It seemed like a good idea at the time: But immediately after this photo was taken, the alien bored its way through her skull and nested in the right hemisphere of the singer's brain. We might learn something from this.
Courtesy aymanshammaThe future of the human race, indeed the future of the planet Earth, has been foolishly gambled on the taste and temper of distant alien civilizations, some scientists say.

This week, NASA began to beam the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe” across the, er, universe. Well, not across the universe exactly—the transmission was aimed at the North Star, 431 light years away. Sir Paul McCartney was enthused over the action, and Yoko Ono had something to say (which I skipped over, because it was weird and boring). Ringo Starr, oddly enough, seems not to have been notified.

The transmission has also raised discussion over just what humans should be broadcasting to other planets, and what potential risks might be associated with such actions. This has been a particularly hot topic among SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) Institute researchers at the “Sounds of Silence” conference at the Arizona State University in Tempe this week. “Before sending out even symbolic messages, we need an open discussion about the potential risks," says one SETI member.

I agree entirely. I’m afraid, however, that the damage may already have been done. As the article points out, transmissions from Earth have long been washing across the universe. Military transmissions have already penetrated deep space, and, more worryingly, old episodes of “I Love Lucy” and “Star Trek” pass through an average of one star system a day. We can only hope that some of the more sensitive aliens haven’t been paying close attention to their television sets—I’m not sure how many aliens they can watch William Shatner punch out, or how cheerfully they can bear Lucy’s cough-syrup addiction, before they decide that the universe might be better off without humanity. Then again, maybe aliens are into that kind of stuff. They might just be on the edge of their seats (or whatever aliens sit on, if they sit), waiting for the next episode of Full House. What will happen to Comet? Is the family safe under Danny’s tentative grip on normal human behavior? And what about Uncle Jessie’s hair? Don’t laugh, people—you all know that things work out for the Tanners, but the aliens are way behind us.

Another SETI researcher sensibly pointed out to those who might harbor serious concern over the Polarisians reaction to “Across the Universe” that "the one thing we know about aliens - if they do exist - is that they are very, very far away."

Yes. That’s true.

Tags : space, seti, transmission, extraterrestrial, alien music critics, aliens

read more... | add a comment | share

LIGO
Courtesy NASA

Most home computers almost never employ their full processing power during their normal day-to-day operation. Distributed computing is a way of using the spare processing power from personal computers to solve large problems. The large problem is broken down into smaller parts and these parts are distributed to home computers to solve. The results are then sent back and combined into a solution for the larger problem.

Using the spare processing power of home computers is a powerful tool. The current most powerful supercomputer, IBM's Blue Gene/L clocks out over 70 trillion calculations per second; while 500,000 home computers running a distributed computing project can top 100 trillion calculations per second.

The most popular example of distributing is the SETI@home project, which analyzes data from the Arecibo radio telescope to search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

One of the most recent distributed computing projects is Einstein@home, which searches for spinning neutron stars (or pulsars) using data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors.

You can help search for extraterrestrial life, spinning neutron stars, help design a particle accelerator, predict Earth's climate and more by visiting the distributed computing info website.

Tags : seti, math, computers

read more... | add a comment | share