Asteroid Apocalypse

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the first episode of a new series that has recently begun airing on the Science Channel entitled “Phil Plait’s Bad Universe” hosted by noted Astronomer and skeptic, Phil Plait, who runs the website BadAstronomy.com.

Badastronomy.com is a website dedicated to clearing up public misconceptions about astronomy and space science in movies, the news, print, and on the Internet. Plait also debunks several pseudoscientific theories related to space and astronomy, such as Planet X, Richard Hoagland's theories, and most famously, the moon landing "hoax".

Well, Dr. Phil Plait has taken “Bad Astronomy” to a new mass medium –Television.

Bad Universe is a show dedicated to debunking junk science. The universe is a dangerous place. Threats can come from any direction.

But pop culture has played fast and loose with the facts, and quite often the things we know are all wrong, and when you’re dealing with the universe, ignorance can be deadly. That’s where Phil Plait comes in. He’s an ‘Alpha Nerd’ with a PhD in Astronomy, on a mission to debunk all the junk science out there and reveal the truth.

In each episode, he’ll show you the real science behind the mysteries of this planet, our solar system and the bad universe we all live in. It might just save your life.

In the first instalment of this exciting new show he discusses the real facts behind the possibility of an Asteroid Apocalypse.

Bad Universe is now available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s online store and Amazon.com.

Phil Plait’s Bad Universe – Asteroid Apocalypse

Earth's Evil Twin

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present another interesting documentary from the National Geographic Channel’s highly acclaimed documentary series “Naked Science”. In this episode we visit the planet Venus. 

Venus and Earth are two worlds of roughly the same size and whose evolutionary histories had initially followed similar paths. 

Expedition Announced | In TOTO Deep - November 12 - 21

Image via Wikipedia The Discovery Enterprise is pleased to announce a forthcoming expedition launched by our friends at Ocean Opportunity entitled '2010 | in TOTO deep'. The project is setting out to document the deepwater reef systems of the Tongue of the Ocean (TOTO), Bahamas.
The team will utilize advanced diving modes to explore to depths in excess of 120 meters, with the intent of acquiring high definition video and high resolution still imagery of the natural history of this alien environment. This information will be organized to serve as a future scientific catalyst, and to provide a window into this unique ecosystem for the public. Additionally, this work will contribute to refining operational procedures for humans 'working' in this environment.
The expedition is currently supported by the following:
Ocean Opportunity Inc.
University of Connecticut
Small Hope Bay Lodge
Shearwater Research
Molecular Products
Hugyfot
Many opportunities exist for sponsorship and support. This will be a highly visible community-wide event, offering great opportunities for cooperative support.
Visit http://www.oceanopportunity.com/BahamaDeep.htmlfor more information about this expedition.
Individuals donating $50 or more will receive an Ocean Opportunity 1/4 zip fleece. Visit the above link to make a donation today!

Understanding Time

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present another exciting episode from the Discovery Channel’s documentary series – “Understanding”. This installment concerns the fundamental nature of time.

Time – what is it? St. Augustine wrote, “What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know. But if I want to explain it to someone, I do not know.” Perhaps we should ask: Did time have a beginning? Its a very old question, indeed. But how can we imagine a world before time began? If we count backwards beyond the clock, beyond the calendar, three and a half billion years, we arrive at our own beginning – the dawn of life on earth. Science has a word for it: biogenesis -The gennesis of life. With life, nature created a new kind of time; more advanced, more evolved from the time of the physical world.

Memory and expectation provided us with a competitive advantage. Memory and expectation gave birth to the concept of a past and a future. Now flash forward three and a half billion years. Humanity rules the earth. Humanity is wrapped tight in ticking time. But time ticks on towards the unknown. In physics, space is represented as three dimensions. Time is represented as the fourth dimension. To describe time, we are often asked to think of objects in motion. For instance, time has been compared to the cable that drives the quaint cable cars of San Francisco. The cable car attaches itself to something that’s hidden, something that’s to an extent, mysterious. It is moved by a mechanism you don’t know and cannot see. It just moves you along – takes you on a ride. At birth, we are clamped to a buried cable, time. And at death, cast loose from its passage. Or are we? The answer lies somewhere in time, yet an understanding of time remains as elusive and mysterious as life itself.

