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Boat Accessories
Browse our range of Boat Fishing Accessories, including boat booms and Sidewinder eels.
Boat Fishing Tackle - Accessories
We have lots more products in store than currently displayed here. If you can't see what you are looking for, please contact us for advice. We can also take your order over the phone (01323) 460441.


text: Paradise Tattoo Gathering, On the Road in Jiminy Peak (VIDEO) By Crash The Paradise Tattoo Gathering (PTG), at the Jiminy Peak Resort in Massachusetts, is a unique experience and one which I would highly recommend. In its fourth year, this convention stands alone amongst hundreds as being completely orchestrated for the benefit of tattooers. Don't get me wrong, the public is welcome but with the location chosen and the schedule of events, it's apparent this show is for tattooers who WANT to be in their community and who also want to improve themselves, their art and their tattooing. It's quite unlike anything else out there and it was EXACTLY what I needed, at exactly the right time... (More on that in a minute.) My gratitude extends to Gabe and the crew for hosting such a remarkable event and to the long list of tattooers who attended and participated. It was a very refreshing change of scenery! What makes it so special...? Easy answer, the people! What a break it was to be surrounded by tattooers interested in improving things, both for themselves and for others, rather than merely listening to each other complain. (And I say this as one who had been stuck in that place for a long time. ) My realization for 2011; it's up to each one of us individually to snap out of it, wake up and put our energies toward more productive efforts, while we still can. The tattoo world is changing fast, and we have but a few choices available to us if we hope to have any real influence on the future. Case in point: There were over 25 seminars given during the four-day event by the top tattooers, painters and thinkers of their particular field of expertise. But the truly astounding aspect for me was that almost all of the seminar presenters/teachers could also be found attending seminars in their off-time, so they too could grow and learn something new. A short list of seminars offered over the weekend: -Watercolor Techniques by Hunter Spanks -Chet Zar offered three seminars on Monster Making, from sculpture to digital rendering and then oil painting -Shawn Barber hosted 2 sold out Portrait Painting seminars -Gunnar spoke on Creating Tattoos that Tell Stories -Robert Ryan gave an intriguing lecture on Symbolism and it's relation to tattooing, past and present. -with others by Nick Baxter, Joe Capobianco, Craola, Soba, Bob Tyrell and Big Gus, and a B.J. Betts' Letttering Seminar, and many more. It was amazing and I can't say enough about it. I am literally blown away. There just might be hope yet for this craft of ours, even in the midst of so much chaotic change. My only wish is that more of our tattoo-heroes would join the larger community/conversations because their perspectives are sorely missed. As Gunnar says in an upcoming blog, the best way to help our community isn't to hammer on people what's WRONG with tattooing, it's to SHOW THEM what's GREAT about tattooing and invite them to participate! I am starting to think about this idea as a duty almost, and as a very profound way to "Give Back" to tattooing. When I began tattooing more than 20 years ago, the truly inspirational tattooers of the day had already been hard at work sharing and teaching for a decade or more. Their willingness to engage my generation, (the NEW generation, at that time), is how we came to value and respect this craft and if it wasn't for their vision and willingness to share information, (by starting the first tattoo conventions, publishing books like Tattoo Times, and sharing their work and lives with one another), I seriously doubt that many of us would have ever even become tattooers, let alone honed the skills and ideas necessary to be any 'good' at it. Imagine where we'd be if Ed Hardy, Mike Malone or any of our heroes had decided to do nothing but complain to each other in the 80s and early 90s about the state of tattooing, (when most of my generation entered tattooing), rather than work hard to help guide it along! Where would we be...where would I be now, had it not been for them? (Loading boxes?) How can I/we claim to have been inspired by their examples and still refuse to engage in anything meaningful or exert any energy for making things better? It's sad. Where's the courage? Where's the thankfulness? Where's the "giving back" sentiment many claim to be of such great importance? From one perspective, "Giving back" nowadays tends to mean little more than "bitching back," sadly. It's not the same thing my friends, not by a long shot. Yet the Paradise show was full of tattooers wanting to learn, grow and help others do the same. Sorry if that sounds too positive, but in all honesty I'm (finally) starting to get it, and every tattooer I connect with who's thinking the same way just reinforces the potential we have to impact, in a positive manner, our community and beyond. The tattooers participating on this blog are interested in these things. I think there's more, many more, to come. Pardon me for rampbling. One of the most interesting aspects of the Paradise Convention was that it didn't matter what style each artist preferred or specialized in; neither did it matter what "clique" a person belonged to- people GOT ALONG just fine. I saw traditional tattooers taking oil painting classes with Shawn Barber and Chet Zar, and then color realism guys (like Nick Baxter) sitting in on Robert Ryan's awesome seminar on traditional tattoo iconography. The diversity and camaraderie at PTG reminded me of conventions back when I started tattooing in 1990... And... man, has that been missed! Here's the rest of my PTG report: I arrived on Thursday at the Albany airport in upstate New York, 45-minutes from the Jiminy Peak resort. My flight was a little late, but luckily the shuttle driver and all its occupants waited patiently for me and Josh (our videographer) to collect our bags. Once we arrived at the lodge and unloaded our gear we set about wandering the property. Almost immediately I found myself engaged in conversations with tattooers I'd never spoken with before and they all shared the same excitement of being here. Thursday evening served as the precursor to the entire event thanks to Jeff Gogue's keynote address and the participation of several truly inspirational tattooers today, including: Bob Tyrell, Chris Dingwell, Durb Morrison, Big Gus and famed painter Chet Zar. Jeff's always candid and inspiring words guided the panel discussion through topics as diverse as, "How did [each of you] get to where you are in your careers?", to, "Who inspired you?", "How do you try to inspire others", and, "How much work does it take to NOT be average in this craft", etc. The talk was followed by the Workhorse Irons welcoming dinner at Jiminy Peak's beloved Tavern. The food was delicious and the gathering overwhelmingly positive. It was clear that everyone was psyched up for the weekend. It only got better from there... There was very little public presence throughout the entire event, though I hardly saw an idle tattooer. The seminars started each day at 10 a.m. and ran late, as the nightly panel discussions and critique groups were open to anyone willing to participate. The atmosphere was energizing for all involved and I only heard ONE TATTOOER, standing outside alone, shivering, on his phone, complaining about some other artist, (who was inside the warm facility), participating with 10 other tattooers on a critique panel. How poignant... Each evening was spent reconnecting to old friends or discovering new ones, and we were all treated to live music at the lodge's tavern, including a great performance by Dana Helmuth and his band on Saturday. The days were spent collecting a new batch of interviews for upcoming issues of TAM; a few of them included: Nick Baxter, Alex de Pase, my old pal Gunnar and coming soon; articles on Mike Cole, Tony Ciavarro, Tom Strom and a few others. Finally, and this is the craziest part of the entire trip. When I was six or seven years old, my folks took me and my sis' to an alpine slide. For those of you unfamiliar, an alpine slide (or mountain slide, as they're commonly known) is a concrete half-tube track, (similar to a bobsled track) down some portion of a mountain where the participants sit on what I can only describe as an oversized lunch tray with slide-pads and wheels on the rear, and an extended vertical hand-brake in the center. After a 10-minute ride up the mountain, via the ski-lift, the descent takes about a minute-twenty, (WATCH THE VIDEO). Anyway, I knew the slide was there and I also knew it would be open on Saturday and Sunday, so I was anticipating the rush for weeks. On Sunday I finally had some spare time so Forrest from Cobra Custom Tattoo and a few of us met up for a ride. While hanging out I talked about how I hadn't been on one of these (dangerous) rides in 35 years. It was amazing. All weekend we'd heard about tattooers going too fast and even coming completely out of the track and some hurting themselves. (They closed one of the slides because tattooers were all racing each other. Ha-ha). Anyway, I went down three times and on the last trip I attempted it without breaks. I took the monster curve too fast, lost control and ended up sliding about 30 yards on one exposed elbow and a knee, and I've got the friction burns to prove it. Folks overhead in the ski-lift were taking pictures and yelling down, "Are you ok?!" and I just rolled back on to the cart and resumed the trek, screaming, "Fuck yeah! I'm great!" [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF1ry9YIcsY&w=420&h=315] This video ends right as I bust it on the final curve. (I gotta earn my nickname somehow, right?) Thanks to Josh McHale for snapping the (above) photo and distracting me! Ha-ha. When I flew back home I told my pops about it and mentioned the name of the resort, Jiminy Peak... come to find out, that was the same place he'd taken me 35 years earlier, and he had pictures. What a great weekend! Thanks to everyone for one of the best conventions ever! Related TAM Blog Post: Gunnar Gaylord: It Really was 'Paradise'

subset: commoncrawl


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USB flash drives come three a penny.
To get our attention they need to either have some kind of funky design, monster storage capacity or intriguing security features.
These Mimoco Mimobot Star Wars figurines are offered in 1GB, 2GB and 4GB capacities, though we couldn't find a 4GB model available for sale in the UK. No software comes loaded, but it's the designs that caught our eye.
A big hit in the office
Drives are available in the shape of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker (both pictured), Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Chewbacca and other Stars Wars luminaries.
For the money, you're clearly paying a premium for the Star Wars aesthetic, but they were such a hit in our office that for once we will overlook this point.
