Show HN: NodeScript- JavaScript Without the Variable Declarations and Semicolons - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nodescript/nodescript <comment><USER2> Interesting. It's worth noting that semicolons are generally optional in javascript, and there's a growing contingency of folks who actively do not use them and rely on their build tools to inject where necessary. Sounds like it would lead to subtle bugs but I guess it works ok.

Anyway, nice work in general! Assuming this only works with 'let' to avoid the weirdness around 'var' scoping?

<comment><USER3> > Sounds like it would lead to subtle bugs but I guess it works ok.

It does lead to subtle bugs. The same kind of people who leave semicolons out of javascript write C but leave out the braces in statements wherever it's allowed - which also leads to subtle bugs.

I guess looking pretty and saving a couple of keystrokes is preferable to being explicit and not having to just trust that the compiler/browser/whatever is able to intuit what you want the code to be as opposed to what you wrote.

<comment><AUTHOR> > It does lead to subtle bugs.

Have you encountered any bugs so far while testing NodeScript out? I thought I have taken care of all the gotchas when it comes to semicolons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this handle shadowing? Consider, for example,

      let x = 1;
      function foo() { let x = 2; }
      function bar() { x = 3; }
      console.log(x); // 1
      foo();
      console.log(x); // 1
      bar();
      console.log(x); // 3

Without the declaration, how can you tell whether I intend to shadow or not?

Edit: I note from another comment that you state

> If you want to make a global variable, you will have to explicitly write it > as a property of the global object.

The example above could appear in any scope, not only the global scope. Python now has a `nonlocal` keyword (as well as the `global` keyword) to disambiguate these cases.

<comment><AUTHOR> The default behaviour is not to shadow variables. If you want to shadow a variable, you have to do so explicitly with the 'let' keyword.

Here is a NodeScript snippet and its equivalent in Python:

        // NodeScript

        x = 10
        function outer() {
            y = 20

            function inner() {
                x = 100
                y = 200
            }

            inner()
            console.log(x, y)
        }

        outer()

        # Python

        x = 10
        def outer():
            y = 20

            def inner():
                global x
                nonlocal y

                x = 100
                y = 200

            inner()
            print(x, y)

        outer()</comment></comment>


Announcing Rust 1.29 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rust-lang.org/2018/09/13/Rust-1.29.html <comment><USER2>
        cargo doc --document-private-items

This is going to be excellent. I often find in Rust, more than other languages, that the documentation really helps fill a mental gap around the types that you expect a type to implement, vs. what it actually implements. The compiler always catches this, but the docs are also a great way of discovering this.

It's going to be a huge help when working on internal interfaces in a library. cargo doc is such an excellent tool, and while the UI took a minute to learn when I first used it, it's really an amazingly helpful tool, and feels more integrated than similar tools in other languages.

</comment><comment><USER3> A note to any Rust maintainers reading:

There is something wrong with the line spacing. It's so narrow that it's hiding the underscore in one of the code examples:

[https://screenshots.firefox.com/PYoTEXQwowBJoG30/blog.rust-l...](https://screenshots.firefox.com/PYoTEXQwowBJoG30/blog.rust- lang.org)

Firefox 62 on Linux (Ubuntu 16.04)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I recently merged a PR to change some CSS; I'll tweak and/or revert it. It looks okay on Firefox on Windows...

[https://github.com/rust-lang/blog.rust- lang.org/issues/269](https://github.com/rust-lang/blog.rust- lang.org/issues/269)

</comment></comment><comment> dj-wonk Glad to hear that 1.29 now brings clippy to stable Rust. (Before, clippy required nightly Rust.)

</comment><comment><USER4> What's the status for futures/async-await? Or, asking more generally: Where can I go to keep myself up-to-date with this topic?

<comment><AUTHOR> Status is, there's an initial, incomplete implementation in nightly. It's not going to land in stable until early next year.

[https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/50547](https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/issues/50547) is the tracking issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A question about Cargo Fix. Is that only on warnings, or can/does it currently fix errors it knows the problem with as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not 100% sure, but right now, the focus has mostly been on the use-case of upgrading to Rust 2018, which is warnings-based. I'd imagine it would eventually support both, but am not 100% sure about where exactly it is today.

Errors are a bit more challenging, because fixing an error may introduce more, new errors, making it harder to tell if applying the fix is correct or not.

<comment><USER5> That's part of why I was wondering. Looking forward to playing with it (plus having Clippy on stable since that's all I use)

<comment><AUTHOR> I asked the dev on Discord and he said:

> I think in theory we could fix errors too, because they have the same > diagnostics format. Don't think we do that right now though, and we are > probably not prepared to handle the compiler exiting with a non-zero code

So yeah, seems like that's the issue.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is your prediction for next 10 years? - <AUTHOR> Which niche technology today will have high impact in coming 10 years ? share your thoughts in couple of sentences please. <comment><USER2> Thawing permafrost releases significantly more methane than expected and it supercharges the acceleration of climate change, and the earth itself supplants humans as the primary source of Greenhouse gases.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I think a lot of people still aren't aware of this problem, which has been studied for many years now. Once the positive feedback loop takes hold it's game over.

<comment><USER4> > Once the positive feedback loop takes hold it's game over.

Can you elaborate please?

<comment><USER5> Once some methane comes out of the most southerly permafrost the earth will warm up and defrost a greater amount, which will warm up the earth a larger amount...

<comment><USER4> It s someone doing something about it?

<comment><USER5> All efforts to stop global warming will stop permafrost melting if they start reducing the temperature rise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's already a budding anti-tech movement. People destroy robots. There is a mistrust between users and services. This is definitely not the answer HN would like, but this can grow into a full-blown anti-tech counter-culture where people don't use smart phones or laptops, and instead pickup less invasive devices like the lite phone 2, nokias, pay-as-you-go flip phones, etc. There's a large dissent towards office work now, and developers themselves opt to be freelancers. There have been many privacy breaches which is a cause of people putting too much of their personal information in the hands of private organizations. It's inevitable people will get tired of social media. The technology industry will still exist, but there are literally hundreds of promising technologies coming along. I guess what I'm trying to say is they're no use to a regular person, and they'll be silo'd off into their own sector. Tech is not going to take over. It will only and always supplement humans, as it should.

<comment><USER3> I think you got a lot right here.

Don't get me wrong, I love my online banking as much as the next guy, but a lot of technology being produced has a very negative impact - look at social media.

<comment><USER4> True not Unabomber level. But mild level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> WebAssembly. If it usurps javascript, and there is every reason to believe that it will, then it will revolutionise the web.

<comment><USER8> Does that need ten more years? I've been hearing about it for so long now. What's taking so long?

<comment><USER9> Old browsers need to die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> * Deno, or something like it. This general idea of software that interacts with the internet but interacts little with the host OS by default.

* RISC-V, and a general open source hardware revolution.

* Augmented Reality. I don't see VR going anywhere. AR has broader practical applications.

* Voice UI. I think this still counts as niche. The general interaction model at the beginning of the movie Her seems highly plausible to me. Not so much the AGI.

* Desktop/mobile OS convergence. This seems inevitable. The convenience factor is too high and why would the average Joe keep forking out for 2 or 3 computers when they can have 1 that does everything.

* Software formal verification. This is long overdue and we can't continue to be this irresponsible.

* Cryptocurrency, or something like it. I think the need is there, but the current implementation leaves much to be desired.

* Processors with many cores. We're already up to 18 or so on desktop processors. But I expect many more.

* FPGA. I'm less sure about this. 10 years might be to soon. But if your computer was just full of FPGA's and companies could sell you digital hardware through an app store without having to actually manufacture anything, I'm sure they would love it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Unlocking free electrical energy. In an analogous manner to the way in which steam power revolutionized mechanical work. It would provide the narrative drive for the next chapter in human civilization.

What's interesting is that it will probably be precipitated by a low-level breakthrough in energy storage or transmission. Somewhere today there is a junior researcher, laboring away at some currently un-sexy technology, the butt of more fashionable and trendy peers, who transmutes into the next Edison in less than a decade's time ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> CRISPR and its various offsprings will grow in technological sophistication and their commercial applications. By the end of the 2020s it will morph into a pressing political issue in the West in terms of its implications for Human biology. Certain East Asian countries will be the trendsetters due to lax governmental regulations and societal acceptance.

<comment><USER6> It wouldn't affect living people that much. It has a lot more repercussions for newborns and future generations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think that machine learning will move out of the cloud and onto devices closer to where it is needed. Moore's law isn't what it used to be so it will likely be a blended environment where heavy processing is done in the cloud and then synced to local devices for lighter processing. Things like self driving cars will need more powerful AI without the delay of contacting the cloud. Also things like smart switches, appliances, and such will need some smarts locally, maybe built into some home based brain that syncs with the cloud.

<comment><USER14> Enter Fog computing

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_computing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Direct Air Capture (capturing CO2 right from the air and utilising it in the form of synthetic fuels, building materials, polymers and more)

</comment><comment><USER16> The pendulum swings back and HTML/CSS make a major come back as digital natives look to create without giving up data ownership.