Understanding Time

In Search of real life Superhumans - Killer Punch

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the second instalment of an exciting new documentary series entitled “Stan Lee’s Superhumans” hosted by the legendary American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics - Stan Lee and Daniel Browning Smith, who's been dubbed the most flexible man in the world. Together they take us on thrilling journey into the farthest reaches of the world in search of real life superhumans.

In the second episode Daniel is in Vegas to meet Bob Munden the planet's fastest gunslinger, rumoured to be faster than the blink of an eye, and with accuracy second to none. Using electromyography and the fastest camera technology in the world, we investigate whether his speed goes beyond what science says is humanly possible. Timo Kaukonen is a World Sauna Champion and pushes his body to the limits. He has lasted for 16 minutes in temperatures hot enough to boil water. Daniel investigates to find out if he has a genetic difference that sets him apart. Warrior monk Shi Yan Ming shocked the world by moving to New York in 1992, marking the first time that a Shaolin monk has ever defected from China. By harnessing the power of Qi, or vital energy, he's taken Bruce Lee's infamous "one-inch punch" to a new level. "Professor Splash," (aka Darren Taylor) is a world champion high-diver...with a difference. Daniel tries to find out how a man can survive a 35 foot belly flop into just one foot of water.

Throughout history, the forces of evolution and genetic mutation have endowed humans with astonishing new abilities and features. It's a process that continues to this day, and nowhere is it more evident than in the fascinating world of Stan Lee's "Superhumans."

Stan Lee's Superhumans Episode 2 - Killer Punch

Take me to your leader

If extraterrestrials ever arrive on Earth  who will speak for humanity? We now know: Mazlan Othman. Never heard of her? Neither had I but apparently the United Nations have:

The United Nations, tackling head-on the problem of what to do if an alien says “take me to your leader”, is poised to designate a specific individual for the task.

Some would argue that the job should fall to the US president, the leaders of Russia or the European Union. Others might suggest the Pope. One thing is certain: humanity's lack of a leader would not make a good impression.

Instead the UN is set to select an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist who is head of its little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa).

Mazlan Othman will describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society's Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire.

She will tell delegates that the recent discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars has made the detection of extraterrestrial life more likely than ever before - and that means the UN must be ready to co-ordinate humanity's response to any “first contact”.

In Search of Giants with Dr. Brian Cox

Today on Discovery Enterprise we are going to join Dr Brian Cox on a breathtaking journey through the history of particle physics. In Search of Giants is a documentary in which Brian Cox makes particle physics and the quantum world comprehensible.

In this exciting series we take a grand tour through the history of atomic and nuclear physics and learn that the ancient Greeks knew about atoms and how Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table was among the first clues that the atom had a deeper structure. We also follow J.J. Thomson’s discovery of the first subatomic particle – the electron.

We will also witness Ernest Rutherford’s historical ground breaking experiment that revealed that most of the mass of an atom is concentrated in a tiny nucleus made of protons and neutrons. Finally we learn how Murray Gell-Mann predicted the existence of quarks, and much, much more.

In Search of Giants with Dr. Brian Cox

The Universe – Dark Future of the Sun

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the eighth episode of the History Channels highly acclaimed documentary series – The Universe.

Our Sun has served Earth well for almost five billion years. It has bathed us with heat and energy and sustained life on our planet. But like people, our home star is mortal.

In five billion years, it will stop nurturing its planetary offspring. In this exciting episode we voyage some five billion years into the future to see how the Sun will eventually end its existence and affect the future of life on our planet. Will humanity one day find a new home amongst the stars and survive the death of the Sun?

The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s online store.