The drives were reliable performers, though removing the lids to dock them took some muscle the first time we tried.


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Sorry I haven't posted… We opened Cory Arcangel: Masters on November 2nd, 2012, with a special artist talk with Cory. The same evening we also launched a social media intervention designed by Cory. Here are some of the results. Visit us during this last week of the exhibition and don't miss Arcangel's band, Title TK, perform this Saturday at the Carnegie Lecture Hall. They open for Bonnie Prince Billy.
Tags: Bonnie Prince Billy, Cory Arcangel, Title TK


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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) Ricky Johnson scored 11 points, including a go-ahead free throw with 2 seconds remaining, as Bethune-Cookman averted disaster by holding on to beat Maryland-Eastern Shore 58-57 Monday night.
The Wildcats (8-14, 3-4 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) led 53-46 with 4:32 remaining, but the Hawks' Kevin Mays hit a layup with 18 seconds left to cap a 6-0 run and tie it at 57.
Francis Ezeiru fouled Johnson on the ensuing Bethune-Cookman possession, and Johnson, a 5-foot-9 sophomore, hit the second of two shots for the one-point edge.
The Wildcats had entered 0-3 this season in games decided by three or fewer points.
Adrien Coleman led Bethune-Cookman with 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting.
Mays paced Maryland-Eastern Shore (1-15, 1-4) with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Troy Snyder and Louis Bell added 11 points while Ezeiru had 13 rebounds.
The Hawks outrebounded the Wildcats 40-30, but were outscored in the paint 28-18.


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Changes in Payment Models and Transition to ICD-10 Spur Need for More Accurate Clinical Documentation in Radiology
RSNA 2012 – CHICAGO – November 26, 2012 – Today, from booth 6217 at RSNA 2012, Nuance Communications, Inc. announced Assure, a clinical language understanding (CLU) offering for Powerscribe 360 | Reporting that will identify quality errors and omissions in radiology reports prior to final signature. Assure is the first product offering to leverage CLU and which will benefit from the recent acquisitions of Quantim and J.A. Thomas and Associates, strengthening Nuance's solutions that help drive clinical documentation improvement (CDI) for radiologists and their referring physicians..
Radiology is moving from fee-for-service to a value-based reimbursement model where it must now, more than ever, show the value it adds to patient care. A way to demonstrate this value is to measure how radiology's clinical documentation makes patient care more efficient and effective; a heavy weight to bear in light of government regulations such as ICD-10. Voice-enabled radiology reporting with CLU technology plays a key role in the efficient delivery of quality diagnostic reports, enhancing patient care and helping to reduce imaging costs.
By arming radiologists with CLU documentation technologies and enterprise-wide coding, Nuance will provide immediate quality feedback and CDI recommendations for the physician and produce better quality reports and downstream benefits to facilities and providers. Today, Assure for PowerScribe 360 | Reporting goes beyond simply spotting pre-defined words within a report. Assure leverages Nuance's CLU technology, which contains the world's largest knowledge base of medical terms to understand the context of the exam order and report. Using intelligent concept extraction, Assure considers verb tenses, negations, and historical references to identify conflicts a radiologist can address prior to signature and coding. This enables radiologists to capture the appropriate data before the diagnostic report is provided to the referring physician and used subsequently for diagnosis, treatment and care.
"Today, nearly half of all imaging exams in the U.S. are being created using Nuance speech recognition," said Janet Dillione, executive vice president and general manager, Nuance Healthcare. "Now, layer that with our powerful CLU technology to unlock data within clinical documentation and support it with 20+ years of healthcare expertise and you have a perfect opportunity to deliver a radiology solution that supports more accurate, complete clinical documentation and prepares for ICD-10."
At RSNA, Nuance will have its full radiology portfolio on demonstration at booth 6217, including Powerscribe 360 | Reporting with Assure, critical results communication, and computer-assisted coding (CAC). To learn more about how Nuance can help radiologists improve patient care, please visit: www.nuancehealthcare.com/destinationbest.
Nuance Healthcare
Nuance Healthcare, a division of Nuance Communications, is the market leader in creating clinical understanding solutions that drive smart, efficient decisions across healthcare. As the largest clinical documentation provider in the U.S., Nuance provides solutions and services that improve the entire clinical documentation process — from the capture of the complete patient record to clinical documentation improvement, coding, compliance and appropriate reimbursement. More than 450,000 physicians and 10,000 healthcare facilities worldwide leverage Nuance's award-winning, voice-enabled clinical documentation and analytics solutions to support the physician in any clinical workflow and on any device. For more information, visit www.nuance.com/for-healthcare/index.htm.
Connect with Nuance Healthcare on Social Media:
For the Health of IT blog – www.nuancehealthcareblog.com
Twitter – https://twitter.com/NuanceHealth
Nuance Communications, Inc
Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance's proven applications. For more information, please visit: http://www.nuance.com/


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FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
I. The SETI Institute
- What is the SETI Institute?
- What sorts of research are conducted at the SETI Institute?
- What is the Drake Equation?
- Who works at the SETI Institute?
- What kind of education do I need to work at the SETI Institute?
- How can I contact the SETI Institute?
- Does the SETI Institute have public tours?
- How could I get a job at the SETI Institute?
- Can I become a member of the SETI Institute?
II. Astrobiology
- What is astrobiology and how is it different from exobiology?
- Have SETI Institute scientists found life, or evidence of life, on any other planets?
- Why do we think that life is out there?
- Why do astrobiologists place so much emphasis on searching for life on Mars? By now we have discovered thousands of other planets.
- What is meant by an "Earth-like planet"?
- How many Earth-like planets are there beyond our solar system?
- Why don't you take a picture of one of those newly discovered planets to see if they have life?
- Why don't we send a space probe to some of the newly discovered planets to see if they have life?
- Are some of the Kepler planets places that we could move to if our own world becomes too polluted to support human life?
- What makes Europa special? When will we send a spacecraft to explore the oceans of Europa?
- Is the Curiosity Mars Rover searching for life on Mars?
- How do we ensure that organisms from Earth, carried to Mars on Curiosity, do not contaminate the equipment, and give false "positive" results showing life on Mars that was actually brought there by the spacecraft?
- What is the story of arsenic-based life, which was said to be present in samples from Mono Lake? Apparently phosphorus replaces arsenic. Could this be representative of the earliest life on Earth?
- There is an emerging scientific consensus that global warming is real and caused by human activities. What specific threats humans will face if the carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, in the worst-case scenario.
- If we are able to dramatically increase our planet's surface temperature, then could we also do the same to Mars? If so, would that cause the ice beneath Mars' surface to melt, creating massive bodies of water and thus making it more habitable?
- How are SETI Institute scientists studying the effects of global warming?
- What are the most extreme conditions on Earth that life can survive? Is it theoretically possible that some form of life could adapt to survive even harsher conditions?
- What would it be like to be at the bottom of the atmosphere of a gas giant planet? Is there a solid surface down there?
- Is there any possibility for a planet in the same orbit as Earth, but on the opposite side of the Sun where we can never see it? If so, how could we know about it?
- Given the gradual warming of the Sun as it ages, how much longer is the Earth expected to be habitable for complex life forms like humans?
- Recently NASA announced that they have discovered evidence for past water on Mars. Where is the water now?
- Now that we have found water on the Moon will we resume looking for microbial life there?
- What is the shadow biosphere and is it real?
- When astrobiologists say "life as we know it", what does it really mean in the search for extraterrestrial life? What would life as we don't know it be like?
- If the presence of life on Earth suggests that life emerges on a planet whenever conditions are favorable, why is there apparently no evidence that life began here more than once?
- What keeps oxygen on Earth, our gravity or magnetic field? Is it possible for our planet to lose all its oxygen?
- Is someone hiding aliens?
Observing Projects
- What is the premise of SETI?
- Has the SETI Institute found an extraterrestrial signal?
- How would we know that the signal is from ET?
- What happens if we find something?
- Could we ever understand the message?
- Didn't NASA have a SETI program?
- So who funds the SETI search now?
- Why do you think an extraterrestrial civilization will broadcast in the microwave part of the radio spectrum?
- How do you know if you've detected an intelligent, extraterrestrial signal?
- Are SETI researchers looking for the wrong type of signal? (E.g., why not spread spectrum?)
- Are we also sending any signals?
- If an extraterrestrial civilization has a SETI project similar to our own, could they detect signals from Earth?
- Why can't we just send a spacecraft into space to look for other planets and life?
- Will alien senders have any way of knowing that their signal has been received by us?
- Would it be dangerous to reply?
- What happens if you detect a signal?
- What happens if you don't detect a signal?
- How would you know what the signal means – the message?
- How long have astronomers been looking for extraterrestrial signals?
- Who else is carrying out searches?
- Is there an "eerie silence"?
- What is the Allen Telescope Array?
- What is the Allen Telescope Array observing now?
- Why does the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) have 42 antennas?
Science justification
- Why do SETI at all?
- What do other scientists think of the search for extraterrestrial civilizations?
IV. SETI, Education and Public Outreach
I. The SETI Institute
What is the SETI Institute?
