Links for 23-02-2007
Photonic laser thruster, medieval Islamic architecture, exopalaeontology on Mars, lift installation cartel busted…
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“A device called a Photonic Laser Thruster is making news since a December demonstration of the technology by its inventor, Young Bae.” Potential space propulsion innovation.
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2 – Spear-wielding chimps snack on skewered bushbabies
“…wild chimpanzees have been seen hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate.” Take that, anti-evolutionists!
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3 – Medieval Islamic Architecture Presages 20th-century Mathematics
“Intricate decorative tilework found in medieval architecture across the Islamic world appears to exhibit advanced decagonal quasicrystal geometry — a concept discovered by Western mathematicians and physicists only in the 1970s and 1980s.”
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4 – Martian Explorers Should Be Looking for Fossils
“Instead of just looking for current life on Mars, Arizona State University professor Jack Farmer thinks that future missions should also be looking for ancient fossils on the Red Planet. In fact, he thinks they might be easier to find.”
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5 – Web 2.0 is giving all of us a voice. But is anyone really listening?
“So why ask for people’s opinions if you aren’t interested in what they say? Because people are lazy enough to assume that protest and participation are the same thing.”
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“The European Commission has fined the Otis, KONE, Schindler and ThyssenKrupp groups €992m for operating cartels for the installation and maintenance of lifts and escalators.” *Lift installation cartels*? WTF?
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7 – Indian SF/F Writer To Look Out For
A.R.Yngve points out a rising star of Indian science fiction, Samit Basu.
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“We asked 100 writers and thinkers to answer the following question: Left and right defined the 20th century. What’s next? The pessimism of their responses is striking…” No sh*t. Via Ian MacDonald.
