The study of how our universe began is inherently problematic. Unfortunately, we are as unable to peer directly into the past as we are into the future. To tell us about the past, all we have to rely on is our memory and the physical evidence the past has left behind. The origin of the Universe is understandably murky; not only was there no one around to observe it, the Universe has been constantly changing, erasing much of the evidence left over from this primordial time.

In 1924, Edward Hubble observed that other galaxies were speeding away from us and from each other, indicating that the universe was expanding. Previously, the most widely accepted theory was the “steady state” theory, which postulated that we live in an unchanging Universe. Hubble’s observations and subsequent theories showed that rather than living in a static, box-like Universe, our Universe is more like the surface of an inflating balloon. Over the next century, observation after observation added credence to this theory.

However, an expanding Universe must have started out from a single point. According to our best measurements, this expansion began roughly 14 billion years ago. At this time, the entire Universe was compressed into a tiny point referred to as a “singularity.” The matter and energy that would make up the Universe were compressed so densely that the laws of nature break down, and we can’t mathematically predict what occurred prior to this time. Additionally, the sudden expansion of the singularity was so chaotic that the only evidence we have left over from this event is the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation that permeates all of space. With our current instruments and technology, we are unable to gather any clues about what happened prior to this expansion, or how the singularity that became the Universe got there in the first place.

There is one method for forming singularities that we know of: Black Holes. At the center of each Black Hole rests a singularity so dense, that energy and matter cannot escape its gravitational pull. There is currently no way for us to see what’s happening inside a Black Hole, just as there is no way for us to see what happened before the Big Bang. Recently, a physicist at Indiana University, Nicodem Poplawski, has united these two phenomena into a new framework for understanding reality. According to Poplawski’s idea, at the center of each Black Hole there is another Universe, and our Universe exists inside a Black Hole in another, “parent” universe. The idea is mind-boggling, but Poplawski’s paper posits mathematical solutions that work and actually solve many of the problems in modern cosmology. This theory of nested Universes isn’t new, but Poplawski’s approach is the first to mathematically propose solutions that work and fit with experimental evidence. It almost seems too perfect not to be true.

Of course, none of this addresses the issue of where existence came from in the first place. By suggesting that our Universe was birthed through a Black Hole in a different Universe, all we are doing is pushing back the Beginning of Everything without answering any of the fundamental questions. This has been one of the hardest questions philosophy has ever raised: if God created the Universe, Who created God? However, if our Universe is nested within another, it seems likely that our Parent Universe has a Parent Universe of its own, and that Universe has a Parent, etc, etc. Perhaps the chain of Universes stretches back infinitely, and there was no moment of creation. The evidence seems to suggest it really is turtles all the way down.

Our society’s quest for new sources of energy is relentless. Literally no stone has been left unturned in our search for fossil fuels. The reasons for this are simple and straight-forward; within the last 100 years the energy demands of our economy have skyrocketed. North America has been especially thirsty for oil as our massive highway system continuously expands. This transportation method has been completely reliant oil products for its energy demands, and the United States alone consumes more than double the amount of oil of the next largest consumer, China.

The main problem with this system (besides the looming threat of global warming) is that fossil fuels are a limited resource. All fossil fuel deposits around the world were created deep in the past, during a very warm, wet period in our planet’s history. Vast amounts of vegetation carpeted the Earth; so much that the bacteria responsible for decomposition were unable to keep up with the supply of compostable material. The leftovers were buried beneath the ground, eventually becoming the coal, oil, and gas that we use to power modern society. And while we burn through this resource at an ever increasing pace, no new fuel is being created.

But that doesn’t have to be the case. There is nothing magical or supernatural about the manufacture of fossil fuels. They are composed the same carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms that we are all familiar with. More importantly, these same atoms are floating around us all the time in the very air we breath. The trick is to get these atoms to bond in the right proportions and configurations, and now a team from Great Britain has done just that.

“It sounds too good to be true, but it is true,” said Tim Fox from London’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers. So far the team has successfully extracted 5 liters of petrol in less than three months at a small refinery in Teeside. They are backed by a group of unnamed donors who believe this could be important to the future of renewable energy. Converting CO2 and water into usable gasoline is a process that takes energy, but by extracting CO2 from the air, and using green energy like solar or wind power, the process is able to remain carbon-neutral.

One of the biggest obstacles for new, green technologies to overcome is that it is far simpler to use the existing infrastructure than to adapt to a whole new technology. Electric or hydrogen powered cars require completely new refueling stations which would be costly and difficult to install. The Air Fuel Synthesis process, on the other hand, bypasses this problem entirely by allowing consumers to keep their existing vehicles and gas pumps. And since air is everywhere, it’s easy to envision refineries springing up where they’re needed, eliminating the need to ship huge quantities of oil from one part of the globe to another.

This seems like the kind of technology that many countries, especially the United States, should adopt. Anything that mitigates our dependance on foreign sources of fuel is a definite plus, and the carbon-capturing ability of these refineries would go a long way towards purifying our polluted air.

Technological advances within the last century have been astounding. We’ve moved from horse-drawn wagons to self-driving cars in the blink of an eye; geologically speaking. New ideas and inventions have sprung up that were unimaginable before, and many have made the transition from science fiction to science fact. One of the most common themes, and the default mascot of this astounding series of technical advances, is the robot. Ever since Elektro the Smoking Robot electrified audiences at the 1940 world’s fair, there has been a consistent enthusiasm for this technology from the general public. It was expected that by the year 2000, everyone would have their own personal robot butler to handle many of the menial tasks of everyday life.

Of course, reality rarely turns out as people expect. The science of robotics is far more complicated and intricate than simply creating a machine shaped like a person. Robots must be able to navigate in our world at least as efficiently as we do, and the ability to accomplish tasks that are simple for humans has been difficult to program; until now.

We may not have a robot butler in every kitchen, but robots are beginning to infiltrate not only our domestic spaces, but many other aspects of our lives as well. The most well known of this new generation of robots is the humble Roomba, the first wide-spread household robot that vacuums floors and confuses pets. It doesn’t seem like much, but programming a robot to navigate around a house effectively without getting caught in corners is harder than it sounds.

The most obvious use of household robots would be for assisting the elderly and infirm, who may not always have access to adequate resources to properly care for themselves. Toyota has been working on what it calls a “Human Support Robot” for assisting disabled people around the house. It moves around on a cylindrical base similar to the Roomba, but can adjust its height and manipulate objects with its single arm. It is controlled by tablet, and features a docking station on its “head” to allow for its owner to communicate easily with other people via Skype or other video chat service.

The field of medicine has seen the greatest influx of robotic technology in recent years as the sensitivity and sophistication of robots has gotten better. The Da Vinci Surgical System is a robotic system designed to aid surgeons in many different procedures, from urology to cardiology. The surgeon performs the work from a console which displays a magnified view of the body’s interior with a 3-D imager. Using the same console, the surgeon controls a number of precision tools allowing them to perform many different procedures with much more precision than ever before.

Recently, people have been getting excited about the prospect of robot cars with the passing of legislation in California making them legal. Google Inc. has been working on this project for a number of years, and the prototypes are finally ready, and cruising around California’s highways in an experimental phase. Along with freeing us from the need to pilot our own vehicles, autonomous cars will actually make our roadways safer by removing human error. Robots don’t get sleepy or suffer from road hypnosis (or drink before they drive), and their reaction time is better than our own by orders of magnitude. They will also help alleviate congestion (a real boon for California’s highways) by driving more efficiently and less aggressively than their human counterparts. Eventually, robot cars will be able to create the most efficient traffic networks possible by communicating with each other (their communications will be much more constructive than simple honking and middle-finger displaying).

Of course, there is a dark side to robotics. Armed forces around the world are investing heavily into robots not only for use on the front lines, but to aid soldiers in battle. Predator drones are already widely known, and have been used by the US Air Force for several years in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Future battlefield robots will not only patrol the skies, but the land and sea as well. DARPA has produced several different robot designs including the “Big Dog” robot that uses legs instead of wheels to traverse difficult terrain, and can navigate around in a battlefield situation. Currently, the plan is to use robots like these as pack mules for soldiers in the field, but it’s a small step to place weapons systems like those on the predator drone on the Big Dog and let it do our ground-level fighting for us. The idea is tempting, as it removes our soldiers from harm’s way, but ethicists and philosophers worry about removing the human element from warfare. If there is no human cost for declaring war, it becomes easier and easier to make that decision.