The SETI Institute is a non-profit corporation that serves as an institutional home for research and educational projects relating to the study of life in the universe. The Institute conducts research in a number of fields including astronomy and planetary sciences, chemical evolution, the origin of life, biological and cultural evolution.
Institute projects have been sponsored by the NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Headquarters, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the US Geological Survey, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the International Astronomical Union, Argonne National Laboratory, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Paul G. Allen Foundation, the Moore Family Foundation, the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), the Pacific Science Center, the Foundation for Microbiology, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard Company, other private industry, William and Rosemary Hewlett, Bernard M. Oliver and many other private donations. The Institute welcomes support from private foundations or other groups or individuals interested in our work.
Each funded effort is supervised by a principal investigator who is responsible to the Board of Trustees for the conduct of the activity. There are currently over one hundred active projects, involving more than 50 scientists at the Institute investigating Mars, planetary science, exobiology and related topics. In addition, the Institute's SETI group is conducting several searches for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Among the Institute's educational activities are both formal and informal education – including outreach connected with NASA's Kepler Mission – frequent talks by our scientists, a weekly colloquium open to the public and a weekly, one-hour radio program on science ("Big Picture Science") now carried by more than 80 broadcast stations.
What sorts of research are conducted at the SETI Institute?
The Institute has suites of activities in three arenas: (1) Astrobiology, the efforts to find and understand the prevalence of life in general (for example, microbial life under the parched landscapes of Mars or the icy crust of the jovian moon, Europa); (2) SETI, experiments designed to detect radio or light signals that would reveal the presence of technically sophisticated beings; and (3) Education and outreach projects that inform the public about our research, encourage young people to become more proficient in science, and train teachers in so-called STEM subject areas.
The Institute's research activities are sometimes referenced to the Drake Equation (see below), which nicely lays out those subject areas that are germane to the question of extraterrestrial life's prevalence and nature.
What is the Drake Equation?
This famous equation (sometimes called the second-most famous equation in science, after Einstein's E=mc2) was devised by astronomer Frank Drake in 1961 as the agenda for a meeting held in Green Bank, West Virginia to discuss the possibility of searching for signals from extraterrestrial intelligence.
The equation defines N, the number of transmitting civilizations in our galaxy, as the product of seven factors, as follows:
N=R* fp ne fl fi ft L
R* = the birth rate of stars in our galaxy, number per year
fp = the fraction of stars with planet
ne = the number of planets per solar system that are suitable for life
fl = the fraction of such planets that actually spawn life
fi = the fraction of planets with life that evolve intelligent life
ft = the fraction of planets with intelligent life that produce technologically capable life
L = the average lifetime (in years) of a technological society
While the first three terms of the equation have been successfully investigated by astronomers and are to some extent known, values for the last four are still speculative. The 1961 Green Bank meeting did not publish any numerical values for the terms of the Drake Equation, although Drake himself estimates that N might be as high as 10,000. Carl Sagan was more optimistic, and said that N could be a million or more. Other people have been less sanguine, and suggest that N might only be 1 – in other words, we might be the only technically sophisticated society in the galaxy.
Who works at the SETI Institute?
The Institute employs scientists, engineers, administrators, technicians, public outreach specialists, educators and other support staff.
What kind of education do I need to work at the SETI Institute?
Most SETI researchers and engineers have advanced degrees in astronomy, biology, geology, planetary science, etc. We also have employees who have studied electrical engineering, computer science, and education-related disciplines.
How can I contact the SETI Institute?
The best way is to email us at firstname.lastname@example.com
Does the SETI Institute have public tours?
Not often. There isn't actually that much to see. The Allen Telescope Array is 350 miles to the north of our headquarters in Mountain View, California. This facility houses office space, some small labs, and our radio studio.
Announcements of weekly science lectures and publications, radio show topics, and appearances by SETI Institute personnel can be found elsewhere on this site.
How could I get a job at the SETI Institute?
Most of the scientists working at the Institute are self-funded. That is to say, they propose research projects to funders such as NASA and the National Science Foundation, and if awarded monies, elect to become part of the Institute. Projects must fall within the research and education arenas of the Institute – broadly speaking, the question of life's origins and its distribution.
Other job opportunities, such as for software development or other tasks, are advertised on the Institute's web site, www.seti.org.
Can I become a member of the SETI Institute?
Yes! Learn more about the SETI Institute's membership program, TeamSETI at www.seti.org
You can keep up with the daily SETI search at http://setiquest.info/ and beta test our online human-powered search at http://www.setilive.org/.
II. Astrobiology
Astrobiology research is conducted by the Institute's Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe
What is astrobiology and how is it different from exobiology?
Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary study of life in the universe. It addresses some very basic questions: How does life begin? How common is life in the universe? How can we detect extraterrestrial life? And what is the future of life on Earth and beyond?
Astrobiology research draws upon the talents of scientists from many different fields, including astronomy, astrochemistry, planetary science, geology, biology, biochemistry, and genetics. The word astrobiology was introduced in the middle 1990s, and it has largely replaced the older term exobiology. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but astrobiology formally includes the origin and history of life on Earth, while exobiology is more focused on life beyond the Earth. Astrobiologists believe that study of life on Earth is one of the best ways to learn to identify habitable environments elsewhere.
Have SETI Institute scientists found life, or evidence of life, on any other planets?
No, scientists have found no clear indications of life, past or present, beyond the Earth. There have been several tantalizing suggestions – that the Viking mission might have detected evidence of microbial life on Mars or that there are fossil microbes in some Mars rocks or meteorites – but none of these claims has been verified.
Why do we think that life is out there?
Over the last half-century, scientists have developed a theory of cosmic evolution that predicts that life is a natural phenomenon likely to develop on planets with suitable environmental conditions. Scientific evidence shows that life arose on Earth relatively quickly (only 100 million years after life was even possible), suggesting that life will occur on any planets that have the requisite characteristics, such as liquid oceans (either on the surface or underground). With the recent discovery that the majority of stars have planets – the number of potential habitats for life has been greatly expanded.
In addition, exploration of our own solar system and analysis of the composition of other systems suggest that the chemical building blocks of life – such as amino acids – are naturally produced and very widespread.
There are several hundred billion other stars in our Galaxy, and more than 100 billion other galaxies in the part of the universe we can see. It would be extraordinary if we were the only thinking beings in all these vast realms.
Why do astrobiologists place so much emphasis on searching for life on Mars? By now we have discovered thousands of other planets.
Mars is accessible, just a few months of travel time from the Earth. It also has compelling evidence for a history of liquid water on its surface, which is the main requirement we know of for life. None of the other planets in our solar system seems suitable. Two moons – Europa and Titan – are of potential interest to astrobiologists, but they are much farther than Mars and more difficult to reach with spacecraft. And while there are indeed thousands of exoplanets (or exoplanet candidates) that have been discovered, we have no way at present of assessing their habitability. In any event, they are far too distant for spacecraft visits in the foreseeable future.
What is meant by an "Earth-like planet"?
This is a confusing phrase, since not everyone uses it with the same meaning. Usually it denotes a planet with approximately the same size, composition, and temperature as the Earth. Such a planet is thus potentially habitable. By this definition, there are no other Earth-like planets in our solar system (even though there are other planets and moons that might host life), but there are likely to be millions of exoplanets in our galaxy that meet these criteria. However, some people go further and think that "Earth-like" should imply the actual presence of life.
How many Earth-like planets are there beyond our solar system?
Astronomers over the past few years have discovered thousands of exoplanets, most of them using the Kepler Space Telescope, a mission that is partly operated by staff from the SETI Institute. A small number of these exoplanets appear to be of Earth size and, based on the distance from their star, probably also have temperatures in the range where liquid water is possible. However, we do not yet know anything about their composition or the nature of their atmospheres, so we cannot assess their habitability. If we assume that many of these are habitable and extrapolate from the small sample studied so far, it seems likely that there are at least millions of Earth-like planets in our Galaxy.
Why don't you take a picture of one of those newly discovered planets to see if they have life?
The Kepler space telescope, which has discovered most of the new exoplanets, detects them only by the shadow they cast. It cannot take photos of them. Even with the largest telescopes in the world, taking a picture of any Earth-size exoplanet is currently impossible. And even we had a picture, it would not show any surface detail and so would be unlikely to answer questions about the presence of life.
Why don't we send a space probe to some of the newly discovered planets to see if they have life?
The exoplanets are very distant. The nearest exoplanet is in orbit around the star Alpha Centauri, which is more than 4 light-years from Earth. With our current technology, it would require about 100 thousand years for a probe to travel this far.
Are some of the Kepler planets places that we could move to if our own world becomes too polluted to support human life?
No, it is hard to imagine humans travelling beyond our own solar system in the foreseeable future. A trip to even the nearest star would require many generations, and the energy needed for such a starship is far beyond anything we can muster. We are stuck with our own planet Earth, and we need to take care of it. There is nowhere else to go.
What makes Europa special? When will we send a spacecraft to explore the oceans of Europa?
Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, has more liquid water than the oceans of the Earth. The presence of liquid water and of an internal heat source to keep that water warm makes Europa a very attractive target for space exploration. We already have data from the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft, but these spacecraft did not go into orbit or land on Europa. The biggest challenge for exploring its ocean is reaching the liquid water, which lies beneath a crust of frozen ice that is 10 km or more thick. But someday we do hope to send hi-tech robotic drilling equipment that can overcome these challenges, and search for life in Europa's vast, dark and ice-covered ocean.
