To many in the west, bunnies will
be perceived the creation of God

Slashdot looks at two perspectives on a new poll-based study which raises many questions.

“In a 2005 poll covering 33 countries, Americans are the least likely (except for Turkish respondents) to assert that ‘humans developed … from earlier species of animals.’

Here is my personal opinion on the matter.

Old related news:

• Intelligent Design “Unconstitutional”
• The ‘Missing Link’ May Have Been Found

The almighty Stephen Hawking has made a bold and inspiring statement:

“The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there’s an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth, world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking said Tuesday.”

In my humble opinion, many of the problems envisioned (sudden global warming, nuclear war, or a genetically engineered virus) can be addressed by controlling the size of the population, using birth control. The planet’s overcongestion leads to larger industries that are too morbid for a healthy, long-term existence.

Will society ultimately implode? Or will things escalate into a worst case scenario, as in this apocalyptic prediction? We shall live and find out.

N intersting article over at the BBC speaks about the idea of cloaking. To be more specific, a couple of scientists contend that it may be possible to hide one’s existence and presence. This notion relates to many science-fictioncal fantasies, so it sure arouses curiosity and fascinates, much like time travel.

The cloaking devices that are used to render spacecraft invisible in Star Trek might just work in reality, two mathematicians have claimed.

Screen-shot of Metisse for FVWM

MAGINE to yourself a world (or a desktop environment rather) where everything lies in 3-D space. Imagine interaction with objects, which takes into account the ‘depth’ Z of one’s arm, rather than just the (X,Y) coordinates — those that are delivered from the conventional mouse.

Croquet is an intersting project that provides an SDK for 3-D environment. It could potentially make it all a reality. Pseudo-3d (stereo imaging) displays exist already.

IGG had me pointed at 2100×2034-pixel imagery of the Sun. This image was taken in 1999 and it shows some really stunning details which I have never envisioned.

Also see:

1. Planet with 3 Suns
2. Tenth Rock from the Sun

HERE is a growing interest in snatching of Web traffic from search engines. A notorious method for achieving this is by large mass of useless and re-used content. This is backed by many inbound links, which are most commonly accumulated by spamming of other Web sites. The overall outcome of this is degradation in the quality of publication on the Web. Likewise in science (sometimes at least!).

There are real technical papers and fake ones as well. SCIGen was at one point utilised to output randomly-generated publications, one of which was actually accepted to be presented at a conference.

Finally, there is a new tool,which claims to be able to discern real technical papers from fake ones.

Authors of bogus technical articles beware. A team of researchers at the Indiana University School of Informatics has designed a tool that distinguishes between real and fake papers.

It’s called the Inauthentic Paper Detector — one of the first of its kind anywhere — and it uses compression to determine whether technical texts are generated by man or machine.

A rare and important story such as this cannot and should not be ignored. An intersting scientific discovery has just come to my attention.

It turns out that nature’s own chemicals are more able to fight bacteria than one of man’s most significant developments: the invention of penicillin. And get this: a compound in wallaby milk is said to be 100 time more effective. Will humans start breeding wallabies? Or is the statement made in the article an exaggeration that will sooner or later be balanced?

Scientists have discovered a bacteria-fighting compound 100 times more effective than penicillin – in wallaby milk.

Researchers found the highly-potent compound, tagged AGG01, was active against a wide variety of fungi and bacteria including antibiotic-resistant superbugs.