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LE BOURGET, France (AFP) - The European Space Agency (ESA) on Tuesday called for applications for one of the most demanding human experiments in space history: a simulated trip to Mars in which six "astronauts" will spend 17 months in an isolation tank on Earth. Their spaceship will comprise a series of interlocked modules in an research institute in Moscow, and once the doors are closed tight, the volunteers will be cut off from all contact with the outside world except by a delayed radio link. They will face simulated emergencies, daily work routines and experiments, as well as boredom...

Without funding, lab space will be lostThe Seattle scientist who wants to test a controversial prediction from quantum theory that says light particles can go backward in time is, himself, running out of time. It's not a wormhole or warp in the space-time continuum. The problem is more mundane -- a black hole in the time-and-money continuum spawned by today's increasingly risk-averse, "performance-based" approach to funding research. "I guess you could say we're now living on borrowed time," wryly joked John Cramer, a physicist at the University of Washington. "All we need to keep going is maybe $20,000, but nobody...

Will masks stop bird flu? US students experiment 30 Jan 2007 23:24:53 GMT Source: Reuters By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Can wearing a face mask and regularly cleaning hands stop the spread of deadly bird flu? Students at the University of Michigan started a living experiment on Tuesday to find out. They are using the peak of influenza season to see if simple cotton masks and little bottles of hand sanitizer will protect them. Health experts fear the H5N1 avian influenza virus might mutate any moment and start a pandemic -- a global...

Expedition Six NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit performs a series of microgravity experiments with water spheres and effervescent antacid tablets. In the second of four videos, Pettit inserts a tablet into a 50-millimeter sphere and observes the fizzy results.

Source: Imperial College London Date: December 17, 2006 Preparing For The Biggest Experiment On Earth An international team of over 2,000 scientists, led by Professor Tejinder Virdee from Imperial College London's Department of Physics is stepping up preparations for the world's largest ever physics experiment, starting next year at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The enormous CMS particle detector is being assembled piece by piece under the supervision of Imperial's Professor Tejinder Virdee.Ads by Google Advertise on this site Professor Virdee is the lead scientist on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) particle detector experiment, which will aim to find new particles,...

<p>Last year, thousands of JetBlue Airways passengers became unwitting participants in a highly unusual test of pilot fatigue.</p> <p>Without seeking approval from Federal Aviation Administration headquarters, consultants for JetBlue outfitted a small number of pilots with devices to measure alertness. Operating on a green light from lower-level FAA officials, management assigned the crews to work longer shifts in the cockpit -- as many as 10 to 11 hours a day -- than the eight hours the government allows. Their hope: Showing that pilots could safely fly far longer without exhibiting ill effects from fatigue.</p>

WASHINGTON, May 19, 2006 – A recently completed international experiment successfully explored a "holistic" approach to dealing with conflict situations, the general who heads U.S. Joint Forces Command and serves as NATO's supreme allied commander for transformation, said today. "We have moved from thinking only about major combat operations to thinking about the entire spectrum of conflict," Air Force Gen. Lance Smith said via telephone from a senior leadership seminar in Brussels, Belgium. "The experiment delved in a lot of areas, but primarily looking at a stabilization and reconstruction." The general was speaking about Multinational Experiment 4, an international test...

SUFFOLK, Va., March 7, 2006 – While participants in an international experiment taking place here and at 10 sites around the world are looking at ways to improve future coalition operations, their findings are already being applied to coalition efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. Joint Forces Command officials explained today. About 800 participants from seven nations and NATO, many of them at the command's Joint Futures Lab here and others overseas, are midway through an experiment designed to promote interagency and intergovernmental cooperation. Multinational Experiment 4, which kicked off in February, is part of a series of international experiments...

Are children reared by two individuals of the same gender as well adjusted as children reared in families with a mother and a father? Until recently the unequivocal answer to this question was "no." Policymakers, social scientists, the media, and even physician organizations1, however, are now asserting that prohibitions on parenting by homosexual couples should be lifted. In making such far-reaching, generation-changing assertions, any responsible advocate would rely upon supporting evidence that is comprehensive and conclusive. Not only is this not the situation, but also there is sound evidence that children exposed to the homosexual lifestyle may be at increased...

(PORTSMOUTH, Va. - Dec. 28, 2005) -- Knowledge support in a coalition environment was among the discussion topics as a multinational team of experts making final preparations for Multinational Experiment 4 (MNE4) met during the event's final planning conference earlier this month. Scheduled for Feb. 20 - March 17, 2006, MNE4 will explore use of the full range of effects based operations (EBO) to influence the behavior of adversaries. While U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) from the United States is the overall lead for MNE4, coalition partners lead the specific concepts and processes being explored. The knowledge support (KS) cell...

