A team of rock hounds is in chilly pursuit of meteorites, scouring their snowy surroundings as part of the 2010-11 field season of theAntarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program.

In a recent blog post fromAntarctica’s LaPaz ice sheet, members of the search team reported the hunting is good.

“We’ve been camping on the icehere for two weeks and they have gone by fast,” wrote Melissa Lane of the Planetary Science Institute, which is based in Tucson, Ariz. “In all, we found 170 meteorites here and the most interesting one,petrologically, seems to be the last one found!”

Lane is a planetary geologist on the Reconnaissance Team, which also includes John Schutt, an ANSMET veteran of 30 years serving as the science lead and safety officer, Serena Aunon, astronaut and physician from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and geologist StephenBallou of Beloit College in Wisconsin.

“We’ve all grown accustomed to the stark beauty here,” Lane wrote. “The flatness, the wind, the snow, and even (sort of) the cold are all special here. The team is going to miss this place, but we are excited for new scenery, too. We are moving our camp to the Patuxent Range that is over 100 miles to our NE. We’ll describe it once we see it.”

Better suited for Houdini

The Recon Team arrived at the LaPaz ice sheet Dec. 16, delivered along with its tents, sleeping gear and cooking stoves aboard a Twin Otter aircraft. Two other aircraft delivered snowmobiles the next day, allowing the eager scientists to begin their first meteorite hunt.

“The beauty of the area and sheer fun of navigating our snow machines over endless frozen oceanwaves? was a thrill for all,” said Ballou. “Spirits are high and we are all thrilled to be here, but every facet of our lives here is work. It is challenging to do normal everyday things like dress, eat — and just leaving the tent is often an act better suited for Houdini.”

The Reconnaissance Team is gearing up for 25 more days of camping in Antarctica, coupled with the change of scenery in the Patuxent Range, ”where we can continue our new passions ofmeteorite hunters and huntresses extraordinaire,” Ballou noted.

NASA’s Aunon described in a recent blog what the team faces.

“Winds, winds…and more winds,” Aunon wrote. “In Antarctica the winds are relentless and forced the Recon Team to spend yesterday and this morning inside the tent.

“We did manage to get out in the afternoon, however, and found an additional four meteorites in the field.”

Aunon said preparing to go out on the ice takes the better part of an hour. Team members put on multiple layers of thermal clothing, apply sunscreen, gather equipment and warm up the snowmobiles.

“The Ski-Doos are our best friend out in the field as they carry a survival kit for four people, meteorite gathering equipment, multiple liters of water, food, medical kits, iridium phones and GPSdevices,” Aunon said. “We take extra care in the mornings examining the Ski-Doo engines to ensure peak performance.”

Collection process

ANSMET field work has been supported since 1976 by grants from the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation and NASA’s Planetary Science Division.

Meteorites have been found in Antarctica since the continent was first explored. The first one was found in 1912, by a member of an expedition from Australia.

So what happens when a team member spots a meteorite?

The collection process starts by using the meteorite hunter’s toolkit, a relatively simple collection of gear: sterile bags to contain the rocks, numbered tags to label them, tape to close and seal the bags, a notebook to take down any distinguishing features of the sample, and scissors to cut the tape or the bags open.

Great care is taken not to touch the meteorite or even breathe on it. Above all, a dripping nose hovering over a specimen is a no-no!

The meteorite is placed in a sterile bag as quickly as possible, usually by putting the bag over it. The meteorite is measured and sometimes photographed, and its size and color and possible classification are noted.

A small aluminum tag with an ID number is also inserted into the bag, and the whole thing is then sealed up tight.

At the end of a good day, a hunter’s backpack can be full of these meteorite samples.

Collected meteorites are shipped still frozen to the Antarctic Meteorite Curation labs at Johnson Space Center. There the samples are carefully dried and cracked open, and small pieces are broken off for study as thin sections.

A day of rest

With the team ready to be transported to its new location, it was informed by briefers at South Pole Station Dec. 29 that weather over the Patuxent Range was not good and that the Twin Otters would be unable to fly out.