The Universe – Dark Future of the Sun

Sci-Fi Science - Galactic Colonization

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the second episode of the second season of Dr. Michio Kaku’s renowned and highly acclaimed documentary series “Sci Fi Science” and explore the exciting possibility of creating a galactic civilization.

In this exciting episode of Sci Fi Science, Dr. Michio Kaku comes up with some very intriguing plans for expanding humanity’s presence throughout the Milky Way Galaxy. 

The first and second seasons of Sci Fi Science, hosted by Dr. Michio Kaku is a available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s online store. 

Sci-Fi Science - Galactic Colonization

Sci-Fi Science - Earth 2.0

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the first second season episode of Dr. Michio Kaku’s Sci Fi Science and explore the exciting possibility of Terraforming the planet Mars.

In this first instalment of the second season of Sci Fi Science, Dr. Michio Kaku comes up with plans for the construction of Earth 2.0 (a second Earth) through the process of terraforming.

Terraforming (literally, "Earth-forming") of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth to make it habitable by humans an other terrestrial organisms.

The first and second seasons of Sci Fi Science, hosted by Dr. Michio Kaku is a available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s online store. 

Sci-Fi Science - Earth 2.0

Only Two Men

Only Two Men12 men have walked on the lunar surface. But only two have descended to the ocean’s deepest point. Shown here are Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard on their January 23, 1960 mission to the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific. The temperature outside sat at freezing. The light was lost at around 500 feet, some seven miles above them and the pressure on the capsule in which there were riding was 354 million pounds. They exceeded the capability by more than 12 times the rated max depth of the most advanced 21st century military submarine.

Modern Marvels: Ancient Discoveries

Today on Discovery Enterprise we continue our retrospective of past technologies. But, instead of taking a trip through time of just mere decades, our time odyssey will take us back more than two thousand years. And in the course of this temporal voyage we will examine the ancient antecedents of many technologies that many would consider modern.

Today’s video feature Modern Marvels: Ancient Discoveries, explores the question - Is it possible the ancients were so technologically advanced that they successfully designed the template for today's computers, planes, trains, automobiles and other engineering marvels?

We will first examine a mysterious device that still baffles many of today’s experts – the Antikythera mechanism.

The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient mechanical computer designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was recovered in 1900 from the Antikythera wreck, but its complexity and significance were not understood until decades later. It is now thought to have been built about 150–100 BCE. The degree of mechanical sophistication is comparable to late medieval Swiss watch making. Technological artefacts of similar complexity and workmanship did not reappear until the 14th century, when mechanical astronomical clocks appeared in Europe.

Modern Marvels: Ancient Discoveries will also explore the forerunners of today’s modern rail service, super ships and flame throwers.

Modern Marvels: Ancient Discoveries

The Unexpected Human Future

The Unexpected Human FutureThe future of humanity is not what we have come to know with our limited understanding of what we think of as reality. This generation is about to step out permanently into frontiers that were until now the fuzzy domain of science fiction writers and dreamers. But not much longer now and we will burst through barries in quick succession that will define a new reality of human thought, enterprise and human dominion.

The Future of the Milky Way

Today on Discovery Enterprise we explore the future fate of our home galaxy – The Milky Way.

The Milky Way Galaxy, commonly referred to as just the Milky Way, or sometimes simply as the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies. It is one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. Its name is a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, referring to the pale band of light formed by stars in the galactic plane as seen from Earth.

Enjoy this Discovery Channel Documentary about the past, present and the future of our galaxy.

The Future Of The Milky Way

ATLANTICA EXPEDITIONS VIDEO PODCAST CATALOGUE

ATLANTICA EXPEDITIONS VIDEO PODCAST CATALOGUEThe Atlantica Expeditions will be producing weekly video Podcasts beginning in late September or early October. The Atlantica Expeditions podcasts can be subscribed to on Youtube or iTunes/Apple Store. All of these will be available as a link from our Atlantica Expeditions website (UnderseaColony.com), Facebook link or on all our Blogs – Discovery Enterprise, QuantumLimit.com or Undersea Colonies.