Is the Curiosity Mars Rover searching for life on Mars?
No, Curiosity is investigating the habitability of Mars, and in particular is looking for geological evidence of past water and of organic compounds that might be indications that Mars once supported life, perhaps billions of years ago. The only mission that directly searched for life on Mars was Viking, back in 1976. Two landers carried biology instruments designed to look for evidence of microbial life in the soil. The results were interpreted by the majority of the Viking biology team as being negative, and we now know that conditions in the surface soil where the lander collected its samples could not support Earth-like microbes. We think that if there are living microbes on Mars, they are probably at least several meters below the surface, in special environments that include liquid water. The Curiosity rover is not able to drill down that deep, nor do we know where such habitable conditions might be found on Mars.
How do we ensure that organisms from Earth, carried to Mars on Curiosity, do not contaminate the equipment, and give false "positive" results showing life on Mars that was actually brought there by the spacecraft?
Scientists take careful steps to minimize such forward contamination on any Mars lander. However, it is impossible to completely sterilize the spacecraft, and there will inevitably be a residual of microbial hitchhikers on a big spacecraft like Curiosity. We are able to tolerate this degree of microbial contamination since we know the surface of Mars is not able to support living organisms from Earth. The surface is very dry, cold, and bathed in lethal ultraviolet light. Therefore we are confident that microbes from Earth will not grow on the surface and contaminate the planet.
The most important consideration is making sure that microbial contamination from Earth doesn't generate a false positive in any life detection experiment. It is partly for this reason that Curiosity doesn't carry any life detection experiments. Most of the instruments on Curiosity are studying the geology, chemistry and potential habitability of Mars, past and present. These investigations will not be compromised by a very small amount of contamination from Earth.
What is the story of arsenic-based life, which was said to be present in samples from Mono Lake?Apparently phosphorus replaces arsenic. Could this be representative of the earliest life on Earth?
Phosphorus is one of a handful of essential elements for life as we know it on Earth. This element is part of the molecular backbone of DNA, and plays a key role in the storage and transfer of chemical energy within cells. Arsenic is an element with a similar atomic structure to phosphorus, but it is not important in biochemistry, and in large quantities it is a poison. The experiments you refer to were carried out by a team led by Felisa Wolfe-Simon (NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey). The initial results were summarized by Dennis Overbye in the New York Times: "Seeking evidence that life could follow a different biochemical path than what is normally assumed, Dr. Wolfe-Simon grew [microbes from Mono Lake] in an arsenic-rich and phosphorus-free environment, reporting in a NASA news conference on Dec. 2 [2010] that the bacterium had substituted arsenic for phosphorus in many important molecules in its body, including DNA." Recent results by other scientists have shown that there was no arsenic in the DNA of this microbe. The ability of this microbe to tolerate arsenic is interesting to astrobiologists, but it is not as dramatic a discovery as was originally reported.
There is an emerging scientific consensus that global warming is real and caused by human activities. What specific threats humans will face if the carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, in the worst-case scenario.
We are already seeing many impacts of global warming. The rapid shrinking of the arctic icecap has opened the Northeast Passage to shipping, and within a decade it will also open the Northwest Passage. The melting arctic ice and permafrost are exposing oil and mineral deposits for exploitation, but also endangering arctic wildlife. Most important, the melting of arctic snow and ice darkens the surface, leading to more rapid warming during the summer and a shift in weather patterns over North America.
Melting of ice from Greenland and Antarctica is also contributing to sea level rise, making destructive storms like Hurricane Sandy (in 2011) much more likely. The recent severe droughts in the U.S., Russia, and Australia can also be traced to global warming. Within a few years, the accelerating loss of ice from the Himalayas is expected to lead to the summer drying up of several great Asian rivers, which are the source of water for more than a billion people in China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. By the middle of the century, rising sea levels and stronger storms are likely to lead to the permanent evacuation of much of New Orleans, New York, Miami, Amsterdam, and Venice. We don't know how fast the warming and sea level rise will take place, but the trend is inescapable unless we stop flooding the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and methane.
If we are able to dramatically increase our planet's surface temperature, then could we also do the same to Mars? If so, would that cause the ice beneath Mars' surface to melt, creating massive bodies of water and thus making it more habitable?
The current rapid global warming on Earth is due to the burning of fossil fuels, hydrocarbons like oil, gas, and coal. We are releasing carbon into our atmosphere that was produced by plants and buried millions of years ago. As far as we know, Mars has no such carbon deposits. Without large quantities of oil or gas or coal to burn, and also no atmospheric oxygen to do the burning, we have no way of warming Mars as we are now doing on Earth. One suggestion to produce a temporary warming on Mars would be to re-direct a large comet so that it hits the polar areas of Mars, releasing a great deal of water and carbon dioxide. But the fundamental problem with Mars is that its mass is too small to hold on to a substantial atmosphere for very long.
How are SETI Institute scientists studying the effects of global warming?
Institute scientists are investigating the changing conditions and biota in the Earth's Arctic and Antarctic. It is the fragile environments near the poles (and also in high mountains) that are most sensitive to climate change. Additionally, they also constitute important analogs for conditions on our neighbor world Mars. We do extensive field work in the Arctic (including a research station on Devon Island), in the Antarctic (including in the dry valleys and exploratory dives under the ice), and in the high Andes mountains of South America, where the rapid retreat of glaciers is changing the entire ecosystem. We expect to carry out long-term studies of these environments and the changes in their biota under environmental stress. This research may also help us interpret the history of climate change on Mars over hundreds of millions of years.
What are the most extreme conditions on Earth that life can survive? Is it theoretically possible that some form of life could adapt to survive even harsher conditions?
Extremophiles on Earth live at a very wide range of temperatures (from -20C to +122C), at high levels of salinity and alkalinity (such as in Mono Lake in California), and even in areas of high radiation such as the cooling systems of nuclear reactors. Life exists deep underground and inside rocks in the Antarctic. There is a comprehensive listing of record-holders in Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile.
In most cases there is no reason to think the current extremes couldn't be exceeded, especially if we consider the evolution of life on other planets with different conditions than those on Earth. But all the life we have studied ("life as we know it") requires liquid water, organic compounds, and a source of energy.
What would it be like to be at the bottom of the atmosphere of a gas giant planet? Is there a solid surface down there?
Giant planets do not have a solid surface that you could stand on. If you were dropped on Jupiter for example, you would sink until crushed by the intense atmospheric pressure (as happened to the Galileo probe that plunged into the atmosphere of Jupiter in 1995). Jupiter and Saturn are composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, and as you go deeper, the hydrogen would transition from a molecular state (like a gas) down to a metallic state. But there isn't a limit that one would call a surface. It's a gradual change.
The cores of both planets are likely to be "rocky", containing about 5 to 10 times the mass of Earth and surrounded by an ice-rich outer core. Uranus and Neptune are more mysterious, as scientists have a lot less data compared to Jupiter and Saturn. Nonetheless, we can still infer that those planets do not have a solid surface you could stand on. The gaseous envelopes would transition to an "ocean". The pressures are not high enough for metallic hydrogen to form, however. Both Uranus and Neptune also probably have rocky cores.
Is there any possibility for a planet in the same orbit as Earth, but on the opposite side of the Sun where we can never see it? If so, how could we know about it?
No, there's not. Such a planet, always staying on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth, would not be in a stable orbit. Perhaps more to the point, if there were anything there its presence would be easily detected by its gravitational effects on the orbits of other planets and asteroids and comets, and of course would have been seen by many of our planetary space probes. For more information on this history of this idea, look up "counter-earth" in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Earth.
Given the gradual warming of the Sun as it ages, how much longer is the Earth expected to be habitable for complex life forms like humans?
Since evolution tends to allow life to adapt to slow changes such as those in the luminosity of the Sun, it is not possible to calculate when the solar warming will make all or part of the planet uninhabitable. A less uncertain question is to ask when the oceans will evaporate. This has been predicted for 3-4 billion years in the future. That time scale is so long that it does not really mean much to most of us. The current rapid warming from the human-amplified greenhouse effect is an immediate problem that needs our action today, unlike the gradual luminosity increase of the Sun as it transforms hydrogen to helium in its core.
Recently NASA announced that they have discovered evidence for past water on Mars. Where is the water now?
We have known about H2O on Mars for nearly 50 years, ever since NASA spacecraft showed that the north polar cap was made of H2O ice. Scientists also regularly monitor water vapor in the atmosphere. The Viking 2 lander photographed winter frost on the surface in the 1970s, and the Phoenix lander found and photographed ice deposits in 2008.
All of the Mars orbiters since the 1970s have photographed water erosion features, ranging from huge outflow channels to small, recently made gullies in crater walls. Where did the water that made these erosion features go? Some that H2O is present now as ice, including large polar deposits. Scientists also think there are very large deposits of water below the surface, with ice (permafrost) on top and likely liquid water (aquifers) at depth. Some water also escaped along with the rest of the early martian atmosphere, but most of it is still there. The problem with Mars is not lack of H 2O, but low temperatures, resulting from the loss of much of its atmosphere and hence its greenhouse effect.