“Could it be true? A day off? As much as we would like to continue the search for meteorites, a day of rest was welcome,” Aunon said. “We were able to catch up on phone calls with family and friends, write postcards, wash our hair (very refreshing but time consuming), write in our journals and enjoy a matinee showing of ‘Nacho Libre‘ with the team.”

Now well rested, the Recon Team is primed to continue its meteorite adventure at the PatuxentRange.

“In all, this will require four flights to transfer tents, food, Ski-Doos, fuel, and people. If we?re luckywe?ll have two Twin Otters at our disposal and get everything transferred in one day. We?ll keep you updated,” Aunon said, signing off.

If you’d like to keep tabs on the intrepid explorers and their Antarctic field work, check their blogs by going to: http://humanedgetech.com/expedition/ansmet1011/

Source: Space.

The Pirate Bay, the torrent and magnet link hosting giant, has created a new category of downloadables enable a user to 3-D print physical objects. Many believe this will become all the rage in the coming years. Awesooooooome! *starts downloading all the action figures I had as a child and foolishly sold for $1 apiece at a yard sale*

…a Pirate Bayer calling himself WinstonQ2038 explained the thinking behind the new category: “We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical.”
You’ll need a 3D printer to take advantage of the files on offer, meaning it is not quite as simple as downloading an MP3, but the move opens up the possibility of intellectual property infringement for physical objects.”

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? “Printing 3-D dildos of all our favorite celebrities?!” WHAT? NO. We have to create an online shop first, THEN start printing the dildos. You know I’m really starting to question you as a business partner.

The Pirate Bay file-sharing site offers 3D objects [newscientist]

Source: Geekologie.

*Written by Rob Rimes. This article is pretty much spoiler free. It is also a rebuttal and a different take on the show than the Mises Institute VP Jeffrey A. Tucker’s article “Mad Men and Government Regulations”.

‘Mad Men’ is a show I just recently got into. Like most shows, I just didn’t want to start watching it because I didn’t want to find out I really liked it and then be stuck watching it like an obedient and perfectly timed zombie every week. That’s not a knock against the show, in actuality, it is a compliment. I hate having to be pulled in at a specific time, on a specific day, week after week because it disrupts my life and other things I could be doing, like writing an article such as this one.

You see, shows I fear of being too good, I typically avoid until they are over and then I sit down and have a marathon. This way I avoid a week, or god forbid a year thanks to a cliffhanger season finale, of tension and suspense waiting for answers to what just happened. I have been a regular watcher of ‘Dexter’ since the beginning and the end of season 4 (I won’t spoil it for you) left me fucking breathless, confused, saddened, puzzled and starving for answers! I had to wait nine goddamned months! Situations like this are why I waited until ‘Lost’ was completely over before delving into it. I am glad I did. That show was incredible and there was no way in hell I could’ve gone through that madness weekly and then for months during a prolonged break between seasons and writers’ strikes.

In regards to ‘Mad Men’, I had heard so much good stuff about it from a lot of my libertarian-leaning friends. Knowing that a new season starts every summer, I decided to finally sit down and watch the first four seasons to prep for the upcoming fifth season. It wasn’t until I finished Season 4 and then went to Wikipedia to see when Season 5 was set to air that I discovered that there were contract disputes and that it would be delayed until March of 2012, a year away! Damn it television demons! It figures that the moment I watched it, some bullshit would happen and the show would be delayed so the broadcasting gods above could laugh at me and my torment! Damn those gods, I defy the crap out of them!

Anyway, this article isn’t about my personal issues with television deities and my inability to be patient from episode to episode, it is actually about the rise of the Nanny State, which is very well present in the world of ‘Mad Men’. Being that it takes place in the 1960′s, we are shown a world that is going through a major metamorphosis. From the Kennedy-Nixon presidential race, through the assassination of JFK, the LBJ-Goldwater race and the Civil Rights movement, we are shown bits and pieces of a state that is slowly slipping into nannyism. Government regulation and intrusion into our lives really took a major turn for the worse in the 1960′s and ‘Mad Men’ does a good job at painting a picture of a world before the Nanny State took control and how the world had to adapt as the state’s grip slowly tightened.

