You have GOT to be kidding me!
Science
Futuristic Imaginings
Awhile back, I wrote a post related to living on Mars. Today I came across an article promoting a book entitled,
“The Next 500 Years: Engineering Humanity for Life After Earth.”
I have no plans to purchase the book, but I did read the article … and thought some of my blog visitors might find it interesting.
Here’s the lead-in:
HUMANITY’s long-term prospects are weak, at best. If we don’t all kill each other with nuclear weapons, a planet-killing asteroid can’t be too far off. And anyway, the sun itself will (eventually) expand, obliterating all traces of life in our system. Let’s not even get started on pandemics.
As if awareness of our own mortality hasn’t given us enough to fret about, we are also capable of imagining our own species’ extinction. Once we do that, though, are we not ethically bound to do something about it?
Apparently this fellow thinks in the far distant future we will have the ways and means to carve out our place somewhere in the universe.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
One thing’s for sure — his outlook for such a venture is most definitely ambitious!
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Image by Mk_al from Pixabay
Fish Like Drugs Too
I would never have considered such a thing until I read this article:
Fish are Becoming Addicted to Methamphetamines
I wonder what happens to the person who eats one these “drugged” fish??
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Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Other-Worldly? Or … ?
No doubt many of you have read about the recent and “much-awaited” preliminary report on the government’s assessment of UFO phenomena.
According to this article, “The report finds that an overwhelming majority of more than 120 sightings in the past 20 years did not come from any U.S. military or other government technology.”
So the next question automatically becomes: Where did they come from?
Some have promoted the theory that they are super-advanced foreign military craft. Others have commented that the phenomena may be “alien” spacecraft — not necessarily “extraterrestrial” but rather “experimental technology” developed by other countries.
Both of these scenarios are naturally a chief concern for the United States because if hostile countries are involved, that would threaten the world’s largest military power.
Of course there are untold numbers who insist the objects are most certainly and definitely “otherworldly.”
From my personal perspective, I tend to agree with Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine. Michael is a science historian and a longtime analyst of UFO theories and other phenomena – and he points out the blurry and hazy element to the sightings. He notes that several billion people have smartphones that take crisp, clear images, not to mention satellites that can precisely render detail on the ground.
He then puts forth this challenge: “Show me the body, show me the spacecraft, or show me the really high quality videos and photographs … and I’ll believe.”
I admit that when I was considerably younger, I fancied the idea of visitors from other parts of the universe. Looking back, I’m sure it had a lot to do with my love of sci-fi movies. In fact, one of my favorites was “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (the 1951 version), in which an alien lands and tells the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets. (Actually, the warning in the movie is not so far-fetched even today.)
However, as I matured, I began to see things differently. Based on my current perspective, there are simply too many rational thinking hurdles to overcome for me to accept the idea of extraterrestrial visitors.
Yet … stranger things have happened.
What’s your take? Will these blurry images that move and shift and disappear in the blink of an eye be explained in the final governmental report? Or will they remain in the UFO file with a “to-be-determined-later” notation?
P.S. Further reading on this topic can be found here.
Time
I just read something that prompted this post …
“Why time only moves forward is one of the great mysteries of physics.”
The thought that immediately entered my mind was … Does time really “move”?
Or is time simply a mechanism that allows humans to gauge events occurring during their earthly existence?
Obviously, I’m no physicist, so in the world of Things-I-Know-Nothing-About, I’m sure there is a reasonable and studied answer to my question.
However, in the absence of such learned individuals … what do YOU think? If we didn’t have “clocks,” would we be aware of Time?
You can read more on the passing of time here.
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Image by Susann Mielke from Pixabay
(Why do I think we’re going to hear from tildeb on this? 😄)
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