Now that we have found water on the Moon will we resume looking for microbial life there?
Although we often speak of finding water on the Moon, this terminology is confusing. What we have found from several recent missions is ice in permanently shadowed polar craters. There is also new evidence of chemically bound water molecules in the lunar soil. However, we have not found liquid water, which is (as far as we know) required for life. If there were liquid water at the lunar surface, it would instantly evaporate because of the low lunar gravity and the absence of an atmosphere. Ice is stable in permanently shadowed polar craters only because the temperatures are extremely low. It is colder on the floors of some of these craters than on the surface of Pluto. Thus, we have not found anything on the Moon that would encourage us to look for evidence of life there.
What is the shadow biosphere and is it real?
Shadow biosphere is the name given by scientists to a hypothetical microbial biosphere of Earth that would use radically different biochemical and molecular processes than the terrestrial life we know. So far, there is no compelling evidence for a real shadow biosphere on Earth, but by definition it would be difficult to detect with our usual biochemical tools. One reason for skepticism about its existence is the evolutionary fact that stronger life forms tend to out-compete weaker ones, leading to the extinction of the weaker form. Thus, we would have to wonder how two different biospheres could have coexisted for four billion years. Searching for a shadow biosphere might be useful to help us think about how we could identify an alien biosphere on other worlds.
When astrobiologists say "life as we know it", what does it really mean in the search for extraterrestrial life? What would life as we don't know it be like?
There is no clear-cut meaning for "life as we know it." Usually this phrase refers to life based on DNA or RNA, probably also including viruses (although many biologists do not consider a virus to be alive). Sometimes the meaning is expanded to include any life that is based on the same sort of water-mediated carbon chemistry (with amino acids and proteins) that we have on Earth, but with some other inheritance mechanism that does not use DNA or RNA.
Life as we don't know it would include life that some speculate could exist on Saturn's moon Titan, where the temperatures are far below the freezing point of water. However, even in this bitter cold, hydrocarbons like methane and ethane are liquid, and might conceivably form the basis for carbon-based life very different from that on Earth. Astrobiologists are uncertain how we could recognize or detect life as we don't know it, although presumably any life would use energy to change its chemical environment, thus perhaps providing clues to its existence.
If the presence of life on Earth suggests that life emerges on a planet whenever conditions are favorable, why is there apparently no evidence that life began here more than once?
No one knows whether life emerges on a planet whenever conditions are favorable. The only example of life we know is on our planet. It is entirely possible that life has begun several times on Earth. However, if this happened the competition between different life forms would have led to the survival of only one kind. There are no records of what might have happened during the first billion years of Earth's history, but it seems clear that the life that has survived to the present day all had one common ancestor.
What keeps oxygen on Earth, our gravity or magnetic field? Is it possible for our planet to lose all its oxygen?
Our atmosphere is held in place by gravity. The Earth's gravity is strong enough that very little gas is lost to space. Mars, with lower gravity, has an atmosphere much smaller than ours. The Moon, which has lower gravity yet, has no atmosphere. The magnetic field plays very little role. Venus, with no magnetic field, actually has a much larger atmosphere than the Earth. The presence of oxygen as a major component of our atmosphere depends on photosynthetic life, which produces oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. If photosynthesis stopped, our atmosphere would lose almost all of its oxygen within a few tens of thousands of years. But the oxygen would be lost due to chemical reactions, not escape to space.
Is someone hiding aliens?
We don't think so. One-third of the American public (and a similar fraction of the citizenry in other countries) is convinced that extraterrestrials may be buzzing the countryside in their spacecraft, or occasionally alighting in the back yard to abduct a few humans for breeding experiments.
This would be of enormous interest and importance, and (in our opinion) impossible to hide, particularly if it's happening internationally. The presence of aliens on our planet is not something you would want to hide: it would be the biggest science story of all time, and tens of thousands of university researchers would be working away on it.
However, despite the popularity of aliens in both movies and TV, and more than a half-century of UFO sightings, the lack of credible physical evidence has made it difficult for serious scientists to believe that UFOs have anything to do with extraterrestrial visitors. Note that witness testimony, which is much ballyhooed in the media, has little horsepower when it comes to moving scientists.
The Institute's SETI projects are conducted by the Center for SETI Research
Observing Projects
What is the premise of SETI?
SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It is an effort to detect evidence of technological civilizations that may exist elsewhere in the universe, particularly in our galaxy. There are potentially billions of locations outside our solar system that may host life. With our current technology, we have some ability to discover evidence of cosmic habitation, and in the specific case of our SETI experiments to find beings that are at a technological level at least as advanced as our own.
Has the SETI Institute found an extraterrestrial signal?
No SETI search has yet received a confirmed, extraterrestrial signal. If we had, the world would know about it. There is no policy of secrecy, and any promising signal would quickly prompt observations at other observatories.
In the past, there were several unexplained and intriguing signals detected in SETI experiments. Perhaps the most famous of these was the "Wow" signal picked up at the Ohio State Radio Observatory in 1977. However, none of these signals was ever detected again, and for scientists that's not good enough to claim success and boogie off to Stockholm to collect a Nobel Prize. Who would believe cold fusion unless many researchers could duplicate it in their labs? The same is true of extraterrestrial signals: they are credible only when they can be found more than once.
How would we know that the signal is from ET?
Virtually all radio SETI experiments have looked for what are called "narrow-band signals." These are radio emissions that extend over only a small part of the radio spectrum. Imagine tuning your car radio late at night … There's static everywhere on the dial, but suddenly you hear a squeal – a signal at a particular frequency – and you know you've found a station.
Narrow-band signals – perhaps only a few Hertz wide or less – are the mark of a purposely built transmitter. Natural cosmic noisemakers, such as pulsars, quasars, and the turbulent, thin interstellar gas of our own Milky Way, do not make radio signals that are this narrow. The static from these objects is spread all across the dial.
In terrestrial radio practice, narrow-band signals are often called "carriers." They pack a lot of energy into a small amount of spectral space, and consequently are the easiest type of signal to find for any given power level. If E.T. intentionally sends us a signal, those signals may well have at least one narrow-band component to get our attention.
What happens if we find something?
Keep in mind that the receivers used for SETI are designed to find constant or slowly pulsed carrier signals … something like a flute tone played against the noise of a waterfall. But any rapid variation in the signal – known as modulation, or more colloquially as the "message" – can be smeared out and lost. This is because – to gain sensitivity – SETI receivers average the incoming signals for seconds or minutes.
If E.T.'s electric bills are high (as on Earth) and his received signals are therefore relatively weak, we may have to build far larger instruments to look for the modulation. Fortunately, once a detection is made, we expect the money will become available to do so.
Until we can detect the modulation, we'll know only a few things about the beings on the other end. We can pinpoint the spot on the sky where the signal is coming from, and slow changes in its frequency will tell us something about the rotation and orbital motion of E.T.'s home planet.
But even though this information is limited, the detection of alien intelligence will be an enormously big story. We'll be aware that we're neither alone nor the smartest things in the universe. And of course there will be a clamor to build the big dishes that would allow us to pick up E.T.'s message.
Could we ever understand the message?
No one knows. It's conceivable that an advanced and altruistic civilization will send us simple pictures and other information. They might do this because they are hundreds (or more) light-years' distant. That would make real back-and-forth communication tedious at best, so these alien broadcasters might be tempted to send lots of information, and in a format that we could eventually decipher. Then again, we might pick up a signal that was never intended for us, in which case it might be impossible to figure it out.
Didn't NASA have a SETI program?
Yes. The NASA effort was called the High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS). In 1993, Nevada Senator Richard Bryan introduced an amendment that eliminated all funding for the NASA SETI program. The cost of the program was less than 0.1% of NASA's annual budget, amounting to about a nickel per taxpayer per year. The Senator cited budget pressures as his reason for ending NASA's involvement with SETI.
So who funds the SETI search now?
Current SETI searches are funded by donations, mostly from individuals among the public and a few foundations and corporations. Major donors have included William Hewlett, David Packard, Gordon Moore, Paul Allen, Nathan Myhrvold, Arthur C. Clarke, Barney Oliver, and Franklin Antonio.
Why do you think an extraterrestrial civilization will broadcast in the microwave part of the radio spectrum?
There is relatively little background static from galaxies, quasars, and other cosmic noise makers in the microwave part of the spectrum. This makes faint signals easier to pick out. Additionally, the microwave band contains naturally-produced emission lines, including hydrogen at 1420 MHz and methanol at 6667 Mhz, that "broadcast" in narrow frequency ranges. Every radio astronomer (including extraterrestrial ones) will know about these emissions. Such lines may serve as universal "markers" on the radio dial, and indicate good frequencies to search. Alternatively, these same frequencies might be avoided by E.T. to prevent "pollution" of these scientifically important wavelength bands. At the ATA, we hedge our bets by observing at all frequencies between 1 and 9 GHz (i.e., 1000 – 9000 MHz).
How do you know if you've detected an intelligent, extraterrestrial signal?
The main feature distinguishing signals produced by a transmitter from those produced by natural processes is their spectral width, i.e. how much room on the radio dial do they take up? Any signal less than about 300 Hz wide must be, as far as we know, artificially produced. Such narrow-band signals are what all SETI experiments look for. Other tell-tale characteristics include a signal that is completely polarized or the existence of coded information on the signal.
Unfortunately, SETI searches are burdened with confusion caused by narrow-band, polarized and coded signals from our own planet. Military radar and telecommunications satellites produce such signals. The Allen Telescope Array sorts out these confusing signals by comparing the cosmic static received from one part of the sky with that from another.
Are SETI researchers looking for the wrong type of signal? (E.g., why not spread spectrum?)
Historically, SETI researchers have looked for narrow-band signals, the type that are confined to a small (usually 1 Hz or less) spot on the dial. But if you have a cellular phone, you may be aware that it, and a lot of other communications on Earth, now use a technique known as "spread spectrum" in which the signal is dispersed over a wide range of frequencies. What if E.T. is also engaged in spread spectrum broadcasting? Would our searches pick up his call?
That depends. If the signal is strong enough, it might be detected with ordinary SETI equipment, although weak broadcasts will be missed. Since 2011, the SETI Institute has been expanding its search to discover these other types of communications. Nonetheless, it's good to keep in mind that any civilization will realize that narrow-band broadcasts are among the most efficient in terms of producing a detectable signal at the receiving end. If they wish to get in touch or, for example, simply have high-powered radars for finding incoming comets, they will generate the type of signals our experiments can find.
Are we also sending any signals?
To date, the SETI Institute has conducted only passive experiments, designed to listen for signals, not to send them. However, humankind has been unintentionally transmitting signals into space – primarily high-frequency radio, television, and radar – for more than sixty years. Our earliest TV broadcasts have reached several thousand nearby stars, although any alien viewers would have to build a very large antenna to detect them.
One reason that SETI researchers have not chosen to broadcast is because of the long time one has to wait for a reply. If the nearest civilization is 100 light-years away, we would have to sit around for 200 years before we could expect a response. Nonetheless, a few intentional messages have been sent. One message, transmitted in 1974 from the Arecibo Observatory, was a simple picture describing our solar system, the compounds important for life, the structure of the DNA molecule, and the form of a human being. The message was transmitted in the direction of the globular star cluster M13, about 25,000 light years away. Since then, both NASA and a small group in Russia have sent several relatively brief, deliberate signals into space.
If an extraterrestrial civilization has a SETI project similar to our own, could they detect signals from Earth?
In general, no. Most earthly transmissions are too weak to be found by equipment similar to ours at the distance of even the nearest star. But there are some important exceptions. High-powered radars and the Arecibo broadcast of 1974 (which lasted for only three minutes) could be detected at distances of tens to hundreds of light-years with a setup similar to our best SETI experiments.
Why can't we just send a spacecraft into space to look for other planets and life?
The stars are simply too far away. Our best rockets travel at about 10 miles per second. Even to reach the nearest other star system, Alpha Centauri, at about 4.2 light-years' distance, would take such a rocket close to 100,000 years. There are several thousand stars within 100 light-years of us. To investigate them all with spacecraft would take millions of years and vast amounts of money. A better scheme is to search for radio waves (which travel at the speed of light) with state-of-the-art technology, and at a relatively modest cost.
Will alien senders have any way of knowing that their signal has been received by us?
No. They wouldn't be aware that we had received their message any more than a radio disk jockey knows that you've tuned in his show. For the extraterrestrials to know, we would have to send a message in reply. Whether or not sending a reply is a good idea is still controversial. It's worth noting, however, that a complete message exchange might take decades due to the finite speed of light.
Would it be dangerous to reply?
While we can't pretend to know the behavior or motivations of extraterrestrials, there's little point in worrying about alerting others to our presence by replying to a signal detected by SETI. That's because we have been unintentionally broadcasting the fact of our existence into space ever since the Second World War. Any society capable of interstellar travel – and therefore be a possible threat – would be able to detect these signals. In other words, the evidence for our presence on Earth is already moving into space, and has so far reached several thousand star systems.
What happens if you detect a signal?
The first thing to do is to confirm that it's truly extraterrestrial. Remember, with tens of millions of channels and antennas that are among the world's largest, SETI picks up thousands of signals daily. An important test to verify that a signal is truly extraterrestrial would be a confirming observation at another radio telescope.
Once an artificial signal is confirmed as being of extraterrestrial intelligent origin, the discovery will be announced as quickly and as widely as possible. There will be no secrecy, and indeed getting the word out quickly is important as there would be an urgent need to have astronomers world-wide monitor any detected signal, 24 hours a day.
What happens if you don't detect a signal?
We are just scratching the surface of what a modern search can do. Failure to find a signal wouldn't prove that we're the only thinking beings in the Galaxy. After all, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The SETI Institute intends to press the search. Needless to say, the march of technology and new scientific discoveries will influence future SETI strategies. But giving up is not in the cards. Christopher Columbus did not turn around simply because he failed to find any new lands during his first few days at sea.
How would you know what the signal means – the message?
The simplest SETI searches search for a "carrier" – a narrow-band signal – that could underpin a transmission. A carrier is just a simple tone, and doesn't convey any information itself. The message, if there is any, might be much weaker.
If we do succeed in finding a message, could we understand it? If the signal is intentional, it might be decipherable. In order to send or receive a signal over interstellar distances, a civilization must understand basic science and mathematics. Hence, a message from another civilization might use science and math (or simply pictures) to build up a common language with other societies.
Although, signals sent by a civilization for its own purposes may be impossible to unravel, SETI scientists are developing statistics-based algorithms to determine the amount of information sent. This can tell us, almost immediately, something about their level of intelligence.
How long have astronomers been looking for extraterrestrial signals?
The first scientific paper on using radio waves to transmit information over interstellar distances was published in the journal Nature in 1959 by physicists Phillip Morrison and Giuseppe Cocconi. In the following year, Frank Drake (now at the SETI Institute) conducted the first radio search for evidence of technology in other solar systems using an 85-foot antenna at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. Drake called his search Project Ozma, and observed two Sun-like stars, each about 12 light-years away. Since then, approximately 100 searches have been conducted by dozens of astronomers in several countries. However, note that the technology of today's searches greatly surpasses that of earlier efforts.
Who else is carrying out searches?
Astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, have several SETI programs underway, including SERENDIP which collects data at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. About 3% of these data are made available for processing by the popular SETI@home screen saver software.
Another radio SETI search is being conducted at the Medecina Radio Observatory of the University of Bologna, in Italy.
Optical SETI programs – which search for very brief (nanosecond) flashes of light – are being conducted at the University of California Berkeley's Leuschner Observatory (Project SEVENDIP) and at Harvard University.
Is there an "eerie silence"?
The failure so far to find a signal is hardly evidence that none is to be found. All searches to date have been limited in one respect or another. These include limits on sensitivity, frequency coverage, types of signals the equipment could detect, and the number of stars or the directions in the sky observed. For example, while there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, only a few thousand have been scrutinized with high sensitivity and for those, only over a small fraction of the available frequency range.
What is the Allen Telescope Array?
The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) is located at the Hat Creek Observatory in the Cascade Mountains of California, approximately 300 miles to the north of San Francisco and two dozen miles north of Lassen Peak. It comprises an array of 42 antennas, each 6 meters in diameter, which can be simultaneously used for both SETI and cutting-edge radio astronomy research. It is currently managed by SRI International, in Menlo Park, California.
Because it has the ability to study many areas on the sky at once, and is continually being upgraded with improved receivers and spectral analyzers, the ATA is able to sift through targeted stellar systems far more quickly than previous SETI experiments. To date, several thousand star systems have been observed with high sensitivity and over a wide range of radio frequencies. The ATA will permit an expansion of this reconnaissance to 100 thousand or even 1 million nearby stars in the next two decades.
What is the Allen Telescope Array observing now?
There are several observing projects currently running on the Allen Telescope Array (ATA). One is a reconnaissance of star systems found to have planets (or planet candidates) by NASA's Kepler Mission, and especially those planets in their own stellar habitable zone. Kepler has uncovered thousands of candidate planets since its launch, and these are on the observing list for the ATA. They will be examined over a spectral range from 1 to 9 GHz (1000 – 9000 MHz).
In addition, the ATA is observing a small region in the vicinity of the Milky Way's galactic center. This is the region of highest stellar density in the galaxy, and it's conceivable that truly advanced societies might place a "beacon" there.
A third, and on-going effort by the ATA is to observe nearby, so-called "hab stars". These are stellar systems less than 1,000 light-years distant that have characteristics that would make them suitable hosts ("habitable") for planets with life. This last project is an extension of Project Phoenix, a SETI Institute effort that ran from 1995 – 2004, and used radio telescopes in Australia, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico to scrutinize one thousand nearby star systems in a hunt for radio signals.
Why does the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) have 42 antennas?
In the past, large antenna collecting area (which increases sensitivity to weak signals) was best attained by building relatively large individual antennas. This was because the electronic amplifiers at the focus of these antennas were expensive, often costing $1 million or more. Fewer antennas meant less money spent on the amplifiers.
However, in the past two decades, the cost of the electronics has plummeted, and it is now less expensive – for any given collecting area – to build lots of smaller antennas. This was the rationale for the ATA's "large N, small D" design philosophy. That is, a large number of antennas with relatively small diameters.
The GOAL was that the ATA would have 350 individual antennas. Unfortunately, the cost of research and development meant that there was only enough funding to construct 42. The hope is that future funding will allow an expansion of the current array – and this would improve both the sensitivity and the imaging capability of the instrument.
Science justification
Why do SETI at all?
There are many reasons, including such practical considerations as the technological spinoff. But SETI research is first and foremost pursued because it is designed to answer questions that previous generations could only ask. How do we fit into the biological scheme of the cosmos? Is intelligent life a rare event or a common one in the universe? Can technological civilizations last for long periods of time, or do they inevitably self-destruct or die out for some other reason?
If we could understand any signal that we detect, there's always the possibility that it would contain enormously valuable knowledge. It's likely that any civilization we discover will be far more advanced than ours, and might help us to join a galactic network of intelligent beings. But even if we detect a signal without being able to understand it, that would still tell us that we are not unique in the cosmos. The effect on society might be as profound and long lasting as when Copernicus displaced the Earth from the center of our universe.
What do other scientists think of the search for extraterrestrial civilizations?
Most scientists support the search. Here are some quotations from professional reviews:
From the Report of the Astronomy Survey Committee, National Academy of Sciences, 1972: "... More and more scientists feel that contact with other civilizations is no longer something beyond our dreams but a natural event in the history of mankind that will perhaps occur in the lifetime of many of us ... In the long run, this may be one of science's most important and most profound contributions to mankind and to our civilization."
From the Report of the Astronomy Survey Committee, National Academy of Sciences, 1982: "... It is hard to imagine a more exciting astronomical discovery or one that would have greater impact on human perceptions than the detection of extraterrestrial intelligence."
From the Report of the Astronomy Survey Committee, National Academy of Sciences, 1991: "... The discovery in the last decade of planetary disks (around other stars), and the continuing discovery of highly complex organic molecules in the interstellar medium, lend even greater scientific support to this enterprise."
IV. SETI, Education and Public Outreach
How can I listen to the SETI Institute's weekly radio program, "Big Picture Science"?
"Big Picture Science" can be most easily found at bigpicturescience.org, where you can immediately play this week's show, or any of hundreds of archived programs. More than eighty radio stations carry the program, and the web site will tell you if there's a station in your area. The show is also available from several podcast outlets, including iTunes.


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Obesity. We — and not just fitness professionals — hear about it on an almost daily basis. The nation is getting fatter and so are our children.
Our TVs scream about quick-fix products. Store shelves are stocked with low-fat, low-carb and all too often low-nutrition foods. Pills that will allow you to eat all the pizza and drink all the beer you want and still lose weight are touted on radios, TVs and magazines.
In fact, just the other day someone asked me why Fitness Business Pro plans on covering obesity during the next year, as it wasn't really an industry "issue." My answer was that it might just be the industry issue.
At times the industry gloats that we are making inroads — and yes, we are. Some statistics from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) show that as commercial clubs number more than 22,000, we are serving more than 36 million people. If you take into account the number of non-profits, corporate and other fitness facilities (hotel, school, etc.) that reach grows even more impressive.
Unfortunately, a recent survey conducted by American Sports Data for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (sponsored by IHRSA) shows some staggering numbers that may deflate the industry's ego a bit. For instance:
Nearly 4 million Americans tip the scales at more than 300 pounds.
There are nearly 1.1 million U.S. women who weigh in excess of 300 pounds. And, there are more than 400,000 Americans who weigh more than 400 pounds.
One in nine U.S. adult males weighs more than 250 pounds, while one in six women tips the scales at 200 pounds or more.
The average weight of the American woman is 163 pounds and the average weight of the American male is 196 pounds.
While some of these statistics highlight the extreme, they are still pretty sobering facts.
Unfortunately, the future looks challenging as well. In 2003 just about 30 percent of all high school students attended daily physical education classes, a number that has stayed consistent since 1995, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's national Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Additionally, the survey showed that the percentage of students enrolled in PE (56 percent) and the percentage of students physically active for more than 20 minutes in PE classes three to five days per week (39 percent) did not change significantly between 1991 and 2003.
During this same time, we know that calorie consumption and weights (along with associated health risks) have not stayed steady among these age groups. In fact, they have dramatically increased.
Does the industry have reasons to brag? Sure we do. And we should raise awareness and promote the good done regardless of segment. But at the same time we should all keep the negative numbers close at hand to remind all of us of the work left to be done and the opportunities to fulfill an industry mission while growing business at the same time.


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Stockton, CA
George A. McCauley
January 29, 1929-March 14, 2013
George A. McCauley a native of Stockton passed away March 14, 2013 at the age of 84. He was
born January 29, 1929 to William and Georgia McCauley. George was the former co-owner of Clutch and Brake Xchange and Auto Distributors. He was a WWII Veteran and a member of Quail Lakes Baptist Church. In his spare time George loved working on cars and restoring them. He was a great mechanic. He was the loving husband of 65 years to Joan McCauley; devoted father to Mike McCauley (Carmen), Jill Cassidy (Mike); caring grandfather to Ryan Cassidy (Sunny), Erin Cassidy and Matthew McCauley; cherished great grandfather to Jax and Zyla Cassidy and beloved brother to the late Bill McCauley. Per his request no services will be held. Memorial contribution may be made to your charity of choice.


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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Tom Crean already has one major victory over North Carolina.
He got Cody Zeller.
Now Roy Williams must figure out how to defend the recruit that got away to avoid losing again tonight when
No. 14 North Carolina meets No. 1 Indiana in the marquee matchup of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.
"He's the guy that makes everybody else change their defense and you have to be concerned about him," Williams said. "He gave them a legitimate inside scorer that could foul out the other players. I just think he's a great player, a great player."
In Bloomington, Zeller means more than that.
As a freshman, he helped put the Hoosiers back on the national map.
This year, he's considered the best big man in America, was a near-unanimous preseason All-America selection and is one of the favorites to be national player of the year.
His impact can be measured one way - in wins and losses. Without Zeller, Crean was 28-66 in three seasons. With him, the Hoosiers are 33-9 in a little more than two seasons.
On Tuesday night, he will be the center of attention again, though Crean has other concerns.
"They bring some things that we've not seen, and I'm not sure that we've ever seen here," Crean said. "I'm not sure we've ever seen a fast break like there's here at Assembly Hall, and James McAdoo is as good a rebounder on the offensive end as anyone we've seen this year or any other year."
The game pits two of college basketball's truest blood-blood programs against one another. The schools have combined for 10 national championships and 3,766 all-time wins - the most prominent being Indiana's victory in the 1981 national championship game.
But some of the biggest battles have come off the court.
When the Tar Heels last visited Bloomington in 2004, the Hoosiers had to deal with another recruit that got away - Sean May, who was booed mercilessly in his home city.
That won't happen this time, in large part because Indiana didn't let Zeller get away to North Carolina.
Williams was hoping to steal a second Zeller from the Hoosier State, and it almost happened. Zeller's older brother, Tyler, graduated from North Carolina last year and was a first-round pick in the NBA draft.
"It was real close," Cody Zeller said Monday. "They were in my top three. I have a lot of respect for everything they do, the coaching staff is great and Tyler really enjoyed his time there. I just thought Indiana was the best place for me, and I have no regrets about that."
But Williams knows that focusing solely on Zeller would be dangerous because the Hoosiers (6-0) are not a one-man team.
The Hoosiers are fourth nationally in scoring (88.7), lead the Big Ten in defensive rebounding, rebounding margin and scoring margin and are shooting 52.5 percent from the field and 41.4 percent from 3-point range.
If the Tar Heels (5-1) learned anything from their loss last week to another team from Indiana, two-time national runner-up Butler, it's this: They must be ready to play 40 minutes.
"We tried to challenge them the last couple of days that we've got to play better than that," Williams said of the Tar Heels' trip to Maui where they finished third. "I haven't noticed the extra energy or the bounce because I've worked the dickens out of them."
The Hoosiers do know what to expect.
After surviving challenges from Georgia and Georgetown last week, Indiana made a defensive statement in Sunday's 48-point victory over Ball State.
And now, a little more than 48 hours later, they are preparing for a game the students have been anticipating for months.
How excited are the fans? Students started camping in front of Assembly Hall on Monday morning. It's not the first time the Hoosiers have seen it.
"It's probably going to be a lot like the Kentucky game last year," sophomore guard Remy Abell said. "It might even be better. It's going to be crazy."
Both teams will be short-handed.
Indiana will play again without 6-foot-9 forward Derek Elston, who is expected to be out until after Christmas following knee surgery, and 6-8 freshman Hanner Mosquera-Perea and 7-foot center Peter Jurkin, who were suspended nine games by the NCAA. That could create problems against the biggest foe Indiana has faced this season.
North Carolina will be without sophomore guard P.J. Hairston, who is averaging 10.8 points. He didn't travel with the team because of a knee injury.
Meaning the difference could be Zeller.
"I'm not going to put five guys on Cody. He is an emphasis and he would have to be the main emphasis, but we're not designing a defense for him," Williams said. "I'm not going up there trying to stop Cody Zeller. I'm trying to go up there to beat Indiana."