<comment><USER17> Services like netlify reward that with free and very fast CDN hosting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Something I hope will exist is to make the web more like the desktop in spirit. What I mean is you'll be able to easily grab an open source app and install it on "your web" without beings sucked into an expensive saas or becoming an ML data point aka 'you are the product"

You just pay for storage and byo from Dropbox, google, whatever. With encryption you'd the be able to use services that are free, free and privacy focused.

I think JAM stack would work well with this and I'm thinking of making some POCs

</comment><comment><USER18> Maybe: Crypto-currencies get regulated/taxed by various states/nations to ensure their energy security

Maybe: Crypto-currencies face court cases which try to determine what is actually owned legally, potentially undermining them.

Amazon faces a existential legal threat over counterfeit goods. They pay the settlement with AWS revenue, which by that point provides the majority of their income.

Younger generations develop an "in-real-life" counter culture, leading to financial volatility for existing social networks. In general, the attention economy matures, flattening corporate revenues year over year.

The federal government and state AGs prosecute major court cases against parties involved in textbook sales for illegal and anti-competitive behaviors.

A "Trader Joes"-style university emerges with a reasonably high quality, relatively inexpensive, accredited undergraduate education, with all course materials produced under the university brand. It runs year-round, has no tenure, and pays professors relatively well with standard benefits. The new university and its copy-cat competition create economic pressure on traditional academic institutions that have become administratively heavy over the previous three decades and, in some cases, have substantial construction debts that are now under increased interest rate pressure.

Maybe (related): Congress passes, and the president signs, a bill reintroducing bankruptcy discharge of student debt, possibly hidden in a must- pass omnibus spending bill.

Finally, for remaining in-use 32-bit unix-based systems, the 2038 problem is now 10 years closer.

</comment><comment><USER19> Everyone's focused on driverless personal transportation. Driverless delivery trucks will come first. Basically Amazon lockers on wheels. Anything you want 24/7 delivered to the curb within minutes/hours of your order. Every retail store will suffer the fate of the bookstores. Millions will lose their jobs.

<comment><USER20> Is it just gonna chuck your package out on your lawn?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Consumer DNA sequencing to get personalized nutritional, exercise, pharmaceuticals, and medical preventative monitoring advice will become commonplace.

</comment><comment><USER22> AI goes from niche to interesting. Or at least at the moment it's widespread with things like Alexia and Siri but not very good but should get better.

We are at an interesting point hardware wise. You can make an argument that the approx processing power to be equivalent to a human is around 100 TFlops ([https://jetpress.org/volume1/moravec.htm](https://jetpress.org/volume1/moravec.htm)) and the cost of that drops about 10x every 5 years ([https://aiimpacts.org/wikipedia-history-of-gflops- costs/](https://aiimpacts.org/wikipedia-history-of-gflops-costs/)) and is now of the order of $10k ([https://fudzilla.com/news/graphics/47726-nvidia- unleashes-th...](https://fudzilla.com/news/graphics/47726-nvidia-unleashes- the-130-tflops-titan-rtx)) which would make that about $1m ten years ago and $100 ten years in the future. Cheaper hardware may lead to a fair bit of innovation.

</comment><comment><USER23> Automated lending approval. As digital financial systems evolve and conglomerate into a connected ecosystem businesses/people will no longer seek loans -- instead lenders will automatically approve and offer credit that will be instantly available to worthy applicants. This already occurs, but in the future the process will occur in a fraction of the time behind the scenes.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'll go the opposite way: What mainstream technology will have much less impact in the next 10 years? I'd guess social media.

<comment><USER25> Hmm, it's hard, I kind of agree. I wonder if some social media tech will lose impact and fade away, while others (perhaps, unprecedented, not made yet) will gain impact?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> A heroku like service which uses autoscaling aurora serverless master master replicated across many regions with cloudfront running containers instead of just lambda functions. Basically a cdn with a container runtime and an autoscaling sql db. Hopefully amazon releases something like lambda @ edge but for fargate which would make this possible.

</comment><comment><USER27> It isn't exactly niche yet since it doesn't exist at this point but my speculation is that we will have AGI within that time frame.

One reason I think that is because most of the core capabilities missing from AI systems are things that animals can do. Most of the difference with humans is a matter of degree.

It's still a very challenging list of capabilities of course. The core requirements for AGI are fairly well understood at this point. No one knows exactly how to achieve all of them together but many geniuses are working on it. And the tools such as DL, RL and less mainstream approaches such as SNNs and Sparse Predictive Hierarchies are very powerful. AGI is a real field now and intersects with things like developmental robotics.

It's a long shot but there are so many great minds involved and the rewards are so large that I think making a bet for within ten years is not a bad bet. Sure we have said that before. Things are not the same as before.

<comment><USER24> > The core requirements for AGI are fairly well understood at this point.

That seems _wildly_ improbable to me. It seems far more likely that anyone who thinks they understand them are grossly underestimating what's involved.

Yeah, I know that I can't prove my position...

<comment><USER27> Probably you misunderstood what I meant.

What I mean is we have lists of capabilities that AGI needs to have and know how it differs from narrow AI. For example: online continuous learning, perception, generalization, transferring skills between domains, etc. These aspects of the _what_ (rather than how) of AGI have been well researched.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Privacy will continue to be a luxury good, and the price will increase.

</comment><comment><USER29> Last year, I correctly predicted Jeff Bezos will divorce due to extra-marital affair.

Here are my prediction for the next 5-10 years.

1\. Autonomous cars will be common, and they will have hive minds as AI progresses. 2\. Governments around the world will look different, as AI will supplant politicians as representatives (probably in late decade). 3\. Banking systems will crash and bartering will occur in the first half of the decade. It will change to adapt usage of cryptocurrency. 4\. Blockchain will be part of the internet infrastructure. AI personas will exist as butlers for people, these personas are actual replica of their personalities. 5\. Robotics will replace most jobs such as waiters and cashiers. Some of these robots will be monitored or operated by one or two persons. That job will require higher tech education/degrees.

(I have 5 more but it's not related to tech, lol).

</comment><comment><USER30> \- Self-driving cars will still _not_ be commonplace

\- Moore's law is already dead, but in 10 years the implications of that will be fully realized

\- Global warming won't be curtailed, rich countries will learn to cope with extreme weather patterns, people from poor countries will emigrate

\- Cancer treatment will improve dramatically for a large variety of relatively niche cancers, but there still won't be a common cure

\- Humans will still not go to Mars

\- Soft AI will become prevalent for many low-level automation tasks, but general AI will stay in science fiction

\- there will be significant headway made in resolving general relativity and quantum mechanics, likely by finding more situations where they disagree but not resolving those discrepancies

\- We'll find exoplanets likely suitable for life, but too far away to reach them.

\- Fusion power will just be "10 years away"

<comment><USER30> More 10 year predictions:

\- China's chip industry will be fully caught up to the U.S.'s, Intel chips will still be the best, but only by a few percentage points and won't be economical at a large scale.

\- Building custom ASICs will be far more common, and will be an important way of improving performance, as well as differentiation in the market (e.g., Adobe will produce their Photoshop chip).

\- AI will get very good at analyzing PDFs and HTML tables. There will be apps that you can give access to your email that will be able to make very detailed itemized reports of your spending habits, and make recommendations on how to save money or get more for it.

\- Dominant forms of trust will form on the internet. I am inclined to think that traditional media will take up this role, but it's possible that others will fill this space too.

\- Even though humans will not go to Mars in 10 years, there will be a credible plan to put humans there (possibly taking another 10 years).

\- Probes to Titan will be launched, and credible plans to land something on the moon will be well underway.

\- Genomics in criminal law continues it's rapid growth, making unsolved rape cases a thing of the past.

\- China's rapid growth in creating patents starts causing internal issues; they face their own first internal patent war, causing significant internal economic issues, forcing them to re-evaluate the value they ascribe to patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Not a prediction as such but a hope: MRI-helmets ([https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2018/march/n...](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2018/march/new- brain-scanner-allows-patients-to-move-freely-for-the-first-time.aspx)), both for medical reasons and brain-computer interfacing

</comment><comment><USER3> I will say ride sharing combined with EV tech.

I am not bullish on self-driving cars - I think that will take longer than people think (more than ten years to become mainstream).

I think EV combined with ride calling (Uber/Grab etc.) will grow considerably.

<comment><USER4> >have 5 more but it's not related to t

Doesn't matter elaborate

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Blade runners will be a thing. In Burroughs sense [https://imgur.com/a/GnICH3U](https://imgur.com/a/GnICH3U)

</comment><comment><USER33> decentralised web and universal 5G - if anybody still thinks that we need something like fb for universal connection, they're presumably missing out the billions of people that still don't have access to flowing webware.

<comment><USER34> We're still waiting for 4G. 5G in 10 years is very ambitious. Maybe 100Mbps average speed for wired connections if we're lucky.

<comment><USER35> Where are you? Antarctic?

<comment><USER36> Worse, USA

<comment><USER34> I am in the USA, specifically Seattle, so I'd assume I have better than average coverage. 4G is spec'd at 100Mbps. If you're lucky, you'll get 40-70Mbps download, and <10Mbps upload. If you're not fortunate enough to have city-tier coverage, then you're probably at the national average at <20Mbps. 5G is spec'd at 1000Mbps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Fresh water will become a commodity that only rich people can afford in abundance.

