How Would The World Change If We Found Extraterrestrial Life?

 

The ALH84001 meteorite, which in a 1996 Science publication was speculated to be host to what could be ancient Martian fossils. That finding is still under dispute today. Credit: NASA/JSC/Stanford University . 

In 1938, Orson Welles narrated a radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” as a series of simulated radio bulletins of what was happening in real time as Martians arrived on our home planet. The broadcast is widely remembered for creating public panic, although to what extent is hotly debated today.

Still, the incident serves as an illustration of what could happen when the first life beyond Earth is discovered. While scientists might be excited by the prospect, introducing the public, politicians and interest groups to the idea could take some time.

How extraterrestrial life would change our world view is a research interest of Steven Dick, who just completed a term as the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair of Astrobiology. The chair is jointly sponsored by the NASA Astrobiology Program and the John W. Kluge Center, at the Library of Congress.

Dick is a former astronomer and historian at the United States Naval Observatory, a past chief historian for NASA, and has published several books concerning the discovery of life beyond Earth. To Dick, even the discovery of microbes would be a profound shift for science.

“If we found microbes, it would have an effect on science, especially biology, by universalizing biology,” he said. “We only have one case of biology on Earth. It’s all related. It’s all DNA-based. If we found an independent example on Mars or Europa, we have a chance of forming a universal biology.”

For the rest of the story: http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/world-change-found-extraterrestrial-life/

Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, Ph.D. | Untold Stories of Alien Encounters by Indigenous People

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S y n o p s i s 

Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, author of Encounters With Star People, vowed as a teenager to follow in the footsteps of two 19th-century explorers, John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, who brought the ancient Maya cities to the world's attention. Dr. Clarke set out on a seven-year adventure (from 2003 through 2010) through Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, collecting stories of encounters, sky gods, giants, little people, and aliens among the indigenous people. She drove more than 12,000 miles, visiting 89 archaeological sites (Stephens and Catherwood visited only 44) and conducting nearly 100 individual interviews.

The result is an enthralling series of unique, original, true stories of encounters with space travelers, giants, little people, and UFOs. Sky People may very well change the way you perceive and experience the world.

A noted American Indian researcher offers up a collection of intimate narratives of encounters between contemporary American Indians and the Star People. The first-person accounts, described as conscious experiences and recalled without the aid of hypnosis, reveal a worldview that unquestionably accepts the reality of the StarPeople. The stories also reveal cultures that almost universally regard Star People as ancestors, which allows for interactions that take place without fear and helps explain the uniqueness of the encounters and experiences.

The stories are told by people from all walks of life. Some had graduate degrees; others had never attended school. Some were adept at technology; others had never used a cell phone, owned a computer or a television set. A few of the stories are about events that occurred before the 1947 Roswell incident, however, the majority of the events took place between 1990 and 2010. 

B i o 

Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, a Professor Emeritus at Montana State University, has dedicated her life and career to working with indigenous populations. She has been adopted by enrolled tribal members and given traditional names by three Northern Plains spiritual leaders including the Blackfeet (Woman with Great Knowledge), the Northern Cheyenne (Walks all Woman) and the Lakota Sioux (Woman who Helps People). She holds degrees in English, History, Psychology and Educational Leadership. She is also a licensed therapist and has been a high school English teacher, a counselor, a school administrator, a university professor and administrator. The The author of several children's books and the best-selling, Sisters in the Blood, and Encounters with Star People: Untold Stories of American Indians December 2012), she lives in Montana with her husband, Kip; her beloved Lhasa Apso, Prairie Rose and her Maine Coon cat, Rez Perez. Her second book in the field of Ufology, Sky People: Untold Stories of Alien Encounters in Mesoamerica, was released in December 2014. While retired from academia, she continues to travel and interview individuals throughout the indigenous world about their encounters with UFOs and Aliens.

10 Jaw Dropping (Literally) Pictures That Will Make You Question Your Entire Existence

1. This is where you live, planet Earth, in comparison to the rest of our interplanetary neighborhood (our Solar System). Our Solar System is hurtling through space at a speed of approximately  70,000 kilometers an hour.  I’ve even read estimates that this number can be up to 500,000 kilometers an hour. Zoom out and our Milky Way galaxy that is home to our Solar System (among what could be billions of others) is also hurdling through space at tremendous speeds. Keep zooming out from our galaxy into the cluster of galaxies that our galaxy calls home, and even beyond that, this cluster of galaxies is part of a super cluster. Need I say more? Note: There are visuals of this later in the article if you keep scrolling.

 

This a wonderful depiction of our solar system moving through space compared to the traditional flat diagrams.

For the rest of the story: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/12/01/10-jaw-dropping-literally-pictures-that-will-make-you-question-your-entire-existence/

No Snow, No Problem: How Wall Street Profits from Weird Weather

Never discount Wall Street’s ability to turn the most basic parts of life into profits. Mother nature is the latest money spinner for financial firms. Despite the recent Northeast snowstorm, the unseasonably warm winter, and in general a lack of snow, could turn into big profits for the banks, brokerages and insurance firms that deal in so-called weather derivatives.