CONTINUED at Original Post.

*Written by Rob Rimes. This article is pretty much spoiler free. It is also a rebuttal and a different take on the show than the Mises Institute VP Jeffrey A. Tucker’s article “Mad Men and Government Regulations”. ‘Mad Men’ is a show I just recently got into. Like most shows, I just didn’t want to start watching it because I didn’t want to find out I really liked it and then be stuck watching it like an obedient and perfectly timed zombie every w … Read More

via TheSwash.com

*Taken from the Wall Street Journal.

A largely peaceful protest Wednesday by tens of thousands of Greeks against new government austerity measures was marred by violence in central Athens late in the day, when hundreds of youths wearing ski masks hurled water bottles, firecrackers and other objects at police who responded with tear gas and pepper spray.

Throughout the day, public services across Greece ground to a halt as civil servants, teachers and hospital staff walked off the job, in one of the biggest demonstrations in months. Central and local government offices were closed, hospitals and ambulance services were operating on skeleton staffs, and schools and universities were shut for the day.

Transport services also were disrupted, with ferry and rail services suspended after dockworkers joined the strike. Public transport around the capital, Athens, operated on a reduced schedule, and flight operations were hit by a four-hour walkout by air-traffic controllers. Journalists also joined in the strike, leading to a blackout of all radio and television news programs.

The strike, the second to be called this year by the country’s two main umbrella unions, comes just days before the government is due to present Parliament with €26 billion ($37.4 billion) in further spending cuts and tax increases to slash the budget deficit over the next five years.

CONTINUED..

*Written by Rob Rimes. This article is pretty much spoiler free. It is also a rebuttal and a different take on the show than the Mises Institute VP Jeffrey A. Tucker’s article “Mad Men and Government Regulations”.

‘Mad Men’ is a show I just recently got into. Like most shows, I just didn’t want to start watching it because I didn’t want to find out I really liked it and then be stuck watching it like an obedient and perfectly timed zombie every week. That’s not a knock against the show, in actuality, it is a compliment. I hate having to be pulled in at a specific time, on a specific day, week after week because it disrupts my life and other things I could be doing, like writing an article such as this one.

You see, shows I fear of being too good, I typically avoid until they are over and then I sit down and have a marathon. This way I avoid a week, or god forbid a year thanks to a cliffhanger season finale, of tension and suspense waiting for answers to what just happened. I have been a regular watcher of ‘Dexter’ since the beginning and the end of season 4 (I won’t spoil it for you) left me fucking breathless, confused, saddened, puzzled and starving for answers! I had to wait nine goddamned months! Situations like this are why I waited until ‘Lost’ was completely over before delving into it. I am glad I did. That show was incredible and there was no way in hell I could’ve gone through that madness weekly and then for months during a prolonged break between seasons and writers’ strikes.

In regards to ‘Mad Men’, I had heard so much good stuff about it from a lot of my libertarian-leaning friends. Knowing that a new season starts every summer, I decided to finally sit down and watch the first four seasons to prep for the upcoming fifth season. It wasn’t until I finished Season 4 and then went to Wikipedia to see when Season 5 was set to air that I discovered that there were contract disputes and that it would be delayed until March of 2012, a year away! Damn it television demons! It figures that the moment I watched it, some bullshit would happen and the show would be delayed so the broadcasting gods above could laugh at me and my torment! Damn those gods, I defy the crap out of them!

