Space: 1999 Is The World We Should Be Living Now In Futures Past

AUTHOR: JOSH TYLER | CATEGORY: SCI-FI

This week my obsession with the way we used to see the future takes me to Earth’s moon, hurtling out of orbit in Space: 1999. Blast off with the latest installment in GFR’s ongoing series, Futures Past, right now. Six years after Apollo 11′s historic 1969 landing on the moon it seemed as though man was taking the first step to something bigger and grander. By comparison to some of the other science fiction being produced in the time period, Gerry Anderson’s (Thunderbirds, UFO) British produced television series Space: 1999 actually took a fairly conservative approach to what man might accomplish in the depths of space. Yet even Gerry’s view, realistic though it strove to be, turned out to be far too optimistic.

Still, in 1975 it seemed entirely plausible that man would have a permanent base on the lunar surface within the next 25 years. So Anderson set out to make a show based in what, at least then, seemed like an inevitable future. Here’s Martin Landau in the very first episode of Space: 1999, which was believe it or not, at the time the most expensive television program ever made. Watch it and I’ll see you afterward to discuss how they did at predicting the future…

The truth is that, aside from all the sleeve zippers, this is the world we should be living in right now. Establishing a base on the lunar surface, maybe even a base just like Moonbase Alpha, would have been completely plausible by 1999 had NASA continued to receive the kind of funding it deserved. Instead, after Apollo 11 America’s interest in exploring the cosmos waned and so did our government’s willingness to spend money on it.

Part of the problem, as it turns out, is that there just isn’t any profit in it. The moon’s a barren wilderness and we’ve yet to find anything worth going through all the trouble to go up there and get. Space: 1999 tries to clear this obstacle by presenting the moon as a reasonable solution to the world’s waste storage problem. That might have made sense if the cost of launching material into space had ever reached manageable levels. Unfortunately since money was never spent to develop a cheaper way of getting to the moon the cost to launch anything, let alone waste, remains prohibitively high.

Space: 1999 stayed on the air for two seasons and 48 episodes. At the time critics praised it, though as you’d expect scientists and science fiction authors alike were a little less than enthused with the whole “launching the moon out of orbit with a nuclear reaction” premise. Even then, that didn’t make a lot of sense. Yet so much of the rest of the show feels well thought out, right down to the G-forces when the moon’s blasted out of orbit, it’s easy to forgive them that one big piece of ridiculousness.

In an era where most science fiction predicted a future that was largely a wild fantasy, like the stuff of Battlestar Galactica or Buck Rodgers, Anderson’s series deserves praise for almost getting it right. Actually, I submit that he did get it right. Space: 1999 is the world we should be living in, we’re the ones who got it wrong.

Credit to : http://digg.com

Study: Parasitic fly could explain bee die-off

By GOSIA WOZNIACKA | AP

In this photo provided by San Francisco State University, the larvae of an Apocephalus borealis fly emerges from the dead body of a host honey bee. The A. borealis fly is suspected of contributing to the decrease in the honey bee population. Researchers say the fly deposits its eggs in the abdomen of honey bees and as the larvae grow within the body of the bee, the bee begins to lose control of its ability to think and walk, flying blindly toward light. It eventually dies and the fly larvae emerge. (AP Photo/John Hafernik, San Francisco State University)

Northern California scientists say they have found a possible explanation for a honey bee die-off that has decimated hives around the world: A parasitic fly that hijacks the bees' bodies and causes them to abandon hives. Scientists say the fly deposits its eggs into the bee's abdomen, causing the infected bee to exhibit zombie-like behavior by walking around in circles with no apparent sense of direction. The bee leaves the hive at night and dies shortly thereafter. The symptoms mirror colony collapse disorder, in which all the adult honey bees in a colony suddenly disappear.

The disease is of great concern, because bees pollinate about a third of the United States' food supply. Its presence is especially alarming in California, the nation's top producer of fruits and vegetables, where bees play an essential role in the $2 billion almond industry and other crops.

The latest study, published Tuesday in the science journal PLoS ONE, points to the parasitic fly as the new threat to honey bees. It's another step in ongoing research to find the cause of the disease. Researchers haven't been able to pin down an exact cause of colony collapse or find a way to prevent it. Research so far points to a combination of factors including pesticide contamination, a lack of blooms — and hence nutrition — and mites, fungi, viruses and parasites. Interaction among the parasite and multiple pathogens could be one possible factor in colony collapse, according to the latest study by researchers at San Francisco State University. It says the phorid fly, or apocephalus borealis, was found in bees from three-quarters of the 31 hives surveyed in the San Francisco Bay area.

