Journey To The Center of The Sinkhole

Cave Carson © DC Comics

Scientists return this week to the world’s deepest known sinkhole, Cenote Zacatón in Mexico, to resume tests of a NASA-funded robot called DEPTHX, designed to survey and explore for life in one of Earth’s most extreme regions and potentially in outer space. Sinking more than 1,000 feet, Zacatón has only been partially mapped and its true depth remains unknown.

The system’s unusual hydrothermal nature is analogous to liquid oceans under the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Technology developed to explore the sinkholes could be applied to future space probes of Europa, where scientists believe that deep cracks and holes in the ice offer a chance of finding extraterrestrial life.

Microbes which appear to be new to science have been discovered floating in deep water and lining rocks in Zacatón. Far below sunlight’s ability to penetrate, they may get their energy from nutrients welling up from hot springs. Gary and others speculate that previously undocumented life may await discovery in the murky depths.

Unique in the world of robotic explorers, DEPTHX is autonomous. The probe does not rely on instructions from humans to decide where to go or what to do. It creates 3D maps of previously unexplored areas as it swims along and then uses those same maps to navigate back to the surface.

Doctoral student Marcus Gary SCUBA dives with the DEPTHX probe during initial in-water tests at The University of Texas at Austin Applied Research Laboratories wet test facility.

Cenote Zacatón first achieved notoriety when two divers attempted to reach the bottom in 1994. One of them, Sheck Exley, died in the attempt. The other, Jim Bowden, survived, descending to a record depth of 925 feet. The outcome caused scientists to rethink ways that Zacatón could be explored safely. link

Journey To The Center Of The Earth (1959)

Watching The Brain See The Future

Scientists can now "read" a person’s intentions from their brain activity. This is made possible by a new combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and sophisticated computer algorithms. The researchers were able to recognize the subjects intentions with 70% accuracy based alone on their brain activity - even before the participants had seen the numbers and had started to perform the calculation.

Saturn Girl & Superboy © DC Comics

The trick by which the invisible is made visible lies in a new method called "multivariate pattern recognition". A computer is programmed to recognize characteristic activation patterns in the brain that typically occur in association with specific thoughts. Once this computer has been "trained" it can be used to predict the decisions of subjects from their brain activity alone. An important technical innovation also lies in combining information across extended regions of the brain to strongly increase sensitivity.

In the future it will be possible to read even abstract thoughts and intentions out of a person’s brain.

Brain regions from which it was possible to "read out" peoples' intentions. In specific regions fine-grained patterns of brain activity showed slight differences depending on whether a person was preparing to perform an addition or a subtraction. From activity patterns in the green regions it was possible to read out covert intentions before subjects began to perform the calculation. From the regions marked in red it was possible to read out intentions that were already being acted upon.

Ref.: Reading hidden intentions in the human brain. 2007. John-Dylan Haynes, et al. Current Biology, February 20th, 2007 (online: February 8th).

Empire State Humans

LSH © DC Comics


poster

The Human League.... get tall:

Empire State Human

Since I was very young I've realised
I never wanted to be human size
So I avoid the crowds and traffic jams
They just remind me of how small I am
Because of this longing in my heart
I'm going to start the growing art
I'm going to grow now and never stop
Think like a mountain, grow to the top

Tall, tall, tall, I want to be tall, tall, tall
As big as a wall, wall, wall,
as big as a wall, wall, wall
And if I'm not tall, tall, tall,
then I will crawl, crawl, crawl
Because I'm not tall, tall, tall, tall, tall, tall, tall

With concentration
My size increased
And now I'm fourteen stories high
At least
Empire State Human
Just a bored kid
I'll go to Egypt to be
The pyramids

Brick by brick
Stone by stone:
Growing till he's fully grown
Fetch more water
Fetch more sand
Biggest person in the land


Avengers © Marvel Comics


Avengers © Marvel Comics

UFOs Key To Global Warming

A former Canadian defence minister says be believes advanced technology from extraterrestrial civilizations offers the best hope to "save our planet" from the perils of climate change.

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From The Ottawa Citizen:

Paul Hellyer, 83, is calling for a public disclosure of alien technology obtained during alleged UFO crashes -- such as the mysterious 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico -- because he believes alien species can provide humanity with a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

Mr. Hellyer has been a public UFO advocate since September 2005 when he spoke at a symposium in Toronto. But with concern over global warming at an all-time high, and Canadian political parties struggling to out-green one another, Mr. Hellyer said governments and the military have a responsibility to "come clean on what they know" now more than ever.

