Ancient Mummified Fetus Reveals Surgical Procedure

A mummified fetus dating back to 1840 and discovered in Central Italy.
Credit: University Museum, State University "G. d'Annunzio" of Chieti-Pescara, Italy

A 19th-century mummified fetus that underwent an ancient surgical procedure while in its mother’s womb has been discovered by researchers in Italy, according to a new report.

The procedure was apparently done when a mother’s life was in danger or the fetus had already died.

The investigators found the mummy after a devastating magnitude-6.3 earthquake occurred in L’Aquila in central Italy on April 6, 2009. The earthquake resulted in more than 300 deaths and damaged many buildings in the nearby area, including the historical St. John the Evangelist church in the village of Casentino. The floor of the church partially collapsed, exposing underground rooms holding mummified human bodies, which included the newfound fetus that dates back to 1840, according to the researchers’ estimates.

When the researchers examined the fetus mummy using a radiograph, they saw a fetal skeleton that was not fully connected or articulated, which means that some of the bones were not in the exact same position to each other as they likely were when the fetus was alive. They were not able to establish the sex of the fetus, as they could not determine the morphology of its pelvic and jaw bones, which scientists use to identify sexual characteristics of skeletons. The researchers did estimate the fetus was at 29 weeks of development inside its mother’s womb. [See Photos of the Mummy Fetus and Excavation Site]

A few features of the mummy suggested that an operation had taken place. The fetus’ skull had been dissected in several places and disconnected from the spine, while its arms had been separated from the rest of the body at the joints, none of which typically occurs in the process of post-mortem examinations. All of these characteristics “strongly suggest a case of embryotomy,” which was a procedure that occurred before removing the fetus from the womb, study author Ruggero D’Anastasio of University Museum at University of Chieti, Italy, told Live Science.

This likely case of embryotomy “is the only anthropological proof of this surgical practice up to now in this geographical region,” he added.

Embryotomy was a common practice in ancient times, D’Anastasio said. The procedure was practiced in Alexandria and then in Rome during the first and second centuries, the researchers wrote in the study. Physicians typically performed it when a mother’s life was threatened due to delivery complications or when the fetus was already thought to be dead in the womb.

According to some reports, however, “embryotomy was [also] the most extreme method of abortion during the medieval period,” they wrote.

The remains of this fetus had been reassembled to match its anatomic shape, including the fragments of the skull being placed at the top of the mummy inside a headgear. The careful reassembly and dressing of the fetus indicates a high sense of compassion for the death of unborn children within the local community at the time, the researchers said.
The other human remains found at the site likely date back to the 19th century or earlier, as confirmed by a scientific method of age determination called radiocarbon dating and information gathered from personal objects. Those items include rings and rosary beads, shoes and clothes, as well as the textiles and shrouds used for wrapping the mummified bodies.

Some of the bodies had lesions from autopsy procedures, such as craniotomy, in which a bone flap is removed from the skull to access the brain, according to the report published online Aug. 12 in the International Journal of Osteoarcheology.
[Source: LiveScience]

What’s Wrong with NASA: Evidences of Life on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus?

By J.P. Skipper

Water jets( http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA11688)

This is my first report for what I suspect will be a landmark year 2012 in this field. Remember that by the end of this year (December) the old is suppose to come to an end and something new begins for Earth, at least as far as the ancient Mayan calendar and various prophets with decent track records are concerned. I can’t say for sure on that but during the meantime, just in case I’m going to get a little more speculative in some of my reporting where I think it is appropriate and it starts with this report.

The above 1st black and white image was taken by the Cassini spacecraft of the southern region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus that periodically sprays out jets or plumes of heated water that quickly freezes to ice in space as you see it doing here. Enceladus is a moon in Saturn’s rings. The current science thinking is that Saturn’s rings are made up of water ice and rock debris of all different sizes as well as a number of moons and dwarf planets held in orbit by huge Saturn’s tremendous gravity well.

The official thinking is that a comet of water ice plowed into Saturn’s orbit some time in the ancient past and, before busting up completely, it may have impacted one or more of Saturn’s moons and/or asteroids in that ancient time generating the rings full of rock debris and water ice held in orbit by Saturn’s tremendous gravity. Enceladus is only the sixth largest of Saturn’s moons with a diameter of 500 km or 310 miles and only 10% the size of the largest moon Titan.

Despite its smaller size, Enceladus is one of the brightest objects in our sky. The thinking on the reason for that is that Enceladus’ surface appears to be made up of a lot of water ice that is of course white in color and highly reflective in sunlight. It should be noted that this moon is located in the densest part of Saturn’s relatively diffuse “E” ring. There is speculation that Enceladus’ water ice outpouring is responsible for much of the density of the “E” ring. Do remember that piece of information because it will become increasingly more important in this reporting.

Note in the above 1st image that the main water jets or plumes appear to stretch in ragged lines of subtle brightness from the lighted edge areas of Enceladus back into the darker areas of the moon’s surface. This suggests that the strongest sprays do indeed come from fissures or cracks in the surface there in this southern region.

The official text in the NASA Photojournal notes that the above image is a mosaic created from two Cassini raw images. The current science thinking is that these are heated water/ice jets originating from deeper down below Enceladus’ surface spraying through fissures in the surface and then quickly freezing to ice in open space. Sounds reasonable doesn’t it.

Most of these fissures are located in the so called “Tiger Stripes” area at Enceladus’ south polar region. These tiger stripes are nothing more than visible fissures (cracks) and, as you can see, the above jet evidence in the darker area tends to support this theory. Now let’s take a closer look at these water venting fissure or tiger stripe sites in the next two images below.

Tiger stripe fissures in Southern pole( http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA06247)

The above 2nd image is a NASA Photojournal PIA06247 shot taken on 7/14/2005 of a large portion of Enceladus’ south polar region and the tiger stripe features area. The official text says that this image is 1,024 pixels wide and that the image scale is 122 meters or 400 feet per pixel. You do the math if you would like to arrive at the scale.

Meanwhile, please note that despite the wide area view, there are no impact craters in the above scene, only ridges, topography buckling, and fissures. Remember that Enceladus is in Saturn’s rings that might generate a bunch of rock missiles, so this tells us that this terrain is relatively young and fairly recently formed even if it isn’t currently jetting water. That suggests that this terrain is mostly water ice that forms into a self leveling liquid or semi-liquid frozen soil mixed mud and then refreezes back eventually into the newer terrain patterns you see here.

 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia11127.html

The above 3rd image is a much closer Cassini PIA11127 shot taken on 10/31/2008 over 3 years later. It provides a closer view of the same type of topography in the south polar or tiger stripe region.

As you can see, this is some seriously rough topography but again no impact craters in it. In theory the largest fissures or canyons you see there are the source of water/ice jets. Remember now that the current prevailing science theory is that deeper underground water periodically heats up due to Saturn’s tremendous gravitational influence and expands upward and spewing out into space via the jets or plumes through these largest fissures where it quickly freezes into ice particles and becomes part of Saturn’s diffuse E-ring.

That science speculation tends to suggest that what we are looking at here in the 3rd image may be at least in part soil and rock geology over a subterranean water base and the largest fissures are the escape valves area for the heated rising water as it takes the path of least resistance upward through the largest deep fissures. Again the above 3rd image tends to support this theory. However, now take a look at next two images below and their newer 2010 evidence?

Waves radiating from many central points suggesting liquid surface( http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawimagedetails/index.cfm?imageID=228082)

The above 4th and 5th images are the best of their kind and based on the Cassini raw W00065512 image taken more recently on 9/22/2010 of Saturn’s moon Enceladus’ surface. The 4th image is of the general scene at 100% of the original and the 5th image is of the darker lower left quadrant of the general image blown up 200% of the original. The distance is suppose to be 248,565 km or 154,450 miles from the Cassini spacecraft to Enceladus here but it appears to me to be a whole lot closer than that. Further, there appears to have been some manipulation of this W00065512 image.

For example, the original official raw image strip the above 4th and 5th images are drawn from is physically taller and deeper down than the 4th and 5th images I am showing here. I’ve cropped out that bottom dark area because there is nothing in it to see other than dark blankness. One might think that it’s space but it isn’t, it’s just blank substitution.

