Scientists Warn NASA on Ethics of Space Travel

The US space agency NASA plans to send humans to an asteroid and Mars, eventually. But a group of prominent U.S. scientists says right now, any deep space mission will be too dangerous, based on NASA's minimum safety requirements. And engineering capabilities and understanding of the effects of long-term cosmic radiation exposure will not advance sufficiently within the next five years to change that assessment.

After a study of long-duration space travel, sponsored by NASA, the panel of scientists from the National Academy of Sciences says the space agency should consider ethics while designing standards for future long missions.

Ready for global disaster? Scientists leave 'Doomsday Clock' at five to midnight

The Science and Security Board of the US-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has warned UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that the hand of the Bulletin's symbolic Doomsday Clock still remains at five minutes to midnight because "the risk of civilization-threatening technological catastrophe remains high."

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is an online magazine that covers global security issues related to the dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction and emerging technologies. It was founded in 1945 after the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hazardous asteroids may be more numerous than previously thought, scientists say.

By Joel Achenbach

There are scads of building-size, potentially hazardous asteroids lurking in Earth’s immediate neighborhood, and they may be colliding with the planet 10 times more often than scientists have previously believed, according to a new study published Wednesday that examined the airburst of a 25-million-pound asteroid earlier this year near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.
Three studies released Wednesday, two in the journal Nature and one in the journal Science, have provided the most detailed description and analysis of the dramatic event on the morning of Feb. 15. 

Scientists now estimate the diameter of the object at just a hair under 20 meters, or about 65 feet. Undetected by astronomers, the rock came out of the glare of the sun and hit the atmosphere at 43,000 miles per hour.

Χιλή: Το μεγαλύτερο τηλεσκόπιο του κόσμου ανοίγει αύριο (Σήμερα 13/3/13) /"Alma"-Teleskop: Kurz nach dem Urknall leuchtete das All...

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Μοιάζει σαν να βγήκε από μια ταινία επιστημονικής φαντασίας αλλά αυτό εδώ το μηχάνημα είναι σχεδόν σαν μια μηχανή χρόνου. Το  Atacama Large Millimeter Array, ή αλλιώς ALMA είναι το μεγαλύτερο τηλεσκόπιου του κόσμου αλλά και το πιο ψηλό, καθώς και το πιο ακριβό με κόστος σχεδόν 1 δισ. δολάρια.

What is happening in Tibet is genocide: Telo Rinpoche

ZURICH: Telo Rinpoche, the spiritual leader of the Kalmyk people of Russian Federation, has said what is happening in Tibet is genocide.

He said it was unfortunate that world leaders are not doing anything about the tragic situation in Tibet. Telo Rinpoche was speaking at a side-event at the UN in Geneva sponsored by five NGOs on “The People’s Republic of China: Threat to the Survival of Tibetan Buddhism”.

Rinpoche said that the survival of Tibetan Buddhism affects not only the Tibetan people but also the world. The preservation of Tibetan Buddhism is also the survival of Tibetan Buddhist science and philosophy, he said.

Human intelligence is declining according to Stanford geneticist

Ever can’t help but think you’re surrounded by idiots? A leading scientist at Stanford University thinks he has the answer, and the bad news is things aren’t likely to get any better.
Dr. Gerald Crabtree, a geneticist at Stanford, has published a study that he conducted to try and identify the progression of modern man’s intelligence. As it turns out, however, Dr. Crabtree’s research led him to believe that the collective mind of mankind has been on more or a less a downhill trajectory for quite some time.
According to his research, published in two parts starting with last year’s ‘Our fragile intellect. Part I,’ Dr. Crabtree thinks unavoidable changes in the genetic make-up coupled with modern technological advances has left humans, well, kind of stupid. He has recently published his follow-up analysis, and in it explains that of the roughly 5,000 genes he considered the basis for human intelligence, a number of mutations over the years has forced modern man to be only a portion as bright as his ancestors.

Learning foreign languages triggers brain growth

In the Swedish Academy of young translators, new recruits study a crash course in complex languages. It is not only about military discipline: specialists discovered that intensive study of foreign tongues stimulates the growth of the hippocampus and causes changes in other structures of the brain. Learning languages also helps in preventing Alzheimer's disease.

In the Swedish Academy, young people are offered to study Arabic, Russian or Dari (the language of the Afghan Tajiks) in 13 months. Newcomers had to learn the language all day long, every day, at a very intense pace. Their hard work gave unexpectedly impressive results. The experiment showed that it was not just active intellectual activity, but the study of foreign tongues. Researchers used a group of students of the Medical University of Umeå to control the research. Medics are known for their extensive studies, but the subject of their studies has nothing in common with foreign languages. Both groups took MRI tests before the experiment and after three months of active studies.