Time Travel May Soon be Possible

Stephen Hawking, after making a powerful claim mere days ago that aliens likely exist elsewhere in the universe and adding himself to the legion of respected scientists who have said the same has now made another, possibly even more startling claim.  Hawking has now gone on record as saying he believes time travel may one day be possible.

Hawking made his theory public in the latest installment of a series of documentaries he is making on the Discovery Channel entitled "Stephen Hawking's Universe."  The world renowned scientist and mathematician says that the science is finally coming together to build a strong case for time travel to be possible one day.  And many who are well read in the field of astrophysics are chiming in to support his claim.  The British theoretical physicist, and winner of the 2009 presidential medal of freedom (the highest civilian award possible in the United States) certainly has enough credentials to make even the staunchest of skeptics take notice.

Hawking suggests that as technology progresses, we will eventually build ships capable of traveling incredible speeds.  As these speeds approach the speed of light, travel on vessels will be altered greatly.  One day on a star-ship traveling close to the speed of light would be more than a year's worth of Earth time.  Of course this theory of time travel comes with a very large asterisk, since one would only be able to propel themselves forward in time.  Hawking suggests that time travel in the opposite direction would be impossible, as it would violate the fundamental rule that cause comes before effect.  Hawking believes that this theory of time travel would be impossible, as it would create paradoxes.  For example, if someone traveled back in time to their point of origin and told the inventor of the spacecraft (or time machine) to not invent the device, then the trip would have been impossible.  And yet the invention of the device wouldn't have been stopped unless the time traveler had traveled back in time in the first place.  In addition, the exact memories of the person traveling through time would have to be exactly those that ultimately resulted in them time traveling or there would be yet another opportunity for paradox.  And every single atom in the universe would have to remain constant or even the slightest deviation would be inconsistent with the original time line.

"It would take six years at full power just to reach these speeds," Hawking said, referring to achieving something that approached light speed.  After two years at full thrust a vessel would reach 90 percent the speed of light, and after two more years it would achieve 98 percent.  Hawking suggests that while traveling at 98 percent the speed of light, a crew could reach the edge of the galaxy in 80 years.  When asked why he never spoke on the subject sooner, Hawking revealed that he was conservative with his views for so long for fear of being labeled a crank.  He then said jokingly that he was much less cautious now.  It's hard to be labeled a crank when the science is backing up your theories.

Experts rediscover plant presumed extinct for 60 years

In a small, noisy laboratory, tucked away in London's Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, a tiny plant is growing.

It looks just like a very small parsley bush, but it is actually a very special little plant indeed.

Clean air has to be constantly circulated in the lab to protect it from any bacteria.

This precious specimen is the Anogramma ascensionis fern, commonly known as the parsley fern. Since the 1950s, botanists believed it to be extinct.

It is native to Ascension - an island in the South Atlantic, which is one of Britain's overseas territories. And a small project supported by Kew's overseas territories programme has rediscovered and rescued it - a timely success story, as this year has been dubbed International Year of Biodiversity.

Kew botanist Phil Lamden and local conservation officer Stedson Stroud found the plucky little plant clinging to a precarious existence on a mountainside in the harsh volcanic landscape.

"We were down the back of Ascension's Green Mountain, which has very, very steep slopes. You have to be really careful because if you slip you're a goner," Mr Stroud recalled.

"And we came across this beautiful little fern and immediately knew it was the lost Anogramma that had been extinct for the last 60 years."

Ascension is covered by bleak, forbidding lava flows, and only 10 plant species are known to be truly "endemic" - found nowhere else in the world.

According to Kew scientists, goats that were released on to Ascension by Portuguese explorers in the 1500s, ate their way voraciously through the island's greenery for 350 years before any of the flora was even described to science.

The introduction of more invasive herbivores - rabbits, sheep, rats and donkeys, together with over 200 species of invasive plants, further squeezed out the island's original plant inhabitants. The rediscovery of Anogramma boosts to seven the number of surviving endemic plant species on the island.

Mr Stroud said that, in the excitement, both of the researchers "forgot where they were".

"We were scrambling around, looking to see if there were more, and then we realised, we should really have safety ropes and stuff around us," he said.

24-hour rescue

There were more plants - four in total. But as far as the researchers knew, these were all that remained of Anogramma. So with the help of his colleague, Olivia Renshaw, Mr Stroud mounted a rather perilous effort to protect them.

"We had to keep the plants alive - they were on a bare rock face and it was a really dry period, so Olivia and I went down twice a week carrying water and we set up a drip feed," said Stedson.

After a few weeks of tending the plants, the next part of their plan was even more risky. They had to get pieces of the ferns back to Kew so that more plants could be grown in the safety and sterility of the lab.

Stedson climbed down the ridge one again - this time to collect a few small cuttings of the spore-forming or reproductive parts of the plants.