Whether we are prepared for the influx of robots into our lives or not doesn’t matter; they are coming. After being promised to us for nearly a century, Our automated creations are finally becoming important on the human scene. They are poised to change many aspects of our lives, mostly for the better, but a bit of caution would be wise. As these robots become closer to appearing human and doing the jobs that humans do, it will become harder and harder to think of them as mechanical devices, and people will begin attributing to them human emotions and desires. Robots are tools that can perform many tasks, but they will never take the place of human social interaction. We take the risk of placing to much trust and faith into a machine that will never truly understand what it means to be human.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news recently, chances are you’ve heard the term “Higgs Boson.” Chances are, unless you are a nuclear physicist, that you also have very little idea of what it is. The Higgs Boson is a subatomic particle, the existence of which was theorized by Peter Higgs and other researchers way back in 1964, but lacked experimental evidence until very recently. It hasn’t been for lack of trying, however, finding the Higgs Boson has been the Holy Grail of particle physics for the better part of a decade, and was one of the main reasons the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was constructed.

As the news was announced, Professor Higgs wiped a tear from his eye, offering the following understatement: “it’s very nice to be right sometimes.” When he first began work on this theoretical particle, he had no idea whether or not he would be proven right, or if he would even find out within his lifetime. With the announcement of this discovery, there is even talk of awarding Professor Higgs the Nobel Prize. Even Stephen Hawking is impressed.

The discovery of the Higgs Boson is important because our current understanding of physics, known as the Standard Model, relies on its existence. If researchers failed to detect the Higgs Boson, and it was shown to not exist, then we would have to go back to the drawing board and rework our understanding of physics from scratch.

The very nature of the Higgs Boson makes it incredibly difficult to detect. This is the main reason it has taken nearly 50 years to make this discovery. The Higgs only exists for a miniscule fraction of a second before degrading into other particles, and requires so much energy to create that only recently, with the help of the LHC, have researchers been able to generate the high energy particle beams needed.

The Higgs Boson gained the unfortunate nickname “The God Particle” from a 1993 book by physicist Leon M Lederman. Though he wasn’t directly involved in the ongoing research to find the Higgs Boson, the media grabbed hold of Lederman’s sensationalist term and ran with it. This makes it nearly impossible to find an article about the Higgs Boson without some mention of God in the title. And naturally, this has lead to many uninformed individuals claiming that this discovery is proof of God.

Let me state this clearly: the Higgs Boson is not God.

“We don’t call it the ‘God particle,’ it’s just the media that do that,” quipped one researcher. “The Higgs is not endowed with any religious meaning. It is ridiculous to call it that,” chimed in another. However, little things like accuracy won’t prevent the term from being widely used. “I am the from the media and I’m going to continue calling it that,” responded an unnamed reporter. While the sensationalism surrounding this discovery is likely to overshadow the actual scientific importance in the realm of media, the complex nature of the subject matter will likely keep it safe from obfuscation by less-informed individuals.

This is a huge turning point in our study and understanding of physics. It is a great victory for the Standard Model, which we can now assume with a higher degree of assurance is the correct way to interpret the Universe. Now, with the LHC’s main function fulfilled, we can turn our attention to even more baffling and interesting questions. The next round of theories, experiments, and results will reveal even more fascinating information, and keep physics buffs on the edges of our seats.

Nearly 16 years ago, the world marveled at the birth of the first cloned mammal: Dolly the sheep. While experiments with cloning technologies had been ongoing since the 1950′s, this was the first time a mammal had been successfully cloned using adult somatic cells. Previous cloning attempts made use of embryonic cells, which are not yet differentiated into different types like nerve cells or skin cells. Essentially, these researchers were simply creating twins, not clones. Dolly, on the other hand, was created from a cell derived from an adult sheep’s mammary gland and the DNA from a different sheep. This is how Dolly got her name; after the world’s most famous mammary glands.

This was extremely exciting to scientists – for the first time in history it became possible to take the DNA from an adult human and clone them. Theoretically, we could create multiple Einsteins or Steven Hawkings, or for the most dire of circumstances an army of Batmen. But it’s been nearly 20 years and there is still only one of me. What happened, or rather, didn’t happen?

It turns out that, as usual, the media jumped the gun and ran wild with a sensationalist story. Cloning technology has been a hotly debated topic since the idea was first conceived nearly a century ago, with ethical and moral questions at the forefront of most debates. And the process used to create Dolly the sheep is itself fraught with problems. Dolly herself only survived for 6 years, about half the life expectancy for a normal sheep. It’s still unclear whether or not her origin had anything to do with her shortened life-span; on the one hand the illness that led to her death is very common among sheep kept indoors as she was, but on the other hand a postmortem examination showed some signs of premature aging in her genes.

Whether or not Dolly herself was a victim of the circumstances of her birth, animals created using this form of cloning, known as “somatic cell nuclear transfer,” are fraught with developmental challenges and deformities. Only 0.1 to 3 percent of these cloning attempts actually work. Even if the clone survives until birth, it is likely to be born much larger than than their naturally occurring counterparts. Scientists have christened this deformity “Large Offspring Syndrome,” or “LOS.” The organs of these unfortunate individuals are oversized, leading to problems with breathing, blood flow, and other bodily processes. Even clones born without LOS often suffer from deformations of the kidneys, brain, and immune system which can lead to premature death or at least make life more difficult.

It’s should be fairly clear now why experiments into human cloning haven’t progressed any further than they have. Even if a researcher were to somehow conjure the funding and backing to undertake such a project, their chances of success are quite small. If they managed to bring a cloned human successfully to term, more likely than not that individual would suffer from one or more developmental disorders. The ethics and morals of human cloning are a moot question at this point – no one would even try with such a high chance of failure.

As it turns out, this process isn’t even really “cloning” in the purest sense of the word. Each cell contains two sets of DNA: nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA. Somatic cell nuclear transfer – the process used to create Dolly – only copies the nuclear DNA of the donor organism. The mitochondrial DNA comes from the organism that donated the host cell, and so the resulting clone is actually a hybrid of these two animals (although not in the same way that natural animals are hybrids of their parents).

With the media focused mainly on the headline-grabbing cloning projects like Dolly the sheep, important research into similar, but less sensationalist technologies is being over-looked. Recombinant DNA technology has been around since the 70′s, and work in this field is yielding amazing results that will help us engineer food with higher nutritional value, better taste, and shorter growing seasons. Therapeutic cloning, the cloning of human embryos for research, is currently our best bet for eventually beating diseases like Alzheimers, cancer, and heart disease.

While its fascinating and incredible that our technology has reached the point where we can clone mammals like Dolly the sheep, we must be careful with how these technologies are utilized. Without careful control of how the research is conducted, we run the risk of creating Frankenstein’s Monster and turning the public off to the potential benefits.

One of the simplest concepts to grasp in classical physics is the idea of causality. Our world-view is defined by cause-and-effect relationships from the day we are born. This is how we make sense of the world: every event has cause, which in turn has its own cause, etc, leading back all the way to Genesis or the Big Bang, depending on your point of view. Common sense tells us that causality only works one way: events in the future cannot affect events in the present or past. However, research into the quantum world which lurks at the base of reality has demonstrated that not only is it possible for the future to affect the past, it may be happening around us all the time.

This phenomenon is referred to as “retrocausality,” and until physics’ quantum revolution last century it was the province of psychics and mystics. Human beings have always longed for a glimpse of the future and the ability to change the past – everyone regrets at least one decision in their life. Researchers haven’t gotten that far yet, but they have stumbled upon something as intriguing as it is confusing.