Here is the upcoming Podcast catalogue:


Moonpools, Oxygen , CO2, Oxygen and CO2, Transfer Cases, Food and Making Dinner, The Undersea Bathroom, Lights, Power, Excursions, Sleeping, Communications, Communicating In the Water, Undersea Weather, Day and Night, Sleeping Underwater, The Bends, Sharks and Dangerous FIsh, Territorial Fish, A Paperless Society, Resource Recovery, Exercising Undersea, What To Do With The Trash?, Habitat Air Conditioning, The Microscopic World.

Bringing the Pets Along to Live Undersea

Undersea PetsWhen mankind enters the undersea world to stay permanently, he will not go alone! As a a matter of fact, when the Chamberland family (Dennis and Claudia) go to spend a record 90 days in 2012, we will be bringing along our cat, Snickers, to spend the 90 days with us. And how will we get her down? Well – I am building her very own cat submarine. But – just in case you think that’s quite novel – it is not a first! Check this video out and see not only an underwater cat in SCUBA, but an undersea dog as well!

Modern Marvels: 90's Tech

Today on Discovery Enterprise we travel back to the last decade of the Twentieth Century for a retrospective look at the beginnings of the trendy technologies that have defined that epoch and has shaped ours.

Modern Marvels: 90s Tech will take you way back to the end of the Twentieth Century and the beginning of today's trendy technologies. From DVDs to TIVO to GPS, we'll see how the gadgets we can't live without all started in the 1990s.

Modern Marvels: 90's Tech

The Universe – Total Eclipse

Copyright David A. Hardy

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present episode seven of the fifth season of the History Channel’s outstanding documentary series – The Universe.

In this instalment we look examine an astronomical phenomenon that has inspired awe and wonder throughout the ages – The Total Solar Eclipse.

Once they were dreaded and thought to be dragons eating the sun but, modern science has dispelled mythology and we now look forward to total Solar Eclipses as one of the most spectacular phenomena in the heavens.

A look at the movements of the Earth, the sun and the moon during solar and lunar eclipses; how humans, if alone in the universe, may be the only intelligent creatures to witness these events; and how astronomers discover planets in other star systems that partially eclipse their stars.

The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s online store.

The Universe – Total Eclipse

Modern Marvels: 80's Tech

Today on Discovery Enterprise we take a trip back in time, all the way back to the 1980s and will examine some of the most popular gadgets and fads of that defined a decade.

Join us as we take a retrospective look at Sony's Walkman, the Rubik's Cube, the DeLorean DMC-12, and of course the microchip which changed electronics forever.

Modern Marvels: 80's tech

Modern Marvels: 70's Tech

Today on Discovery Enterprise we take a retrospective look at the technology of the Nineteen Seventies.

From pong to CB radios, to the instant camera to the Pontiac Firebird and everywhere in between it all has the mark of the technology of the seventies.

Modern Marvels: 70's Tech

Modern Marvels: 60s Tech

Today on Discovery Enterprise we take a ride back to the 1960s and recall the technological happenings that helped shape the decade.

Colour TV, computers the size of Mac® trucks and Lava lamps we return to the heady days of the Space Age with this affectionate look at the advances that convinced us the “future is NOW!” For over a decade, Modern Marvels has brought grand stories to life. This documentary is the ultimate celebration of engineering excellence.

From broadcast satellites to superballs, high-tech advances in the 60s improved every part of our lives.

Modern Marvels: 60s Tech

How the Universe Works: Extreme Stars

Today on Discovery Enterprise we explore the fascination story of the birth of stars and how their creation changed the cosmos forever, eventually leading to planets life and, at least in our nook of the universe, the emergence of sentience itself.

If we could watch the night sky over a period of millions of years, we would witness the stars undergo an astonishing sequence of transformations. Thanks to a new generation of telescopes we can follow the unfolding life story of a star from the moment of its first gestation as a prostellar object forming in a majestic cosmic nebula, through to the moment of birth.