Anyway, this article isn’t about my personal issues with television deities and my inability to be patient from episode to episode, it is actually about the rise of the Nanny State, which is very well present in the world of ‘Mad Men’. Being that it takes place in the 1960′s, we are shown a world that is going through a major metamorphosis. From the Kennedy-Nixon presidential race, through the assassination of JFK, the LBJ-Goldwater race and the Civil Rights movement, we are shown bits and pieces of a state that is slowly slipping into nannyism. Government regulation and intrusion into our lives really took a major turn for the worse in the 1960′s and ‘Mad Men’ does a good job at painting a picture of a world before the Nanny State took control and how the world had to adapt as the state’s grip slowly tightened.

Jeffrey A. Tucker, the Vice President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute wrote an article titled “Mad Men and Government Regulations” (which I posted here). In his article, he claims that the show glorifies the rapid expansion of government regulation and intrusion into our daily lives. I don’t feel that this is the case at all actually. I don’t find that the show glorifies it, I feel that they just display it and the audience is able to make up their own mind.

In my case, I see the regulation and it irritates me and I view the actions of the characters on the show and their distaste for it, as their show of utter resistance. I find it to be more of a heroic critique against the state’s control. Granted no one goes into an uproar over it on the show but that isn’t what the show is about. Many of these references are subtle and much of the defiance against it is wittily wedged into a single line of dialogue sprinkled into a lengthy conversation about old fashioneds, bear claws, Lucky Strikes and titties.

One example Mr. Tucker gave in his article about the glorification of regulation in ‘Mad Men’ was the incredible overabundance of smoking on the show. He cites that the chain smoking, which is done mostly indoors, is done to creep out the viewer and give them a sense of discomfort. He uses that example to say that it convinces the viewer into feeling a sense of relief over the government’s regulation of the tobacco industry, whether through labels and warnings on the packaging itself to endless laws limiting an American citizen’s right to smoke.

Well, I never took it that way. In fact, I took it just the opposite. While I don’t feel that everyone should just chain smoke an office space into a wood-burning barbecue smoker, I also don’t feel that it is the government’s job to force an office to comply. That should come down to company policy and if people are offended by a smokey workplace, don’t fucking apply.

The actions of the characters on ‘Mad Men’ are just doing whatever the hell they want to do and no one is saying a damn thing about it because in that day and age, they could grin it and bear it or they could leave. It is their choice to work in that environment. Maybe I am biased however, considering that my day job is being the Art Director for a major cigar manufacturer and sitting in smoke just comes with the territory. Whenever Don Draper lights up in his office, I see it as a big “fuck you” to the rising Nanny State within the confines of the show, as well as a message from the producers to the bureaucrats of our real world.

The issue of daytime office drinking is also used as an example that should raise eyebrows. Sure, pounding down scotches and vodka gimlets before noon while discussing the day’s sales pitch is a bit over the top but many executives in high profile companies have their little display of bottles and rocks glasses in the corner. A sip of some Laphroaig to ease the tension while going over the quarterly numbers isn’t unheard of in the real world today. Hell, it is common place.

I guess the issue with ‘Mad Men’ though is the amount that they drink. Sure, they do push the boundaries further than they should in their office space and in their own livers. However, I don’t take this as a glorification for regulation by the show’s producers; I take it as a glorification of the characters’ self-serving attitudes and their overwhelming desire to ignore the risks and to be the old school badass ad agency execs the show pimps them out as. It’s is their bodies, they can do what they want and no one is going to tell them otherwise. I think that they are all libertarians at heart. Well, we all know that Bertram Cooper is after he insisted that Don Draper use part of his bonus check to buy “Atlas Shrugged”.

Tucker also talks about the treatment of women on the show. Granted, as the show begins and then for quite some time, the attitudes of men towards women can be shocking in contrast to the way the world is today: 50 years later. However, as the show progresses, some of these attitudes change and some of the main woman on the show go from being just pretty objects to gaining the respect from the men who initially treated them that way. Once again, this is a sign of the times and a display of how well the show is able to evolve with the quickly changing times of the day.