Quantum physics is full of strange, quirky phenomena. One of the strangest of these is “entanglement.” Particles like photons, electrons, and even whole atoms and molecules can become “entangled” with one another when they are produced from the same source. Entangled particles somehow swap information back and forth without an intermediate step. So, if two photons are emitted from the same source, and the polarization of one is measured, the other photon will then take on a complimentary measurement, even if these particles are separated by a great distance. No information was transferred between the particles, and yet the second one was somehow influenced by the first.

In the mid-1980s at an American Association for the Advancement of Science symposium, physicist John Cramer proposed an experiment that would make use of quantum entanglement to send a message to the past. The idea is relatively simple: if measuring one photon in a pair affects the other regardless of distance, might this affect also occur regardless of time? Cramer’s experiment is deceptively simple. First, a pair of entangled photons is generated and split into twin beams. The first photon passes through a screen with two slits cut into it and onto a detector, which records the photon as either particle-like or wave-like. The second photon travels through an identical two-slitted screen, and then through a coil of fiber-optics which delays it. Once through the fiber-optic coil, the photon hits a movable detector which records the photon as particle-like when in its “far” position, and wave-like in its “near” position.

This is where things get really weird. The first, immobile detector records the first photon before the second photon is recorded by the second detector. By measuring the second photon as either a wave or a particle, the researcher forces the first photon to be recorded the same way, even though it was recorded before the researcher took the measurement of the second photon. It appears that somehow, information about the second photon’s state was sent backwards through time to the first photon, forcing it into a complimentary configuration.

While this is all very interesting, if this research turns out to be on the right track, the applications are mind-boggling and world-shattering. However, if future researchers are able to send messages to the past, why aren’t we receiving those messages now? Maybe we simply lack the right tools to detect them…

Classical physics, while mathematically complex, is based on simple, common-sense principles that everyone is familiar with. On the other hand, quantum physics, the set of laws that describe reality on very small scales, seems to be the exact opposite. Particles smaller than an atom don’t behave like they should, and are incredibly difficult to research. The main problem with attempting to study matter at this tiny scale is that we lack the tools. Our most powerful microscope, an electron tunneling microscope, is able to take images of individual atoms, but nothing smaller. Thus, researchers and theoreticians have had to rely on mathematical models to help them understand how reality works on these levels. However, these models imply a world that flies in the face of classical physics.

The “quantum revolution” occurred almost 100 years ago, and we still understand very little about this miniscule realm. The revolution was ushered in by Max Planck, a researcher doing studies on black-body radiation. A “black body” in this instance is a structure that absorbs all wavelengths of radiation. According to the understanding of physics at the time, such a “black body” should emit infinite amounts of ultraviolet radiation – this was known as the “ultraviolet catastrophe.” However, experimental results showed over and over again that this did not occur. Planck worked on this problem for years to no abail. Frustrated and desperate, Planck turned to a statistical method of analyzing the radiation, postulating that it was composed of discreet units of energy called “quanta,” later renamed “photons.” To Planck’s shock and surprise, this new method of evaluation fit with the experimental results. The problem with this solution is that it violated classical physics, and so a new understanding of matter on these scales was needed – this was the birth of quantum physics. Planck himself was rather conservative, and not given to embracing revolution or drastic changes to traditional ideas. But he had convinced himself there was no other solution – and a century of work in this field agrees with him.

Niels Bohr used this new understanding of the quantum world to devise his model of the atom. Since electrons could only have multiples of a standard “quanta” of energy, this would lead to electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom at different levels, or electron shells. This understanding was crucial to the creation of transistors, end helped to usher in the electronic age.

According to quantum theory, tiny particles of energy like photons or electrons have characteristics of waves and particles. As an electron orbits an atom as a wave, it is “smeared” out so that its precise position becomes unknowable. Werner Heisenberg proposed what is now known as the “Uncertainty Principle,” which means that a researcher cannot know the precise position of a particle if they know the speed, and cannot know the precise speed of a particle if they know the position.

If this seems confusing to you, don’t feel too bad. Even Albert Einstein had trouble with this concept. The vagueness of the subatomic world bothered him deeply, and when confronted with this idea he declared: “God does not play dice with the Universe.” This lead to a series of debates between Einstein and Bohr where the two intellectual heavyweights traded mental blows over many years.

Einstein considered quantum theory to be incomplete. While it might describe experimental results accurately, according to Einstein it only does so statistically, so it is not a complete theory. For instance, you could statistically describe the way rocks roll down a hill, but this does not explain the action of any specific rock in that set. Einstein felt that quantum theory simply modeled the behavior of tiny particles without explaining it.

On the other hand, Bohr argued that at these tiny levels, approximations and probability were the ONLY way to describe quantum behavior. Something was happening down there at the subatomic level that was by its very nature vague and impossible to understand. It’s not just that we lack to tools to accurately describe quantum behavior, quantum behavior is itself vague in nature. This is what causes the most headaches for people when they study quantum mechanics. The idea of reality being vague is extremely unsettling.

Bohr and Einstein debated back and forth about this subject for over a decade using Einstein’s famous thought experiments. Neither was able to change the other’s mind, and although quantum theory is generally accepted among scientists, there are still many researchers who feel, like Einstein, that it is an incomplete theory.

One of the most mysterious phenomena of quantum physics is a property Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.” He was referring to the prediction made by quantum physics that two particles separated by some distance can influence one another without any kind of intermediate step. In the world we all know and understand, two separate objects cannot interact unless they are touching, or some method exists for information or matter to travel from one to another. In the quantum world, on the other hand, two objects can maintain a connection even when separated, even across the Universe. Einstein scoffed at this notion, but remarkably it has been born out by experimentation. In May of this year, a group of international researchers in the Canary Islands broke the distance record for quantum teleportation – successfully sending a message over 143 km. Unfortunately, these connections are very delicate and beyond our ability to accurately control. Eventually, however, they will lead to new methods of communication that are less affected by environmental conditions.

Whether we have an accurate picture of the quantum world, and reality is actually vague, or if we simply lack the tools to understand these phenomena correctly, there is no doubt that more research on this frontier will lead to incredible discoveries. Harnessing the subatomic world for our own purposes will allow us to create better means of communication, faster computers, and many other innovations we simply cannot fathom yet.

Anatomically modern humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Yet we did not begin intensive agriculture or city building until between 10,000-15,000 years ago. Prior to this time, humans lived in smaller, hunting-gathering bands that had to be self-sufficient, more or less. Traditionally, this lifestyle is seen as being “more in tune with nature,” or “closer to the Earth.” But recent research has shown that early humans had a drastic impact on the landscapes they populated, and we are still feeling these impacts today.

As the last ice-age ended, modern humans began to spread out of Africa and occupy areas that had never felt the presence of humanity before. The world was dominated by mega-fauna – huge animals like wooly mammoths, giant sloths, cave bears, and saber-toothed cats. However, soon after the arrival of humans in these areas (in geologic time), the mega-fauna went extinct. The only areas that still have many large animals have also had humans and human ancestors present for a long time, allowing them to evolve proper defenses. In areas like Europe, Australia, and the Americas, however, humans were a novel predator, and the mega-fauna on these continents quickly succumbed. While it is true that this was a time of climate change, and climate change always leads to some extinctions, the number of mega-fauna species lost during this era far exceeds what was expected. The pattern is the same across the world: whenever humans arrived in a new area, the large animals in that area went extinct. The most drastic example of this phenomenon is in Australia, a continent that used to be dominated by giant kangaroos, flightless birds larger than ostriches, and enormous, predator reptiles bigger than komodo dragons. The first humans to arrive in Australia hunted with fire, burning down huge sections of forest and trapping the animals as they tried to flee. Northern Australia had previously been occupied by dry forests of Araucaria trees, but soon after the arrival of humanity, the plant communities began to change, favoring fire-restistent species like Eucalyptus. The vast desert that occupies central Australia was once a lush grassland inhabited by many species, but constant fire damage completely changed the landscape.