Because of that, one might think that the W00065512 image view catches the outer edge of Enceladus but that isn’t the case either. I suspect something may have been there in the closer shot in the bottom area of the strip between Enceladus and the Cassini camera that has been removed by basically removing everything in that bottom area of the strip. In my imaging here I’ve left just a little of this at the bottom of both of the above 4th and 5th images for you to see.

Likewise, note the tiny bright specks in the bottom area of the above blown up 200% 5th image. Those bright specks are important. If you saw these bright specks against a dark space background (and you will see that in other images below) rather than against a small world, you would naturally assume that they are stars but most of them aren’t. The tip off is that all of these kind of “stars” are the same size and light intensity. In the case of the Cassini probe, such specks are for the most part residual empty pixels where something has been removed from the image. The proof is that when the image is blown up and enough contrast is added, a collection of image artifacts clustering around these specks revealing this truth can be seen. Tricky isn’t it.

I’m going to suggest that what we are looking at in the above 4th and 5th images is that rough Enceladus terrain in the 2nd and 3rd images being melted into a self leveling fluid soil nd water slurry mixture and each of those different size spots with apparent wave rings radiating out from the center of each one are bubbles of various sizes formed by heated water below rising to the surface in preparation of the next coming water jet event.

It’s similar to water just beginning to boil in a pot of soil and water mixture otherwise known as mud. Note that the fluid is not pouring out from fissures here but heating up from below and melting the entire surface area. This suggests that there may be no hard land surface here at all, just a water/soil mud like consistency on the surface just beginning in more advanced stages to do its water jet/plume thing shortly as would mud if over heated in a pot.

So we’ve learned something about Enceladus’ geology in that regard thanks to the Cassini imaging. However, let’s get back to those tiny bright specks that are in my opinion where some objects have been digitally extracted from the scene.

Note that they are between us and the Enceladus surface, so they can’t be claimed to be stars in space, although they could be claimed to be reflective rocks or ice masses within Saturn’s rings. If so, then why would someone go to all the trouble and expense to remove evidence that isn’t really anomalous? I suspect and speculate that this actually closer view of the Enceladus surface was included in the official record to record this very important and informative geological jetting event starting to unfold for the scientists. However, in doing so, the closer view also revealed objects on a closer larger scale between Enceladus and the Cassini camera with enough resolution to reveal what they may really be and that it is LIFE.

Objects that someone doesn’t want us or the scientists in general and especially those involved in the Cassini mission to know about. No I’m not talking about space ship objects here, it is actually more incredible than that. What I am talking about is biological life itself. Biological life that can live in space but which often remains within range of these Enceladus jetting events and/or within at least the “E” ring of Saturn and its diffuse E-ring water ice resource.

Life that can gather and retain water ice within itself in the rings both as a resource in supporting organic life and to provide self generated power for that life. Further, it also shares some similarities to the bioluminescence organism life in the deepest darkest part of our Earth oceans where bioluminescence in the intense darkness comes in very handy. An adaptation that it shares for the same reasons in the blackness of space. In other words, where there is a need, life often finds a way.

I suspect it is herding or more appropriately schooling space life that is beginning to congregate above and getting ready to take advantage of the upcoming Enceladus water jet resource event shown just beginning to form in the 4th and 5th images here. Life such as that in the following images.

I suspect the only reason that this W00065512 image made it into the official record is because it is geologically important as to the water jets and because cropping off the bottom of the image did away with views too close of denser and more recognizable concentrations of this life against the Enceladus background and the few objects still left in the image shown could be removed individually without drawing much attention to this obfuscation tactic.

OBJECTS AT REST SOME DISPLAYING BIOLUMINESCENCE(http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawimagedetails/index.cfm?imageID=228614)

objects having reversed orientation(http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawimagedetails/index.cfm?imageID=228613)

The above 6th and 7th images are two separate Cassini N00164016 and N00164015 raw images, both taken on 10/4/2010, that demonstrates these objects against against a space background. Although they are from two separate images, note that one is closer than the other. Also note that they are both of the same scene but with subtle differences. For example, note that the orientation of the objects is the reverse of each other and there has also been some subtle changes changes in the background.

Please also note that this change in orientation is not the result of a flipping of the image, only a change limited to the object’s and their orientation. All of these factors combine as evidence strongly suggesting that these objects are real and not imaging artifacts of any kind. Now note in this 7th image the closer view all those “stars” in the background. Note how many there are and their general uniformity in size and light intensity quite contrary to natural stars that would be of different sizes and intensity.

Not quite all but most of this evidence is not stars at all but the empty pixels where something has been extracted from the image during processing. Now if that is true, think now many there are of what ever has been removed from this scene. Despite their more distant appearance due to their smaller size, I suspect that these empty pixels represent closer to the camera views of these same objects that might have provided a stronger recognition factor raising the suspicion even among conformity influenced scientists that they may be looking at life here and opening that door in their thinking.

However, there are yet other factors to consider. For example, note the uniformity of size and length of the objects that we can still see here even after the obfuscation work. This level of uniformity is typical of life all deriving from the same genetic code building blocks. At the same time, this is not typical of rock and soil or ice mass geology in Saturn’s rings. For example, it is well known that the rings are made up of particles from the size of mere specks to the size of large homes and larger. That kind of variance is not represented here in these anomalous bright objects.

Water is without a doubt the enabling factor here both in the form of liquid and ice. Consider this, water is a combination of H20. Both hydrogen and oxygen individually or together can be used as sources of power not to mention constituting the body fluids of living tissue. It is within the realm of reason that some life forms originating in a water environment originally could over time evolve and develop into self propelling their way via expenditure of that power in nearby space and through out Saturn’s rings harvesting water ice in the thinner material as they go and those within range returning to these great Enceladus liquid water jetting events cruising through the water plumes to take on larger more satisfying loads.

It is also within reason that such creatures starting out life in water depths without sunlight and in complete darkness under an mud top surface frozen cover would likely develop bioluminescence in order to communicate with others of its kind, find mates, compensate for freezing space conditions, and deal with predators just as we see in the deepest darkest parts of our Earth oceans. As they evolve to live out of the water, they just exchange one form of swimming for another.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawimagedetails/index.cfm?imageID=228567

The above 8th image is drawn from yet another Cassini N00163969 raw image. I’ve included it here just so that you can see more evidence of the objects against a space only background and to demonstrate that this kind of evidence is typical in the Cassini imaging near Enceladus and within Saturn’s rings. Note once again the objects and their different light producing effect from object to object. Note also the great many “stars” in the background that, if they are life extracted from the scene, may be evidence of immense schools of these creatures and just how numerous they really are in “empty” space.

Image artifacts clustering around specks(http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawimagedetails/index.cfm?imageID=228567)

The above 9th image is just a section of the 8th image blown up 400% to demonstrate the “stars” in the background. Although you can also see the dimmer always present noise artifacts in this background, note how the brighter “artifacts” cluster around the “stars” that are actually empty pixels left behind when something was extracted from the image at these many points. Now look back at the 7th, 8th and 9th (below) images and think about how numerous these are. This is what happens when a location in a digital image is disturbed by subsequent spot specific manipulation.

objects-in-flight(http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawimagedetails/index.cfm?imageID=227384)

The above 10th image evidence is drawn from yet another Cassini N00163126 raw image. I believe that it demonstrates the objects straightened out and underway all in the same direction like a school of fish. Again, note that some are generating an inner light source and some are not. I believe that objects with a slight curve to them represents objects generally at rest even though they may or may not be completely stopped.

I suspect that objects straightened out as you see above indicates exerting power and underway. This factor implies that these objects are likely organic in their composition so typical of life. It also implies that they can change their shape to some extent.

objects-in-jet(http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07759)

The above final 11th image is a scene taken of Enceladus during a water jet event backlit by the Sun. It demonstrates a couple of things. First, it demonstrates the full extent of expansion into space of the water geyser event from the south polar region not adequately shown by the raw black and white imaging and just how extensive a deal it really is. Second, it shows the objects pointed out with the yellow arrows. Note that all of these are straightened out and likely underway going through this water plume event tending to back up my own speculations.

I know that all of this is a lot for some of you to take in including even some of you with more open minds. After all, how can something alive exist in the emptiness even vacuum of space?

