Free Republic

Human nature is one of those things that everybody talks about but no one can define precisely. Every time we fall in love, fight with our spouse, get upset about the influx of immigrants into our country, or go to church, we are, in part, behaving as a human animal with our own unique evolved nature—human nature. This means two things. First, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are produced not only by our individual experiences and environment in our own lifetime but also by what happened to our ancestors millions of years ago. Second, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are...

Mobile-gadget makers are starting to take advantage of software-defined radio, a new technology allowing a single device to receive signals from multiple sources, including television stations and cell phone networks. But a new federal rule set to take effect Friday could mean that radios built on "open-source elements" may encounter a more sluggish path to market--or, in the worst case scenario, be shut out altogether. U.S. regulators, it seems, believe the inherently public nature of open-source code makes it more vulnerable to hackers, leaving "a high burden to demonstrate that it is sufficiently secure." If the decision stands, it may...

Any true and acceptable-to-the-public solution to the problem of illegal immigration must conform to the following principles: Anyone who enters this country illegally must be forever barred from legal residency, let alone citizenship.The right to obtain legal residency in the US must be fairly rationed among all the world's nations, and must not favor those who happen to have the geographic advantage of having their native country located near the US. Residency must be granted based on a variety of factors, with self-sufficiency, useful talents and/or knowledge, and other economic benefits to the US taking precedence over other considerations. Race...

To: Senator Barbara Boxer From: A concerned citizen and constituent I urge that you vote no on S.1348 (Immigration Reform,) and vote no on cloture. Reasons: 1) Granting any form of legal residency to those who illegally crossed our borders is drastically unfair to all those in the wider world who cannot so easily get the same deal for themselves, because they happen to be geographically disadvantaged relative to most of the illegal immigrants who come here. What about those from Asia, Africa and Europe? Should not legal residency in the US be fairly rationed among all the world's peoples?...

WASHINGTON – George W. Bush isn't the first Republican president to face a full-blown immigration crisis on the US-Mexican border. Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America's southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond. President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents - less than one-tenth of today's force. The operation...

Let's say I break into your house. A lady wrote the best letter in the Editorials in ages!!! It explains things better than all the baloney you hear on TV. Her point: Recently large demonstrations have taken place across the country protesting the fact that Congress is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration. Certain people are angry that the US might protect its own borders, might make it harder to sneak into this country and, once here, to stay indefinitely. Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these protests. Let's say I break into your house....

8:08pm PDT Large enough here in northern Marin County to possibly be significant, if the epicienter was far away. Unlikely that there was any damage locally.

I think that seeing some of the significant sci/tech developments over the past few months all in one listing gives one a better perspective on the accelerating rate of progress: New laser technique that strips hydrogen from silicon surfacesClocking events at the nanoscaleElectric field can align silver nanowiresNanotube bundles could be used as motors for nanodevicesScientist Revs Up The Power Of Microbial Fuel Cells In Unexpected WaysResearchers Look Beyond the Birth of the UniverseBiological motors sort molecules one by one on a chipLight's Most Exotic Trick Yet: So Fast it Goes ... Backwards?12-qubits reached in quantum information questOne Big Bang,...

Light is the solution. It's also the problem. That's the paradox HP Labs' Quantum Information Processing Group is beginning to unravel with its research into optical quantum computing. The group has been investigating ways to use photons, or light particles, for information processing, rather than the electrons used in digital electronic computers today. Their work holds promise for someday developing faster, more powerful and more secure computer networks. "Quantum processing can attack problems we can't attack with conventional computers," says Tim Spiller, the HP Distinguished Scientist who is leading the research. "Even a small quantum computer has the potential to...

Praised as the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, Ray Kurzweil was selected as one of "16 revolutionaries who made America," along with the great inventors of the past two centuries. Forbes magazine called him "the ultimate thinking machine" and The Wall Street Journal dubbed him "the restless genius." Kurzweil is in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, With 12 honorary doctorates and the world's largest prize for innovation - the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT award. Kurzweil, now 57, published what is arguably the most blogged-about book of 2005, a 640-page blockbuster: "The Singularity Is Near," a road map to "a unique...