We tend to picture our modern civilization as a concrete and metal monster that is slowly devouring “pristine” nature. But the reality is that modern civilization is simply paving over early-human civilization, and while early-human civilization may not have had as drastic an effect,, it definitely altered the environment, and in many ways cleared the way for modern civilization. Our cities and agriculture would not be possible were it not for the huge populations produced by hunter-gatherer societies. These societies became so good at exploiting the natural world for resources that they faced a population crisis, and infanticide was widely practiced to control their numberse. Agriculture, on the other hand, allows the population to continuously expand, provided there is always more land to put under the plow. Faced with the choice of killing their children, starving, or intensive labor on a farm, it’s not surprising that humanity picked the third choice. Indeed, even if only one group adopted this intensive style of agriculture, their continually expanding population would allow them to overrun and out-breed their neighbors.

In North America, the impact of Native Americans on the ecosystem tends to be glossed over, or we are told they had no impact on nature at all, and “lived in harmony” with it. This is partly due to the fact that by the time European colonists began the full-scale settling of North America, 95% of the Native population had been wiped out by plagues. Thus, to the colonists, the country appeared almost completely devoid of human presence, but in reality they were inheriting a landscape that had been tamed thousands of years before they even arrived.

While our modern civilization is a solution to the problem of overpopulation, it is not a long-term solution. Intensive agriculture was adopted because the land had reached its carrying capacity for hunter-gatherers. However, once all of the arable land is converted to farmland, we will face the same problem, this time with a much higher population. Hopefully, we will find another solution, or find a morally acceptable way to keep our population at a stable number.

The late 60′s were the dawn of the space age – the first satellite went into orbit a decade earlier, and by the end of 1969 a human being was walking on the moon. The original Star Trek series captured the imagination of people all over the world, and we began to realistically dreaming of visiting other worlds.

Now, almost 40 years after the series first aired, an engineer has stepped forward with a proposal to build the first generation Starship Enterprise. While there are many differences between his proposal and the fictional ship from the TV show (we don’t yet have warp drive technology, for example), the exterior will look similar and the purpose will be the same.

At buildtheenterprise.org, the founder of the site, who calls himself “BTE Dan,” claims that we could build his stars ship concept in as little as 20 years for the price of $40 billion per year. While that sounds like a significant investment, BTE Dan assures us it is well within our price range, only 0.27% of the US government’s yearly GDP. For comparison, between 1963 and 1972 – the heyday of the Apollo program – the US government diverted 0.50% of it’s annual GDP to NASA.

If we were to start building now and complete the ship in 20 years as per BTE Dan’s schedule, we would be ahead of the fictional Enterprise by nearly 2 centuries. However, BTE Dan’s Enterprise lacks a few of the bells and whistles of the fictional Enterprise, like a warp drive and artificial gravity. Instead, BTE Dan’s Enterprise will be powered by 2 nuclear reactors and three ion propulsion engines. This will allow the ship to reach Mars in 90 days. The saucer section of the ship will be a magnetically suspended wheel spinning at 2 RPMs to simulate Earth’s gravity. The ship will also feature a high-powered laser for research purposes, and of course to defend the ship from any hostile Klingons or Romulans.

Some people have pointed out that this configuration may not be the best layout for a space ship. For instance, if the gravity wheel were turned 90 degrees so that it was perpendicular to it’s plane of motion, there would be no need to magnetically suspend it – the entire ship could be a giant gravity wheel that spins as a single unit. However, BTE Dan points out there is a problem with this idea: “it’s not the Enterprise.” The entire premise behind the BTE website is to get people excited about space travel by having them rally around a cultural icon. More practical space ship designs don’t have the same impact and will have a much harder time getting public support.

The Enterprise would be the largest artificial structure humankind has ever created. It would be a feat of engineering that outshone all others – and it’s entirely possibly. It’s unlikely that the funding for this project will materialize, but it’s nice to know that if we really wanted to, we could build something like this.

Recent advances in medical technology are taking us to astounding new places. As our understanding of human biology gets better and better, we will not only be able to heal the sick and disabled, but augment our senses and increase our abilities as well. Here are three technologies that promise to not only aid the disabled, but make all of our lives easier as well:

Bionic Eyes

Helping the blind to see again is certainly an important breakthrough. Current technology has just reached the stage where we can replace damaged and degenerate retinas with an electronic equivalent. Recent research at Stanford has even created a bionic eye that eliminates the need for bulky wiring and batteries, which are the main problems that have been plaguing such devices to date. A pair of glasses with a camera built into the frame record an image which is then sent via infrared light to the retinal chip at the back of the eye. The infrared signal not only sends the data but also powers the tiny implant, making the procedure much less invasive and uncomfortable.

This kind of implant will only work on those with age-related macular degeneration and retinal pigmentosa – so it won’t help those that have been blind from birth or have suffered damage to the optic nerve itself. However, successful tests with rats have shown that these devices are quit practical in allowing subjects to perceive shapes and colors after they have begun to lose their ability to see.

Eventually, it will be possible to utilize this type of implant with augmented reality technology, sending signals directly through the eye to the optic nerve. Rather than just displaying information on a pair of glasses, it will seem as if the data is actually there, floating around in the environment.

BrainGate

Simple actions that most of us take for granted can be among the most frustrating losses of disabled individuals. For the first time in 15 years, a disabled woman was able to reach out and sip from a drink on her own. However, she did not use her own arm to do so, but rather a robotic arm linked directly into her brain using the new BranGate brain-computer interface (BCI). This research has been ongoing for years, and while previous studies had proved that people can use the device to move a cursor on a 2-dimensional screen, this is the first use of the technology in physical space. The implications are incredible. No longer will disabled individuals need to rely on others, but as the system becomes more sophisticated, they will be as completely mobile as non-disabled people. Indeed, as our mastery of robotics becomes more fine-tuned, these prostheses will be able to perform better than the standard human appendages.

Research into BCIs is accelerating at a phenomenal pace. Not only will these systems allow the disabled more control over their lives, they will enhance all of our abilities as well. Future BCIs will allow direct communication between the brain and a computer – the only place you’ll see a keyboard and mouse in the future is in a museum.

Robotic Exoskeleton

Paraplegics are getting a helping hand from the Department of Defense. A program designed to create an exoskeleton to give soldiers super-human strength has led to the development of a private company named Ekso Bionics . Recently, they have begun production of a “wearable robot” that enables paraplegics to walk again. As long as the wheelchair bound individual has the upper-body strength to transition from a wheelchair to a regular chair, and balance themselves on crutches, this exoskeleton will do the rest. Comprised of four electric motors that replace the function of a person’s hips and knees, and fifteen sensors hook into a computer worn like a back-pack that functions as the unit’s control system.

While not quit as impressive as Iron Man’s robotic armor, Ekso Bionics has set itself the goal of creating an exoskeleton that’s worn “like a pair of jeans.” As this technology progresses, no doubt we will see exoskeletons on the battlefield, and more than likely in many other labor-intensive jobs as well.

It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in just the past ten years. Our understanding of the human body and our ability to interface with technology are progressing at such a rapid pace that we are outpacing the expectations of many of the most optimistic futurists. While these kinds of research will mostly benefit the disabled initially, it’s only a matter of time before they find their way into all our daily lives. The potential is there, all we need is the will and the dedication to make it happen.

Traditional psychology tends to focus on the problems of the mind, treating it like it was any other organ in the body; only paying attention to it when something went wrong. Numerous studies have been done on depression, anxiety, and phobias, but very little was known about their opposites. “I’m in a department of psychiatry, and psychiatry does not have a good model of mental health,” says clinical instructor in psychology Nancy Etcoff, who is based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). “Is there a model of mental health beyond ‘no mental disease’?”

Recently, a new direction in psychological research has gained traction called “positive psychology.” This is the study of what makes us happy, not only in the moment, but for the long-term as well. Research in this field did not begin in earnest until 1998, when University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman hosted a conference in Akumal, Mexico. “I realized that my profession was half-baked. It wasn’t enough for us to nullify disabling conditions and get to zero. We needed to ask, What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish? How do we get from zero to plus five?” The goal of the conference was to shine light on the work of researchers like psychologist Edward Diener, aka “Dr. Happiness.” Ever since he received tenure, Dr. Diener had been doing research on what does and does not bring satisfaction into a person’s life.