The fact is that I first brought this possibility to you attention in my 2009 Report #170 because of the visual evidence. If this is truly life, then its behavior suggests an aquatic schooling origin like schooling fish and Enceladus may even be its ancestral home. Some of the visual evidence suggests even more complexity in that this life may be a cooperative schooling form that can also join with others of its kind cooperatively and change its over all visual appearance in the process.

Life in space, despite the human preconception against it, is not a new way out idea. For example, there is NASA’s own STS-75 The Tether incident where an electro dynamic tether to generate power in space experiment was deployed in space where nothing by conventional thinking should be able to live. Yet the tether broke off via an unexpected power surge and still producing power began to be surrounded by swarming “some things” that clearly appeared to be disc shaped living objects.

You could tell that the astronauts were stunned and initially at a loss for words just watching the swarming. When mission ground control broke in and asked what these things were, the reporting astronaut tried to pass it off as debris coming off of the spacecraft even though these large objects were at least 77 miles away and in movement behind the tether from the spacecraft camera. In other words, the objects were likely bigger than the spacecraft itself and could not possibly be “debris.”

In my opinion, the only thing that is hard to believe about this incident is the completely foolish human explanation with more obvious holes in it than a big hunk of swiss cheese. If the tether principle was really abandoned by NASA, it is more likely because its radiating power attracted too many life forms feeding on that power with unknown consequences.

Some and especially the most innocent scientists will no doubt scoff at this as the most ridiculous kind of speculation pointing out that the great majority of the science communities would love to make scientific history by discovering life on other worlds including even in space and that there is no chance that they would deny it to public consumption. Further, I would even agree with most of that in general.

However, what they are failing in their naivety to take into consideration is that space, UFOs, and alien research and exploration is also big business here on Earth building vast fortunes empowering those that have ascended to oligarchy world control status. They police their own and to fall from such exalted heights is too much of a horror for them to contemplate. Most in government and science are but mere employees of oligarchy choosing. Worse, they own all the most important communication pathways like the major media and they in a round about way control most of the military including military and civilian intelligence communities.

For example, if someone under their influence (and who isn’t) gets hold of an alien craft as crap happens for aliens just as it does for us. The technological gains that are its potential equates directly to world wide military advantage, money, and power. The same if someone under their influence gets hold of an alien or aliens or just negotiates in secret with them. For them, it’s all about wealth, power, and control and everything to that end is expedient.

As they see it, the double edge of the sword is that on one edge aliens and their advanced technology exists with its power potential drawing them with their focus on self like mindless flies to honey. Yet, on the other edge, is the potential for interference from populations that tend to be more idealistic and want to argue about right and wrong for all concerned. What the science community doesn’t seem to understand is that idealism and altruism are regarded by oligarchy as completely unrealistic and foolish and a waste of their time.

What the oligarchy knows is that admitting to any kind of life beyond the confines of Earth or for that matter intelligent alien life here on Earth, leads to an opening of the mind and what it will consider next. It’s like you can’t be just a little bit pregnant, you either are or you aren’t. Right now denial among populations and the science communities is the norm and the oligarchy has worked long and hard at considerable expense to create this prevalent social condition. They don’t want to abandon it because it will ultimately mean interference with what they do within the protection of secrecy as too many others not under their control start to become involved.

Yet, the very technology advantage that has been such a primary mover in making them, is also undermining them. As greater and greater communication among populations advances, the secrecy that shields the oligarchy is also undermined and is looking at collapse. Their own AI super computer modeling, assuming they are feeding it objective material, without a doubt predicts this. We out here in the populations are right on the cusp of this happening in our time.

So Mr. scientist they are running scared and they will try to prevent as long as possible that knowledge door from opening within you and you beginning to wake up. Meanwhile they are trying to figure out a way to survive what is coming and preserve their exalted positions of power. So they keep you and your work confined and compartmentalized so that you can’t see the true big picture. For the few that this doesn’t work on, they create a false big picture for you to focus on while the real picture remains solely out of your sight and within their control.

The bottom line is that their proven success formula historically requires secrecy as well as your and our ignorance. Unless they can develop a different successful formula that they can be willing to try in their self isolation, they can’t afford for you or I to wake up and open the door to idealistic interference problems for them. The trouble from their point of view is that the admission of water in what we would consider normal conditions on the surface of a world leads to the consideration of biological life on that surface and that in turn of course leads to the consideration of intelligent and even advanced life and of course we aren’t ignorant and in their control any more.

I know that many of you on all sides don’t want to face this but we’re now long past the point of no return and it’s too late to clamp down or turn back the tide now. The collapse of most of this particular brand of secrecy on our world is immanent and the general science and population ignorance so long entrenched is going to fall away with it. The level of technological advancement guarantees it. The key is to adapt now or suffer the consequences.

Joseph P. Skipper

FBI on The Existence of Aliens and UFOs

By Ste Webb
1. Part of the disks carry crews, others are under remote control.
2. Their mission is peaceful. The visitors contemplate settling on this plane.
3. These visitors are human-like but much larger in size.
4. They are not excarnate Earth people, but come from their ownworld.
5. They do NOT come from a planet as we use the word, but from an etheric planet which interpenetrates with our own and is not perceptible to us.
6. The bodies of the visitors, and the craft, automatically materialize on entering the vibratory rate of our dense matter.
7. The disks posses a type of radiant energy or a ray, which will easily disintegrate any attacking ship. They reenter the etheric at will, and so simply disappear from our vision, without trace.
8. The region from which they come is not the “astral plane”, but corresponds to the Lokas or Talas. Students of osoteric matters will understand these terms.
9. They probably can not be reached by radio, but probably can be by radar. if a signal system can be devised for that. (apparatus
Addendum: The Lokas are oval shape, fluted length oval with a heat-resistaning metal or alloy not yet known the front cage contains the controls, the middle portion a laboratory; the rear contains armament, which consists essentially of a powerful energy apparatus, perhaps a ray weapons.)

Ancient Atlantis or Something Else?

By J. P. Skipper

The report is about an Earth based scenario, a combination of the possibilities inherent in a background Earth story, some possible hypotheses by me, and then some visual evidence to add into the mix. It will be up to you to decide if there is any merit. First we’ll start with the background story.

In more modern times, the story of ancient Atlantis has fascinated generations and some to obsession as a real place. As many of you may know, it is acknowledged that the story of Atlantis was first introduced into public awareness via dialogues by the Greek philosopher Plato around 355–360 BC. As the story goes, Plato’s references regarding Atlantis was allegedly in turn sourced from a 500 hundred years earlier 6th century BC trip by the Athenian lawgiver Solon to Egypt where an Egyptian priest there translated a part of an unknown history of ancient Athens and Atlantis from papyri scrolls of Egyptian hieroglyphs to Greek of a time some 9,000 year earlier to that 6th century period.

According to the translation, it seems that the god/man Poseidon (you know, Zeus, Hera, Apollo etc.) fell in love with a human female named Cleito on the island Atlantis who bore him many sons, the oldest of which was named Atlas. Now it should be noted at this point that the term “Atlantis” in Greek means “island of Atlas” and the term “Atlantic” Ocean was named after Atlas. It seems that in the even more distant past, the “gods” divided up Earth lands among themselves and Poseidon to his liking was assigned the then Atlantis lands west off of the Pillars of Hercules which the latter we know today as the Strait of Gibraltar separating the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

So, despite the many other location prospects presented by others as more likely sites, the ancient story clearly places the location of the Atlantean culture in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere west of the Strait of Gibraltar. Many have a problem with this because it is the scientific consensus opinion that this location is geologically impossible. Further, since science now days considers itself rational and enlightened, the story starting off with the “god” Poseidon likely causes many not to take it serious and regard it as little more than fabricated myth.

However, this ignores the ancient Sumarian and Indian culture record as also referring to such “gods” in human form including conducting great wars with each other. The consensus also makes the assumption that such records are not history but merely fabricated myths and legends to explain events they didn’t understand by ancient people less sophisticated and knowledgeable than ourselves. In my opinion, such views reveal more about our flaws and arrogance than ancient ones.

In any case, the story goes on to describe Atlantis as an island or a great number of islands occupying a very large area of specific measurement so that it might also be considered as large as a continent. Therefore do note that it isn’t described so much as a “continent” as we think of single land mass but a collection of land masses with the island Atlantis as its center of power.