This came to me today via email. I thought it was very interesting. (The text of the email follows.) A friend of mine was raising Wheat Grass and decided to try an experiment that anyone can duplicate with relative ease. She had three trays of Wheat Grass. Tray A: She prayed for and sang to and had nothing but good things to say about. Tray B: She spoke to in the same manner that her grandmother addressed her as a child. This amounted to incessant criticism, shame and blame. To make it even more realistic she had to curse the...

Soldiers shouldn't be guinea pigs Posted: April 12, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern Editor's note: Eilhys England contributed to this column. © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com The presidential commission looking into the cluelessness of U.S. intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq recently issued its report to banner headlines that should cause every member of the American military to take a long second look at the need for – not to mention the safety of – the big-bucks "emergency" anthrax vaccination program still being pushed by the Department Of Defense. Because the acknowledgment of this disastrous intelligence failure rips the guts right...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

WATER CRYSTALS Water? The Earth is largely made up of it. As are we. And yet about it we know significantly little. Until the groundbreaking work of a pioneer Japanese researcher whose astonishing discovery about water, documented photographically, changed most of what we didn't know?and led to a new consciousness of Earth's most precious resource. Dr. Masaru Emoto was born in Japan and is a graduate of the Yokohama Municipal University and the Open International University as a Doctor of Alternative Medicine. His photographs were first featured in his self-published books Messages from Water 1 and 2. The Hidden Messages...

WASHINGTON -- Mark Ammend of Collierville can't talk about it now. The former fire chief for the 164th Air National Guard unit based at Memphis International Airport got vaccinated against anthrax five years ago. Now, as he lies in a specially designed bed, the only thing he can move is his left eye. Fully conscious and aware, Ammend, 55, is a quadriplegic with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease. A new book suggests he and many other soldiers immunized against anthrax during the 1991 Gulf War and since are suffering auto-immune diseases after receiving an illegal chemical adjuvant...

S Korea in 'rogue' nuclear trials South Korean scientists have engaged in secret experiments to enrich nuclear fuel, in violation of international nuclear commitments. The BBC has been told the government revealed the violation to the International Atomic Energy Agency last week, but denied official involvement. The discovery could lead to calls for South Korea to be referred to the UN Security Council, like North Korea. The North openly claims to be building nuclear weapons. The finding is likely to cause deep embarrassment to the South Korean Government, and also the United States, which regards Seoul as a close ally...

/begin my translation Iranian Experts in N. Korea to Conduct Joint Nuke Experiments N. Korea is reported to be making preparations for joint experiments with Iran with the purpose of nuke development, including high explosive detonators, a reliable military source on N. Korea spelled out on June 14(, 2004.) In G8 Summit at Sea Island not long ago, serious concern was raised on nuclear development in both countries(N. Korea, Iran.) If joint experiments go forward, international community is expected to escalate its opposition to the development further. According to the source, 6-man Iranian delegation went into N. Korea in May....

BOSTON (AP) - For years, futurists have dreamed of machines that can read minds, then act on instructions as they are thought. Now, human trials are set to begin on a brain-computer interface involving implants. Cyberkinetics Inc. of Foxboro, Mass., has received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients. If successful, the chips could allow patients to command a computer to act - merely by thinking about the instructions they wish to send. It's a small, early step in a mission to improve the...

A physics professor will try to turn back time in an experiment at the Miami Museum of Science. It's back to the future all over again -- at least, that's what Carlos Dolz has in mind. The Florida International University physics professor plans to take time to task at 10 a.m. Wednesday, when he presents an experiment that involves using acceleration to speed up a digital clock by four seconds. Dolz's experiment -- which takes six hours to finish -- will become part of Playing With Time, the current exhibit at the Miami Museum of Science. Dolz, who has been...

When Holly McGuire begged to be taken home, C4's reality TV show seemed doomed - but then she learnt her lesson. It appeared to be a TV experiment too far. Reality television seemed finally to have overstepped the mark last week, after a programme taking 30 teenagers back to life in a 1950s boarding school drove one girl to break down in front of the cameras. Holly McGuire burst into tears and begged her mother to take her home on Channel 4's controversial series, That'll Teach 'Em, after being shouted at by the matron when she complained of a stomach...