Quote of the Day

"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."

Jeremy S. Anderson

Lockheed Tests New Space Vehicle

Lockheed recently tested a one fifth scale version of a reusable orbital space vehicle. You can watch a news report about it from KRQE in Albuquerque.

Science Fiction Quote of the Day

If you look out into the long-term future and what you see looks like science fiction, it might be wrong. But if it doesn't look like science fiction, it's definitely wrong.

Christine Peterson, Vice President of Foresight Nanotech Institute in Menlo Park, California

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.

Robert A. Heinlein

Alzheimer's Cure?

By way of Jerry Pournelle's website, a report in the Belfast Telegraph:

An injection that dramatically relieved the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease within minutes would qualify as the discovery of the decade. That is exactly what was claimed yesterday for an experimental treatment being tested in America.

Scientists at the Institute for Neurological Research at the University of California have treated around 50 patients at a private clinic by injecting an anti-arthritic drug, etanercept, into the spinal column in the neck and then tilting the patients to encourage the drug to flow to the brain.

They claim 90 per cent respond to the treatment, usually within minutes, and have released videos of patients to prove it.

Read the entire article, Discovery of the decade? Injection 'could cure Alzheimer's in minutes'

Video Report:

Today's Quote

"Life's tough. It's tougher if you're stupid."

John Wayne

Quote for the Day

Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall--and then they had no choice but to follow them. This Nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome. Whatever the hazards, they must be guarded against.

John F. Kennedy, November 21, 1963

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

It's a good idea for diplomats to keep their word in small matters. It makes the later complete betrayals more of a surprise.

John Barnes, Earth Made of Glass

2001: A Space Odyssey

The movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, had its world premiere 40 years ago today, on April 2, 1968, at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C.

Space travel of the 21st century does not quite resemble the grand vision of that movie:



It looks like this instead:

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.

Robert A. Heinlein

A Quote for the Day

In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love--they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

-Harry Lime (Orson Welles), "The Third Man"

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

Political tags--such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth--are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

Robert A. Heinlein

Shuttle Endeavour Mission

STS-123, the mission of the Space Shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station lasted 16 days. It landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Wednesday evening.

Video of Launch:



EVA 2 time compressed:



Video of Landing:

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

We presuppose two things: that there is yet to be learned infinitely more than is now known, and that man can learn it.

John W. Campbell

Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica returns to the Sci-Fi channel on April 4 for its final season.

Doctor Who

The new season of Doctor Who begins on the Sci-Fi channel on April 18. The BBC has been running this trailer in theaters in Britain to advertize for it:

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life — much less intelligence — beyond this Earth does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime.

Arthur C. Clarke

A Quote for Good Friday

We deem it the central revelation of Western experience, that man cannot ineradicably stain himself, for the wells of regeneration are infinitely deep.

William F. Buckley, Jr., 1960

Science Fiction Author Quote of the Day

One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. Two-thirds of 2001 is realistic — hardware and technology — to establish background for the metaphysical, philosophical, and religious meanings later.

Arthur C. Clarke

Room Temperature Superconducting Material?

EETimes.com in an article by R.Colin Johnson, reports on a possible room temperature superconductor:

PORTLAND, Ore. — A new superconducting material fabricated by a Canadian-German team has been fabricated out of a silicon-hydrogen compound. Instead of super-cooling the material, as is necessary for conventional superconductors, the new material is instead super-compressed. The researchers claim that the new material could sidestep the cooling requirement, thereby enabling superconducting wires that work at room temperature.