The Atlantean’s are described as a naval power that also possessed flying machines. It seems that landmass Atlantis itself was occupied by Atlas and was an island with mountains. One of these mountains where Cleito apparently resided was carved by Poseidon into a great palace with concentric rings of land, walls, and canals extending out from its center and complete with other canal systems. It seems that the eastern most and other reaches of the Atlantean world were separate kingdoms divided up almost certainly among Atlas’s brothers and so the Atlantean world was a confederation of kingdoms with Atlantis as its power center.

In the time some 9,000 years before the time of Solon and the translation, the Atlantean confederation or some portion of it was apparently aggressively attacking and conquering in western Europe, parts of Africa, and attacking into the Mediterranean where they encountered ancient Athens. Athens standing alone stopped them militarily and thus no doubt the reason for Solon’s Greek interest in the Egyptian translated story. At some point in time not too long after this Atlantean military defeat there is suppose to have been some kind of earthquake upheaval that in one day and night caused the whole of the Atlantean world to sink beneath the Atlantic Ocean causing mud to poor in on top of it creating an impassable and unsearchable muddy shoal and a hazard to navigation.

Remember such records in these ancient times were likely one-off laboriously hand inscribed accounts and not a record that is repeated as we do today via books and electronic devices. So if the one record is destroyed, the account is lost forever. So this is a no doubt condensed Egyptian account/record further condensed by Solon, further condensed by Plato, and further condensed and interpreted by people like me in more recent times so that much information and, more important, a true sense of elapsed time is lost and/or distorted. So there may be a tendency to think about this account happening in shorter lengths of condensed time than may have actually been the case.
For example, we now know something about plate tectonics as well as continental drift and we now know, if we thought about it very much, that this identified location out in the Atlantic west of the Pillars of Hercules would be near an ever expanding seam between tectonic plates and a geologically unstable area due to that fact. This suggests the multiple fracture zones of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Logically, over the centuries earthquakes and rising sea levels may have alerted many intelligent advanced Atlantean people to their island life peril and especially among the island kingdoms with lower elevations.

This would have likely caused some Atlanteans, especially in the Atlantean eastern reaches, to be concerned about future sudden flooding caused by earthquakes building in intensity over the years and/or centuries and flooding shorelines. That may have caused them to attempt to shift populations further eastward to the mainland of western Europe and Africa getting into conflict with those already there occupying those places.

Also, before I forget to include this, it should be noted at this point that the Egyptian account clearly identifies a continent further west of Atlantis bounding the Atlantic Ocean that sounds an awful lot like the American continents. This in turn clearly suggests at least an Egyptian familiarity in ancient 6th century BC times and/or before with the western boundaries of the Atlantic Ocean and its navigation. That would make sense with a broad area of islands in the mid Atlantic making island hopping or circumventing navigation westward to the Americas much easier.

There is even the information in the account of the sunken shoals of Atlantis impeding navigation in the Atlantic. Even if the Egyptian account is false and a creation by Plato or his predecessors, it still suggests a navigation knowledge of the Atlantic Ocean to its western boundaries by some Mediterranean people in 355-360 BC and/or before Plato’s time and that too is significant.

Also, here’s another consideration. The underwater terrain area immediately east of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge area has not only many fracture zones demonstrating geological instability but many mountain ranges as well no doubt created over time by that geological instability. Some of the highest mountains stick out of the water and their tops are islands out in the mid Atlantic. It is also likely that the highest mountains would be those created deeper within the Mid-Atlantic Ridge fracture zone areas.

Now consider that the events described here allegedly happened roughly about 12,000 years back into the past from the present time. Today our science tells us that the last glacial maximum (coldest period) peaked about 20,000 years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago as we entered the current interglacial cycle warming period. That means that 12,000 year ago from our time the Atlantean culture would be facing a warming trend that would have been ongoing and well along for some 8,000 years with melting ice sheets and sea levels rising nearing to the completion of this warming cycle just 2,000 years in their future.

Think about it. Depending on its possible age of existence, the Atlantean culture may have been initially established at some period during the last ice age glacial maximum around 20,000 years ago. During that earlier time, the ice sheets would likely have been at their peaks of mass and the sea level would have been at its lowest. That means that a great deal of the top of those mountain ranges east of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge plate tectonic seam would have likely been sticking considerably out of the water forming a massive area of islands with many of them land interconnected and suitable for habitation.

This has all kinds of negative implications for any civilization based on the mountain range islands in the mid Atlantic during an 8,000 year long to that date interglacial warming/melt trend and its geological changes. As their island centers were threatened by rising water levels and increasingly made more and more vulnerable to the occasional earthquake driven tsunamis and other rogue waves from deeper water over the centuries, there would have logically been a migration from this home area by many while others stayed behind unwilling to leave so typical of human behavior.

This would explain the view of Atlanteans moving east by Egyptian and Greeks as invaders. Did you know that Egyptian earliest history includes accounts of battles fought with unidentified peoples from the west? The Atlanteans on the move, but being a finite number of people without the replenishment reserves of an long term established people and even with more advanced technology, they would gradually have been worn down in conquering ability pushing east into western Europe and Africa until finally exhausted they met their match and perhaps were stopped by the Athenians and a growing culture that later produced the fiercely committed Spartan defenders at Thermopylae. If so, now all that is left of their legacy is perhaps some of their DNA in many of us and some long lasting megalithic structure evidence in Europe and Africa as their smaller numbers were eventually absorbed into the greater human whole of that part of the world.

This is the Earth Atlantis story in basic and some of my thoughts on it. You will notice that I do not label this information as so many others do as myth. From my point of view, it is neither myth nor truth but simply a story like that of Troy that may have some basis for fact in it and not to be summarily dismissed. In other words, I suspect there is core truth to be had somewhere in this story.

You can perhaps understand that, when I got Google Earth, one of the first things I did was go looking for any sign of civilization underwater in the Atlantic west off of the Pillars of Hercules where the Atlantean culture at its height is alleged to be located. I expected nothing and especially not in light of the fact that so much of the satellite imaging has been obfuscated. However, I did find what clearly appears to be some evidence of artificial construction underwater west southwest well out from the Strait of Gibraltar.

I was going to report on it before now but got distracted into planetary evidence and kept putting it off until now. I also delayed because I wanted to further inspect what appears to be some underwater canal systems joining certain islands still sticking out of the water in the general area. However, recently I received an email bringing this site back to my attention from a Clinical Psychologist Dr. Christof Lehmann wanting to know what I thought of the same underwater formations? I’m glad he did. Now let’s look at some Google imaging showing the location of the site and the site itself.

The above 1st image is a context view showing the Atlantic Ocean, the position of the unstable Mid-Atlantic Ridge tectonic plate fracture zone and the rough mountainous underwater terrain produced by it. Likewise, the red arrow demonstrates the underwater evidence site to the left relative to the Strait of Gibraltar or Pillars of Hercules to the right at the mouth of the Mediterranean. As you can see, the placement of the site is in general consistent with the ancient story of the placement of the Atlantean empire.

The above 2nd image from Google Earth provides a closer but still context view showing a little more detail of the evidence that surrounds the site. Note that the site in question appears to be underwater on the east edge of the rough mountainous Mid Atlantic Ridge terrain and on the west edge of a more level plain. However, one needs to be cautious. This may or may not be accurate as a portion of the smoother plain appearance may also be the result of smudge treatments applied to the local area. In fact, if one takes into consideration image tampering treatments, what we can see of the underwater ruins may merely be only part of a greater whole hidden by smudge treatments.

The above 3rd and 4th images provide different types of views of the underwater ruins site. As you can see these many geometric right angle and linear lines are almost certainly represent artificially created ruins of some kind. However, note that there are apparently no concentric round rings as the story describes that are suppose to be on the main island of Atlantis. Further, while there are other long linear lines east of this site that could be old ancient canals connecting islands, there is no more evidence of ruins this definitive in the immediate surroundings.

Does this tell us that this isn’t Atlantis? Not hardly. The ruin outlines you see above are also how this site would look if smudge image tampering were a factor. Same with the extensive smooth plain to the east of this site. You can take nothing for granted in this regard as to what role image tampering may play by hiding evidence.