How The Universe Works: Extreme Stars

Understanding Electricity

Today on Discovery Enterprise we seek to understand the life force that is the impetus of our technological civilization – Electricity.

Our technological civilization depends on electricity, on the electrons in motion within copper wire. Electrons flow through countless switches and machines not unlike water through aqueducts and canals. Electricity also flows through our very bodies and brains as if it were the divine spark that gives us life. And, electricity may have indeed been the spark of life itself.

Electricity may even have helped in the genesis of life, when it provided the energy that synthesised the first organic compounds in the primordial oceans of our infant planet. These prebiotic compounds would eventually give rise to the first replicating molecules and ultimately the first living cells.

In 1996, electricity helped usher in a brave new world, when researchers successfully cloned a sheep named Dolly. A tiny spark of electricity was used to fuse cells and start the egg growing into an embryo.

In 1752, Benjamin Franklin stepped out into a storm armed only with an iron key, Leiden jar and a kite and showed that lightning was electrical in nature. The of ongoing work of Benjamin Franklin, along with that of his contemporaries Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, helped humanity snatch lightning from the heavens and led us into a new Promethean Age, permanently keeping the darkness of night at bay.

And, through the later work of their intellectual heirs - André-Marie Ampère, Michael Faraday, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison our technological civilization came into being.

Understanding Electricity

The Man Who Walked Across the World

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the astonishing story of the thirty year odyssey of the greatest explorer of the Islamic World - Ibn Battuta.

In this wonderful three part documentary travelogue, Tim Mackintosh Smith follows in the footsteps of Fourteenth Century Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta.

In June 1325, when he was twenty one years old, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown of Tangier on a hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, a journey that would take sixteen months. Yet, Ibn Battutah would not see Morocco again for twenty four years.

The full extent of Ibn Battuta’s adventure would involve a seventy five thousand mile trek across the entirety of the known Islamic world and beyond. During the course of which, he visited forty countries and three continents in a thirty year odyssey.

The account of his travels and excursions are known as the “Rihla” (voyage in Arabic) in which he recounts the full extent of his travels which covered a distance readily surpassing that of his predecessors and his near-contemporary Marco Polo.

The Man Who Walked Across the World

PART ONE - Wanderlust





PART TWO - Magicians and Mystics



PART THREE - Trade Winds

A Study in Sherlock

Today on Discovery Enterprise we take a trip down memory lane as we view an entertaining retrospective of the many silver screen and television incarnations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary creation - Sherlock Holmes.

A Study in Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes: The True Story

Today on Discovery Enterprise, the game is afoot as we go in search of the real life inspiration behind Arthur Conan Doyle’s - Sherlock Holmes.

A leading Nineteenth Century professor of medicine, Dr. Joseph Bell was a pioneer in a new science that later would be known as forensic medicine. Joseph Bell is the real life model for the greatest fictional detective in history. And it was he who inspired his student, Arthur Conan Doyle to create the world’s greatest literary legend of all time.

Sherlock Holmes: The True Story

Lost Civilization of the Amazon

courtesy Washington Post

Was there an advanced civilization in the Amazon? Evidence seems to be mounting there was.:

But scientists now believe that instead of stone-age tribes, like the groups that occasionally emerge from the forest today, the Indians who inhabited the Amazon centuries ago numbered as many as 20 million, far more people than live here today.

"There is a gigantic footprint in the forest," said Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo, 49, a Colombian-born professor at the University of Florida who is working this swath in northeast Peru.

Stooping over a man-made Indian mound on a recent day, he picked up shards of ceramics and dark, nutrient-rich earth made fertile hundreds of years ago by human hands. "All you can see is an artifact of the past," he said. "It's a product of human actions," he said.

The evidence is not just here outside tiny San Martin de Samiria, an indigenous hamlet hours by speed boat from the jungle city of Iquitos. It is found across Amazonia. 

It looks like Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett was on to something.

