Super Science & Technology

Star Trek fans may be happy to hear that the Air Force has paid to study psychic teleportation. But scientists aren't so thrilled.The Air Force Research Lab's August "Teleportation Physics Report," posted earlier this week on the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Web site, struck a raw nerve with physicists and critics of wasteful military spending.In the report, author Eric Davis says psychic teleportation, moving yourself from location to location through mind powers, is "quite real and can be controlled." The 88-page report also reviews a range of teleportation concepts and experiments: • Quantum teleportation, atechnique demonstrated in the last decade that shifts the characteristics, but not the location, of sub-atomic particles at great distances.• Wormholes, a highly theoretical possibility whereby the intense gravitational field near black holes could rip open entrances to distant locales.• Psychokinesis, or psychic teleportation.

In support of the idea, the report cites UFO reports, Soviet and Chinese studies of psychics and U.S. military studies of spoon-bending phenomena."It is in large part crackpot physics," says physicist Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University, author of The Physics of Star Trek, a book detailing the physical limits that prevent teleportation. He describes the Air Force report as "some things adapted from reasonabletheoretical studies, and other things from nonsensical ones."Some experts have long criticized what they see as a military sweet tooth for junk science. A "remote viewing" project, for example, undertaken by defense intelligence services and declassified in 1994, sought to see whether psychic powers could be employed to spy on the Soviet Union. The teleportation report "raises questions of scientific quality control at the Air Force," the FAS' Steven Aftergood says.

View: Full Article | Source: USA Today

The discovery of the largest field of impact craters ever uncovered on Earth is the first evidence that the planet suffered simultaneous meteor impacts in the recent past. The field has gone unnoticed until now because it is partially buried beneath the sands of the Sahara desert in south-west Egypt. Philippe Paillou of Bordeaux University Observatory in Floirac, France, first noticed circular geological structures in the Sahara last year, while analysing radar satellite pictures of the area. The structures turnedout to be part of a huge field of 100 craters spread over 5000 square kilometres near the Gilf Kebir plateau.

The craters vary in diameter from 20 metres to 2 kilometres across. The previous largest known crater field covers a mere 60 square kilometres in Argentina.In February, Paillou led a joint Egyptian and French mission to find the site and examined 13 of the craters, confirming that they were the result of simultaneous impacts. But accurately dating the field has been tricky. Paillou estimates that it is roughly 50 million years old, relatively young in geological terms. The size of the field suggests that it could bethe result of two or more meteors disintegrating as they entered Earth’s atmosphere, the first evidence of a multiple strike, he says. “Because the field is so big, it can’t have been made by one meteor,” says Paillou. But more information is needed to understand the event and its effects, and Paillou plans to return to the area next month.

View: Full Article | Source: New Scientist

Star Trek fans may be happy to hear that the Air Force has paid to study psychic teleportation. But scientists aren't so thrilled. The Air Force Research Lab's August "Teleportation Physics Report," posted earlier this week on the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Web site, struck a raw nerve with physicists and critics of wasteful military spending. In the report, author Eric Davis says psychic teleportation, moving yourself from location to location through mind powers, is "quite real and can be controlled." The 88-page report also reviews a range of teleportation concepts and experiments: • Quantumteleportation, a technique demonstrated in the last decade that shifts the characteristics, but not the location, of sub-atomic particles at great distances.

• Wormholes, a highly theoretical possibility whereby the intense gravitational field near black holes could rip open entrances to distant locales. • Psychokinesis, or psychic teleportation. In support of the idea, the report cites UFO reports, Soviet and Chinese studies of psychics and U.S. military studies of spoon-bending phenomena."It is in large part crackpot physics," says physicist Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University, author of The Physics of Star Trek, a book detailing the physical limits that prevent teleportation. He describes the Air Force report as"some things adapted from reasonable theoretical studies, and other things from nonsensical ones."Some experts have long criticized what they see as a military sweet tooth for junk science. A "remote viewing" project, for example, undertaken by defense intelligence services and declassified in 1994, sought to see whether psychic powers could be employed to spy on the Soviet Union. The teleportation report "raises questions of scientific quality control at the Air Force," the FAS' Steven Aftergood says.Davis, a physicist with Warp Drive Metrics of Las Vegas, couldn't be reached for comment. The Air Force paid $25,000 for the report, part of a $20.5 million advanced rocket and missile designcontract. The report. ...

A clinic in Ohio says it is about to start screening patients for what could be the world's first face transplant. The Cleveland Clinic says it is the first medical facility to get permission from a review board to perform the controversial procedure. Several teams around the world have said they are seeking similar approval. The clinic's director of plastic surgery, Dr. Maria Siemionow, says they got permission Oct. 15 after 10 months ofdiscussing the issue.

Siemionow says it could take two years to find an appropriate patient, likely one who has been badly disfigured by disease or burns. But she says finding an appropriate cadaver could prove more difficult. Families of potential donors could be reluctant to allow the donation because faces are so much a part of who people are. She added that the outcome of the procedure is anything but certain. She says prospective patients will be warned that the chance of failure because of rejection or other complications could be as high as 50 per cent.The procedure raises a number of ethical issues. The operation carries big risks, yet it is for purely cosmetic reasons, not to correct a life-threatening condition. The Cleveland announcement comes 50 years after the first kidney transplant and 35 years after the first heart transplant.

View: Full Article | Source: CBC News