So does this tell us that this is Atlantis? Again the answer is no. However, what it does tell us is that what we have here is artificial ruin outlines underwater on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean where none should exist and that alone is very significant. Scientists tell us that this is impossible but here you have the visual evidence. Unless some advanced aliens built something here underwater that has been covered over by smudge treatments and still printing through them, we’re almost certainly looking at ancient human civilization construction evidence that had to have been created by ancients over time and unquestionably out of water. That means that this site existed at one time in the past out of water and on dry land.

That in turn logically means that this civilization evidence may have existed active at some time during the last glacial cold period as much as 20,000 years ago when the ice sheets were at their maximum and the water level here was much lower than now exposing these lands to air and sunlight. That in turn makes the story of some ancient civilization like the Atlantean culture in the Atlantic Ocean off of the Pillars of Hercules more feasible.

For example, the destruction of Atlantis, if the overnight time frame is legitimate and not a result of condensing the time line in the Egyptian reporting the event, may have been the result of a combination of things building up over centuries. Rising water during the interglacial warming trend would be the chief suspect but would not alone sufficiently explain the overnight disaster scenario. On the other hand, warming trend rising water levels would have made islands more vulnerable to inundation at the same time that increasing downward weight pressure of the rising water on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge geologically unstable area could have created a subterranean collapse of the plate dropping down a bit and/or a significant earthquake displacing and pushing water in a great wave over the already vulnerable island culture depositing swirling stirred up bottom sediment (mud) over the area.

The above evidence site may or may not be part of an Atlantean empire. However, it was a part of something out here in this now underwater terrain and there is no telling what extensive civilization evidence may be hidden in this area under smudge treatments. If there is anyone out there around the world with access to commercial satellite imaging of this underwater general area that may not have been subjected to tampering treatments, please get it to me for examination and we’ll see if there is anything more to be seen here!

Now that the above evidence leans so much in favor of artificial civilization evidence being possible underwater in this general area of the Atlantic Ocean, is there is further evidence of the civilization kind on this side of the Atlantic? As it turns out, there actually is north of this area and off the west coast of Ireland and the visual evidence is as follows.

The above 5th image is the wide angle context view of that evidence both out on the coastal shallower water shelf represented by the lighter blue color and down in a deeper canyon system represented by the darker blue color. Note that this evidence is not really like the ruins of buildings because the imprint of it is finer and closer textured but still with the sharp 90º right angle boundary geometry and long straight linear lines so typical of man’s constructions.

In the above 6th image, note the lower section pointed out between the two arrows. This looks suspiciously like writing of some unknown kind, at least to me. IF this is writing, perhaps some better forensic imaging experts in conjunction with some linguist experts probably in ancient text could get better details and interpret this?

To that end, the above 7th image provides a closer view of this possible writing. It also provides a good view of how precise the southern straight line boundary of this grid like site makes a perfect sharp 90º turn upward north forming the west boundary edge of the entire site. As you can see, the corner is just too right angle perfect to be the result of some natural occurrence and has been almost certainly implemented by artificial means. As with the previous evidence, the presence of smudge and/or a mud covering on the site tells us that these are not imaging artifacts but something actually present on the bottom.

The above 8th image view is of the top or north and west boundary of the site off of Ireland. As you can see, this area of the site is more compromised by blur. That is caused I suspect mostly by obscuring smudge treatments but acknowledge that it could be mud as well. However, even so, note there are many objects (containers ?) of the same size and in a side-by-side east/west orientation repeating in a long uniformly even line here mostly but not completely obscured and as pointed out by the red arrows.

It obviously suggests artificiality rather than something of natural origin. What any explorer worth his salt wouldn’t give to go down and inspect that long line of same size objects seen in the above 8th image!

What this site is exactly I cannot say. Could it be a giant horizontal read message board with all the main smaller text obscured and only the grossly large bottom line of text printing through the obscuring mud and/or smudge? What ever it is, the main thing is that it appears to be of artificial origin and it is underwater in the Atlantic off the west coast of Ireland. It is entirely possible that this site also dates back into glacial maximum times when the water levels here were at their lowest level exposing this area to the air and sunlight enabling this construction.

The problem with that consideration is that 20,000 years ago during the peak glacial cold cycle, the ice sheets extending down from the Artic north of this point would likely have covered this site making it very difficult for human habitation. Also, the lowered sea levels would have exposed what is now the British Isles including Ireland and the English Channel making this area a landmass extension of the European continent.

If this now underwater site would not be conducive to human habitation back then during the glacial cold cycle, could this site be some kind of giant heated grid type sign system then on exposed land melting ice away from around it and framing a giant message meant only to be seen from above? Perhaps a giant boundary marker defining territory?

In other words, discoveries raising questions like this point to a time in this planet’s history when things were happening that we in our ignorance in this time have little to no knowledge of today except for a few privy to truthful satellite imaging. With that in mind and consistent with human behavior, there may be a tendency to speculate that these things were happening before our recordedhistory? If so, let me say a word about that.

More than likely, there was such a recorded history. For example, the ancient libraries that we know were intentionally sacked and burned a number of times in the lands around the Mediterranean may have contained a great deal of this information. So much of the information in them was destroyed just because of the information they contained that someone of the time didn’t want known. So, with the destruction, the information lost to human civilization is incalculable. I might add that sadly much of that library destruction was undertaken in the name of religion and its intolerance for difference.

I am reminded of the ancient peoples in the opposite direction of South and Central America. They recorded a great deal of history on gold likely thinking that the knowledge would never perish on this wonderfully stable metal. They did not of course anticipate that European white men driven by greed and accompanied by zealot guardians of religion would wish to destroy even history, covet the gold, melt it down wholesale (again knowledge destroyed) too fill great ship convoys headed back to Europe to feed even greater greed and the power addicts of that time.

If very much of any of this ancient information had survived intact, it is possible that humanity would have surged centuries ahead increasingly on an individual basis not nearly as dependent on leaders to manipulate us via spin telling us what to think, how to feel, and what to do that always seems to benefit the few but rarely the many that take the action and run the risks. However, that’s just my personal thoughts.

Addendum added 7/19/2010

It has been brought to my attention by a number of people that this possible site in the Atlantic off of the Pillars of Hercules has been discovered and apparently reported on previously by someone else also making a possible Atlantis connection. I don’t know who. At the same time it seems that Google has put forth an official explanation found HERE that the evidence is a artifact of bathymetric data collection sonar process from boats with the lines reflecting the path of the boats. I was not aware either of the prior discovery or the official explanation at the time of my reporting above.

Because of the location of this particular evidence, it is natural to associate this site with Atlantis. The subject of a technologically advanced human civilization prior to our current recorded history is not welcome in science or political consensus circles just as it was not in ancient times with the destruction of the great libraries. In this time it is preferred to promote surprisingly advanced but still suitably and safely primitive cultures like the Minoans in the Mediterranean as the bases for the story of Atlantis.

As for the official Google explanation, if the Google Earth underwater search function revealed a pattern of sites like this as a result of fuzzy sonar readings around the Earth, such an official explanation might hold a little interest for more investigation. However, no matter what they say, the evidence just isn’t there. That means that the official explanation amounts to no more than a claim and it is clear that this site west off the Pillars of Hercules has been specifically targeted for this special explanation.

The bottom line is that, if they can get the deep rough and very intricate Mid-Atlantic Ridge massive area bottom information west adjacent to this site correct without such visual defects, that says it all and the official explanation is not something to take seriously. You must decide what has merit and what does not for yourself. As for me, I stand by my reporting.

 

Living in A Simulation

By Rob Braynton

The above new video accompanies my blog entry from last August, on the subject of Simulism: the idea that we could be living within a gigantic virtual world, whether we are aware of it or not. Simulism.org is a wiki created by the Netherlands’ Ivo Jansch, and it brings together a number of interesting bits of information about (to quote from the wiki) “the possibility that our existence rests on an unimaginably complex n-dimensional k-state computer grid with rules governing the transition from one state to another”.

In my previous post on Simulism and the above video blog, I talk about several other shows which have showed Simulism-related concepts, including The Matrix, Inception, Star Trek: TNG’s holodeck, and a television show I had not come across before called Play. The Moviespage at the simulism wiki lists a number of other films, most of which are obviously science fiction. But I couldn’t resist adding a few of my favorite films to the list because (in my opinion) they present related concepts:

A Christmas Carol – could this 1843 Charles Dickens novella be the grand-daddy of Simulism? The ghosts conjure virtual worlds of time travel and alternate timelines that to Ebenezer Scrooge are completely real.