Since the first conference, the field has exploded. The past decade has seen a shift in focus in the field of psychology away from what makes us miserable towards what makes us happy. But why has there been a focus on the negative side of psychology in the first place? Traditional medicine is geared towards fixing problems when they arise. The assumption is that the default state is the state we should attain to. However, this isn’t necessarily the case with the mind. While we certainly want to fix problems when they occur, the “default state” of “not miserable” isn’t the best we can do. The goal of positive psychology is to achieve more and lasting happiness, moving us from the “default state” into a more positive mindset.

Unsurprisingly, a number of things that make us happy and give us feelings of well-being are rooted in our evolution. For instance, people enjoy being on top of a large hill because it allows them to see the landscape around. Conversely, people also enjoy privacy and security; having some kind of refuge. These are evolutionary responses to our status as both predator and prey. Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman of Princeton, in his book “The Marketplace of Perceptions,” asked thousands of people to keep diaries of their daily activities and the emotions they felt. Unsurprisingly, people felt the most negative emotions during their commutes to and from work. What made people feel the happiest were interpersonal relationships – echoing our evolutionary need to belong to a group.

In a recent study conducted by Dr. Kennon Sheldon of the University of Missouri, 481 participants were surveyed about their happiness. Six weeks later the same subjects were interviewed about a positive life change that had occurred during that time. After another six weeks, the participants were interviewed again about whether or not the boost of happiness stayed with them. What they found was that the majority of people returned to their previous levels of happiness, while only a few were able to maintain that happiness boost. The key, Dr. Sheldon says, is to keep having fresh, positive experiences. For instance, a subject that entered a new relationship with a person was able to maintain their happiness by having new experiences and doing new things with the other person. On the other hand, the majority of people stopped having new experiences and instead began focusing on what could be better.

And so it seems that the key to having a happy, fulfilling life, no matter who you are or where you’re from, is to engage in interpersonal relationships with other people, but not allowing them to stagnate. Material possessions provide a momentary boost to happiness, but unless you keep finding new and interesting things to do with it, that happiness will quickly fade.

Unknown hackers early last week claimed to have compromised and stolen data from a range of government agencies and private organizations by alleging to have gained full administrator access to their systems, including those of space agencies, defense departments, and private international companies. NASA and the ESA have apparently confirmed their systems were indeed attacked and compromised in late April 2012 but insisted no “sensitive or controlled information” was compromised. The attacks according to ESA security office manager Stefano Zatti were allegedly the result of an SQL injection exploit stating, “The group used SQL injection [...] The use of SQL injection is an admitted vulnerability [...] This needs to be addressed at a coding level.”

The new hacker group claiming to be behind the attacks refers to themselves as “The Unknown” and announced early last week opening up a new Twitter account that they had injected their way into the private systems of at least ten different organizations, and proceeded to publish private data and documents through sites like Pastebin which they claim originated from the compromised servers. “The Unknown” have since stated that all their victims had patched their systems (which was apparently their goal) and that they were no longer vulnerable to the exploits used to compromise them in the first place, all but the US Air Force apparently which they claim they would be contacting to bring to their attention.

And now, we are happy to inform you that most of the links we used to penetrate threw the databases, have been patched. This is exactly what we where looking for. This is what we want. For all our supporters out there; Thank you, help us to spread the word, help us to make this internet world more secured.

Victims The Unknown listed as allegedly having been compromised included the NASA – Glenn Research Center, the U.S. military, the U.S. Air Force, the European Space Agency, the Thai Royal Navy, Harvard University, Renault, the French ministry of Defense, the Bahrain Ministry of Defense, and the Jordanian Yellow Pages. It is not sure whether they used the same exploit to gain access to all these organizations but it would appear likely.

In addition to revealing the logins to access the compromised systems of the organizations in question, The Unknown also proceeded to post screenshots on public image sharing site Imgur showing off the access they had gained to the compromised sites. The group also apparently put together a compressed 2 part rar file of some military documents they claim to have downloaded from the hacked systems and uploaded them to the public file sharing website MediaFire (where as of of this writing they are apparently still available). Some sources covering this story claim some of the documents/data may originate from an older hack and all this is might just be a ploy to try and gain Twitter followers. At this point though I think this would seem like a rather unlikely motivation.

Rather, “The Unknowns” claim their motivation as completely altruistic in the hopes of bringing software vulnerabilities to people’s attention, something along the lines of following (as was apparently posted in one of their Pastebin posts).

We can’t call ourselves White Hat Hackers but we’re not Black Hat Hackers either…
Now, we decided to hack these sites for a reason…
These Websites are important, we understand that we harmed the victims and we’re sorry for that – we’re soon going to email them all the information they need to know about the penetrations we did.
We still think that what we did helped them, because right now they know that their Security is weak and that it should be fixed.
We wanted to gain the trust of others, people now trust us, we’re getting lots of emails from people we never knew, asking us to check their website’s security and that’s what we want to do.
Our goal was never to harm anyone, we want to make this whole internet world more secured because, simply, it’s not at all and we want to help.
We don’t want revolutions, we don’t want chaos, we just want to protect the people out there.
Websites are not secured, people are not secured, computers are not secured, nothing is…
We’re here to help and we’re asking nothing in exchange.

One can only wonder then why decide to publicly leak private data/documents instead of simply contacting the site administrators directly in private? Perhaps they believe they wouldn’t be taken seriously by the organizations otherwise? Or perhaps more likely that it wouldn’t have generated any media coverage? That it wouldn’t generate any notoriety? Either way, it will be interesting to see if more high profile sites are attacked by “The Unknowns” in the coming days/weeks and if they continue to publicly dump any private info gained.

In 1977, a NASA scientist named Franklin Chiang-Diaz began work on a new type of electrical propulsion system, the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR engine. The engine works by using radio waves to heat a plasma of argon or krypton atoms and using magnetic fields to blast them out of the rear of the craft, accelerating it forward at great speed. This type of electrical propulsion is favorable over the more convention ion-thruster engines, which make use of electrodes in their design which quickly wear down. The VASIMR engine, on the other hand, is entirely magnetically shielded from the plasma it creates, making it much more durable and therefore suitable for deep space missions.

In 2005, Chiang-Diaz founded Ad Astra, a company devoted to developing the VASIMR even further. In a test conducted in November of 2010, the engine achieved its greatest power efficiency and performance to date. With 200 kilowatts of power, they were able to generate 5.7 Newtons of thrust at 72% efficiency, with an exhaust speed of 50 km per second. This test exceeded their self-set efficiency requirements, indicating that the system is ready for commercial and industrial use.

The first application of the VASIMR engine will be on the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS orbits close enough to the surface of the Earth to be slowed by atmospheric drag, and so periodically it must be boosted higher up to maintain its orbit. Currently, traditional chemical rockets are used for this, but they require huge amounts of fuel; difficult to deal with in the cramped quarters aboard the ISS. The VASIMR engine requires very little fuel, eliminating this problem altogether. However, the ISS is powered by solar panels, which do not generate enough power to use the VASIMR engine continually. The energy will be stored in batteries, and used in quick busts when the ISS needs to reposition.

Ad Astra envisions VASIMR engines on all sorts of space craft, from satellites to shuttles to the moon. The engine requires the vacuum of space to operate, so VASIMR wouldn’t be involved in any launching or landing procedures. However, once beyond the atmosphere, spacecraft could save huge amounts of space by using the VASIMR engine to navigate, eliminating the need to store large quantities of fuel. The most exciting prospect for this project is its potential for deep space missions. The shortest estimates for trips to Mars using current technology are 6 months at best, while Chiang-Diaz believes a VASIMR-powered spacecraft could reach Mars in a single month’s time. The biggest hurdle for such a project would be generating the enormous amounts of power needed. Solar panels couldn’t do the job that far from the sun, and the only alternative would be a nuclear reactor. However, current nuclear reactor technology produces huge amounts of waste heat, and in the vacuum of space it would stay with the ship rather than dissipate. Chiang-Diaz has acknowledged this problem, stating “It is abundantly clear that the nuclear reactor technology required for such missions is not available today and major advances in reactor design and power conversion are needed.” Such research is being conducted however, and Chiang-Diaz is confident that eventually a solution will be found.