For an example of this, one has to look no further than the character of Peggy Olson. In the beginning, Peggy is just starting out at Sterling Cooper and is a very timid and shy girl, who is seemingly easily flustered and pushed around by the men in the office. Pete Campbell, who is the meanest to her, also ends up having an affair with her right off the bat, which causes much more turmoil and confusion than she obviously needs. She is a second class citizen but she never gives up in this sexist man factory with impossible odds to succeed apart from putting out and doing “favors”. No, Peggy is the antithesis to what you think she is going to be when you first meet her.

Peggy goes through hell early on in the series but it doesn’t deter her, she nearly gives up but her boss, Don Draper sees something special in her that the other token chauvinists have overlooked. Peggy has talent, she has desire and she has the ability to be one of the biggest assets in the company. Don, being the only one with the foresight to see this, gives her that little shove she needs. By the third season, Peggy has an office next to Don’s, the guy she was the secretary for only a few years prior. In the fourth season, she is literally the creative glue that keeps the company afloat during hard times. Peggy hustles, she hustles better than most of the men on the show and is properly recognized and rewarded for it as time goes on. Peggy shatters the mold.

Joan Holloway also takes a similar path as Peggy Olson. Joan starts out as the token office bitch and head of all the women at Sterling Cooper. She is virtually the madame at the corporate playhouse. When Joan first meets Peggy, she coaches her on how to succeed. She tells her to basically stay out of the way, do what is asked, look pretty and don’t be shy if asked to go that extra mile. Joan is also Roger Sterling’s mistress at the beginning of the series. Roger is one of the partners of Sterling Cooper.

Joan is pretty much a cookie cutter character in the beginning. There are signs that someone is in there that deserves to be more than Roger’s doormat. By the end of the third season, she gets married to a decent guy, leaves that “do anything to please” schtick behind and her badass work ethic is also greatly recognized. She officially becomes the office manager of the company and oversees the fall of one company and then is an instrumental part in forming and growing a new company. By the end of Season 4, Joan literally runs shit. No she isn’t a partner but she is nearly at that level. Where Peggy owns the creative side, Joan owns the day-to-day and gets mad respect for it.

Does the development of these two characters make me want to thank the heavens for sexual harassment laws and women’s rights? No, not really. Granted I have no real problem with those things. It just makes me appreciate that two women were able to beat the odds and to truly make something great out of themselves. One played the game and one defied the game but in the end, they both persevered on their own, not because some laws helped them and made it more “fair”. These women fucking rock. I’d marry them both.

Also, who can forget Rachel Menken, who in Season 1 took over her father’s huge Manhattan department store? I wouldn’t consider her a victim of male chauvinism. In fact, she held her ground against Don in their first meeting. Eventually her and Don became a side item but in the end, she stood firm and had an incredible impact on Don. Her words steered the course of his character in a new direction. Rachel was able to make Don look inside of himself and question things he otherwise wouldn’t have if she were a pushover and just some sex toy.

Another thing Mr. Tucker made mention of in his article, while describing the theme of “patriarchal domination and savagery” is that housewives were so aloof and stupid that without government labels and regulations, they allowed their kids to do dumb and dangerous things. Well, kids just do that shit anyway, even today. There were times I did real dumb stuff with fireworks and they were covered in warning labels. All the flashy and colorful “DANGER” logos plastering the packaging didn’t stop me from launching multiple bottle rockets from my mouth.

One specific incident Tucker cited in the article is of a scene where one of the kids is wearing a plastic bag over their head. He mentions that because the Consumer Products Safety Commission didn’t yet exist, Betty Draper was too stupid to warn her kids of the possible suffocation that could occur playing their friendly game of “bag head”.

Well, watching the show and knowing the characters so well, when I saw that scene I felt it was meant to show how aloof Betty is. Not housewives in general and definitely not because warning labels weren’t on the bag. You see, over the course of the entire show, Betty is shown to have severe mental issues that make her act and think like a child. Something in her never properly developed and she is a grown woman living a grown woman’s life but with the mind of a child. This is an issue they hint at in the beginning of the series and it continues to grow and expand throughout all four seasons.