</comment><comment><USER25> Innovation in the comedy world. Haven't seen much progress in funny, mainstream, entertainment since Ricky Gervais introduced the mockumentary- style format. Though, even that has a history dating back... In terms of technology, hopefully, the change in media landscape might do the trick?

<comment><USER26> What about the podcasts comedians are doing on youtube these days?

<comment><USER25> Good point. Hmm, I still wonder if there will be breakthroughs in the TV- YouTube style.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> environmental-first decision making I hope. Maybe with more visible effects of global warming we will consider our planet's health before price, convenience or (I fear) ethics.

</comment><comment><USER39> total universal surveillance will become the norm. for kids growing up, they will know nothing else. <sigh>

</comment><comment><USER40> longer timescale atomistic molecular simulations to predict protein folds.

</comment><comment><USER41> Bitcoin trades at six figures at some point in the next 10 years.

<comment><USER24> Counter-prediction: Bitcoin trades at _three_ figures at some point in the next 10 years. (And not at six.)

<comment><USER42> Would you like to share your reasons for being bearish on BTC ?

<comment><USER24> From the current price, it's closer to three digits than to six, so my prediction actually has less price movement than the other.

But it's more than that. I've never believed the "To the moon!" predictions, because I've never believed that the real use value was there. It seems that people are investing on belief, but the actual real world use is... almost non-existent.

What's the daily volume of Bitcoin transactions that are purchases of other things, rather than investments in Bitcoin? [Edit: Divide that by the existing number of Bitcoin. That gives you the fraction spent in a day. What's the same figure for the US dollar?] Is Bitcoin really a currency if (relatively) nobody uses it to buy things? No, at that point it's an investment. [Edit: Or a store of value. But the value is fluctuating too much for it to be a very good store of value...]

But if there's no fundamental value, and it's not being used as a currency, what's the rational basis for its value? This makes it seem like a bubble.

Now, I don't actually have _data_ for volume of purchases made in Bitcoin. I'm going on my impression, and I could be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> For the first time in history, there now exists a substrate upon which AGI can manifest. Almost immediately after it was created, machine learning cropped up. Machine learning wasn't new, it just never had the computational substrate it needed to produce the amazing results it's become known for. Since ML was already established, it was low hanging fruit and it's no surprise to see it catch fire so to speak.

As time goes forward the computational substrate will mature. Huge amounts of compute will be available for less and less money through easy to use APIs.

The number of people working on AGI will only increase. People will keep taking cracks at it until they get it. They will get it much sooner than anyone thought. The only reason it hasn't been done already is because there was no computational substrate for it to incubate in so to speak. Now that the computational tinderbox has been created, all that is needed is the smallest of sparks. It will happen soon and unfortunatley it will be very unpleasant. I am being completely honest when I say that this is the sole reason why I have not decided to have children and when I implore anyone who reads this to not bring anyone into the world. The future will be very bleak for future generations.

The economics of AI demand the casting off of human life as we know it. The world as we know it now only sustains is because we as humans are the exclusive source of intelligent signal processing. When we are superseded in that ability, we will be lost to evolution. It's impossible to know exactly how the transition will happen but one of the few things that can be relied on is that human society will become extremely fragile. Human society persists because we are the most dominant life form. When machines take over, we may be given token existences or a society pen to live in but it will be vestigial. There is no force of evolution or economics that ensures that each successive generation or "species" of machine intelligence will accommodate humans.

Many different machine entities will compete and fight, and in that way evolution will continue much as it has before. We may linger for a time in that world, but we do not have a divine right to exist in that world as we do in this one. We will be vestigial and ultimately lost. And all of this is just the economics/evolutionary aspect. I have not included here the possibility of a "terminator" outcome, or even mentioned the other countless grotesque possibilities.

Nobody will believe any of this. My opinion is universally dismissed. But it's right.

Right now is the best it will ever be more or less, for humans. But we could preserve this state of affairs if we chose to.

<comment><USER44> >I am being completely honest when I say that this is the sole reason why I have not decided to have children and when I implore anyone who reads this to not bring anyone into the world. The future will be very bleak for future generations.

If everyone listened to you, there would _be_ no future generations. Have you thought this through? "Let's end the human race, because something bad might happen" doesn't exactly sound very solid reasoning.

p.s. What did your girlfriend/wife say about your decision?

<comment><USER45> Risk of idiocracy aside, there's enough humans and diversity in the way humans think that we can definitely rely on enough other humans to reproduce.

I'm somebody's girlfriend/wife and I do not want children (in general, and also because of future economic uncertainties) and I also don't like my existence being relagated to "someone who might want babies".</comment></comment></comment>


Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38341901 <comment><USER2> It's unfortunate that the link that made the front page here is to the BBC article rather than the NYTimes article [1] on the same study, as the NYTimes article much more clearly addresses a number of the points brought up by commenters here today. The NYTimes article briefly mentions other non- pregnancy related studies on the "pruning" of grey matter. One place to get a bunch of citations for studies on synaptic pruning is in the lit review of [2], since the NYTimes article itself doesn't have a citation for synaptic pruning research in adolescents. However, the NYTimes article does link to [3], an article about spontaneous theory of mind and synaptic density in 18-26 year olds. It looks at a this group of people not by age but by performance on theory of mind tasks, examining the relationship with structural MRI data from the participants. This sheds some light on efficiency and good performance on theory of mind tasks and the neuroanatomy of a person. I think for most HNers taking out thinking about pregnancy and looking at this study first would be useful in understanding the results -- we've all got a lot of preconceived notions about the effects of pregnancy that make it hard to think about the results of the study rationally.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/health/pregnancy-brain- cha...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/health/pregnancy-brain-change.html) [2] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2475802/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2475802/) [3] [https://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/3/327.abstract](https://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/3/327.abstract)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for making this point, especially with regards to pregnancy being a loaded discussion topic.

In the original study I found it very interesting that the authors drew parallels between the "maturation" of a new mother's brain (grey matter reductions) and the brains of adolescents undergoing pregnancy. If this study replicates, I would love to see followup studies exploring measures of narcissism, time management, executive functioning and facial recognition over time in women shortly before, during and after pregnancy (and perhaps even two years afterwards). These are all areas in which adolescents experience significant variations in functioning when compared to the general population, and there could be a lot of fertile ground here.

One other thought that strikes me is how the grey matter alterations could potentially impact teenage mothers. If the mother's brain has not left adolescence by the time she experiences pregnancy, it would be interesting to see how the grey matter alterations differ, considering the authors' comparison.

<comment><USER2> Fertile ground... :) Moving on, agreed on follow-up studies. A study similar to this one looking at adolescent moms, non-moms, dads, and non-dads would be very interesting as well. After all, if a teen guy is undergoing similar pruning, what does that mean for his experience of a partner's pregnancy? Disentangling social factors from neuroanatomical changes in teen parents would be very hard, though, in societies where teen pregnancy is unusual and has big economic impacts. Might be easier to do someplace where it's more usual.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anecdotally I can say it has a large effect on the male brain too. The lack of sleep and time changes you. You get ruthless against time stealers and start seeing 6 hours as a nice long sleep.

Full disclosure : I've had about 8hr sleep in 3 days,two sick kids...

<comment><USER5> Yep, 5 month old here, teething. Short term memory is impacted.

<comment><USER6> Still, impressive typing skills for your age.

<comment><USER5> You made my day :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I never thought a reduction could result in an improvement. The brain is so fascinating!

"The researchers found "substantial" reductions in the volume of grey matter in the brains of first-time mothers. The grey matter changes occurred in areas of the brain involved in social interactions used for attributing thoughts and feelings to other people - known as "theory-of-mind" tasks. The researchers thought this would give new mothers an advantage in various ways - help them recognise the needs of their child, be more aware of potential social threats and become more attached to their baby."

<comment><USER8> I'd be slightly careful here about separating out the findings from the speculation.

The study[1] looked at what changed in the women's brains, the regions in which it changed, and then tested to see which areas 'lit up' when viewing a picture of their own child vs. other children. In addition measurements were taken over time to see how permanent the changes were.

The reasons for change and the actual/quantitative impact of the changes would have to come from another study. While what the "researchers thought" is interesting, it's not supported by any evidence, i.e. no measurements were taken to see if any of the suggested improvements were present.

[1] [http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.44...](http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.4458.html)

<comment><USER9> FWIW my wife underwent a drastic personality change after giving birth, and I would definitely agree with this being one of the symptoms. But just one data point of course.

<comment><USER3> I really don't want this to come across as rude, because I don't mean to single you out or invalidate your experience (or your contribution to discussion!).

That said, what is the purpose of offering your anecdotal experience if you acknowledge that it is an n=1 datapoint? I understand that it's in good faith to acknowledge that your personal experience doesn't offer any statistical rigor to an interpretation of the foregoing article, but in my opinion your comment primes other readers in the discussion to subconsciously accept certain interpretations that aren't justified by the research. The main takeaway of your comment is "For what it's worth, I have an anecdote confirming an interpretation of the data that is not presented in the original study", and while you follow it up with the anecdote-acknowledgement, the "damage is done" so to speak. You've already opened Pandora's Box with regards to your subtle confirmation of the unsubstantiated interpretation.