Image credit: colourdance.deviantart.com

The mascot for this debate is the humble virus. There is a large degree of disagreement about what exactly viruses are. They seem to be alive; they exist on the same scale as single-celled organisms and interact with them (often in very negative ways). However, they are unable to reproduce on their own, and require host cells to infect. They inject their own genetic structure into the nucleus of the victim cell, and force the cell to make more copies of the virus. While this is a form of reproduction, it is not self-replication, which many biologists believe is required to earn the status of “life.”

Now, the debate is about to get even more complicated. Professor Lee Cronin from Glasgow University has begun research on creating self-replicating molecules out of inorganic compounds. They have already created inorganic-chemical-cells, or “iCHELLS,” with membranes that separate different chemical reactions from each other, just like in living cells. The difference between these inorganic iCHELLs and organic, natural cells is their compositions. Cells that evolved naturally, and make up all of the life we see around us today, are made of carbon-based organic compounds – amino acids, nucleotides and sugars. ICHELLS, on the other hand, are made of compounds that are considered inorganic and not necessarily carbon based at all.

The applications of these iCHELLS are wide-ranged. Once they begin replicating and evolving, they can teach us a lot about the evolution of life on Earth. The purpose of Professor Cronin’s project in his own words is: “…to construct complex chemical cells with life-like properties that could help us understand how life emerged and also to use this approach to define a new technology based upon evolution in the material world – a kind of inorganic living technology.” Essentially, it will be technology that evolves and adapts without our guidance.

Many people are familiar with the concept of nanobots, tiny molecular machines that can perform tasks on tiny scales. Professor Cronin’s work is similar, but allowing these iCHELLS to reproduce themselves takes the project another step further. Professor Cronin is essentially freeing life and the evolutionary process from the constraints of organic matter; you can only do so much with carbon. If he succeeds in creating organisms based on different compounds, the potential abilities of these creations are nearly limitless.

Below is a link to a TED talk by Professor Cronin regarding iCHELLS and his ideas:

Professor Cronin’s Ted Talk on inorganic life

World War II was brought to a screeching halt at 8:15 A.M. on August 6, 1945 when the United States debuted the world’s first weapon of mass destruction in Hiroshima. The absolute destruction of this city, and Nagasaki a few days later, were the first and last time that nuclear weapons have been used in warfare. During the Cold War, the use of these weapons became unthinkable, as the doctrine of mutually assured destruction took hold. However, nuclear weapons aren’t the only possible way to cause massive amounts of damage, and over the years many new and horrible ideas have been proposed.

The Nazi Sun Gun

No list of super weapons would be complete without mention of everyone’s favorite super-villains: the Nazis. During World War II, these maniacal monsters conceived a plethora of methods for causing pain and death. From biological and chemical weapons aimed at the individual to bombs designed to destroy entire cities, they left no technological stone unturned in their quest of destruction. One of the most potentially terrifying of these concepts was their Sun Gun.

While it might sound relatively cute and harmless, the Sun Gun would do much more than give you a tan. It was designed as an orbital concave mirror 3.5 miles in diameter that would focus sunlight onto a specific point on the Earth, like a child burning ants with a magnifying glass. Fortunately for the Allies, and the rest of the world, the Nazis never even succeeded in putting a satellite into orbit, much less a miles-wide orbital space station of death.

The idea isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds, and according to the scientists who worked on the project, it is technically feasible. It’s not even a new idea; in 212 BCE it was said that the mathematician Archimedes single-handedly defended the city of Syracuse from Roman invasion by burning their ships with focused sunlight from a polished copper mirror. This story is not likely to be true, as it would take many minutes of sunlight focused on the same spot to ignite a flame, but the theory is sound.

Project Thor

Though the idea originated with science fiction author Jerry Pournelle, Project Thor is completely feasible, and actually rather simple. Essentially, large tungsten poles would be inserted into Earth orbit, and rain like meteors onto enemy positions when called down. The huge amounts of kinetic energy gathered by these objects falling from orbit is what gives them their destructive force. It is calculated that a tungsten pole roughly 6m tall impacting the ground at Mach 10 would produce the destructive force of 11.5 tons of TNT. While not nearly as destructive as nuclear weapons, these weapons have the benefit of being rather simple to build, and easy to fire. Launches would be much more difficult to detect than nuclear launches, and it would only take a matter of minutes for the weapon to fall out of orbit and strike the target. Additionally, the destructive force can be scaled up or down by increasing or decreasing the size of the projectile.

Referred to as “Rods from God,” such weapons are not prohibited by either the Outer Space Treaty or the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, and as such are very attractive to any countries seeking a military advantage while trying to fly under the radar. Of course, the largest technical challenge of any weapons system like this is getting the projectiles into orbit in the first place. Currently, only a handful of countries have the capability to do so.

Tesla’s Death Beam

Nikola Tesla was an incredible inventor, responsible for much of the electronic gadgetry we take for granted today. If he had been better at dealing with the US patent office, it’s likely that just about every electronic device you own would have his name on it. However, Tesla was more interested in the science of his inventions than the profit, and so his name fell into relative obscurity as the 20th century marched on.

One of Tesla’s most imagination-capturing ideas was for a death ray that could annihilate targets hundreds of miles away. Tesla himself was not very militaristic, but he naively imagined that his death rays would prevent wars, rather than cause them. He proposed a series of towers arrayed along a country’s borders that would fire “concentrated beams of particles” at invading enemy craft. His idea was to use an enormous electrostatic generator to accelerate particles of mercury until they became a high-powered stream of bullets wielding several million volts. Tesla hoped that a border protected by such towers would be impregnable to enemy invasion, making war obsolete. Certainly, it would be difficult to invade any country defended by death beams, but what would stop countries from turning these death beams on each other?

While none of Tesla’s death beam towers were ever constructed, it has been widely hypothesized that he was able to create such beams anyway from his radio tower in Colorado Springs. Some have even proposed that he is to blame for the Tunguska event, a mysterious explosion that occurred in Siberia in 1908.

Tectonic Weapons

A weapon that can cause an earthquake or other seismic event is the Holy Grail of mad scientists everywhere. Not only would such a weapon be unrivaled in destructive power, it would be impossible to track and easy to avoid the repercussions of its use. The user of such a weapon could claim to have no knowledge of it and destroy whole cities at will, blaming the whole thing on “acts of God.” While this concept might turn out to be impossible or infeasible, that hasn’t stopped the governments of the world from taking the threat seriously. The Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques is an international treaty ratified by 75 states in 1978 that prohibits the use of environmental modification techniques to cause earthquakes and tsunamis, amongst other phenomena.

Some governments have even attempted to implement such weapons. Two Soviet programs, “Mercury” and “Volcano” in the late 80’s and early 90’s apparently attempted to use electromagnetism to induce Earthquakes below targets from a great distance. Three tests were conducted under the Mercury program in 1987, and Volcano’s final test was in 1992. Whether or not they were successful is unknown, but it seems unlikely as these programs were scrapped. New Zealand even had a program called Project Seal during World War II that attempted to create tsunami waves to be used as weapons of war. Although the project failed due to errors in the theoretical basis of the plan, it was reported in 1999 that such a weapon would be feasible, given a large enough explosion. So the next time there’s a huge tsunami in the Pacific or Indian Ocean, keep a watchful eye on those militaristic New Zealanders.

While nuclear weapons have been and remain the most destructive force at our command, the day is rapidly approaching when our options for annihilating each other will proliferate and become easier to produce. As more and more countries venture into space and increase their technological base, the threats from weapons systems like Project Thor become increasingly realistic. What makes these weapons even more terrifying is their ability to circumvent treaties dealing with traditional weapons of mass destruction, and the ability of their users to remain anonymous. The weapons systems in this article aren’t even at the forefront of or technological capabilities, and have only been declassified and described because they aren’t likely to be implemented. That means the plans that remains classified must be even more terrifying. Sleep tight!