Financial contracts based on the weather have been around since at least the late 1990s. The contracts, many of which trade like stocks, are typically pegged to such things as rainfall and temperatures. But in the past few years, contracts specifically tied to snowfall have started to take off in popularity. The contacts essentially act like insurance, allowing, say, retailers or ski mountains to insure against too much snow or too little. Wall Street sells the contracts, matching buyers and sellers and pocketing a small commission. Typically, it’s a good business, but this year it could be a real moneymaker.

In theory, there could be as many firms betting against snow as for it. But in reality the market is always lopsided. It turns out there are more firms that are hurt by large snowfalls than the opposite. And large ski mountains have yet to get into the market. Vail Resorts, for instance, a public company that owns its namesake mountain as well as a number of others, says it doesn’t use weather derivatives to mitigate losses when snow is light. Jeff Hodgson, who runs the Chicago Weather Brokerage and specializes in snow derivatives, says he has yet to work with a ski mountain. What’s more, last year’s record snowfall caused more companies than ever to seek protection this winter.

For the rest of the story: http://business.time.com/2012/01/24/no-snow-no-problem-how-wall-street-profits-from-weird-weather/

Ray Kurzweil’s Mind-Boggling Predictions for the Next 25 Years

In my new book BOLD, one of the interviews that I’m most excited about is with my good friend Ray Kurzweil.

Bill Gates calls Ray, “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence.” Ray is also amazing at predicting a lot more beyond just AI.

This post looks at his very incredible predictions for the next 20+ years.

 

So who is Ray Kurzweil?

He has received 20 honorary doctorates, has been awarded honors from three U.S. presidents, and has authored 7 books (5 of which have been national bestsellers).

He is the principal inventor of many technologies ranging from the first CCD flatbed scanner to the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind. He is also the chancellor and co-founder of Singularity University, and the guy tagged by Larry Page to direct artificial intelligence development at Google.

In short, Ray’s pretty smart… and his predictions are amazing, mind-boggling, and important reminders that we are living in the most exciting time in human history.

But, first let’s look back at some of the predictions Ray got right.
Predictions Ray has gotten right over the last 25 years

In 1990 (twenty-five years ago), he predicted…

…that a computer would defeat a world chess champion by 1998. Then in 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov.

… that PCs would be capable of answering queries by accessing information wirelessly via the Internet by 2010. He was right, to say the least.

… that by the early 2000s, exoskeletal limbs would let the disabled walk. Companies like Ekso Bionics and others now have technology that does just this, and much more.

In 1999, he predicted…

… that people would be able talk to their computer to give commands by 2009. While still in the early days in 2009, natural language interfaces like Apple’s Siri and Google Now have come a long way. I rarely use my keyboard anymore; instead I dictate texts and emails.

For the rest of the story: http://singularityhub.com/2015/01/26/ray-kurzweils-mind-boggling-predictions-for-the-next-25-years/

Fossils From Unknown Species Of Human Discovered

Archaeologists have uncovered teeth in China that don’t appear to belong to any known species of Homo—not quite modern humans, not quite Neanderthals. The findings, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggests that the teeth may belong to hybrids of known populations or even to a whole new species of human ancestors we never knew about.

From about 340,000 to 90,000 years ago, Homo neanderthalensis resided in Europe and western Asia, while anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) were living in Africa. Meanwhile, a mysterious group of extinct human relatives called Denisovans were present in Siberia. While the "hobbit," Homo floresiensis, showed up in Indonesia 95,000 years ago, the evolutionary picture of the genus Homo remains incomplete due to the dearth of East Asian hominin (that’s us and our ancestors) fossils from the late Middle to the early Late Pleistocene.

In 1976, hominin dental samples—nine teeth from four individuals, BBC reports—were recovered from the early Late Pleistocene site of Xujiayao in northern China. Now, an international team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Spain’s National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH)  have re-analyzed the fossils, measuring the size and shape of various dental features, from the roots to the crown to the grooves between the cusps.

For the rest of the story: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/fossil-teeth-dont-belong-any-extinct-human-species-known

Parallel worlds exist and interact with our world, say physicists

New theory explains many of the bizarre observations made in quantum mechanics. 

 

Quantum mechanics, though firmly tested, is so weird and anti-intuitive that famed physicist Richard Feynman once remarked, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." Attempts to explain some of the bizarre consequences of quantum theory have led to some mind-bending ideas, such as the Copenhagen interpretation and the many-worlds interpretation. 

Now there's a new theory on the block, called the "many interacting worlds" hypothesis (MIW), and the idea is just as profound as it sounds. The theory suggests not only that parallel worlds exist, but that they interact with our world on the quantum level and are thus detectable. Though still speculative, the theory may help to finally explain some of the bizarre consequences inherent in quantum mechanics, reports RT.com.

The theory is a spin-off of the many-worlds interpretation in quantum mechanics — an idea that posits that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an actual, though parallel, world. One problem with the many-worlds interpretation, however, has been that it is fundamentally untestable, since observations can only be made in our world. Happenings in these proposed "parallel" worlds can thus only be imagined.

MIW, however, says otherwise. It suggests that parallel worlds can interact on the quantum level, and in fact that they do.

For the rest of the story: http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/parallel-worlds-exist-and-interact-with-our-world-say