In my experience it takes conscious effort not to allow anecdotes to impact interpretation of data, and while I don't think you're doing it purposefully, I believe it's counterproductive to the parent comment's point to offer an anecdote to the discussion while simultaneously acknowledging that the anecdote does not in any way prove the interpretation.

<comment><USER10> Because this is Hacker News, not the Journal of the American Medical Association. It's a community, and since it's acknowledged by the poster not to be a scientific observation, I'm not sure he needs corrected on it.

<comment><USER3> That's a fair point, and maybe I'm just demonstrating a personal bias for a particular type of discussion that isn't reflected on Hacker News. However, I didn't try to "correct" the grandparent commenter so much as show that while an acknowledgement of an anecdote is made in good faith, it doesn't take away from the overall impact on the audience. We may not be researchers peer reviewing the work of colleagues here, but we can still strive for a certain level of scientific literacy and decorum in our discussion.

Stated another way - if this were an article about computer science instead of neuroscience, would you expect the overall discussion to be stronger, the same or weaker compared to this discussion in terms of rigor? Furthermore, would you think that rigor was warranted on this forum (these aren't rhetorical questions, I'm curious)? I understand that disciplines like neuroscience allow us to relate with the science a bit (it's tempting to retroactively interpret our experiences with novel research!) but comments offering anecdotes, even with those expressly accounted for, allow biases to be couched in between legitimate data. I certainly think the grandparent comment would be challenged similarly if this was a psychological study with the current concerns about replication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had the baby while at university, and it's true. While I was always brilliant in math and physics, I couldn't do simple things anymore. That was very frustrating. Thanks god the physics professor was very forgiving as he noticed the change

<comment><USER12> It was probably more about sleep deprivation, chronic stress, and immediate reprioritization in your life, more than anything. It's hard to focus on learning new tasks when you're tired, and you're forced to confront a million new things at home.

The study just said that, in small areas of the brain, gray matter was reduced, and they theorized that this specialization helped a new mother recognize her infant and its needs. Nothing to do with math and physics.

<comment><USER13> From conversations I've had with several mothers, it's not just sleep deprivation, there's a fog that someone else here called "baby brain".

This article suggests a physical reason why that is so, as well.

<comment><USER2> I have to say I don't think the article supports that at all. The study looks at a 2-year stretch and the changes in all but the hippocampus are still there at 2 years. Even friends who have reported "baby brain" don't claim it lasts 2 years, and synaptic pruning is not correlated with feeling foggy in any other study (and there have been a bunch!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We had our first born 7 months ago. I can tell you baby brain is real :)

My wife, herself, recognise she became more centered around the baby, less forgiving and more selfish. Also less patience.

But hey I'm not complaining, I love our little man. Nature is wonderful.

</comment><comment><USER15> Birth control pills boost the same hormones, I wonder if they would have similar affects on the brain.

<comment><USER16> Pregnancy raises at least estrogen and progesterone to something like ten times the usual menstrual cycle peak, so I doubt the effect size is comparable. Also, I think pregnancy affects a broad range of hormones, not just the handful in birth control.

<comment><USER17> Oxytocin levels also increase. That would be the first one I'd test for -- if there was a correlation between oxytocin levels and extent of grey matter loss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Whereas the child itself alters the brain for the rest of your life.

<comment><USER19> Three children in, yes definitely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Brain differences between the sexes are real, but we should interpret them with caution.

<comment><USER21> Otherwise we'll be called sexist?

<comment><USER22> Otherwise we'll project unrelated biases under the guise of science. Otherwise we risk unconsciously ignoring or lessening the relevance of facts that contradict those biases.

There's nothing sexist about studying the differences between male and female and learning about the biological/physiological strength and weaknesses of each. But there's little scientific justification in extrapolating that to unrelated conclusions.

Edit: Not to mention the fact that we know very little about the brain compared to literally any other internal organ, so attempting to draw conclusions about behavior or sociology based on changes in the brain in some women during pregnancy is probably a fool's errand.

<comment><USER23> This goes both ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does the percentage of mothers who were getting fertility treatment make this actually representative? The pain and suffering that those who struggle to have children followed (presumably!) by happiness when they have a child must have some effect?

The average age of the participants also seems high to me, but a brief search for an average age for having a first child put this study cohort only slightly over that - surprising to me at least.

<comment><USER25> > followed (presumably!) by happiness

Baby blues and postnatal depression are common, even among people who've been through fertility treatment. Indeed, those people may find it harder to seek help because of the assumptions that they must be happy after all that struggle.

(Also, about 1 in 10 men have postnatal depression.)

<comment><USER24> This is true, but two years down the track one would hope this had passed. I know that long term health problems do occur but I don't think anyone would describe them as post-natal depression or baby blues at that point.

<comment><USER25> Postnatal depression is most common 4 years after the birth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> nommm-nommm >And they compared these women's brains with those of 19 first-time fathers, 17 men without children and 20 women who had never given birth.

Incomplete control group. They should have included first time adoptive mothers and women who gave their baby up for adoption.

Also extremely small sample size.

EDIT: It would have also been very relevant to include a sample of lesbian parents of the same child where one parent gave birth and one didn't.

<comment> xkcd-sucks It's a bit surprising that a Nature Neuro paper didn't have more control groups. But on the other hand, it's trickier to get ahold of first time adoptive mothers etc. And on the third hand, there's always somebody requesting increasingly specific control groups and one just has to stop and publish at some point.

<comment><USER26> Similar to open sourcing "ugly" code. At some point the benefit of releasing is worth putting out non-perfect work. If there's interest, someone can build on what you've done and fork your progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I always wonder about claims like this from both sides. I see people claiming pregnancy alters a woman's brain, miscarriages can cause postpartum depression, but then see claims that abortions do not effect the brain at all. The third I find hard to believe given the first two. And I know this is a touchy topic, but I am pro-choice yet find it a bit baffling that we ignore some of the science behind its effects on the brain and moods. Hormones are very powerful. If you are on either side of that fence, I think we can all agree that we want the woman to be well. I feel like writing off effects for political reasons does nothing but damage women (I think this is more U.S. than other countries.) Especially if we consider some women getting abortions are doing so for socio-economic reasons. If their brains are effected (they become depressed,) that is hurting their social standing even more. If we can identify that as a possible effect, then we can treat them.

A bit of a tangent, but it's something reading this prompted me to rant about.

<comment><USER28> > I see people claiming pregnancy alters a woman's brain, miscarriages can > cause postpartum depression, but then see claims that abortions do not > effect the brain at all. The third I find hard to believe given the first > two.

The reason a miscarriage can cause depression while an abortion usually does not is because the former is against a women's will and the other her choice. I find that quite obvious to be honest.

<comment><USER29> Even if the abortion is a decision by the woman I doubt it's something that has no impact on her psyche.

<comment><USER28> Nobody said that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It permanently altered my brain for sure and I'm a father. It altered my thoughts. The things I care about. The way I act. There is no going back.

</comment><comment><USER31> another bbc link at the bottom of the article: "scientists say baby brain doesn't exist" lol

such bad reporting. i digress. btw, small sample size too -- only 25 women?

<comment><USER32> Depends on the effect size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> In what way is this "on topic"?

</comment><comment><USER34> My wife and I both took our Professional Engineering Exams (8 hour test that is brutally hard) and she was 6 mo pregnant and still passed while I failed. I really feel dumb now.

<comment><USER35> She was thinking for 2 though ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I am genuinely not trolling, just curious coz I'm new here: what does this have to do with software? Or does HackerNews cover more than just software? Genuine question, not rhetorical

<comment><USER37> From [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

 _What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. _

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> "women's brains"? Or was it just one lady? Come on journalism, be clear in your meaning.

<comment><USER39> Stop trolling.

      And they compared these women's brains with those of 19 first-time
      fathers, 17 men without children and 20 women who had never given birth.

<comment><USER40> I think kegamine is pointing to the grammatical oddity of using the singular "woman" in the title, rather than the plural "women":

      Pregnancy alters woman's brain

The article introduction phrases this in a little more concise a way:

      Pregnancy reduces grey matter in specific parts of a woman's brain

I can see how the introduction probably became contracted to form the title, but in the contracted version, the plural "Pregnancy alters women's brain" would seem a little more grammatically precise than "Pregnancy alters woman's brain".

<comment><USER22> Not trying to split hairs but is the study statistically significant that they can safely generalize to all women? Regardless I think the phrase "some womens'" would have been better in the title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Salute the women;</comment>


Facing my fear: when I moved back to America, I felt like a foreigner - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/02/facing-my-fear-moving-to-america-inequality-experience <comment><USER2> I felt some fear too. I was in late elementary and middle school overseas and when I came back I had a bit of culture shock. I despised a lot of popular culture as antiintellectual and uneducated and rude... some of my childhood friends werent as I remembered and we werent interested in the same things anymore (which was not a surprise, really - we'd been going back for the summers most years).

</comment><comment><USER3> This evoked memories of my time working in Japan, where at 24 years old, was the first time I had lived in the country.

I very much felt like a foreigner, and had never felt more "American" than when I lived and worked there.