In this photo provided by San Francisco State University, an Apocephalus borealis fly implants its eggs into the abdomen of a honey bee. The A. borealis fly is suspected of contributing to the decrease in the honey bee population. Researchers say the fly deposits its eggs in the abdomen of honey bees and as the larvae grow within the body of the bee, the bee begins to lose control of its ability to think and walk, flying blindly toward light. It eventually dies and the fly larvae emerge. (AP Photo/Christopher Quock, San Francisco State University)

The combination of a parasite, pathogens and other stressors could cause die-off, lead investigator John Hafernik said. The parasitic fly serves as a reservoir that harbors pathogens — honey bees from parasite-infected hives tested positive for deformed wing virus and other pathogens, the study found. "We don't fully understand the web of interactions," Hafernik said. "The parasite could be another stressor, enough to push the bee over tipping point. Or it could play a primary role in causing the disease." Hafernik stumbled onto the parasitic fly by accident. Three years ago, the biology professor looked for something to feed a praying mantis. He found some bees outside his classroom, placed them in a vial and forgot about them. When he looked at the vial a week later, he found dead bees surrounded by small fly pupae. A parasitic fly was feeding on the bees and had killed them, he said.

The fly is a known parasite in bumble bees. Scientists used DNA barcoding to confirm the parasite in the honey bees and bumble bees was the same species. The fly might have recently expanded its host presence from bumble bees to honey bees, Hafernik said, making it an emerging threat to agricultural pollinators. The fact that honey bees live in large colonies placed in close proximity to one another and beekeepers frequently move the hives throughout the country could lead to an explosion of the fly population, he said.

The fly, which is found all over North America, could also become a threat to native bees. Hafernik plans to expand his research to other parts of the country and to study the parasite's impact on agriculture in California's Central Valley. Since it was recognized in 2006, colony collapse has destroyed colonies at a rate of about 30 percent per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Before that, losses were about 15 percent per year from a variety of pests and diseases.

Credit to : http://news.yahoo.com

Why can't we find aliens?

Sure, we haven't successfully phoned E.T. yet, says Slate's Chris Wilson. But let's not give up too easily

Best Opinion:  Slate

"E.T. is out there," says Slate's Chris Wilson. But "why can't we find him?" It's a question that has long vexed stargazers. If there are more than 200 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone, shouldn't those staggering numbers all but guarantee that there is at least one other Earth-like planet suitable for intelligent life? And shouldn't those intelligent beings contact us? Here, four takeaways from Wilson's examination of these burning questions:

1. The timing could be off

The distance between stars and star systems is enormous, and that creates what's known as the "synchronicity" problem. Even if scientists "were to discover a very Earth-like planet 450 light years away" — not that far in the grand scheme of things — by the time we point our radio telescopes at it, "we’re listening for an activity that might have been going on there in the Earth year 1561." So to detect anything, Wilson says, "the civilization that exists on this planet has to be at least 400 years ahead of ours."

2. And we may have missed the message

It's "possible that our fantasy civilization would be 500 years ahead of us," Wilson says. But remember, the universe is roughly 13 billion years old. Maybe our "Earth-like planet was at one point dotted with thriving alien cities" — but when these creatures sent us signals, "we humans were working out the kinks in having opposable thumbs." Intelligent species may have been trying to contact us for millions of years — but we hadn't evolved to the point where we were even aware of it.

3. But there are ways we can still find E.T.

First, we need to look for relics of lost societies, a "beacon that would beam out its epitaph for millions or billions of years." Think of it like a "gravestone" or "galactic graffiti." Secondly, we need to preserve our own "collective memory." "If another civilization was so kind as to send a few signals our way, we ought to return the favor. We ought to build our own beacon. It's a simple matter of interstellar courtesy."

4. And the future offers more chances than ever

Between a newly reopened SETI Institute, as in "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence," and NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which is beginning to "identify planets elsewhere in the galaxy," the next few years are looking like the dawn of a new "golden age in alien hunting," says Wilson. "The odds of finding an alien civilization out there are about to increase immensely."

Credit to : http://theweek.com