There You Go. Proof.

This is now incontrovertible proof that aliens exist. You may return to whatever you were doing.

FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist.

And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades.

Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'

He said supposedly real-life ET's were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head.

Chillingly, he claimed our technology is "not nearly as sophisticated" as theirs and "had they been hostile", he warned "we would be been gone by now".

Dr Mitchell, along with with Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, holds the record for the longest ever moon walk, at nine hours and 17 minutes following their 1971 mission.

"I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real," Dr Mitchell said.

"It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.

"I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes - we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it's been happening quite a bit."

For me, that settles it. If a man like Mitchell says it's true, that's good enough for me. End of story.

--WS

The Tunguska Blast

A hundred years ago this week, a mysterious explosion in Siberia devastated the region. To date, no one knows why. It's enough to make you think...

The first expedition to try to find the "Tunguska meteorite" did not take place until the late 1920s when a crater was drained resulting in the discovery of nothing more cosmic than an old tree stump. After World War II, searches resumed, but again proved fruitless.

And even though the effects of the blast wave that destroyed 80 million trees are still visible today, "meteoreticians," as some theorists are know, have found no point of impact to support their claim,

"Up to this day, not a single fragment of the Tunguska phenomenon, no cosmic substance has been found. That's the main reason why there isn't any even fundamental understanding (of the phenomenon) yet," said Boris Mushailov, a professor at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow.

Mushailov was one of the organizers of an international conference last week at the Russian Academy of Sciences, devoted to the Tunguska Event.

He said he leans toward a "comet theory," explaining that an object could have entered Earth's atmosphere and burst into pieces up to 10 kilometers above the Tunguska river -- causing the giant explosion -- but scattering the object into smaller debris most of which burnt up.

So-called "alternativists," however, reject the meteor and comet theories, because of the lack of a major crater or fragments.

Their search for more unlikely explanations has led to the site becoming a Mecca for UFO enthusiasts, spawning a Tunguska meteorite museum and scores of photographs of what are claimed to be parts of extra terrestrial craft discovered in the area.

As the debate rages on, many scientists say the Tunguska event could be a harbinger of a genuine scientific phenomenon that could spell disaster for life on Earth.

Kind of like that Global Warming thing? How about we dedicate some resources to three things--alternative energy, studying Global Warming, and preparing ourselves for the possibility of another Tunguska.

--WS

The Spy Who Posted His Professional Resume

No, it's not Instaputz...

A retired University of Tennessee professor is accused of conspiring to provide military secrets to a Chinese graduate student.

J. Reece Roth was indicted Tuesday on 18 charges related to violating the Arms Export Control Act and trying to defraud the U.S. Air Force.

The charges involve work performed by Roth and the student on an Air Force contract to develop flight controls for weapons-deploying unmanned aircraft.

The government says Roth failed to get permission to involve a foreign national in the work, carried sensitive documents on a lecture trip to China and directed wire transmissions of restricted technical data to China.

Roth's attorney says his client has done nothing illegal and conducted himself ethically and honestly.

Being the "wily" spy that he allegedly is, Roth seems to have committed the greatest sin that a spy can commit--he put his entire professional resume online. Here is the heavily edited version, and I'm just keeping all of the open references to working with foreign entities of interest, with China and with Chinese educators:

The most recent version of the professional resume [over ten pages in length] that Roth posted online and updated on January 3, 2008

J. Reece Roth, Ph. DProfessor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and IEEE FellowPlasma Sciences Laboratory (http://plasma.ece.utk.edu)Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
Dr. J. Reece Roth obtained an S. B. in Physics from MIT in 1959, and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1963 with a major in Engineering Physics. He joined the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio in 1963, where he was Principal Investigator of the Lewis Electric Field Bumpy Torus Project until 1978. He is presently Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; an Honorary Professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, P.R.C; and an Interim Honorary Professor of the Shenzhen Campus of Tsinghua University, China.

...is an Honorary Professor, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 1992;

...and Interim HonoraryProfessor of the Shenzhen Campus of Tsinghua University, China, 2006-2008.

Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering

Iranian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering

City of Hong Kong

Slovak Research and Development Agency

Prof. Roth published a 1985 textbook Introduction to Fusion Energy, which is now in its fifth printing, and a Chinese edition of which was published in 1993 by the Tsinghua University Press, Beijing.

Prof. Roth iscurrently writing a three-volume textbook, Industrial Plasma Engineering, the first volume of which was published by the Institute of Physics Press of Great Britain in January, 1995, and a Chinese edition of which was published in 1998 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Press.

The second volume was published in July, 2001, and a Chinese translation is in preparation.

Since the early 1980’s, Prof. Roth has warned his students not to buy oceanfront property for their retirement because of the effects of global warming, and has devoted the first chapter of his fusion energy textbook (1985) and his industrial plasma engineering text (1995) to the issues of energy conservation and global warming.

"Mechanisms of Sterilization, Decontamination, and Surface EnergyEnhancement by Exposure to the One Atmosphere Uniform Glow Discharge Plasma (OAUGDP)",Paper No. D -1, Proceedings of the 12th Asian Conference on Electrical Discharges, November 19 -22, 2004, Shenzhen, P.R.C. (available at http://aced2004.tsinghua.edu.cn/)9.) Roth J. Reece (Invited)

I don't know about you, but anything this guy did was probably done by accident and by virtue of the fact that he was working on things well beyond a layman's understanding. I am not making the case that he is innocent. I am making the case that Professor Roth traveled the world, working on very complex subjects, and anything he may have transferred could have been done innocently and by accident. For some reason, I suspect that there has been a "misunderstanding" here.

It's just a hunch.