Similar to the author, I saw my new grad colleagues getting their souls crushed by the corporate machine (mine was one of the hardest crushed), felt a strong desire to help, as someone who came from a culture with a healthier perspective towards work and life, but was entirely powerless to do anything.

</comment><comment><USER4> Obama was here for 8 years, lots has changed.

<comment><USER5> The only thing that's changed is that in-your-face racism is acceptable to many whites because "Trump says what's on his mind." For a lot of people, dog- whistle euphemisms like "urban" aren't needed anymore.

People have become coarser and rude.

Just because we got a black president doesn't mean things are better for non- whites.

<comment><USER6> IMHO, I do not think racism as a whole is on rise. As for "is acceptable" or not, I think that's a personal choice. Racism is never about internal thinking, it's about conduct.

Trump said many things, but I do not think it's fair to label them as racism speech or similar. He certainly did not "say what's on his mind"; otherwise the words would be 100* worse TBH.

<comment><USER7> America's problem is institutional racism, not conversational racism.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SETI spots dozens of new mysterious signals emanating from distant galaxy - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/10/seti-neural-networks-spot-dozens-of-new-mysterious-signals-emanating-from-distant-galaxy/ <comment><USER2> I have a question... and this is probably a stupid question, but... does anyone know if there is any theory to support the idea that sufficiently advanced civilizations rely on something other than radio waves or light to perform communications? My dumbass-self wonders about quantum entanglement or teleportation as means of communication we have yet to master; may be, the medium of communications for the super civilizations of the universe.

Note: Just wanted to say, I'm less trying to talk about "FTL" and more so that we may just not be able to intercept, decode, or "see" the communications via our current technologies.

P.S. Thanks for the thoughtful replies.

<comment><USER3> It depends on whether you want to stay grounded in real-world physics, or if you want to spin off on flights of fancy.

If you want to stay in real-world physics, at the moment there is no reason to expect any civilization to use anything other than electromagnetic radiation for communication. Other than the low speed of light, which is a characteristic of the universe that it does not seem to allow any faster-than- light communication so it's not _specially_ a disadvantage for EM, electromagnetic radiation basically has every characteristic you're looking for in a communications medium, and there's little reason to believe even an advanced civilization would use something orders of magnitude worse on numerous dimensions simply because maybe they can. This is for much the same reason that we _could_ transport everything in our civilization by people carrying things around on Segways, but we don't, because why would we deliberately choose something suboptimal?

If you want to go off on flights of fancy, then anything is possible, but there's no way to say anything useful about it.

The "grounded in reality" answer is subject to change as our understanding of physics improves, but at the moment I wouldn't say there's any particular reason to expect this answer to change much. Even on the crazy fringe frontiers of real science, I am not aware of any candidates for communication any better than EM.

Most of the whacky ideas proposed as alternate methods fail by orders of magnitude vs EM. Might you be able to build a better neutrino detector than we can? Maybe, but it's still easier to build EM detectors, and EM emitters, by a lot. Gravity waves? Why on not- _Earth_ would _anyone_ spend the massive, massive amounts of energy required to do that, very klunkily and with very low bandwidth, when for literally a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth the energy expenditure you could use EM, and get higher bandwidth to boot and better reusability to boot? Quantum entanglement and teleportion are non-starters, because they both require a conventional channel to work at all, and the best tool for that communication is EM.

<comment><USER4> Even with EM, they could have a highly advanced encoding format which is barely detectable about the random noise floor (spread spectrum like). US army uses these kind of techniques to make the signal both hard to detect and hard to jam.

Who knows how far you can push this, maybe to the point where it's essentially impossible to detect the signal if you are not the intended target.

<comment><USER5> There's also the possibility that some ET's may _want_ to be known, and are sending out an easily-detected beacon.

That might be our best hope.

<comment><USER6> I have a half-baked idea that some alien planet's marketing team is probably using pulsars as an advertising stunt. "Relax on Risa" and the like. I don't know how one would go about modulating a pulsar's output, but pulsars are seen everywhere.

<comment><USER7> Maybe a modified star lifting process could work to change the pulsars pulse rate? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For anyone interested in this or related topics I highly, highly recommend the series of 100+ videos in Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur ("SFIA") [1].

Relevant to this topic:

\- Fermi Paradox series (15 videos) [2]

\- Advanced Civilizations (19 videos) [3]

\- Alien Civilizations (10 videos) [4]

Of particular relevance is the Kardashev scale [5]. The basic idea is this: unless something catastrophic happens, humanity is destined to become a Kardashev-2 ("K2") civilization without a blink of a cosmic eye (measured in thousands of years). Since the timeline from sentience to K2 is so short (cosmologically speaking) it seems pretty unlikely there are other spacefaring civilizations in our galaxy.

It's worth noting that the scale of such a civilization is so immense and what it is capable of with access to that much energy and resources tends to debunk a lot of ideas that come out of a search for explanations to the Fermi paradox.

For example, there is the idea that civilizations might "hide" and would not be detectable. Such an effort would be futile vs a K2 civilization however.

I mention this because there is the idea that aliens might not use radio technology. Doing so wouldn't keep you hidden from a K2 civilization so there's no point in trying. And I find this a compelling line of reasoning.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g)

[2]: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0LulClL2dHXh...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0LulClL2dHXh8TTOnCgRkLdU)

[3]: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0Ls3WMYP_2Fp...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0Ls3WMYP_2FpP9Y0mjgtf98M)

[4]: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0Lu97HzMt_BJ...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIOUpOge0Lu97HzMt_BJu36UMaItB1cm)

[5]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dArpj_VxxuQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dArpj_VxxuQ)

<comment><USER9> I made this comment earlier but to me the most logical explanation to the Fermi paradox is the vast amount of time between existence of any 2 civilizations. While many could in theory exist in the same Galaxy, the cosmic scale makes it unlikely that any two will ever share the same time scale, thus making any possibility of contact unlikely.

<comment><USER10> You've gotta keep relativity in mind here. If a species can develop a means of simply traveling at roughly 1g acceleration indefinitely, they will become -in terms of time- practically immortal. A single human can travel literally billions of light years in a single lifetime by continuing to accelerate at 1g for years at a time. Here [1] is a calculator to determine how long it would take to travel a given distance at a given acceleration. A common misunderstanding is the difference between observed mass increases and perceived. _Your_ mass does not increase as you approach the speed of light relative to something else. But your _observed_ mass does.

Anyhow, the point here is that once a species reaches this level of technology, if it's possible, they will start to move beyond anything like the borders of time as we understand them.

In my opinion, the most simple and probable explanation is technology (we don't know what's out there), but that's closely followed by the terrifying great filter being complete and unadulterated pleasure. As lives become easier and more pleasurable, the inherent drive towards procreation becomes less and less of a factor. If that reaches below a certain point, that's lights out for a species. Create a guaranteed means of subsistence on a planet, perhaps entirely automated, and now create a technology that becomes more inherently enjoyable and rewarding than procreation itself. Congrats you evil villain, you've destroyed your species in a far more effective way than any weapon ever could. Society goes out not with a bang, but also not with a whimper; they go out with a moan of pleasure.

[1] - [http://convertalot.com/relativistic_star_ship_calculator.htm...](http://convertalot.com/relativistic_star_ship_calculator.html)

<comment><USER11> This is basically what I think. Why traverse the universe when you can upload your brains into a matrix type simulation and place your hardware in orbit around a brown dwarf and then live basically forever. No one will ever find you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I remember running SETI @ Home on my 300 MHz Gateway and watching the pretty graphs as if I was a real life alien spaceship pilot. It's funny to hear that it's actually a real thing (I knew it was real, but when I saw the size of the radio dish in the image, it's REALLY real)

<comment><USER13> Its the Greenbank telescope in West Virginia. I don't think its particularly associated with SETI.

The telescope is available on a rental basis. People just schedule it to point it wherever.

<comment><USER14> > I don't think its particularly associated with SETI.

That depends on what you mean by "associated". It's not associated directly with SETI the institute, but it was the site of the first systematic/scientific search (and false positive) for extra-terrestrial intelligence lead by Frank Drake. It is also the place where The Order of the Dolphin (Drake, Carl Sagan, Otto Struve, _et al_.) met and developed the Drake Equation.

<comment><USER13> The one in the picture is the 100m dish. Frank Drake used the 25m dish. Just being nitpicky, I get your point.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#History)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Underlying source : [http://seti.berkeley.edu/frb- machine/](http://seti.berkeley.edu/frb-machine/)

and paper : [http://blpd0.ssl.berkeley.edu/frb- machine/CNNFRB_eprint.pdf](http://blpd0.ssl.berkeley.edu/frb- machine/CNNFRB_eprint.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER16> > _The high degree of rotation of the nearly 100 percent polarized radio > bursts is unusual, and has only been seen in radio emissions from the > extreme magnetic environments around massive black holes, such as those at > the centers of galaxies. The Dutch and Breakthrough Listen teams suggest > that the fast radio bursts may come from a highly magnetized rotating > neutron star – a magnetar – in the vicinity of a massive black hole that is > still growing as gas and dust fall into it.