In sticking with the ideals of Open Source and sharing of knowledge and innovation, Twitter today has open sourced its forked MySQL database implementation which it uses in the Twitter interest graph, timelines, user data and of course the Tweets themselves (ie. pretty much all of Twitter) and released it under the new BSD license via GitHub. MySQL, released under the GNU General Public License and principally owned by Oracle Corp is of course currently probably the most popular RDBMS system in the world and is literally used by millions upon millions of web developers for both large and small projects alike.

However MySQL by default is known to have scalability and performance issues when under the pressure of continuous high transaction rates as experienced and documented by large high traffic web projects like those hosted by Google, Facebook and of course Twitter. This is why it’s exciting news for fellow developers who are potentially working on similar scaling problems with MySQL that a private for profit company like Twitter would release their full internal customized MySQL fork with no vendor licenses or support contracts or lock-in counterweights attached. Obviously as with hugely successful web applications like those run by Google and Facebook, Twitter is definitely up there with a very high traffic and continuously growing extremely heavy DB centric web apps with transaction rates continuously pushing MySQL databases to higher and higher levels and performance requirements.

Some of the work done includes:

-Add additional status variables, particularly from the internals of InnoDB. This allows us to monitor our systems more effectively and understand their behavior better when handling production workloads.
-Optimize memory allocation on large NUMA systems: Allocate InnoDB’s buffer pool fully on startup, fail fast if memory is not available, ensure performance over time even when server is under memory pressure.
-Reduce unnecessary work through improved server-side statement timeout support. This allows the server to proactively cancel queries that run longer than a millisecond-granularity timeout.
-Export and restore InnoDB buffer pool in using a safe and lightweight method. This enables us to build tools to support rolling restarts of our services with minimal pain.
-Optimize MySQL for SSD-based machines, including page-flushing behavior and reduction in writes to disk to improve lifespan.

Source: http://engineering.twitter.com/2012/04/mysql-at-twitter.html

As it so happens, exactly a few days to this same date last year, Twitter had also open sourced some of its MySQL middleware components such as Gizzard which they use for creating distributed databases to serve tens of thousands of queries per second across distributed data and of course FlockDB which they use to build their primary databases of Twitter users and managing relationships one to another.

So it would seem Twitter’s underlying MySQL implementation and key internal development tools are slowly coming together and being shared with the open source community as a whole which is always a great think to see, one only hopes more companies would take such initiatives. Some wonder though if they are still holding anything crucial back, but so far it would appear they’re sharing with the altruistic goal of being able to collaborate with other MySQL high transaction and scaling problem solvers coming from the likes of experienced companies such as Google, Facebook, Percona, MariaDB, Tokutek, ScaleBase etc.

All in all for high performance MySQL developers this is surely great news and hopefully helping the scene head towards a little more transparency and democracy in terms of opening up the enterprise application level database options and hopefully driving down the price on enterprise lock ins like Oracle DB and others while in the process of future proofing and continuing to evolve MySQL to new levels hopefully eventually providing vital upstream commits to improve MySQL for everyone.

Over the past couple days established security experts and firms have been slowly wrapping their head around the zero-day Mac Flashback trojan exploit which a small Russian based antivirus company brought to light mid week claiming well over 600,000 Mac OSX installs were already infected and forming a fresh new Mac OS X botnet.

While more established external security companies can not confirm exact numbers as of yet, the general consensus is that there is indeed a serious botnet of infected Mac’s out there and potentially many more in the making. Russian based antivirus heavy hitter Kaspersky Labs stated that “even though the number is very, very large, it seems correct”, also acknowledging that the methodology used by their lesser known Russian antivirus colleagues from the Doctor Web seemed perfectly apt and accurate in its analysis.

The Mac OSX installs are supposedly being infected en mass with the Flashback Trojan horse which is being installed via drive-by-attacks by simply having vulnerable installs surf to comprised web sites. So far if the numbers are correct, and some experts believe still likely to rise perhaps even some more if there are determined mutations or many remaining un-patched machines, it would effectively likely be the largest known botnet ever involving Apple’s operating system.

Doctor Web security researchers were able to estimate the number of infections by “sinkholing” part of the Flashback botnet by hijacking some of the command issuing domains and proceeding to issue commands relayed through the command and control mechanism to count all the listed UUIDs (universally unique identifiers) of the infected Mac OSX machines presenting themselves available to the controlling botnet servers.

While many may wonder what the big deal is, citing known Windows based OS botnets with substantially higher numbers well into the millions, the fact of the matter is it is sort of a first and unprecedented find for Unix based OS’s like Mac OS X to be found integrated and targeted so efficiently to bring them into a botnet. It may also shock some in the mainstream who have gotten into the habit of believing that Mac’s and more generally *nix based PC’s are somehow immune and that viruses and botnets are a Windows only concern.

One of the possible exploit routes used by Flashback was to exploit a zero-day Java vulnerability which Apple only got around to patching and pushing out around mid week. Whether or not this was the only exploited escalation point is not known for sure yet but was definitely the main culprit. It is also suspected the the Mac’s were compromised with an OS independent web exploit which means Windows PC’s could also make up a sizable share of the growing botnet which would seem rather likely.

Security researchers hinted to a sort of perfect storm situation which could be the main factor for the apparent massive rapidity of the Flashback Trojan’s propagation success. First in line for the drive-by-download attacks could be a steadily growing mass compromise of WordPress based sites spreading from as early as March 2012, with evidence that many of the Flashback botnet controllers domain structures as described by Dr Web matched those of the comprised WP site structures.

WordPress based sites are of course fabulously popular and currently run on almost one in every seven websites currently online according to some estimates, which is a truly massive pool of potential propagation points if left vulnerable and would easily explain the ability for the Mac OSX Flashback botnet to have soared to such numbers so rapidly.

So while it does indeed seem like a big escalation of the targeting of Mac OS X by cyber-criminals which we’re likely to see more and more of in the future as the OS X usage grows, it is still important to note that despite the claims from Doctor Web, it is likely the Flashback Botnet is not only comprised of Mac OS X as many claim but that there are surely many Windows machines among the infected who may have even been hit by the same original OS independent Java exploit. One hopes Oracle and Microsoft are on top of this.

More information on the Mac OS X Flashback Trojan Backdoor can be found at F-Secure.

In the near future, tubes might be used to bring you more than just internet. Cleaner and quieter than cars, faster than jets, and cheaper than trains, evacuated tube transport just might be the transportation solution we’ve been searching for.

At first glance, it seems like a ridiculous concept dreamed up by some flaky futurists. After all, people zipping around through tubes is something you would see in an old black-and-white sci-fi movie where people live in the open on the moon. Indeed, the idea is lampooned regularly on the show Futurama. However, proponents of the system aren’t laughing, and if they have their way we could soon be replacing our highways with their tubes.

Et3.com has been awarded a US patent for the Evacuated Tube Transport system they have devised. Basically, they want to build a web of tubes that stretches across the country, much like our highway system. Passengers would ride in car-sized capsules with pre-programmed destinations. The tubes themselves would be airless, but the capsules would stay pressurized, and airlocks at the boarding stations would ensure that both stay that way.

The capsules themselves ride on a frictionless, mag-lev surface, and are powered by linear electric motors that accelerate them up to 600km/h (370 mph). Since the system is entirely electric, there is no need for fossil fuels (assuming the electricity is generated without them). When stopping, the capsules actually generate power, recapturing almost all of the energy it took to accelerate them at the beginning of the journey. Et3.com claims that this makes them almost 50 times as energy efficient as electric cars or trains. Eventually, they plan on making the system international, and believe they can speed capsules up to 6,500 km/h (4,000 mph), making a trip from New York to Beijing last just two hours.

The middle of last century saw the arrival and boom of air transport. Airports sprang up all over the country and around the world, allowing people to travel quickly and safely as never before. Now, however, such technological marvels are commonplace, and have reached the limit of their usability and efficiency. Passenger flights have become less awe-inspiring and more tedium-inspiring. Supersonic flight over land is not allowed to due sonic booms. Not only that, but the fuel required for such flights is prohibitively expensive. To top it all off, supersonic planes would still be limited to 2414 km/h (1,500 mph), which is better than conventional jets, but not good enough to justify the cost.