Astronomy, not Astrology

When I see Mike Huckabee talk about "needing to bring the Constitution in line with the word of the living God" and other such nonsense, I'm reminded of how Nancy Reagan used to bring an astrologer into the White House to determine when the President of the United States of America would be allowed to, I dunno, give speeches and sign things. I'm connecting the two of them because it always floors me that there isn't an abundance of ridicule and outrage directed at people who seem to have ridiculous ideas. Tolerance is fine, but sometimes too much tolerance means you have, well, people doing crazy shit on the public dime. Nancy might have her reasons for having done so, and Huckabee might be running for the highest office in a country where he simply doesn't understand the rule of law or how we govern ourselves. My question is--can we afford to have that in the future? Can we afford to let the misguided superstitions of people become legitimate ideas for debate and discussion? Can you let things like this actually go without mocking them for what they are?

Have you ever had to explain to people that "astronomy" is a science and that "astrology" is inane, utter bullshit practiced by the insane and the deranged?

Sometimes, you have to break it down for people.

This is an image of the planet Mercury, and it includes some features that have never been seen by human eyes until now. This is astronomy, and this is science:



This is astrology, and never the two shall meet:



[a tip o' the hat to Bad Astronomy for the juxtaposition of these things...]

Science Wins a Round

In a stunning reversal and departure from White House policy, the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, told the Senate health appropriations subcommittee that he backs an end to restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).

"We cannot, I would think, be second-best in this area," Zerhouni said. "I think it is important for us not to fight with one hand tied behind our back here, and NIH is key to that."

To date, Zerhouni’s support for ESCR had been less than full-throated. His response of unqualified support to the questioning by subcommittee chairman Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) has energized proponents of the research and taken those opposed by surprise. Harkin called Zerhouni's comments "very profound and courageous.”

When Zerhouni was quizzed about the promise of ASCR and the promise that research might hold, he was blunt. “I think they are overstated," he said. "We do not know at this point where the breakthrough will come from…. All angles in stem cell research should be pursued."

Embryonic stem cells are so promising because they can develop into any kind of cell. Not only are these cells pluripotent (undifferentiated, able to become any type of cell in the body), they have a biological distinction from adult stem cells that underscores their promise.

Adult stem cells, like all mature cells, are subject to the Hayflick Limit. The Hayflick Limit was discovered in 1965 by researcher Leonard Hayflick, when he discovered that in vitro, cells replicate about 50 times, and then they die.

This cellular death after replication is due to chromosome shortening that occurs at the end of the DNA replication cycle. This shortening occurs when the primer at the 5’ (read 5-Prime) end of the lagging strand of the unwound DNA double helix is degraded because DNA polymerase can not ad nucleotides to the 5’ end of the lagging strand. This loss of nucleotides does not occur on the leading strand, or 3’ end, which can accept primers by DNA Polymerase.

In most replicating cells a small amount of telomerase is present, and this enzyme extends the ends of the chromosomes so that this problem does not occur. This extension occurs when the telomerase enzyme binds to a section of DNA on the 3' end and extends it using the normal replication machinery. This then allows for a primer to bind so that the complementary strand can be extended by normal lagging strand synthesis. Finally, telomeres must be capped by a protein to prevent chromosomal instability. This capping can not happen on the 5’ end, and after around 50 replications, the original cell dies because of the chromosomal instability that results from the loss of nucleotides on the 5’ end, or lagging strand, of the replicating DNA molecule.

Here is an analogy (the one I use for students every semester): Think of the telomere at the 5' end as the plastic aglet on a shoelace - it will wear out with repeated lacing and unlacing, and it will work perfectly fine for quite a while even after the plastic starts to chip away. But eventually, the aglet can't do it's job and the lace unravels. When the telomeres can't do their job any longer, the cell dies.

Supporters of ESCR have been fighting an uphill battle. The only veto the president has tendered in his entire six years in office was to veto federal funding for ESCR. Several states have enacted their own legislation to protect and fund the research. California and Massachusetts have passed laws and allocated funding for the research, and Missourians last November passed an amendment to the state Constitution that assured the state can not restrict research that is legal at the federal level.

In 2001, the president signed an executive order that limited federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cell lines already in existence. 16 of those lines are still in use, but they have become genetically degraded and have been contaminated with mouse genes. Now they are ill-suited for such important research in an emerging field.

In 2006, the president vetoed legislation that would have allowed federal funding for research on new stem cell lines derived from embryos that would have otherwise been discarded by fertility clinics.

Prominent researchers rejoiced when they learned of Zerhouni's comments.

"I think it will certainly mobilize opinion up on [Capitol] Hill," said Jerome Zack, an embryonic stem cell researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. With stem cell legislation moving again, Zack said, he was anticipating another Bush veto. But he hoped that it could be overridden.

"Convincing a handful of [lawmakers] of the opposing viewpoint could really sway things," he said.

Studies claiming that adult stem cells have as much potential as embryonic stem cells "do not hold scientific water," Zerhouni said Monday.

"When very prestigious physicians and scientists speak out, I think in the long run it will make a difference," said Renee A. Reijo Pera, director of the human embryonic stem cell program at Stanford University.

Fred H. Gage, a stem cell researcher at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, said Zerhouni may have taken a political risk by articulating a position so clearly at odds with that of the White House. "He's very careful about what he says, and fairly conservative in his policy statements," Gage said. "My guess is this was a very well-thought-out statement. "If it does put him at risk, all the more reason to respect his judgment," Gage added.

Predictably, religious conservatives expressed disappointment, and accused Dr. Zerhouni of not giving adequate consideration to treatments derived from ASCR.

I have a question for the religious conservatives – do you not understand the difference between ASC’s and ESC’s, or do you chose to ignore it? And if it’s the latter, is that really moral?

[cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose]