Conversations between astronauts aboard the International Space Station and flight controllers on the ground now are available for the public to hear live, 24 hours a day, seven days a week on NASA's Web site. The streaming audio of space-to-ground communications includes NASA commentary during specific station mission events and regularly scheduled space station commentary on NASA Television Monday through Friday at 10 a.m. Central time. NASA already provides this space-to-ground communication with commentary during space shuttle missions. The streaming station and shuttle mission audio is available on the following NASA sites: - Under the NASA TV (Live) tab at: http://www.nasa.gov- Under the left navigation at: http://www.nasa.gov/station and http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle- In the list of channels at: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
Viral Marketing or Hogwash? You decide...
Listerine mouth wash is being touted as the latest weapon in the war to repel that most pesky of insects, the blood-sucking mosquito.
...there is a bumper crop of the varmints and the threat of West Nile is still strong, say local naturalist Terry Sprague and health officials...
People being bugged has led to Listerine, which some swear by and have used on his hikes, Sprague said, although where the idea of using mouth wash to repel mosquitoes came from is not clear.
"You spray it on your person," he said. "I am not sure what the active ingredient is."
However, Listerine does contain some eucalyptus, which is an evergreen tree, and the herb thyme, two proven mosquito repellers, Sprague said. (more)
Climate change may be predicted by fish who "eavesdrop" their way to healthy food sources using chemical cues given off by ocean organisms. This research, conducted by the University of North Carolina Wilmington assistant professor Sean Lema and collaborators, was published in the March edition of the journal Science in the article "Dimethylsulfoniopropionate as a Foraging Cue for Reef Fishes." (more)
There's something kinky going on in the world of Barbary macaques. Researchers have found the males eavesdrop on their mates having sex in order to make sure they don't miss out on the fun... (more)
The agency that the Pentagon set up to turn outlandish sci-fi concepts into reality has come closer to creating an army -- or air force -- of cybugs: cyber-moths and beetles that can spy on the enemy.
Inspired by Thomas Easton's 1990 novel, Sparrowhawk, in which animals enlarged by genetic engineering were fitted with implanted control systems, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) set out to insert microsystems into living insects as they undergo metamorphosis.
The plan is that their organs will grow around the chips and wires that make up the remote-control devices. (more)
Mind-reading with a brain scan
Scientists have developed a way of ‘decoding’ someone’s brain activity to determine what they are looking at.“The problem is analogous to the classic ‘pick a card, any card’ magic trick,” says Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California in Berkeley, who led the study. But while a magician uses a ploy to pretend to ‘read the mind’ of the subject staring at a card, now researchers can do it for real using brain-scanning instruments. “When the deck of cards, or photographs, has about 120 images, we can do better than 90% correct,” says Gallant. (more)
A radio antenna made of electrified gas could lead to stealthy, jamming-resistant transmitters, research now reveals.Electrified gas, or plasma, makes up stars and lightning and is what sheds light in fluorescent bulbs. Sealed glass, ceramic or even flexible plastic tubes of plasma can behave just like conventional metal antennas.These antennas only work when energized, effectively vanishing when turned off, with the plasma reverting back to normal gas. This is key for stealth on the battlefield—metal antennas can scatter incoming radar signals, giving away their presence.In addition, to counteract jamming attempts, plasma antennas can rapidly adjust which frequencies they broadcast and pick up by changing how much energy the plasma is given. (more)
The Galapagos Marine Iguana is mute, it recognizes and utilizes the alarm call of the Galapagos Mockingbird. This is the first instance of a non-vocal species eavesdropping on another species’ calls. Both the iguana and mockingbird fall prey to the Galapagos hawk, so by recognizing the mockingbird’s warning the iguanas gain important information on avoiding predation. (more)
Being sensitive to clues in your environment can save you, too.
If you feel a funny vibration when you step on your car's brakes, trust your instincts. Inspect. Car vibrations never get better by themselves. They only get worse.
If you have the funny feeling you are being eavesdropped upon, trust your instincts. Inspect. The thought would not have occurred to you if everything were fine.
(Your inspection station.)
Like previous rumors of psychic espionage programs operated by CIA, NSA, DIA, USAF, and the Navy, at a time when those programs were classified SECRET, word is getting out of a next generation effort. ...
"Spookytechnology" refers to real-world applications, under development right now, that utilize the weird aspects of quantum mechanics for next-generation 21st Century technologies. These include quantum computers, machines that in the words of Oxford's Dr. David Deutsch, compute using matter in other universes, to circuits built on quantum teleportation, with sights set on a next generation Internet using quantum encryption schemes that cannot be broken by ordinary physics.
Dr. Anthony Valentini has proposed using an explanation of the quantum known as pilot-wave theory. The pilot-wave appears as the guiding ghost-in-the-machine of Quantum Mechanics. Valentini has shown that the statistics of ordinary quantum mechanics might be violated by special non-quantum matter, which would have very strange properties indeed. The non-quantum matter could be used (presumably by someone like the NSA) to eavesdrop on theoretically unbreakable quantum secured communications.
Dr. Jack Sarfatti ... has gone even further than Valentini, by proposing that consciousness operates like Valentini's non-quantum matter, allowing for signals to be exchanged between different minds, "beyond space and time." ... Sarfatti suggests that this dance of the mind, body and spirit allows for the mind-to-mind communication reported by the psychic spy community. (more)
Pets let loose when owners are out!Ever wonder what your pets do when they are home alone?
Jamie Skeate did more than just wonder. The 27-year-old from St. Cloud, Minn., and her husband videotaped her dogs, Bosco, a Great Dane, and Lily, a greyhound."Sometimes we would come home and their toys would be all over the house, and my husband and I would joke that it looked like they had had a party," she says. (more)
Deric Bownd pointed us to an excellent article on why spying is an innate urge in humans, and animals.
The power of a pair of eyes is strong. Eyes - even ones carved in wood or drawn on paper - can force subtle changes in behavior. This is why totem poles and Nazar Boncuk's work. Hiding eyes can also provide a feeling of protection; the primary purpose of masks and often the primary purpose of sunglasses. Fascinating, as eyes often are. (more)
Iran - According to IRNA, the official Islamic Republic news agency, the national Police chief has implicitly verified the news about the confiscation of a number of squirrels, equipped with eavesdropping devices, on the Iranian borders.
He has declined to give any more details, but, reportedly, when asked about the confiscation of 14 spy squirrels, he stated, “I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information”. IRNA adds, “These squirrels were equipped by foreign intelligence services, but were captured two weeks ago by the Police”.
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"I tried searching the IRNA site (in English) and wasn’t able to find any articles on “spy squirrels.”
Kamangir: IRNA, and other news sources, do not translate all their news in English. I assure you that I have given a proper translation of the Persian source. Unfortunately, Google does not provide English-Persian translation, yet. (more) (video)
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& His Friends
Iran has arrested 20 people - including some foreigners - near the border with Iraq and accused them of belonging to a spy network, the state-run news agency reported Monday.
The IRNA news agency did not provide the nationalities of the foreigners. Iran last month claimed to have uncovered spy rings organized by the United States and its Western allies.
IRNA, quoting the head of the intelligence department in the Kerman Shah province, said the 20 were trained by intelligence services "of the enemy" for economic, military, political, cultural and social purposes. (more)
At some point in the not-too-distant future, a moth may take flight in the hills of northern Pakistan, and flap towards a suspected terrorist training camp.
But this will be no ordinary moth.
Inside it will be a computer chip that was implanted when the creature was still a pupa, in the cocoon, meaning that the moth's entire nervous system can be controlled remotely. The moth will thus be capable of landing in the camp without arousing suspicion, all the while beaming video and other information back to its masters via what its developers refer to as a "reliable tissue-machine interface."
The creation of insects whose flesh grows around computer parts — known from science fiction as cyborgs — has been described as one of the most ambitious robotics projects ever conceived by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Defense. (more)
Astronomers have proposed an improved method of searching for intelligent extraterrestrial life using instruments like one now under construction in Australia. The Low Frequency Demonstrator (LFD) of the Mileura Wide-Field Array (MWA), a facility for radio astronomy, theoretically could detect Earth-like civilizations around any of the 1,000 nearest stars.
The Mileura Wide-Field Array will be able to "eavesdrop" for unintentional signals from any such worlds within 30 light-years of Earth.
"Soon, we may be eavesdropping on signals from Galactic civilizations," says theorist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "This is the first time in history that humans will be capable of finding a civilization like ours among the stars." Loeb will present his findings on Wednesday, January 10, in a press conference at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Wash. (more)
The paper describing these findings has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics and is available online.
Conversations between astronauts aboard the International Space Station and flight controllers on the ground now are available for the public to hear live, 24 hours a day, seven days a week on NASA's Web site. 