Carl Sagan's Cosmos – Who Speaks for Earth?

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the thirteenth and final episode of Carl Sagan’s highly acclaimed PBS documentary series – Cosmos: Who Speaks for Earth?

In this final instalment of Cosmos, Carl Sagan leaves us with a sobering message: Human Civilization has to make a choice between life and death.

Carl Sagan said it best with words that are poetic and powerful in their majesty:

“The civilization now in jeopardy is all humanity. As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and sky. In our tenure of this planet, we have accumulated dangerous, evolutionary baggage — propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders, all of which puts our survival in some doubt. We have also acquired compassion for others, love for our children, a desire to learn from history and experience, and a great, soaring passionate intelligence — the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.

Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet earth. But, up and in the cosmos an inescapable perspective awaits. National boundaries are not evidenced when we view the earth from space. Fanatic ethnic or religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a fragile, blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.”

Carl Sagan's Cosmos – Who Speaks for Earth?

The making of 2001: Space Odyssey

Image via Wikipedia

One of the greatest science fiction movies of all time was 2001: Space Odyssey. The man in charge of the special effects, Douglas Trumbull, is producing a documentary on the making of the movie. See the trailer after the jump. Mr Trumbull's website is here.

  

Planets from Hell

Today on Discovery Enterprise we are going to explore some of the most hellish exosolar planets discovered to date.

Since 1995, astronomers have announced the confirmed detections of four hundred and ninety such planets.

Planets from Hell tells the intriguing and exciting story of the discovery of these hostile new worlds and explores the tantalizing possibility of one day finding a planet like Earth.

The Danger of Space Radiation

How to deal with space radiation is one of the unsolved problems of human spaceflight. Which is one reason it would properly be better to put Mars on the back burner for the moment. Here's a NASA video explaining the problem.

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• Plastic Spaceships and Mars (travelinsurance.org)

The Birth of the Oceans

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present an episode of the National Geographic Channel’s outstanding documentary series “Naked Science” that deals with a subject very dear to our hearts, the origin of our planet’s last great frontier – The oceans.

Viewed from the heights of celestial space, an intrepid explorer could clearly see that our world is an ocean planet. The realm of Poseidon comprises an area more than three times greater in size than humanity's current domain.

But a central conundrum confronts us- where did all that water come from?

Today’s feature documentary “Naked Science: Birth of the Oceans”, will explore the various theories on the origins of Earth’s water and our planets world girdling ocean.

Author’s Note: In my personal view the question of the origin of our planet’s water may very well be settled by mounting a sample return mission to the lunar poles and comparing the isotropic ratio abundances of hydrogen (protium) to deuterium in lunar ice.

I would like to express a special thank you to the web master of Streaming Madness.Net for providing today’s outstanding documentary.

Naked Science: Birth of the Oceans

Living on the Moon

"If God wanted man to become a spacefaring species, He would have given man a moon." ~ Krafft Ehricke

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present a fascinating episode from the National Geographic Channel’s documentary series “Naked Science”.

In this instalment of “Naked Science” we look at the exciting possibility of using our celestial neighbour, the Moon, as a stepping stone that will allow humanity to colonise the solar system and beyond.

Life in a Space Colony

What would life be like in an orbiting Space Colony? Maybe something like this:


Although no one is going to build anything that large in LEO, atmospheric friction would bring it crashing down to Earth.

Heres another vision:

Lost technology of the Ancients: Antibiotic Beer

Image via WikipediaHere's a fascinating story. Apparently the ancient civilization of the Sudan had at least one technological advancement we don't, antibiotic beer.

Chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Sudanese Nubians who lived nearly 2000 years ago shows they were ingesting the antibiotic tetracycline on a regular basis, likely from a special The find is the strongest yet that antibiotics were previously discovered by humans before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928.

“I’m going to ask Alexander Fleming to hand back his Nobel Prize,” joked chemist Mark Nelson, who works on developing new tetracyclines at Paratek Pharmaceuticals and is lead author of the paper published June in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Nelson found large amounts of tetracycline in the bones tested from the ancient population, which lived in the Nubian kingdom (present day Sudan) between 250 A.D. and 550 A.D. and left no written record.

“The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time,” Nelson said in a press release August 30. “I’m convinced that they had the science of fermentation under control and were purposely producing the drug.”

Carl Sagan's Cosmos- Encyclopedia Galactica

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the twelfth episode of Carl Sagan’s highly acclaimed PBS documentary series – Cosmos: Encyclopedia Galactica.

Are there alien intelligences elsewhere in the Cosmos? How could we communicate with them? Are UFOs really extraterrestrial starships visiting our world? The answers to these questions take us to Egypt and an account of how Jean-François Champollion decoded the ancient hieroglyphics and to the largest radio telescope on Earth and to search for other civilizations in space.

With Dr. Sagan we investigate such questions as: “What is the life span of a technological civilization?” and “Will we one day hook up with a network of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy and download the - Encyclopedia Galactica?

Carl Sagan's Cosmos- Encyclopedia Galactica

The Universe – Asteroid Attack

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the sixth episode of the fifth season of the highly acclaimed documentary series “The Universe” currently airing on the History Channel.

The latest instalment of the series looks at the asteroids and the impact they have or had on life now and before. What can spacecraft tell us about these vermin roaming through the solar system? Will human civilization one day colonize the Asteroids and use them to voyage to the stars?

We have all heard of massive boulders hurtling toward our planet, but could we be heading straight into one instead? Find out whether President Obama is sending the next manned space mission to an asteroid.

Author’s Note: In the past year there have been three separate impact events on Jupiter.


The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s online store.

The Universe – Asteroid Attack

Living on Mars

Mars is currently a world griped in a perpetual ice age. On the surface, Mars is a freeze-dried world of rocks, ice, and dust. At first glance it looks like the least likely place to plant a garden. But rocks and minerals found by the Mars rovers show it may have had a warmer and more clement environment conducive to life. 

In Search of real life Superhumans

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present an exciting new documentary series entitled “Stan Lee’s Superhumans” hosted by the legendary American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics - Stan Lee and Daniel Browning Smith, who's been dubbed the most flexible man in the world. Together they take us on thrilling journey into the farthest reaches of the world in search of real life superhumans.

Stan Lee in collaboration with several artists, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, co-created Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and many other fictional characters.

Throughout history, the forces of evolution and genetic mutation have endowed humans with astonishing new abilities and features. It's a process that continues to this day, and nowhere is it more evident than in the fascinating world of Stan Lee's "Superhumans."

This documentary series scours the globe for the real-life counterparts of Lee's characters–people with unique genetic traits that translate into remarkable powers. These include a man whose body is powerfully magnetic, another who can withstand deadly levels of cold and yet another whose brain performs complex calculations at staggering speeds.

In each episode, these "Superhumans" undergo tests that may help explain their amazing gifts, while viewers discover the long history of people with extraordinary powers.

Stan Lee's Superhumans – Electroman

Red Rain - Alien life?

Alex has posted on Panspermia , the hypothesis that life exists throughout the Universe distributed by meteoroids, asteroids, and planetoids, previously, but finding real evidence has been difficult. In 2001 there was the mysterious "Red Rain" was it alien life? The There has been some interesting research:

Today Louis, Wickramasinghe and others publish some extraordinary claims about these red cells. They say that the cells clearly reproduce at a temperature of 121 degrees C. "Under these conditions daughter cells appear within the original mother cells and the number of cells in the samples increases with length of exposure to 121 degrees C," they say. By contrast, the cells are inert at room temperature.

That makes them highly unusual, to say the least. The spores of some extremophiles can survive these kinds of temperatures and then reproduce at lower temperatures but nothing behaves like this at these temperatures, as far as we know.
This is an extraordinary claim that will need to be independently verified before it will be more broadly accepted. ;