"Climate change is the No. 1 problem facing the world today," he said. "I'm not discouraging anyone from being green conscious, but I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation ... that could be a way to save our planet."

Better Sunday Comics

There’s really no good reason why the Sunday Comics should be as bad as they are. Even the big syndicates distribute some good strips including—wait for it—Judge Dread.

Here are some of the more interesting ones. The text is from the PR hype. CLICK EACH IMAGE TO ENLARGE AND READ.

MYTHIC LEGENDS
An exciting adventure strip drawn in cutting-edge artistic style, MYTHIC LEGENDS brings alive periods of history that have long been forgotten. Stimulating, but never too violent, this series holds the attention of young readers and leaves them yearning for more.



Judge Dredd
Holy Smokes! Judge Dread in the Sunday Funnies?!





Ink Pen
Ink Pen is an irreverent slice of comic life centered on an employment agency for cynical, out-of-work cartoon characters. Ink Pen is a well-written and well-drawn workplace comedy, a "retro" look at the Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and an expose on the trappings of advertising and corporate sponsorship.




Modesty Blaise
If James Bond epitomizes a gentleman hero with killer elegance, then Modesty Blaise is his female counterpart. This adventure series, begun in the '60s, has inspired numerous film adaptations, television programs and novels, and continues to be fresh and popular for readers around the world. Love her, but don't get in her way!



James Bond
The world's most famous secret agent is now in daily newspapers. Follow every move of Ian Fleming's hero as he dives headfirst into international intrigue, scandal, romance and more.



Fisher by Philip Street

Fisher is an anomaly in the world of comic strips in that it only runs in one newspaper, albeit nationally—The Globe & Mail out of Toronto.





Mail Order Ninja
TOKYOPOP is the largest English-language publisher of manga in the world. TOKYOPOP scores again with MAIL ORDER NINJA, the story of young Timmy McAllister from Indiana, who orders his very own ninja through the mail! When Yoshida Jiro arrives in a shipping crate, Timmy and his family are thrown into a whole new world of adventure!



Prince Valiant


Carol Lay


Lio
First LIO has no dialog. It tells stories only with images—a "pantomine strip" says Mark Tatulli, the creator. Next, LIO's main character is a curious young boy with an imagination that's unleashed by bumps in the night and things hiding under the bed. And LIO offers various shades of dark humor along with straightforward laughs.



James by Mark Tonra. Archives Only.







Pooch Café



Liberty Meadows
Always some nice art by Frank Cho with some inspired Sunday Strips. Only available as archives.



Mutts

Father of 'Automata' Born This Day

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Jacques de Vaucanson (Feb. 24, 1709 - Nov. 21, 1782) was the French inventor of 'automata' - robot devices of later significance for modern industry. In 1737-38, he produced a transverse flute player, a pipe and tabor player, and a mechanical duck, which was especially noteworthy, not only imitating the motions of a live duck, but also the motions of drinking, eating, and "digesting." link

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Light and Matter United

Albert Einstein and just about every other physicist insisted that light travels 186,000 miles a second in free space, and that it can't be speeded-up or slowed down. But in 1998, Lene Hau, for the first time in history, slowed light to 38 miles an hour, about the speed of rush-hour traffic.



From an article by William Cromie:

Two years later, she brought light to a complete halt in a cloud of ultracold atoms. Next, she restarted the stalled light without changing any of its characteristics, and sent it on its way.

Now her team has made a light pulse disappear from one cold cloud then retrieved it from another cloud nearby. In the process, light was converted into matter then back into light. For the first time in history, this gives science a way to control light with matter and vice versa.

Forever People © DC Comics

A weird thing happens to the light as it enters the cold atomic cloud, called a Bose-Einstein condensate. Atoms at room temperature move in a random, chaotic way. But when chilled in a vacuum to about 460 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, under certain conditions millions of atoms lock together and behave as a single mass. When a laser beam enters such a condensate, the light leaves an imprint on a portion of the atoms. That imprint moves like a wave through the cloud and exits at a speed of about 700 feet per hour. This wave of matter will keep going and enter another nearby ultracold condensate.

That's how light moves darkly from one cloud to another in Hau's laboratory. This invisible wave of matter keeps going unless it's stopped in the second cloud with another laser beam, after which it can be revived as light again.

Coherent control of optical information with matter wave dynamics. Naomi S. Ginsberg, Sean R. Garner, Lene Vestergaard Hau. Nature 445:623-626, 2007.

PLEASE STAND BY!