The short bursts, which range from 30 microseconds to 9 milliseconds in duration, indicate that the source could be as small as 10 kilometers across – the typical size of a neutron star.

Other possible sources are a magnetar interacting with the nebula of material shed when the original star exploded to produce the magnetar; or interactions with the highly magnetized wind from a rotating neutron star, or pulsar._ [0]

Do any terrestrial sources create polarized radio waves? Would polarization help beamforming or other range-extending techniques?

[0][http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/01/10/seti-project-homes-in- on...](http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/01/10/seti-project-homes-in-on-strange- fast-radio-bursts/)

<comment><USER17> I'm certainly no expert, but the Wikipedia article on the subject says this:

> All radio (and microwave) antennas used for transmitting or receiving are > intrinsically polarized. They transmit in (or receive signals from) a > particular polarization, being totally insensitive to the opposite > polarization; in certain cases that polarization is a function of direction. > Most antennas are nominally linearly polarized, but elliptical and circular > polarization is a possibility. As is the convention in optics, the > "polarization" of a radio wave is understood to refer to the polarization of > its electric field, with the magnetic field being at a 90 degree rotation > with respect to it for a linearly polarized wave.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_(waves)#Radio_tra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_\(waves\)#Radio_transmission_and_reception)

So it's less that it helps, and more that it's inevitable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've converted series of those images to audio, it's obviously swipes and trills only. I wish I could get my hands on higher resolution images to get a drop of a real alien dubstep, not some cheap microwave oven blues.

<comment><USER19> Could you post a soundcloud link or something? I'd be interested to hear what you've got.

<comment><USER18> Uploaded.

SoundCloud: [https://soundcloud.com/xca8biolusw4/sets/seti-space-noise- ma...](https://soundcloud.com/xca8biolusw4/sets/seti-space-noise-mapped-to- audio)

Conversion script used: [https://gist.github.com/ptytb/6eade153de6f54dbc0fc1fc0d46993...](https://gist.github.com/ptytb/6eade153de6f54dbc0fc1fc0d469939e)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wow, this seems really exciting. This could be huge!

Narrator: It wasn't.

<comment><USER21> It is exciting because we can't explain it yet. That makes it interesting and worthy of study.

>> This could be huge!

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the humor and understand how the media tends to over hype any news that could potentially excite people interested in the discovery of little green men, but I never felt that this particular article was doing that.

<comment><USER22> I felt like this particular article was almost bizarrely moderate in its tone. It managed to talk about ML and a new seti discovery in a balanced manner, discussing both the optimistic and realistic takes. I guess I'm just so used to modern headline writing that I'm pleasantly surprised when someone _doesn 't_ publish "Artificial Intelligence finds aliens." :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> >noisy galaxy 3 billion miles away

that's only 0.00051 of a light year, or a few light hours away.. either me or them has a big math problem.

<comment><USER24> The press release says 3 billion light years. Probably just a mistake at TC

PR: [https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/news/22](https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/news/22)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder why many people visualize aliens to be entities with flesh or something else like how species (that move or grow) on earth. I think aliens can also be in the form of new elements, rocks, gases, waves, or some entity which is beyond the ability of 5 senses of humans to perceive. Currently we use other methods to transform perception of entities so that humans can see/feel/hear/understand. But the devices we build for this purpose are built using earth elements. It could also be probable that earth might not be having those elements which are required to give humans the ability to perceive other entities.

<comment><USER26> I think there is more to life than just flesh and senses. Fundamentally, what makes living organisms "living" is the DNA (in primordial soup, it was RNA). Self-replicating systems lead to evolution almost magically... spontaneous processes (that minimize energy and are driven by thermodynamic imbalance) tend to create "competition" as they use up resources. The ones that make barriers or membranes, can protect the resources and end up replicating in larger numbers or faster.

We know that Carbon is essential in creating these self replicating entities. Its abundance is also known in the universe. So, it is not so unrealistic to presume that aliens won't be something that we can see on earth. I am curious of the differences of the forms of life that can originate though.

Imagine if we rerun 2 billion years of evolution again with a different initial conditions. Surely, we'd have different forms. Contrarily, eyes have evolved independently in many organisms over a dozen times. So, there is some commonality there. Just like the eye, there are many similar biological processes that evolve independently (arteries/veins, neuron, heart for circulation/extraction, ceramic structural components/bones, etc.)

I used to think about the same question that you are also wondering but the deeper you go down this rabbit hole, you are realize the importance of why things in living beings are the way they are. They're solutions (however imperfect) to an evolutionary problem.

<comment><USER27> Why would DNA be essential? Why limit "life" to just carbon-based lifeforms?

<comment><USER26> It could be another self-replicating entity. It doesn't have to be DNA. But self-replication is the __basis__ for evolution of life. Sure, it could be made from other elements...but why wonder if other elements can create self- replicating entities when you can measure the amount of Carbon in the galaxy...right from here on earth! Carbon is more abundant than say Strontium. Carbon is created inside a star, Strontium is created through Supernovae explosions.

Also, Carbon can form 4 covalent bonds more easily than Si (same family). Si can form 4 covalent bonds but they're weaker than Carbon due to the distance from the nucleus. I am sure someone more familiar with Chemistry can chime in, but Carbon is a special element in the Universe.

<comment><USER28> Indeed carbon is special in this regards it's also produced in star fusion and space is filled with organic material because carbon, oxygen and hydrogen are abundant.

Also the main reason why silicon is worse is because of catenation, which carbon is much better suited for: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenation)

<comment><USER26> Thanks for adding to the discussion. I learned something new.

<comment><USER28> You were right it's because of the covalent bonds formed, however the biggest difference seems to be not in how these are formed with other elements but how carbon is essentially optimal at bonding with itself creating huge chains.

This property is why there are so many different and interesting forms of elemental carbon.

These chains are the scaffolding for all biochemistry both because they are very stable and also because they have very interesting properties.

Chains can be either open or closed depending on various factors such as charge, temperature and other forces that play on molecular levels allows you to play with that geometry.

Having strong chain bonds not only builds stable chains but it also build chains that can change their state while remaining intact and biochemistry heavily relies on the ability to change the geometry of complex molecules without breaking them apart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So, aren't we sending out radio signals in a spiral as the planet rotates that would be massively spread out over a distance of 3 billion light years? If I were broadcasting something into space constantly some alien civilization would only be exposed to perhaps a very short portion of the signal until Earth had fully rotated again and my signal lined up perfectly to their planet again.

<comment><USER30> EM waves are spherical in nature (analogous to ripples in a pond) rather than directional. So the rotation of the earth wouldn't significantly affect the strength/reception of the signal by a distant planet. The bigger factors would be signal degradation because distance and other kinds of interference.

<comment><USER3> "EM waves are spherical in nature (analogous to ripples in a pond) rather than directional."

No, they aren't. This is an approximation taught to you in high school to make certain problems more tractable. You've got at least two methods of generating non-spherically-expanding EM waves sitting in your pocket right now; neither your phone's screen nor its flashlight are perfectly spherical in emission. This is trivially observable by the fact that the orientation of the phone impacts your perception of its brightness.

It's true that you can't make a "fully" directional EM wave with no spread whatsoever, but you can make it arbitrarily small with engineering effort, and they're trivially not spherical.

<comment><USER31> Any EM waves created to be highly directional at earth-scale distances quickly lose that directionality at galactic-scale distances. Doesn't have to be spherical, but it will quickly spread out over distances much greater than typical solar system sizes.

<comment><USER32> Not true. See beam divergence:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_beam

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Seventy-two new "fast radio bursts" from a mysteriously noisy galaxy 3 billion miles away"

Wait, what? I thought space is big. Really big. This mysterious distant galaxy is practically in our backyard.

<comment><USER34> About as close as Pluto. No wonder it can't be a planet.

<comment><USER35> Message probably says: "Get us in touch with your Plutocrats".

<comment> wu-ikkyu Our plutocrats don't take kindly to illegal alien aliens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'd just like to address a pet peeve by saying that the Fermi Paradox is dumb.

It's often thrown around as a low-effort dismissal as if it were a fundamental law that must be fulfilled for extraterrestrial intelligence to be considered.

It's a relic of a less-informed era when space was filled with aether and green-skinned humanoids were fancied to inhabit the Moon and Mars, and flying vehicles were expected to be our primary mode of transportation by 20 years ago.

An extreme simplification that basically says "If X then Y MUST follow. If no Y then no X."

——

We have long had the technology to establish a permanent presence on the Moon, why haven't we done so by now?

We have the tech to put men on Mars, why are we not even planning to do that already?

We can build photovoltaic cells, why isn't the Earth covered in them yet?

There are still uncontacted tribes on this very planet untouched by modern civilization, why haven't we uplifted our own species yet?

I guess we don't exist either.

<comment><USER37> The fermi paradox works on a different timescale than the points you bring up, which is exactly why it keeps being brought up.

Our civilization has existed for only several thousand years. That is nothing on the cosmological scale. The fermi paradox asks why, when looking at the age of the universe, there is no visible (to our level of technology) trace of other civilizations. Even when expanding at a crawl, a civilization having had a million of years to do so should have reached every corner of our galaxy.