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Female intuition: Greenwich Girl brand gains clout
Greenwich Girl -- with its own blog, Twitter followers and digital magazine-- gains clout
There is no welcome sign.
Nothing with the name of the governor to indicate you've crossed the state line -- just a river.
But for three months, the first thing drivers saw upon entering Connecticut via the chronically congested Mill Street corridor was the face of Greenwich Girl, glamming it up from her perch on a $2,200-a-month billboard.
Greenwich Girl, or GG as her friends call her, is Laura McKittrick, who in less than two years has become her own brand with a digital magazine, blog and enough Twitter followers to fill Yankee Stadium.
"It's my life," McKittrick told Greenwich Time. "The whole thing started from nothing."
From a new adult beverage line called Spiked Seltzer and must-have baubles to personal training sessions and a Valentino dress, retailers are showering the 30-year-old former hedge-funder with swag in a bid to capitalize on the word of mouth and extensive friend network that Greenwich Girl commands.
"It was like a $1,200 dress," gushed McKittrick. McKittrick is the editor and creative director of Greenwich Girl magazine, a digital publication in the luxury lifestyle niche that comes out every other month.
Part look book, part girly magazine with Greenwich Girl-isms ("obvi" and "fingers crossed"), the issues are filled with product testimonials and advice from McKittrick and about a dozen unpaid contributing writers on topics such as how to declutter and the best places to dine al fresco.
The magazine had 16,000 unique readers for its February issue, according to McKittrick, who said that 90 percent of her audience are women ages 25 to 47.
"You're not going to find a harder working young woman," said Geri Corrigan, director of marketing at Saks Fifth Avenue in Greenwich. "She's such an integral part of the community."
When Saks Fifth Avenue had an opening on its community advisory board, McKittrick, a graduate of Greenwich High School and George Washington University, was an obvious choice. She needed no introduction to the other members, however.
"There was someone who said, `You're the Greenwich Girl,' " Corrigan said.
McKittrick's Facebook profile, which has more than 11,000 "likes," lists her as a public figure. Starbucks often doubles as the office of the iPad and iPhone-clutching media phenom, who three years ago collaborated on a tongue-and-cheek hurricane blog that turned her on to writing.
A hair salon, laser hair removal spa and lingerie boutique subsidized the cost of the billboard for McKittrick in return for having their logos displayed. McKittrick even scored a cross-promotion with her local Jeep dealership, coining the slogan, "Every GG needs a Jeep! Beep, beep."
"I used to hunt the Avenue every day, going up and down," McKittrick said of soliciting advertisers. "Now it's sort of being able to sleep again and I get people approaching me to advertise."
When the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce wanted to promote its upcoming Business & Culinary Showcase, it turned to McKittrick.
"We think she's able to reach some diversified markets that we want to reach," said Marcia O'Kane, the chamber's executive director.
At the YMCA of Greenwich, McKittrick is the founder and chairman of the junior board of directors, a position that she said has enabled her to mentor girls. McKittrick said she recently got clearance from the Board of Education to create a Greenwich Girl after-school program.
"I teach them the GG pearls of wisdom," McKittrick said of the girls she mentors.
email@example.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy


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draw away(redirected from draw her away)
draw away
1. To move away from someone or something. I hugged my parents for as long as I could before the train whistle blew and we drew away from each other. As soon as I heard the buzzing bees, I drew away from the flowers.
2. To move someone or something away from someone or something else. In this usage, a noun or pronoun can be used between "draw" and "away." I drew my toddler away from the cat when I saw how vigorously she was petting it.
3. To pass one's fellow competitors, as in a race. I knew I had a chance to win the race when I drew away from the fastest girl in the heat.
4. To take the focus of a situation away from someone or something else. I can't believe my own sister got engaged a week before my wedding, totally drawing the attention away from me!
draw (some kind of attention) away
(from someone or something ) to capture attention or praise due to someone or something. Her sterling performance drew attention away from the big star in one of the other roles. She drew away too much notice by her late arrival at the party.
draw away
1. Pull off or back, as in He drew his chair away from the fire.
2. Move ahead of competitors, as in On the last lap Jim drew away from the other runners.
draw away
1. To pull something away: I drew the dogs away from the creek. The babysitter drew away the children from the stranger.
2. To pull back from someone or something: The jury drew away from the bloody photograph. The man reached toward us, but we drew away.
3. To move ahead of competitors, as in a race: In the last lap, the leader drew away from the pack.
4. To lure or attract something away from someone or something: Her speech drew attention away from the honoree. The national election drew away interest in our local news.


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Instead of getting a break after HIMSS, I'm doing back to back conferences as I attend the National Council for Behavioral Health's NatCon Conference in Las Vegas. If you're following along at home, the twitter stream for the event is #NatCon16 and is full of a ton of gems from the conference.
Today I got the chance to hear and meet two of the keynote speakers: Chris Matthews and @KevinMD. Chris Matthews provided a lot of great insights into the political environment and a lot of amazing insider stories. My biggest takeaway from his talk is that we're stuck in a massive quagmire and I don't see much of that changing in the future. Presidential candidates can make all the promises they want, but they mean nothing if they don't have the political support and finances to pay for it. @KevinMD was great to meet and hear talk about the benefits of using social media. Of course, he was mostly preaching to the choir for me. However, I'm sure that his comments were extremely eye opening for many in the audience.
Besides these two keynotes, I attended a few different sessions in the tech track of the conference. The most surprising thing to me was how similar these sessions were to any sessions you might have in any healthcare IT conference. This wasn't really shocking, but it was a surprise that the messages and challenges were so much the same. Here are a few examples:
Third Party App Integration with EHRs
In one session, the vendors were talking about their inability to integrate their behavioral health apps into the various EHR software. They all said it was on the roadmap, but that there wasn't an easy way for them to make it a reality. One of them appropriately called for EMR customers to start demanding that their EHR vendors open up their systems to be able to integrate with these third party apps.
Fear of Social Media
I usually find at conferences that this breaks out into two groups. One group loves social media, embraces it and benefits from it. The other group is totally afraid of the repercussions of using it. @KevinMD offered some great insights on how to overcome this fear. First, don't say anything on social media that you wouldn't say in a crowded hospital hallway. Second, start by using something like LinkedIn or Doximity which is a more private type of social media and are both professional networks. The real key I'd suggest is that you should own your brand. Don't leave your brand image up to other people.
Business Models
There was a lot of discussion around various uses of technology in behavioral health and the need for the business models to catch up with the technology. Many would love to use all these technological advances, but they aren't sure how they're going to get paid for doing so.
I'm sure I could go on and on. I know that many in the general medical field look at behavioral health as a totally different beast. No doubt there are some differences in behavioral health, but I think that we're more alike than we are different. Looking forward to learning even more over the next two days.


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Cash-strapped Detroit sends out employee year-end bonuses
Detroit sends out year-end bonuses, totaling nearly $500,000, due to 'antiquated processes,' mayor says
DETROIT – The cash-strapped city of Detroit has done something no one would expect.
The city on the brink of a state takeover has sent out year-end bonuses to its employees.
Read more: Board supports emergency financial manager for Detroit
This past Friday, 697 city union employees and 451 non-union employees received longevity bonus payments which, depending on years of service, were anywhere between $150 to $750. The total payout is nearly $500,000.
Was it a mistake? Detroit Mayor Dave Bing had said, not too long ago, that the bonuses in question would not be sent out.
A resolution on the bonuses was rejected this past summer. However, it was eventually approved. Now, Detroit's law department is preparing an ordinance amendment to discontinue the payments. Bing released a statement Thursday afternoon which reads in part:
"One of my frustrations is that the city processes are antiquated, and the length of time needed to bring about change is often inefficient and counterproductive."
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing
Read more: Detroit mayor continues financial plan despite likely EFM
With the city drowning in massive debt, the mayor definitely is not the only one disappointed.
"This city already is in a bad enough shape and to do something like this ... it doesn't surprise me," said Detroiter Tori Ann Shelley.
There will be action taken in January to prevent something like this from happening again, Local 4 has learned.
The bonuses already sent out will not have to be paid back to the city because they were given in accordance to the existing city ordinance.
Copyright 2012 by ClickOnDetroit.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Chew on this
SIRI 2013-07-22.jpg
Chew on this
SIRI 2013-07-22.jpg
Haven't checked it myself in over a week or so. Looks like we've had a consolidation triangle forming over the past few days. Already have 1 double top break. 2 more till blast off to new highs with a break of 3.77 which we hopefully get sometime tomorrow...
Hey Bass, I hate to be redundant but great call on FB. I picked up some the other day at 26. Always wished you picked up more on days like today. Are you hanging on around 32 or bailing?
i sold 25% of my FB holdings AH so far….holding the res until morning for now. There will probably be some strong resistance at $31.75ish. I will have an update on my website mid-day tomorrow after I can see how FB is reacting to a few trend lines. But to be honest, profits are profits and any sale above $30 wouldn't be bad in the short-term
EDIT: Sale prices were $31.59 & $31.66 on shares sold
Last edited by Limit5Bass; 07-24-2013 at 05:51 PM.