Tucker concludes, in his article, that he sees a constant theme that ‘Mad Men’ is glorifying, that being “the inability of society to improve itself without the helping hand of the master.” The theme I see in ‘Mad Men’ is that before government regulation was as widespread as it is today in our Diet Orwellian society, the people of the 1960′s didn’t need the help of the state. Instead, they lived without that helping hand and did just fine. The social issues would’ve worked themselves out and mothers would know what was too dangerous for their children without the labels. I’m sorry, I just don’t see ‘Mad Men’ as Hollywood’s attempt at force feeding us the paranoid idea that government regulation and control is cool and necessary. I actually see it as the polar opposite of that.

Now I am not knocking Tucker. I love Tucker, he is one of my favorite writers/bloggers out there. I love his book “Bourbon for Breakfast” and I repost a lot of his articles and lectures on The Swash. He has given me sound advice on fashion (although I can’t afford a pair of Alden Genuine Shell Cordovans.. yet) as well as how to properly utilize my water heater and how to combat Generation Sloth. That is why I found it odd to disagree on the subject of ‘Mad Men’. It’s all good though, great minds often times disagree and I actually really appreciate and respect his interpretation of the show, as we all have our own viewpoints. That is what makes us special. Besides, it’s a television show, we’re both probably over thinking it way more than we should. It is a story and it is fiction; I doubt the writers were really tinkering around with anything other than just trying to tell an awesome story.

Anyway, I am still kicking myself in the ass for missing the Mises Circle that was held in Naples, FL a few months back where Mr. Tucker spoke. Hopefully he will return to my neck of the woods and I won’t be too hungover from a late-night/early-morning bourbon bloodbath to wake up early on a Saturday morning. Thank God for the net and downloadable video links because the lecture was great. (see it here).

*Taken from Yahoo News Canada.

Physicists will announce Wednesday that data from a major USatom smasher lab may have revealed a new elementary particle, or potentially a new force of nature, one of the researchers told AFP.

The discovery is believed to relate to mass and how objects obtain it — a persistent riddle to experts and one of the most sought-after answers in all of physics.

“There could be some new force beyond the force that we know,” said Giovanni Punzi, a physicist with the international research team that is analyzing the data.

“If it is confirmed, it could point to a whole new world of interactions,” he told AFP.

While much remains a mystery, one thing researchers agree on is that this is something beyond the “God Particle,” or the Higgs-boson, a hypothetical elementary particle which has long eluded physicists who believe it could explain why objects have mass.

“The Higgs-boson is a piece that goes into the puzzle that we already have,” said Punzi. “Whereas this is something that goes a little bit beyond that — a new interaction, a new force.”

For more than a year physicists have been studying what appears to be a “bump” in the data from the US Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which operates the powerfulparticle accelerator Tevatron.

Punzi said the particles behave differently than the Higgs-boson, which would be decaying into heavy quarks, or particles.

The new discovery “is decaying in normal quarks,” Punzi said.

“It has different features,” he added.

“One thing we know for sure — it is not the Higgs-boson. That is the only thing we know for sure.”

Physicists were to discuss their findings further in a meeting to be webcast at 2100 GMT.

“Nobody knows what this is,” Christopher Hill, a theorist atFermilab who was not part of the team, was quoted as telling the New York Times.

“If it is real, it would be the most significant discovery in physics in half a century.”

My Two Cents: What’s with the crazy amounts of UFO news lately and in the mainstream no less? Makes one wonder why the media is taking something once scoffed at so seriously all of a sudden. I guess they are running out of things to distract the masses with. Anyway, this is pretty compelling in comparison to most of the UFO pseudonews garbage that graces the net. Watch my hits climb today, since I always get more when I repost a UFO story than when I expose real tyranny in the world. End Two Cents.

*Taken from New York Daily News.

A mysterious shiny object floating high over Manhattan‘s West Side set off a flurry of reports and wild speculation Wednesday that a UFO was flying over the city.

Police and the FAA said they began getting flooded with calls starting at 1:30 p.m. from people reporting a silvery object hovering high over Chelsea.