It’s a Wonderful Life – when George Bailey is shown an alternate version of the world as it would have been without him, can’t this be thought of as a simulation?

Groundhog Day – being trapped at a certain instant of time (6 am on Groundhog Day), and then being given the freedom to explore all the possible timelines that extend from that instant: is Phil Conners trapped in a simulation? The movie offers no explanation so we are left to imagine what could have been the cause of his predicament.

Brazil – since so much of this film is surreal, placed “somewhere in the twentieth century” according to the opening subtitle, it’s possible that the entire film is a virtual world, a simulation. Could Sam Lowry have woken up from the dream, Neo-style, at any moment in this movie? Since the world depicted in this film is unlike any version of the twentieth century you or I experienced, there are other “alternate history” discussions that could just as easily be related to this film, one of my all-time favorites.

The wikipedia article on alternate history presents some examples of stories exploring the “what would have the world been like if this rather than that had happened” as far back as two thousand years ago: ideas of parallel universe versions of our own observed universe are not as new as you might suspect! And if Information Equals Reality, then all of these examples of simulism, alternate histories, and parallel universes may not just be flights of imagination, but examples of the possibilities inherent in the underlying structures of our reality.

Enjoy the journey!

Rob Bryanton.

Should We Terraform Mars? A Debate

This is a part of a debate organised by NASA. Science Fiction Meets Science Fact. ‘What are the real possibilities, as well as the potential ramifications, of transforming Mars?’ Terraform debaters left to right, Greg Bear , author of such books as “Moving Mars” and “Darwin’s Radio.”; David Grinspoon , planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute; James Kasting , geoscientist at Pennsylvania State University; Christopher McKay , planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center.; Lisa Pratt , biogeochemist at Indiana University; Kim Stanley Robinson , author of the “Mars Trilogy” (“Red Mars,” “Green Mars” and “Blue Mars“); John Rummel , planetary protection officer for NASA; moderator Donna Shirley , former manager of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Donna Shirley: Greg, what are the ethics of exploring Mars?

Greg Bear: You usually talk about ethics within your own social group. And if you define someone as being outside your social group, they’re also outside your ethical system, and that’s what’s caused so much trauma, as we seem to be unable to recognize people who look an awful lot like us as being human beings.

When we go to Mars, we’re actually dealing with a problem that’s outside the realm of ethics and more in the realm of enlightened self-interest. We have a number of reasons for preserving Mars as it is. If there’s life there, it’s evolved over the last several billion years, it’s got incredible solutions to incredible problems. If we just go there and willy-nilly ramp it up or tamp it down or try to remold it somehow, we’re going to lose that information. So that’s not to our best interest.

We were talking earlier about having a pharmaceutical expedition to Mars, not just that but a chemical expedition to Mars, people coming and looking for solutions to incredible problems that could occur here on Earth and finding them on Mars. That could generate income unforeseen.

If we talk about ethical issues on a larger scale of how are other beings in the universe going to regard how we treat Mars, that’s a question for Arthur C. Clarke to answer, I think. That’s been more his purview: the large, sometimes sympathetic eye staring at us and judging what we do.

We really have to look within our own goals and our own heart here. And that means we have to stick within our social group, which at this point includes the entire planet. If we decide that Mars is, in a sense, a fellow being, that the life on Mars, if we discover them – and I think that we will discover that Mars is alive – is worthy of protection, then we have to deal with our own variations in ethical judgment.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘Why should we go to Mars, because look at what human beings have done to Earth.'” -David Grinspoon Image Credit: NASA

The question is, if it’s an economic reality that Mars is extraordinarily valuable, will we do what we did in North America and Africa and South America and just go there and wreak havoc? And we have to control our baser interests, which is, as many of us have found out recently, very hard to do in this country. So we have a lot of problems to deal with here, internal problems. Because not everyone will agree on an ethical decision and that’s the real problem with making ethical decisions.

Donna Shirley: David, you want to comment on the ethics of terraforming Mars?

David Grinspoon: Well, one comment I’ve heard about recently, partly in response to the fact that the president has recently proposed new human missions to Mars – of course, that’s not terraforming, but it is human activities on Mars – and I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Why should we go to Mars, because look at what human beings have done to Earth. Look at how badly we’re screwing it up. Look at the human role on Earth. Why should we take our presence and go screw up other places?”

It’s an interesting question, and it causes me to think about the ethics of the human role elsewhere. What are we doing in the solar system, what should we be doing? But, it’s very hard for me to give up on the idea. Maybe because I read too much science fiction when I was a kid, I do have, I have to admit, this utopian view of a long-term human future in space. I think that if we find life on Mars, the ethical question’s going to be much more complicated.

But in my view, I think we’re going to find that Mars does not have life. We may have fossils there. I think it’s the best place in the solar system to find fossils. Of course, I could be wrong about this and I’d love to be wrong about it, and that’s why we need to explore. If the methane observation is borne out, it would be, to me, the first sign that I really have to rethink this, that maybe there is something living there under the ice.

“If the methane observation is borne out, maybe there is something living there under the ice.” -David Grinspoon Image Credit: NASA

But let’s assume for a second that Mars really is dead, and we’ve explored Mars very carefully – and this is not a determination we’ll be able to make without a lot more exploration – but assuming it was, then what about this question. Should human beings go to Mars, because do we deserve to, given what we’ve done to Earth? And to me, the analogy is of a vacant lot versus planting a garden. If Mars is really dead, then to me it’s like a vacant lot, where we have the opportunity to plant a garden. I think, in the long run, that we should.

We’ve heard a lot different possible motivations, economic motivations, or curiosity, but I think ultimately the motivation should be out of love for life, and wanting there to be more life where there’s only death and desolation. And so I think that ethically, in the long run, if we really learn enough to say that Mars is dead, then the ethical imperative is to spread life and bring a dead world to life.

Donna Shirley: Jim, we can’t prove a negative, so how do we know if there’s life or not, if we keep looking and looking and looking. How long should we look? How would we make that decision?

James Kasting: I think Lisa put us on the right track initially. She’s studying subsurface life on Earth. If there’s life on Mars today, it’s subsurface. I think it’s deep subsurface, a kilometer or two down. So I think we do need humans on Mars, because we need them up there building big drilling rigs to drill down kilometers depth and do the type of exploration that Lisa and her group is doing on Earth here. I think that’s going to take not just decades, but probably a couple of centuries before we can really get a good feel for that.

Lake Vostok. Image Credit: NASA

Donna Shirley: Well, I know, John, at Lake Vostok, one of the big issues is, if we drill into it, our dirty drilling rigs are going to contaminate whatever’s down there. So how do we drill without worrying about contaminating something if it is there?

John Rummel: Well, you accept a little contamination probabilistically that you can allow operations and still try to prevent it. I mean, basically what we can do is try to prevent that which we don’t want to have happen. We can’t ever have a guarantee. The easiest way to prevent the contamination of Mars is to stay here in this room. Or someplace close by.

Greg Bear: That’s known as abstinence.

John Rummel: [laughs]. I also want to point out it’s not necessarily the case that the first thing you want to do on Mars, even if there’s no life, is to change it. We don’t know the advantages of the martian environment. It’s a little bit like the people who go to Arizona for their allergies and start planting crabgrass right off. They wonder why they get that. And it may be that Mars as it is has many benefits. I started working here at NASA Ames as a postdoc with Bob McElroy on controlled ecological life-support systems. There’s a lot we can do with martian environments inside before we move out to the environment of Mars and try to mess with it. So I would highly recommend that not only do we do a thorough job with robotic spacecraft on Mars, but we do a thorough job living inside and trying to figure out what kind of a puzzle Mars presents.

The ALH Meteorite. Image Credit: NASA/ Johnson Space Center

Donna Shirley: Stan, you dealt with this issue in your book with the Reds versus the Greens. What are some of the ethics of making decisions about terraforming Mars?

Kim Stanley Robinson: Ah, the Reds versus the Greens. This is a question in environmental ethics that has been completely obscured by this possibility of life on Mars.