The fermi paradox is simply a question: why? Suggestions, like a civilization uploading itself to some sort super computer to experience eternal life, are answers to the fermi paradox. But they do not invalidate it.

<comment><USER36> > _a civilization having had a million of years to do so should have reached > every corner of our galaxy._

 _Why?_ Why indeed.

Why should they? Why is it desirable to do so?

Why haven't _we_ done many of the things that we technically could have done in our timescale by now?

"They should have reached every corner of our galaxy" relies on _at least_ the follow assumptions:

• That it is desirable to them.

• That their ability to reproduce/replicate can keep up with their technology to expand.

• That their presence on every planet they colonize lasts indefinitely.

• That there is no force—natural, adversarial or internal—that counters unrestricted expansion.

• That they even _can_ expand in all directions. (Again, consider our own solar system and how useless, hostile, uneconomic or unstrategic some of the planets in it would be to humans.)

• Following on the previous point, that they're dumb enough to spread themselves thin by colonizing every sub-optimal planet, instead of cherry- picking the planets which are best suited for them or, indeed, constructing their own artificial habitats in space.

• That we have the ability to detect all signs of alien presence on all stars and all planets, including any possible artificial worlds and rogue planets.

• That we have the ability to detect all PAST alien presence: An species may have already colonized this galaxy once, but thanks to the aforementioned timescales we may have missed running into them by a few million years, like we missed the dinosaurs on our own planet.

——

The Fermi Paradox is a flawed premise that itself needs to answer many other "why"s before its "why" can be answered.

"Intelligent Life -> [Long enough timespan] -> Intelligent Life on every planet around every star."

A -> [B] -> C, where [B] makes a ridiculous amount of assumptions, then takes the absence of C to invalidate the possibility of A.

<comment><USER38> The Fermi Paradox, like any good paradox, isn't a "premise;" it's a tool to _reveal_ premises. Your thoughtful comment on many possible explanations for why we might not see aliens is exactly what I like about the Fermi Paradox - it makes you think.

<comment><USER36> My issue is with when it's still reverently referred to as a serious argument against the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence, even after we have had enough time to see that an intelligent species doesn't necessarily expand to other worlds just because it can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> ~ 100TB an hour of data.

I'm guessing it doesn't compress well. Do they write that to disk or filter it in memory and only pass on a subset?

<comment><USER40> If it was compressible, that would mean there was a repeating pattern. The whole point is that the data is extremely noisy, so finding a pattern is difficult.

<comment><USER41> So finding SETI is all about finding compressible data ?

<comment><USER42> Actually, yes. There's a deep connection between the compressibility and predictability of things. But we're not good at learning the complex distributions needed for these sorts of things - there's a long standing competition for natural language compression, the idea being if you can do that perfectly you basically have human level semantic understanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> 400TB in 5hr??? So in 18000 sec (5hr×60min×60sec) they saved 409600 GB... which roughly is a transfer speed of 22.7GB/sec. I'm wondering what type of SSD raid they've got :-)

<comment><USER27> I'm sure the data is coming in from multiple sources and being stored on high capacity tape archives or something, if it's not just being thrown away at some point after analysis is complete.

<comment><USER44> Not possible, write bandwidth of tape is not very high.

My guess is they have a cabinet / 42U worth of HDD arrays, by the numbers they need ~ 176Gbps write bandwidth which is totally possible even in half a cabinet.

400TB worth of SSDs @ 176Gbps write bandwidth is also very possible, would be ~ 4U expect but extremely expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> _" from a mysteriously noisy galaxy 3 billion miles away"_

That is good news, that galaxy is close enough to visit;) :

[https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&q=3+billion+miles+to...](https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&q=3+billion+miles+to+lightminute)

[https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/](https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I am glad the information was not presented in a sensational way. I find Fast Radio Bursts really interesting. They have been discussed on HN many times. For those interested see: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=fast%20radio%20burst&sort=byPo...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=fast%20radio%20burst&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER46> It's cool that a single dish telescope discovered so many FRB within a short time but the fact that it was done with SETI time on GBT doesn't make FRB as a concept a SETI thing. It's an unexplained thing but broadband radio bursts aren't exactly uncommon in nature. FRB are just really far away.

The swept curve as shown in the spectrograms is probably because of distance to the signal and frequency dispersion due to charges along the line of sight. FRB are originally broadband pulses that distort in the medium getting here.

It looks like these ones are pretty simple quick burst. The latest discovered by the UTMOST all-sky interferometer recently had a complex bursty structure over time, [http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/research/utmost/?p=1475](http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/research/utmost/?p=1475)

Instruments like UTMOST and other all-sky digital processed arrays (like SKA and children) should get some every hour once everything is running and optimized.

</comment><comment><USER47> > 3 Billion miles

That is ridiculously close. For reference, the distance between sun and earth is about 150 Million miles.

<comment><USER48> The reporter probably assumed light years are a measure of time and "fixed" it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Lets hope that they allready checked the microwave oven

<comment><USER50> Kmetan is serious. Half of the first detections of FRBs were traced to a microwave oven at Parkes Observatory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> What amuses me is the fact that we are so obsessed with finding civilizations that have an equal or superior level of technology than we do... If such civilization does exists, and if they are anything like us... Our history show us things will NOT end well for us!

The more advanced civilization will eventually (always...) conquer the less advanced civilization when in need (or desire...) for resources.

It is like if a deer were obsessed to find the hunter that will put its life to an end...

If the question we are trying to solve is "Are we alone?" we have better try to look for "less advanced" forms of life, like marine animals or something like that...

Otherwise we will get the kind of reply we are not looking for... IMHO

<comment><USER52> > The more advanced civilization will eventually (always...) conquer the less > advanced civilization when in need (or desire...) for resources.

I think this doesn't translate so directly into space. If they are thousands of light years away, then they will have plenty of other planets nearby to harvest for resources.

<comment><USER53> It all depends on what sort of resources they are looking for, no one is crossing light years to come steal water from us, when there are other planets that have water (perhaps as ice) and would be undefended. However if they needed territory and the earth had an environment that was hospitable to them then yes they might very well travel light years to invade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Please let it be aliens

<comment><USER55> I'm interested in aliens especially because of biological curiosity. I wonder how did their evolution happen, what unique futures their species developed, from what sort of creatures they evolved (if they're primate-like too, that would be very weird), do they have emotions like humans, why did their brain evolve so large?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> The background radiation is actually the universal communication band broadcasting the entire knowledge of every civilization that has ever existed but sadly it is encrypted so appears to be random.

</comment><comment><USER57> 72 new bursts, on top of 21 already identified, in _five hours_ of data. Total of 93 bursts in five hours, for an average of one every 3 minutes 14 seconds. That's... rather surprising.

<comment><USER58> If it is actually an average of one every 3 minutes 14.159265359 seconds ... now you've got something.

<comment><USER59> The length of the minute and second are arbitrary.

<comment><USER60> Plus, if they don't use Tau by convention, they aren't even worth discovering in the first place.

<comment><USER61> Now you've come full circle. You'll next be suggesting we use IBM 360 computers. [http://ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/trends/z-os/complete_360/](http://ibmsystemsmag.com/mainframe/trends/z-os/complete_360/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Using machine learning to anaylze mystery signals reminds me of Stanisław Lem's novel _His Master 's Voice_ (1968). It's a fictional memoir of a mathematician working on a Manhattan Project-like project to analyze a signal from space. The book is like a cross between _Contact_ and _Catch-22_.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master's_Voice_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master's_Voice_\(novel\))

</comment><comment><USER63> Can we please stop calling FRBs mysterious signals when we already have name for them. It's not something new it's FRB. They set out to find FRBs and they found FRBs.

</comment><comment><USER64> People are so quick to classify anything that can't be explained immediately as extraterrestrials. I would bet a lot of money that this has nothing to do with extraterrestrials only because after so many years there is no proof that such exist.

Come on everyone get back into reality and look for the true answer. A true scientist tries to disprove his/her theory until there can be no other answer as opposed to picking the first theory and going with it.

<comment><USER65> There is _some_ evidence for it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_O%27Hare_International_Ai...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_O%27Hare_International_Airport_UFO_sighting)

<comment><USER64> UFO does not equal extraterrestrial. It's an acronym for an unidentified flying object. Also, for many years the air force promoted the UFO idea as a way to cover their aircraft research.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_conspiracy_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_conspiracy_theory)

<comment><USER64> oops wrong link

Here's the right one:

[https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2010/09/16/the- truth...](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2010/09/16/the-truth-behind- ufo-sightings-and-the-us-air-force)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> If you haven't read "Three Body Problem" - warning spoiler alert - the premise was mind blowing to me - that the reason aliens aren't broadcasting signals is that more mature spacefaring societies use those signals as targeting vectors! Eg aliens aren't interested in making contact, and our efforts to broadcast our location could be inviting our ruin.

<comment><USER67> Possible, but not something I'm worried about. Those "mature" societies are still limited to the speed of light, they would have to be willing to wait out an average trip of thousands of years just to wipe out new civilizations in our galaxy - assuming the new civilization survives that long.

<comment><USER68> > Those "mature" societies are still limited to the speed of light,

Isn't that just an assumption though? As short as 1000 years ago traveling to the moon seemed impossible.

