible for the destruction of the earth. Β Some are going so far as to say the fossil fuel industry must implode. Here is what one famous scientist, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber who advises the German government and the Pope said, “In the end it is a moral decision. Do you want to be part of the generation that screwed up the planet for the next 1,000 years? I don’t think we should make that decision.” Many other people feel the same way and so much pressure was put on the fossil fuel industry that they had a public meeting and stated the absurd goal of wanting to help the planet. If anyone believes this I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. The thing I worry about is the fact this industry is flush with money and will probably decide to buy up all the alternate energy industries and we will never get the benefit of lower prices even if alternate energy takes over.

Did you ever wonder how some creatures in very hot deserts stay cool? One case in point is the silver ant which lives in the heat of the Sahara desert. The ants have been found to be able to control electromagnetic waves over an extremely broad range of the solar spectrum. These waves range from visible and near infrared to thermal radiation which is mid-infrared. They do this with the coat of hairs on their bodies and this allows them to stay cool. The silvery coat of hairs is very important to the ants and scientists now think this same principle might apply to other things such as optical components. As happens often nature is ahead of us in some areas, but we are capable of learning from it.

One NASA scientists said the most incredible thing I have ever heard. He says we are all part of some alien computer game. Rich Terrile actually said our universe may be a Matrix-like computer game designed by aliens. There was some talk which suggested the people behind the movie The Matrix may have believed what they were putting on the screen had a basis in fact, but it seemed to be only talk. He believes we may be digital prisoners and what we see and do is not really happening. The theory was first proposed by British philosopher Nick Bostrom. Who would have ever thought a NASA scientist would agree with him and that there could be others in NASA who held the same opinion? There is a puzzle in Quantum mechanics and it is particles do not have a definite state unless they are being observed. How does one explain this? Terrile explains it by saying everything is a simulation and not real. He says, “What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us – and that's cool." The other side of the coin states Quantum Physics is nonsense and that is the real problem.

How much trouble are our oceans really in? A tremendous amount has to be the answer. One of the greatest problems for the oceans is ocean acidification and it is reaching a point where some scientists are saying if we don’t do something about it, all shelled animals in the ocean will disappear by 2030. The problem is as the oceans get warmer the oceans become more acidic and some animals cannot create shells in that type of environment. Calcium carbonate, an important ingredient in shell construction will almost disappear in 15 years from the oceans of the world unless something is done. As you can see global warming effects more than the ice and temperature, it causes many other harmful events.

An article was published on The//INTERCEPT by Lee Fang which states that many of the loudest defenders of the NSA have financial ties to the agency. Well this certainly is not a surprise. These are the people who defend the practices by the NSA which have an effect on our privacy such as gathering our phone records. Some of the defenders are found to be on the NSA payroll as contractors of various types. I guess they don’t want to give up their cash cow.