After the Viking mission, and for about a decade or so, up to the findings of the ALH meteorite, where suddenly martian bacteria were postulated again, we thought of Mars as being a dead rock. And yet there were still people who were very offended at the idea of us going there and changing it, even though it was nothing but rock. So this was an interesting kind of limit case in environmental ethics, because this sense of what has standing. People of a certain class had standing, then all the people had standing, then the higher mammals had standing – in each case it’s sort of an evolutionary process where, in an ethical sense, more and more parts of life had standing, and need consideration and ethical treatment from us. They aren’t just there to be used.

• See terraforming image gallery and martian topographical renderings

When you get to rock, it seemed to me that there would be very few people (wanting to preserve it). And yet, when I talked about my project, when I was writing it, it was an instinctive thing, that Mars has its own, what environment ethicists would call, “intrinsic worth,” even as a rock. It’s a pretty interesting position. And I had some sympathy for it, because I like rocky places myself. If somebody proposed irrigating and putting forests in Death Valley, I would think of this as a travesty. I have many favorite rockscapes, and a lot of people do.

So, back and forth between Red and Green, and one of the reasons I think that my book was so long was that it was just possible to imagine both sides of this argument for a very long time. And I never really did reconcile it in my own mind except that it seemed to me that Mars offered the solution itself. If you think of Mars as a dead rock and you think it has intrinsic worth, it should not be changed, then you look at the vertical scale of Mars and you think about terraforming, and there’s a 31-kilometer difference between the highest points on Mars and the lowest. I reckoned about 30 percent of the martian surface would stay well above an atmosphere that people could live in, in the lower elevations. So maybe you could have it both ways. I go back and forth on this teeter-totter. But of course now it’s a kind of an older teeter-totter because we have a different problem now.

Links: Colonization of mars[Are We Going To Colonize Mars?]

Why Send Humans to Mars? Looking Beyond Science

By Pabulo Henrique Rampelotto

In the last decade, the human exploration of Mars has been a topic of intense debate. Much of the focus of this debate lies on scientific reasons for sending, or not sending, humans to Mars. However, the more profound questions regarding why our natural and financial resources should be spent on such endeavor have not been addressed in a significant way. To be successful, the human exploration of Mars needs reasons beyond science to convince the public. People are far more interested in the short-term outcome of exploration than any nebulous long-term benefits. Finding the right balance of science and other factors is critical to convince taxpayers to part with $100 billion or more of their money over the next couple of decades to fund such endeavor. In the following, I briefly explain why the colonization of Mars will bring benefits for humans on Earth, looking beyond scientific reasons.

The engineering challenges necessary to accomplish the human exploration of Mars will stimulate the global industrial machine and the human mind to think innovatively and continue to operate on the edge of technological possibility. Numerous technological spin-offs will be generated during such a project, and it will require the reduction or elimination of boundaries to collaboration among the scientific community. Exploration will also foster the incredible ingenuity necessary to develop technologies required to accomplish something so vast in scope and complexity. The benefits from this endeavor are by nature unknown at this time, but evidence of the benefits from space ventures undertaken thus far point to drastic improvement to daily life and potential benefits to humanity as whole.

One example could come from the development of water recycling technologies designed to sustain a closed-loop life support system of several people for months or even years at a time (necessary if a human mission to Mars is attempted). This technology could then be applied to drought sufferers across the world or remote settlements that exist far from the safety net of mainstream society. The permanence of humans in a hostile environment like on Mars will require careful use of local resources. This necessity might stimulate the development of novel methods and technologies in energy extraction and usage that could benefit terrestrial exploitation and thus improve the management of and prolong the existence of resources on Earth.

The study of human physiology in the Martian environment will provide unique insights into whole-body physiology, and in areas as bone physiology, neurovestibular and cardiovascular function. These areas are important for understanding various terrestrial disease processes (e.g. osteoporosis, muscle atrophy, cardiac impairment, and balance and co-ordination defects). Moreover, medical studies in theMartian environment associated with researches in space medicine will providea stimulus for the development of innovative medical technology, much of which will be directly applicable to terrestrial medicine. In fact, several medical products already developed arespace spin-offs including surgically implantable heart pacemaker, implantable heart defibrillator, kidney dialysis machines, CATscans, radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer, among many others. Undoubtedly, all these space spin-offs significantly improved the human`s quality of life.

At the economical level, both the public and the private sector might be beneficiated with a manned mission to Mars, especially if they work in synergy. Recent studies indicate a large financial return to companies that have successfully commercialized NASA life sciences spin-off products. Thousands of spin-off products have resulted from the application of space-derived technology in fields as human resource development, environmental monitoring, natural resource management, public health, medicine and public safety, telecommunications, computers and information technology, industrial productivity and manufacturing technology and transportation. Besides, the space industry has already a significant contribution on the economy of some countries and with the advent of the human exploration of Mars, it will increase its impact on the economy of many nations. This will include positive impact on the economy of developing countries since it open new opportunities for investments.

To conclude, the human exploration oftthe red planet will significantly benefit all the humanity since it has the potential to improve human`s quality of life, provide economic returns to companies, stimulate the economy of many nations including developing countries and promote international collaboration.

Here is a series of ‘Analysis of Evidence of Life On Mars’…

Trapping the Antimatter!

Creating matter’s strange cousin antimatter is tricky, but holding onto it is even trickier. Now scientists are working on a new device that may be able to trap antimatter long enough to study it.
Antimatter is like a mirror image of matter. For every matter particle (say an electron, for example), a matching antimatter particle is thought to exist (in this case, a positron) with the same mass, but an opposite charge.

The problem is that whenever antimatter comes into contact with regular matter, the two annihilate. So any container or bottle made of matter that attempts to capture antimatter inside would be instantly destroyed, along with the precious antimatter sample one tried to put inside the bottle.

Physicist Clifford Surko of the University of California, San Diegois hard at work to overcome that issue. He and his colleagues are building what they call the world’s largest trap for low-energy positrons – a device they say will be able to store more than a trillion antimatter particles at once.

The key is using magnetic and electric fields, instead of matter, to construct the walls of an antimatter “bottle.”

“We are now working to accumulate trillions of positrons or more in a novel ‘multicell’ trap– an array of magnetic bottles akin to a hotel with many rooms, with each room containing tens of billions of antiparticles.”

Surko presented his work today (Feb. 18) here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The researchers are also developing methods to cool antiparticles to super-cold temperatures so that the particles’ movements are slowedand they can be studied. The scientists also want to compress large clouds of antiparticles into high-density clumps that can be tailored for practical applications.

“One can then carefully push them out of the bottle in a thin stream, a beam, much like squeezing a tube of toothpaste. These beams provide new ways to study how antiparticles interact or react with ordinary matter. They are very useful, for example, in understanding the properties of material surfaces.”

Surko said another project is to create a portable antimatter bottle that could be taken out of the lab and into various industrial and medical situations.
“If you could have a portable trap it would greatly amplify the uses and applications of antimatter in our world.”

Antimatter may sound exotic, butit’s already used in everyday technology, such as medical PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanners. During a PET scan, the patient is injected with radioactive tracer molecules that emit positrons when they decay. These positrons then come into contact with electrons in the body, and the two annihilate, releasing two gamma-ray photons. The gamma-ray photons are then detected by the scanner, giving a 3-D image of what’s going on inside the body.
[Via: LiveScience]

Multifunctional Carbon Nanotubes – Introduction and Applications of Multifunctional Carbon Nanotubes

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Over the past several decades there has been an explosive growth in research and development related to nano materials. Among these one material, carbon Nanotubes, has led the way in terms of its fascinating structure as well as its ability to provide function-specific applications ranging from electronics, to energy and biotechnology. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be viewed as carbon whiskers, which are tubules of nanometer dimensions with properties close to that of an ideal graphite fiber. Due to their distinctive structures they can be considered as matter in one-dimension (1D).

In other words, a carbon nanotube is a honeycomb lattice rolled on to itself, with diameters of the order of nanometers and lengths of up to several micrometers. Generally, two distinct types of CNTs exist depending whether the tubes are made of more than one graphene sheet (multi walled carbon nanotube, MWNT) or only one graphene sheet (single walled carbon nanotube, SWNT). For a detailed description on CNTs please refer to the article by Prof. M. Endo.