<comment><USER69> FTL would break a lot of other evidence-based findings in a way that lunar travel did not.

<comment><USER70> Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that newer theories of physics do not exactly overthrow older ones. The conservation of energy for example still holds true for everything that Newton observed it at but for in other situations it falls apart. So E=mc^2 is an extension of the original law. Same thing with the theories of relativity, they explain Newtons observations as a subsection of a bigger system.

Afaik nothing in current physics prevents FTL from being logically possible. Nothing predicts it either but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

<comment><USER71> Special relativity says it's not possible.

General relativity says that maybe you can get something equivalent by taking non-linear paths through space-time but those sorts of things require very radical types of matter to avoid collapsing into a black hole. And realistically, it's IMO very unlikely that these sorts of things would remain in a more complete (e.g. quantum) theory of gravity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> I've always thought of EM (Radio/Communication Technologies) as potential tools to confirm specific sources/locations of other intelligent life as well as possibly their purported agenda/intention/lifestyle/threat-level? (or level of intelligence and even to develop [flawed but useful, a.i. based] predictive algorithms of their future likelihood of physical contact/threat and/or their rate of scientific advancement, based on analysis of numerous factors including their encoding used, past broadcasts compared to current, means of broadcast, etc. Etc. Etcetera.) [STRICTLY LIMITED TO/AT the time of the broadcasts, not at the time we receive them... BIG DIFFERENCE IN ASSUMING THAT THE TWO ARE THE STILL THE SAME!]. Never in my wildest dreams, would I consider us as humans advanced enough to ACTUALLY RESPOND (IN WAY THAT WAS COMPLETELY SAFE, FORETHOUGHT, LOGICAL, CALCULATED, MORAL, AND MUTUALLY-BENEFICIAL!). We shouldn't knowingly, directly communicate or reply to forces beyond our wildest comprehension, for what we wish to be a dream for the future of mankind could quickly turn to its worst nightmare, if we are not careful, moral, loving, prudent, and conscientious. We should not have the audacity to treat our supposed Galactic neighbor(s) based on behavioral assumations, if we ever resort to treating them any way whatsoever, which until we reach a far greater point of advancement (both materially, defensively, socially, scientifically, technologically, and, in all honestly, Spirtually) I advise against, 100% completely. Just my take. Learn what we can without exposing ourselves.

</comment><comment><USER73> I know we have optical telescopes in space. Don't we have radio telescopes in space too, like SETI? Why not?

<comment><USER74> The atmosphere is really good at distorting optical signals. It's not as good at distorting radio waves.

Additionally, radio telescopes tend to be enormous - much bigger then optical telescopes. It's one thing to launch a bus-sized instrument into orbit. It's another to launch a stadium-sized instrument into orbit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> 3 billion miles away, typo?

<comment><USER76> lol yeah.

Other articles say 3 billion light-years, slightly further than 3 billion miles haha.

<comment><USER77> Ever so slightly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> So, the "mysterious signals" are Fast Radio Bursts?

I mean, it's not that we know what those are exactly, but I was under the impression that nobody really takes them as alien broadcasts. And they _have_ been observed before- just not by SETI's CNNs apparently?

</comment><comment><USER79> 447 comments here and not one questioning how this "mysteriously noisy galaxy" ended up being closer to us than Pluto.. (article says this galaxy is "3 billion miles away", Pluto is 4.67 billion miles from Earth).

</comment><comment><USER80> Seeking for alien messages sent to nobody is silly, we have more chances to find extraterrestrial civilizations if we look for two points that seem talking to each other, I know, easier said than done.

</comment><comment><USER81> We are not looking for data. We are looking for slow, noisy beacons to know where to look for the data.

Much like WiFi AP beacons are on a lower frequency than data transfers or how lighthouses are hard to miss.

</comment><comment><USER82> [https://www.obspm.fr/spip.php?page=imprimer&id_article=2998](https://www.obspm.fr/spip.php?page=imprimer&id_article=2998)

</comment><comment><USER83> im Kind of stumped at the whole advanced life form contacting us thing.

1\. We didnt even emit any real radio waves until just a century or so ago. How did they detect it to know to emit something to us? 2\. How much power would that entity have to emit from that distance to be detectable by us? 3\. And for civilizations more than 50 light years away, how did they know to even push a signal in our direction if they didn't sense a single thing except maybe a certain type of atmosphere?

</comment><comment><USER84> Don't respond right away, it looks desperate. Wait a day or two. Does anybody know if SETI automatically sends read receipts? Turn that off if at all possible.

</comment><comment><USER85> Is there an explanation of FRBs that uses terminology that someone with a University education of DSP would be accustom to?

</comment><comment><USER86> The first paragraph of the article says the galaxy is 3 billion miles away. That might be a editing error.

</comment><comment><USER87> > _a mysteriously noisy galaxy 3 billion miles away_

Some close galaxy, that!

</comment><comment> happy-go-lucky I want to believe in SETI's findings, but is this true?

</comment><comment><USER88> This is cool, but TC's site is shit. THis seems to be just a article to push you to a iPhone advertisement that loads once you scroll down.

</comment><comment><USER89> more like deficient machine learning code rather than actual intelligence findings.

</comment><comment><USER90> The novel Contact by Carl Sagan was pretty good in this area of SETI.

</comment><comment><USER91> I have trouble connecting to the cell tower down the street. I don't know how they are going to receive a real communication signal from that many light years away.

<comment><USER92> Doesn't have to be a signal with meaningful data, just something that can be identified as not noise.

<comment><USER91> As a serious question, aside from communications, what are examples of things they are looking for?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> A lot of unexplained happenings occurring all of a sudden. First mysterious signals from space and now the sudden closure and lock-down of the New Mexico Solar Observatory: [https://www.abqjournal.com/1219922/nm-solar-observatory- clos...](https://www.abqjournal.com/1219922/nm-solar-observatory-closed- authorities-mum.html)

<comment><USER94> Was that observatory even operational?

<comment><USER93> That's a good question? Only someone local from that area, e.g. not me, would be able to answer that. Here's another question, even if it was not operational, then why all the secrecy surrounding the closure last Thursday. Even if it was some sort of break-in, or similar, occurrence, there is usually some sort of PR of some kind, but not providing information usually leads people to speculate, e.g. UFOs, aliens, which is now the case on social media sites: [https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation- world/article21838556...](https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation- world/article218385560.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Aliens == God

As humans, we wish something greater exists. It minimizes the noise in our otherwise meaningless lives. It gives reason.

And so we make up stories and find stories in signals and get excited at the prospect that _this_ just might be it.

But it never happens. And we go on searching and believing, and then we die.

<comment><USER96> Why do they have to be "something greater"? Most people would be thrilled if we found the alien equivalent to a jellyfish. People like aliens because we're curious creatures and aliens are unknown and interesting.

I've never understood why some people feel the need to inject their mopey nihilism into everything.

<comment><USER95> Quite the opposite, my friend. I'm a humanist. IMO each bit of energy expended in the search of aliens is an opportunity cost to do something real here on Earth. So while you get excited about theoretical space jellyfish (or colonizing Mars, or the Second Coming of Christ (not you, specifically, just in theory I group these together)), I will excite myself with the alleviation of human suffering and preservation of planet Earth.

<comment><USER97> > each bit of energy expended in the search of aliens is an opportunity cost > to do something real here on Earth

How do you feel about other activities that don't provide immediate, tangible relief to human suffering or environmental impact? What is your opinion of people who devote their lives to artistic, literary, musical endeavours, or who write software for social-media companies?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> How long would it take radio waves to travel 3 billion light years? If it is a communication it would be from very far in the past. Assume it takes life about the same time to evolve on other planets wouldn't that mean that we wouldn't expect to start hearing radio communications until billions of years from now?

<comment><USER55> Yes, assuming this is an actual intelligent life sending us radio waves, we're seeing their signals sent 3 billion years ago. So it's entirely possible their species already went extinct or they left their home planet for galactic expedition. Practically, nothing is the same about this civilization since they sent this signal.

To put this into perspective: when this civilization sent this signal, there was merely unicellular life on the earth!</comment></comment>


Longest recorded sniper hit record - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Harrison_(sniper)

<comment><USER2> Doing this with a .338 Lapua Magnum instead of the previous record(s) with .50 BMG is _particularly_ impressive. Perfect conditions, great need and some luck all came together (not too much luck to make two consecutive hits).

</comment><comment><USER3> 2 hits at 1.53 miles??? 6 seconds of flight time???

</comment><comment><USER4> AWP whore.</comment>


Is it hate speech to compare your daughter to a pigeon? Facebook says yes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@shaun_gallagher/is-it-hate-speech-to-compare-your-daughter-to-a-pigeon-facebook-says-yes-c8238a91f95d <comment><USER2> Bad joke not withstanding, I think this speaks more to the one-sided nature of any "review" process. Places like Facebook love to tout the violation of their terms of service or community guidelines, but when there is no separation of enforcement and adjudication (review) and review processes takes place without your input then it becomes obvious that it's not a community but a structure for control.

This fallacy of the benevolent dictator that these internet overlords wish to push upon us is shown to be the emperor with no clothes.</comment>