Law enforcement sources said they believed the object was likely some sort of balloon, but as of late Wednesday they had not confirmed exactly what it is.

A Daily News reporter could see a tiny, silver dot floating approximately 5,000 feet above 23th St. and Eighth Ave., where dozens of people gathered late in the afternoon to catch a glimpse.

“It’s been hovering there for a while. I’m just kind of baffled,” said Joseph Torres, 49, of Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, who spotted the object after leaving a movie. “How can it be ordinary? There is something going on.”

Despite clear skies, it was not easy to make out the tiny object shimmering overhead.

“You really have to look up to see it,” said one witness, who gave only his first name, Rico. “It’s a little crazy. I guess that’s why they call it an unidentified flying object because they don’t know what it is.”

Not long after the first sightings, messages began appearing on Twitter linking to a month-old press release announcing the publication of a book by a retired NORAD officer predicting that UFOs would buzz the earth’s major cities on Oct. 13.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it received several calls to its operations center but after reviewing radar data, the agency could not find anything out of the ordinary.

“We re-ran radar to see if there was anything there that we can’t account for but there is nothing in the area,” said spokesman Jim Peters. “There was some helicopter traffic over the river at that time and we checked with LaGuardia Tower. And they said they had nothing going low at that time.”

“Nothing that we can account for would prompt this kind of response,” he said.

Peters said if it was a weather balloon or any kind of organized balloon release, authorities should have been notified in advance. Police officials said they had received no notification.

UPDATE:

My Two Cents: Sounds highly skeptical. If the planet is able to support life, it is probably full of fish and raccoons. Hell, even that’s a stretch. I’m naturally skeptic about all things but I am also not naive enough to think we could be the only intelligent life in an endless universe. It’d be cool if this was a step towards locating other intelligent life out there but Bhathal’s discovery seems to be a mistake or fraud. End Two Cents.

*Taken from io9.

That’s what one scientist is claiming, saying he detected a suspicious light pulse in the vicinity of Gliese 581g two years ago. But the rest of the astronomy community is blasting his claims, accusing him of making a mistake…or worse.

Ragbir Bhathal, an astronomer at the University of Western Sydney, is a member of the Australian branch of SETI, the non-profit organization tasked with, among other things, looking for extraterrestrial radio signals of intelligent origin. Bhathal has told the Daily Mail online that, a couple years back, he detected a light pulse during his nightly search that came from the same part of the galaxy as Zarmina. He explains:

“Whenever there’s a clear night, I go up to the observatory and do a run on some of the celestial objects. Looking at one of these objects, we found this signal. We found this very sharp signal, sort of a laser lookalike thing which is the sort of thing we’re looking for – a very sharp spike. And that is what we found.”

So far, the scientific community has responded fairly negatively to these assertions, and not just because it seems rather unlikely that someone would announce the discovery of a signal so soon after Zarmina’s discovery. SETI legend Frank Drake, the creator of the famous Drake equation, says he’s tried to get more information from Bhathal, and he’s concerned about his colleague’s silence:

“I know the scientist, and when he first announced it, I asked him for the details, and he wouldn’t send them to me. I’m very suspicious. I’m not aware of the location that was claimed for the source of that light, and [Bhathal] refused to tell me where it came from. I think it’s very unlikely that it came from the direction of Gliese 581.”

Although Zarmina’s discoverer Steven Vogt has been fairly adamant that the planet supports life, he’s certainly never claimed there are intelligent, radio-capable beings on the planet. There are a few possibilities to explain this new claim. Bhathal might really have detected a potentially artificial laser source, but the light most likely couldn’t be Zarmina. He might have made an honest mistake in his observations, and it was just a phantom signal – certainly not unprecedented in the search for extraterrestrial life. Or, as Drake seems to imply, all or part of this claim could be less than true.

At this point, we’re skeptical bordering on outright dismissive, but we will certainly be interested to see the evidence and data Bhathal can provide to back up his claims – assuming he has any. For now, you can also check out our previous report on Bhathal’s work.