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2012: Preview of the Review


The hype is beginning to invade the cultural landscape like bio-engineered kudzu: the end of the world is a mere three years away.

In late December, 2012, thanks to an unusual celestial alignment – or maybe just the expiration date of the Mayan calendar – our planet will be wracked and ruined. Look on the bright side: you can blow off your estimated tax payments for that year.

Hollywood producers – never ones to miss a silver lining – are hoping to make some hay with Earth’s imminent quietus. A soon-to-be-released film, bearing the inventive title “2012”, will let you see just how visually stunning doomsday can be.

Read Complete Story.


Thursday, October 22, 2009 3:57:00 PM

This feed has 57 articles on 57 pages << < 1 2 3 4 5 > >>

In the News

California Academy of Sciences honors local scientists
San Francisco based California Academy of Sciences will be holding an award ceremony honoring the induction of twenty-one new Academy Fellows today. The honor is bestowed in recognition of notable contributions the recipients have made in their fields of science and judging from the listed recipients, for their efforts in science promotion.

A few of the names will be instantly recognizable to Skeptics and science fans. Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer with SETI Institute, host of the Skeptical podcast Are We Alone? has been announced, as well as previous recipient Dr. Eugenie C. Scott.
...

The other freshly announced Academy Fellows all have amazing bodies of research and have performed some incredibly interesting experiments. Dr. Rocco Mancinelli has traversed the world studying extremophiles, living organisms which exist in extreme, inhospitable (and toxic to most) environments.

Read the entire article

Read the California Academy of Sciences press release


Wednesday, October 14, 2009 8:23:55 AM

10 Most Brilliant Innovators of 2009: Kepler Space Telescope
Popular Mechanics
November 2009

ASTRONOMY: PLANET-SEEKING SPACE TELESCOPE
INNOVATORS: Eric Bachtell (Ball Aerospace), William Borucki, David Koch (NASA), Doug Caldwell, Jon Jenkins (SETI Institute), David Latham (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
BRILLIANT IDEA: A multiyear survey of 100,000 stars, in search of planets where alien life may thrive.

Read the entire article




Tuesday, October 13, 2009 3:46:31 PM

A New Equation for Life
"Astrobiologists are trying to work out a mathematical equation to quantify how suitable other planets are for life, similar to the famous Drake Equation for judging the chances of contacting extraterrestrial civilizations."

Cosmic Log, September 16, 2009
Read the entire article


Friday, September 18, 2009 4:49:03 PM

Ear to the Universe Starts Listening
"A large array of radio telescopes has begun its first sustained search or extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) and at rates faster than ever before."

Nature, 461, September 17, 2009
Subscription required to read the entire article, and the accompanying editorials on the 50th anniversary of the first scientific paper on SETI by Cocconi and Morrison .


Friday, September 18, 2009 4:45:58 PM

SETI Telescope Array Produces First Science Results
New Scientist
August 18, 2009
The only telescope array in the world that is focused on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has produced its first scientific results - but unfortunately there's still no word from ET.

Read the complete article.


Wednesday, August 19, 2009 8:52:58 AM

This feed has 48 articles on 10 pages << < 1 2 3 4 5 > >>

Research News

Closest Planetary System Hosts Two Asteroid Belts

NASA/JPL News on Dana Backman's upcoming paper on asteriod belts around Epsilon Eridani.




New images Show Seasons on Uranus

Near-infrared images from the Keck II telescope show the planet Uranus in 2005 (left), with the rings at an angle of 8 degrees, and at equinox in 2007 (right pair), with the planet’s ring system edge-on. In all images, the south pole is at the left and the equator is directly below the rings. Uranus, which has an 84-year orbit around the sun, has seasons that last twenty-one years. With the aid of new imaging technologies and telescopes, scientists had their best chance to observe the change of seasons on the distant planet and to look for seasonal effects on some of the solar system’s most mysterious weather features.

SETI Institute scientists Kathy Rages and Mark Showalter are members of a team studying new Keck II telescope images of Uranus to probe the seasonal dynamics of Uranus.  Read the article from the University of Wisconsin.




Sharper Jupiter Images from Next-Generation Adaptive Optics


Click for larger image

A two-hour observation of Jupiter using an improved technique to remove atmospheric blur has produced the sharpest whole-planet picture ever taken from the ground, according to astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, the SETI Institute (Franck Marchis), and the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

UC Berkeley Press Release

ESO Press Release




This feed has 8 articles on 3 pages << < 1 2 3 > >>

Announcements

Join us for SETIcon, August 13-15 2010!  Find out about the event and purchase tickets at http://www.seticon.com

Seth Shostak named as a Fellow of the  Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI).  Read the press release.

Past Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures are available on the web and via podcast, featuring talks from Jill Tarter and Frank Drake  

The SETI Institute is hiring
We are looking for talented individuals to join our team

Make a Virtual Visit to the Allen Telescope Array!
The ATA-cam is up and running, giving a daily panorama of the site.


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Book Alert!


Confessions of an Alien Hunter
by Dr. Seth Shostak

Aliens are big in America. Whether they’ve arrived via rocket, flying saucer, or plain old teleportation, they’ve been invading, infiltrating, or inspiring us for decades, and they’ve fascinated moviegoers and television watchers for more than fifty years.

Dr. Seth Shostak's new book, Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (National Geographic Books) offers an entertaining and expert account of the facts, fantasies, and future of finding intelligence elsewhere in the universe, and how real science differs from the Hollywood view of extraterrestrial life.



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