Of course, no transportation system comes without its problems. The initial cost of creating the network would be astronomical. Not only do you have the costs associated with traditional transportation networks, but the tubes must also be depressurized, and remain that way. What happens when there is a breach in one of the tubes? With all of them networked together, an air leak in one part would affect the entire system. This issue could be solved with emergency hatches that seal a breached area, but what happens to a capsule caught next to a breach? However, there are safety and economic problems associated with any mode of transport; and given the propensity of cars to pile up on the highway it seems like ETT would be much safer than driving. It would also be more cost efficient than flying, and all without the TSA taking naked pictures of you.

When asked what the largest difference between humans and animals is, most people would respond that humans are leaps and bounds ahead of even our closest relatives in terms of intelligence. Indeed, until recently the very idea of comparing human and animal intelligence was considered insulting. However, new research into animal behavior and psychology, combined with insights into our own mental functions, indicates that this is not the case. While it is undoubtedly true that we are “smarter” than other animals, the mental abilities we take so much pride in may not be unique to us after all.

Metacognition, or the ability to think about our own thinking, has traditionally been considered the province of human beings alone. Over the past century, however, evidence has been accumulating that at least our closest relatives – chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans – share this ability. Josep Call at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology conducted a study in which apes had to choose which of two tubes contained a piece of food. The trials varied; sometimes the ape would watch which tube the researchers baited, sometimes not, and the length of time between baiting and allowing the ape to look for the food was changed. What they found was that the longer wait time the ape had between baiting and searching, the longer it would take to decide which tube to choose, and the more it would check the tubes before choosing. This indicates that the ape is aware that it might be wrong and is considering its own thoughts.

Ape intelligence isn’t so surprising; after all, they are our closest relatives. They can learn sign language, form complex social structures, and show problem solving abilities comparable to 3-5 year old children. However, they aren’t the only animals surprising researchers with their intelligence. Recently, David Smith, Ph.D., of the University at Buffalo has shown that monkeys enjoy metacognition as well. In his study, macaques trained to use joysticks were given the option of answering “uncertain” if they needed additional information from researchers on how to perform a specific task. When presented with a new task that they did not know how to perform, they indicated they needed help. This means the monkey can actually analyze its own level of knowledge and find it lacking.

Even dogs show a level of intelligence comparable to that of a 2-year-old child. Border Collies, the most intelligent breed of dog, can learn to correctly interpret up to 250 words and commands, while average dogs can learn up to about 165. Professor Stanley Coren, a leading expert on canine intelligence at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, has even shown that dogs can deliberately deceive, something that children don’t do until they are older. Interestingly, wolves do not display these abilities, even though they are genetically similar enough to dogs to interbreed. When a person points at an object, the dog will look at the object, whereas the wolf will look at the person’s finger. Canine intelligence is therefore likely a result of dogs’ close association with humans and our selective breeding for it.

Mammals aren’t the only ones that show incredible cognitive abilities, though. Parrots’ ability to learn and speak human words is well known and apocryphal. It was long thought that they were just dumbly mimicking sounds they heard, but recently it has been acknowledged that, for the most part, they actually understand what they are saying. A grey parrot named Alex was made famous by researcher Irene Pepperberg for his extensive vocabulary of over 150 words, and his ability to correctly identify and label many different objects. He even asked what color he was, and learned the word “grey” after being told only six times.

Even invertebrates are showing surprising mental abilities. Cephalopods, especially octopi, have recently been recognized for their incredible problem solving abilities, their display of emotions, and their individual personalities (they can also apparently predict soccer matches). They even play when they are bored, and alter their technique of obtaining food when the conditions are changed. Social insects, too, show a high degree of decision-making abilities. In their case, individual members of the colony are not very intelligent, but they act together as a coherent group to make decisions. With many of their tiny brains working together, they are able to make collective decisions about where to nest, where to feed, and how to respond to threats.

If other animals have all of the same mental abilities that we do, why are we so different from the rest of them? The answer lies in the degree to which these abilities are used. Humans have a huge pre-frontal cortex, even compared to our closest relatives, chimps and bonobos. This is the area of the brain responsible for planning and decision making in mammals, and this is what allows us to create all of the technology, art, and science that make our species unique. Some animals have exaggerated claws, teeth, or other attributes that are their primary tools of survival; in our case, it is our enormous pre-frontal cortex.

Militaries have traditionally been among first institutions to adopt new technologies. This is generally due to their large budgets, and the fact that a lot of research occurs within the military structure. In the past, success in battle relied largely on numbers. Now, a smaller, better-equipped force can easily dominate a larger, less advanced one.

The United States has relied on its technological superiority in warfare since the end of World War II. The possession of nuclear weapons successfully deterred an attack on the United States until 2001, when we were attacked by a stateless entity that we could not retaliate against with nukes. The battlefield of the future will be much different. Strategic, precise attacks will become more important than laying waste to whole cities, and plans for future weapons reflect this need. Here are a few of the concept weapons that may make their way onto battlefields in the near future:

The Navy’s Railgun
Railguns are not a new concept, and in fact have been around for years. Two contacts, or “rails,” are charged with electric current, which creates a magnetic field and propels a metallic projectile at incredible speed. Without any explosives, the projectile uses its huge amount of kinetic energy to destroy the target. In February of this year, the US military tested a prototype railgun that it hopes to deploy by 2020. The prototype was able to launch a 40-lb projectile at over 5,000-mph over a distance of 100 miles. Currently, the Navy has 5-inch guns that can hit targets within 13 miles. The potential of the railgun to revolutionize naval warfare is immense. The railgun, with its enormous range, could even lend supporting fire to soldiers fighting on land.

Project “Blackswift”
Recently, the US airforce launched the mysterious X-37B robotic space plane, and it caused quite a stir for anyone paying attention. The Air Force refused to divulge its classified purpose, leading many to speculate it was an anti-satellite weapon, or an orbital bomber. While the military denies these rumors, there is a project on the docket that does all of these things, and more. Called the Falcon HTV-3X, the proposed vehicle could take off from a runway, accelerate to mach 6, achieve low orbit, and land on the same runway it started from. This is no easy task, and requires three different propulsion systems: a jet for take-off, a rocket to accelerate to top speed, and a scramjet for sustained hypersonic flight. The trick is getting these 3 systems to work together seamlessly. However, if the technical challenges could be overcome, the Blackswift could be used in any number of ways; to launch satellites, spy on our enemies, and even bomb them without putting itself (or a pilot) in harm’s way.

DARPA’s Hummingbird-bots
No article weapons technology would be complete without at least one mention of DARPA, the pentagon’s research and design wing. This time, the scientists at DARPA have created tiny, flying spy-bots that are likely to see action soon. These tiny flying drones will provide invaluable intelligence to soldiers in the field, allowing them to peek at enemy positions without being in the line of fire. Currently, the tiny machines are the size and shape of a hummingbird, and to the untrained eye it looks just like the real thing. Future versions are likely to be even smaller, mimicking flies, bees, and other insects. So be careful the next time you squash a bug; you could end up owing the US military thousands of dollars.

LASERS!
After being promised they would exist by science fiction for the past 60 years, real, usable laser weapons are finally on the horizon. Every branch of the US armed forces has some kind of laser development program currently underway. The Air Force is the closest to deploying an actual laser weapon, which is mounted on a modified Boeing-747and used to shoot down ballistic missiles. For ground troops, Scorpworks, a research unit in the Laser Division of the DED, has created what they call a PhaSR (or Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response), which uses a bright laser beam to “dazzle” opponents. The beam temporarily blinds anyone looking into it and makes seeing the source and location of the soldier using the PhaSR impossible. While not as awesome as its Star-Trek namesake, it will definitely be useful to our troops in combat.

Future weapons systems are as much concerned with the safety other others as with the destruction of adversaries. This is a far cry from our policy in World War II, when nuclear weapons were deployed against civilian targets in order to end the war. Hopefully, in the future, those kinds of tragedies can be avoided by using smarter and better weapons.