Nanotechnology is officially on the road map. A handful of futuristic chip-making technologies at the atomic scale have been added to an industry planning effort that charts the future of the semiconductor manufacturing industry every two years. The transition to a post-silicon era is forecast in a report called the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, to be issued Saturday. The report, which is produced cooperatively by semiconductor industry associations from Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States, is used by the semiconductor industry as a planning tool to determine how best to spend research and development money for new...

By using electromagnetic waves instead of electrical current for switching, researchers have operated an optical modulator at terahertz frequencies – an accomplishment that could one day facilitate data transmission rates in the trillions of bits per second. The work represents a key step toward a new generation of optical communication systems that would be as much as 100 times faster than current technology, bringing closer such applications as real-time telemedicine and movies on demand. While operating their terahertz modulator, the research team observed an effect that is well known in atomic physics – but until now hadn’t been seen in...

Researchers at the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey have reported in the January 2006 issue of Nature Materials the first demonstration of negative resistance in amorphous semiconductors. Electronics based on amorphous materials is the key to large area low cost driver circuitry in flat panel displays, but their operating speed has been limited by the difficulty with which electrons move through disordered amorphous materials. Now, the observation of negative resistance offers the prospect of low-cost devices switching at Gigahertz rates, and opening up applications from large area display drivers to high-speed electronics for mobile communications. These devices...

Work on the world's first human-made species is well under way at a research complex in Rockville, Md., and scientists in Canada have been quietly conducting experiments to help bring such a creature to life. Robert Holt, head of sequencing for the Genome Science Centre at the University of British Columbia, is leading efforts at his Vancouver lab to play a key role in the production of the first synthetic life form -- a microbe made from scratch. The project is being spearheaded by U.S. scientist Craig Venter, who gained fame in his former job as head of Celera Genomics,...

Duke University scientists have used the self-assembling properties of DNA to mass-produce nanometer-scale structures in the shape of a 4x4 grids, on which patterns of molecules can be specified. They said the achievement represents a step toward mass-producing electronic or optical circuits at a scale 10 times smaller than the smallest circuits now being manufactured. Instead of using silicon as the platform for tiny circuits, as is done in the current manufacturing technique of photolithography, the Duke researchers used DNA strands to create grids less than one ten-millionth of a meter square. The smallest features on these square DNA lattices...

CLEVELAND -- A bill on Gov. Bob Taft's desk right now is drawing a lot of criticism, NewsChannel5 reported. One state representative said it resembles Gestapo-style tactics of government, and there could be changes coming on the streets of Ohio's small towns and big cities. The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if...

You may not have noticed, but the smallest revolution in world history is under way. Laboratories and factories have begun to make medical sensors and computer-chip components smaller than a single blood cell or the periods on this page. It's called nanotechnology. Our federal government is spending $1 billion on it this year, while corporations and investors worldwide have invested some $4 billion to date. The $13 billion in nanoproducts already on the market is expected to reach $2.6 trillion by 2014. In October, the National Cancer Institute awarded Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) a $20 million...

BLUE ASH, Ohio -- A DVD that retails for $21.99 could cost a local man more than $100,000, News 5's John London reported. Russell Lee is either a slick film pirate or an unwitting victim of someone who fits that description. Paramount, which distributes "Coach Carter," presents an unflattering picture of him, saying he not only obtained the movie illegally, but that he uploaded it to an online system called eDonkey so others could steal it, too. "I don't even know what they're talking about," Lee said. "I didn't do it." Paramount has looked at all four computers in Lee's...

Simple Proof that Nothing Can Move in Spacetime Why is motion in spacetime impossible? It has to do with the definitions of space and time and the equation of velocity v = dx/dt. What the equation is saying is that, if an object moves over any distance x, there is an elapsed time t. Since time is defined in physics as a parameter for denoting change (evolution), the equation for velocity along the time axis must be given as v = dt/dt which is self-referential. The self-reference comes from having to divide dt by itself. dt/dt always equals 1 because...

Summary : For the past several years, NASA has been encouraging scientists and engineers to think outside the box, to come up with ideas just this side of science fiction. One of the projects that received funding earlier this year was a collaboration between Dr. Penelope Boston and Dr. Steven Dubowsky to develop "hopping microbots" capable of exploring hazardous terrain, including underground caves. If you want to travel to distant stars, or find life on another world, it takes a bit of planning. That's why NASA has established NIAC, the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. For the past several years,...