A Truly Multifunctional Material

Irrespective of the number of walls, CNTs are envisioned as new engineering materials which possess unique physical properties suitable for a variety of applications. Such properties include large mechanical strength, exotic electrical characteristics and superb chemical and thermal stability. Specifically, the development of techniques for growing carbon nanotubes in a very controlled fashion (such as aligned CNT architectures on various substrates ) as well as on a large scale, presents investigators all over the world with enhanced possibilities for applying these controlled CNTs architectures to the fields of Vacuum microelectronics, Cold-cathode flat panel displays, Field emission devices, Vertical interconnect assemblies, Gas breakdown sensors, Bio Filtration, On chip thermal management, etc.

Apart from their outstanding structural integrity as well as chemical stability, the property that makes carbon nanotubes truly multifunctional in nature is the fact that carbon nanotubes have lot to offer (literally) in terms of specific surface area. Depending on the type of CNTs the specific surface areas may range from 50 m²/gm to several hundreds of m²/gm and with appropriate purification processes the specific surface areas can be increased up to ~1000 m²/gm.

Extensive theoretical and experimental studies have shown that the presence of large specific surface areas is accompanied by the availability of different adsorption sites on the nanotubes. For example, In CNTs produced using catalyst assisted chemical vapor deposition the adsorption occurs only on the outer surface of the curved cylindrical wall of the CNTs. This is because the production process of the CNTs using metal catalysts usually leads to nanotubes with closed ends, thereby restricting the access of the hollow interior space of the tube.

However, there are simple procedures (mild chemical or thermal treatments) which can remove the end caps of the MWNTs thereby presenting the possibility of another adsorption site (inside the tube) in MWNTs as schematically shown in Figure 1. Similarly, the large scale production process of SWNTs lead to the bundling of the SWNTs. Due to this bundling effect, SWNT bundles provide various high energy binding sites (for example grooves, Figure 1.). What this means is then that large surfaces are available in small volume and these surfaces can interact with other species or can be tailored and functionalized.

Figure 1: Possible binding sites available for adsorption on (left) MWNTs and (right) SWNTs surfaces.

Our group’s own research interests are directed into utilizing these materials in different applications related to energy and the environment, where their high specific surfaces areas play a crucial role. Two of such energy related applications are discussed below:

• CNT Based Electrochemical Double Layer Capacitors
• CNT Based catalyst support

CNT Based Electrochemical Double Layer Capacitors

Electrochemical Double Layer Capacitors (EDLC’s: Also referred to as Super Capacitors and Ultra-Capacitors) are envisioned as devices that will have the capability of providing high energy density as well as high power density. With extremely high life-span and charge-discharge cycle capabilities EDLC’s are finding versatile applications in the military, space, transportation, telecommunications and nanoelectronics industries.

An EDLC contains two non reactive porous plates (electrodes or collectors with extremely high specific surface area), separated by a porous membrane and immersed in an electrolyte. Various studies have shown the suitability of CNTs as EDLC electrodes. However, proper integration of CNTs with collector electrodes in EDLCs are needed for minimizing the overall device resistance in order to enhance the performance of CNT based supercapacitors. A strategy for achieving this could be growing CNTs directly on metal surfaces and using them as EDLC electrodes (Figure 2). EDLC electrodes with very low equivalent series resistance (ESR) and high power densities can be obtained by using such approaches.

Figure 2: (a) Artist rendition of EDLC formed by aligned MWNT grown directly on metals (b) An electrochemical impedance spectroscopy plot showing low ESR of such EDLC devices and (c) very symmetric and near rectangular cyclic voltamograms of such devices indicating impressive capacitance behavior.

CNT Based Catalyst Support

Catalysts play an important role in our existence today. Catalysts are small particles (~ 10^-9 meter, or nanometer) which due to their unique surface properties can enhance important chemical reactions leading to useful products. In any kind of catalytic process, the catalysts are dispersed on high surface area materials, known as the catalyst support. The support provides mechanical strength to the catalysts in addition to enhance the specific catalytic surface and enhancing the reaction rates. CNTs, due to their high specific surface areas, outstanding mechanical as well as thermal properties and chemically stability can potentially become the material of choice for catalyst support in a variety of catalyzed chemical reactions.

We are presently exploring the idea of using CNTs as catalyst support in the Fischer Tropsch (FT) synthesis process. The FT reaction can convert a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen in to a wide range of straight chained and branched olefins and paraffins and oxygenates (leading to the production of high quality synthetic fuels). Our preliminary FT synthesis experiments on CNT supported FT catalysts (generally cobalt and iron) shows that the conversion of CO and H₂ obtained with FT catalyst loaded CNTs is orders of magnitude higher than that obtained with conventional FT catalysts (Figure 3), indicating that CNTs offer a new breed of non-oxide based catalyst supports with superior performance for FT synthesis.

Figure 3:CNT paper used as catalyst support for FT synthesis and comparison of conversion ratio’s of Co and H2

So far, CNT research has provided substantial excitement, and novel possibilities in developing applications based on interdisciplinary nanotechnology. The area of large scale growth of CNTs is quiet mature now and hence it could be expected that several solid large volume applications will emerge in the near future.

[Source: Azonano]

Futurism: Social and Legal Rights of Robots

By R. A. Freitas

If we give rights to intelligent machines, either robots or computers, we’ll also have to hold them responsible for their own errors. Robots, by analogy to humans, must conform to a “reasonable computer” standard. Sentient computers and their software should be held to the standard of competence of all other data processing systems of the same technological generation. Thus, if all “sixth generation” computers ought to be smart enough to detect bogus input in some circumstances, then given that circumstance, a court will presume that a “sixth generation” computer knew or should have known the input data were bogus.

Exactly who or what would be the tortfeasor in these cases? Unlike a living being whose mind and body are inseparable, a robot’s mind (software) and bodyare severable and distinct. This is an important distinction. Robot rights most logically should reside in the mechanism’s software (the programs executing in the robot’s computer brain) rather than in its hardware.

This can get mighty complicated. Robots could be instantly reprogrammed, perhaps loading and running a new software applications package every hour. Consider a robot who commits a felony while running the aggressive “Personality A” program, but is running mild-mannered ‘Personality M” when collared by the police. Is this a false arrest? Following conviction, are all existing copies of the criminal software package guilty too, and must they suffer same punishment? (Guilt by association?) If not, is it double jeopardy to take another copy to trial? The robot itself could be released with its aggressive program excised from memory, but this may offend our sense of justice.

The bottom line is it’s hard to apply human laws to robot persons. Let’s say a human shoots a robot, causing it to malfunction, lose power, and “die.” But the robot, once “murdered,” is rebuilt as good as new. If copies of its personality data are in safe storage, then the repaired machine’s mind can be reloaded and up and running in no time – no harm done and possibly even without memory ofthe incident. Does this convert murder into attempted murder? Temporary roboslaughter? Battery? Larceny of time? We’ll We’ll probably need a new class of felonies or “cruelty to robots” statutes to deal with this.

If robots are persons, will the Fifth Amendment protect them from self-incrimination? Under present law, a computer may be compelled to testify, even against itself, without benefit of the Fifth Amendment. Can a warrant be issued to search the mind of a legal person? If not, how can we hope to apprehend silicon-collar criminals in a world of electronic funds transfer and Quotron stock trading?

How should deviant robots be punished? Western penal systems assume that punishing the guilty body punishes the guilty mind – invalid for computers whose electromechanical body and software mind are separable. What is cruel and unusual punishment for a sentient robot? Does reprogramming a felonious computer person violate constitutional privacy or other rights?

Robots and software persons areentitled to protection of life and liberty. But does “life” imply the right of a program to execute, or merely to be stored? Denying execution would be like keeping a human in a permanent coma – which seems unconstitutional. Do software persons have a right to data they need in order to keep executing? Can robot citizens claim social benefits? Are unemployed robo-persons entitled to welfare? Medical care, including free tuneups at the government machine shop? Electricity stamps?Free education? Family and reproductive rights? Don’t laugh. A recent NASA technical study found that self-reproducing robots could be developed today in a 20-year Manhattan-Project-style effort costing less than $10 billion (NASA Conference Publication 2255, 1982).

In the far distant future, there may be a day when vociferous robo-lobbyists pressure Congress to fund more public memory banks, more national network microprocessors, more electronic repair centers, and other silicon-barrel projects. The machines may have enough votes to turn the rascals out or even run for public office themselves. One wonders which political party or social class the “robot bloc” will occupy.

In any case, the next time that Coke machine steals your quarter,better think twice before you kickit. Someday you may need a favor.