Once harvested, the spores were vulnerable to drying and contamination, and the team had just 24 hours to transfer the precious cargo to the laboratory in Kew's Conservation Biotechnology Unit (CBU).

The samples were placed in a sterile container and rushed to the nearby airfield. From there, they were flown to a military airport in the UK, where a car was waiting to race them to Kew. Fortunately, the dust-like fern spores survived the journey intact.

Dr Viswambharan Sarasan is head of the CBU. He explained that their arrival was not the end of the challenge.

The spores had to be bleached to eliminate any bacteria, before the plants could be grown in culture.

"That is the really risky part," he said. "If you bleach them for too long, you could kill the spores, but if you don't treat them for long enough, there could be remaining bacteria that will grow in culture and kill them."

And Dr Sarasan had only a one-pence-piece-sized clipping of fern to work with - the smallest sample he had ever cultured from.

After another nervous period of waiting, he was relieved to discover that the process had left the spores intact and viable.

He and his colleague Katie Baker, a botany undergraduate student working at Kew, have now succeeded in growing 60 new Anogramma plants in culture - all from four tiny plants on a cliff face in Ascension.

The team hope eventually to restore Anogramma to its former wild habitats on Ascension's Green Mountain.

And Mr Stroud has even managed to grow some of the plants in a shade house on the island itself.

"Each and every day, you're there, tending and looking, and hoping that something will happen," he said.

"Then one day you see something and - watching the plants grow - you can't ask for anything more."

Colin Clubbe, who leads the UK overseas territories programme at Kew, says that this rescue effort was a small but vital part of a much wider goal to protect native plants in Britain's overseas territories before they are lost forever.

Plants are such an important component of our lives," he said. "And if we lose them, we lose them - extinction is forever.

He says that "holding on to our natural environment" could help us protect many of the plants we depend on.

"We do exploit species - we're reliant on plant products. We use them as a source of genes and, in these extremely dry habitats, like Ascension, plants that are naturally adapted may hold some answers to things like plants' responses to climate change."

This is actually the third extinct plant that Mr Stroud has rediscovered and, for him, it is an ongoing and very personal mission.

"There's never a time that I'm not actually looking fort these species because, we say they're extinct, but I believe they are there," he said.

"It's so satisfying, bringing a plant back from the brink of extinction."

Robot-inflicted injuries studied

With robots becoming more technically advanced and more feasible around the house, a future where robots help with the housework, cleaning, chopping vegetables, and tucking children in at night may become a reality sooner than we had previously anticipated.  But as with any new technological device, there is a possibility for human error and machine malfunction.  One research team in Germany is hoping to study just that.

The experiment was simple: a robotic arm holding several blades and sharp tools was programmed to cut through substances that were soft and fleshy.  Vegetables, hot dogs, and human flesh were all possible targets.  Of course for the purpose of the experiment the human flesh was substituted for a simple silicon lump.  The robot used screwdrivers, steak knives, kitchen knives, cleavers, scissors, and a screwdriver.  The results of the experiment, aside from building a terrifying bladed killbot were clear.  Without the proper programming, and fail-safe mechanisms, a robot could easily cause accidental injury or death to a human being by accident.  The experiment also included a prototype safety system designed to reduce the lethality and the amount of damage done by the robot.

The later experiments used the same silicone lump, but added a pork loin and the arm of a live human volunteer.  The researchers concluded that a safety system on robots would have to be mandatory if they were going to be performing kitchen duties such as chopping, stabbing, and/or tenderizing.  The robot with the safety mechanism was significantly less deadly.  The researchers patted themselves on the back as their specially designed kill-bot failed to create injuries quite as bad after their safety switch caused the robot to "realize" when it was cutting, or about to cut something it wasn't supposed to.  Torque sensors within the robot would study the type of substance being hit, and immediately cut power and pull back on a strike when a different substance was detected.  It is the same sort of safety mechanism used to prevent large robots from crushing people when moving quickly down a hallway or road.

Researchers are hopeful that the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation will be even better than that held in 2010 of this year in Alaska.  With new technology, motion tracking, data gathering, and limb control, it seems there is nowhere in the field of robotics to go than forward.  But will robots one day become a real and dangerous part of our own homes?  Will reprogrammable robots one day be rigged to guard houses in addition to helping to cook and clean?  And how long until the first murder is assisted with the use of a machine?  One can only imagine the horrifying prospect of a 911 call being played over the news in which a machine has clearly gone rogue and is now chasing the occupants of the house it once served.  Is this reason enough to forsake a future with household robots?  As we embrace new technologies we realize it is a double edged sword.

Largest gold coin sold at $4 mn in Austria

The world's largest gold coin, weighing 100 kg with a diameter of 52 cm, was sold for 3.27 million euros (about $3.99 million) at an auction in Vienna.


Spanish dealer Oro Direct offered the price and became the owner, Xinhua reported.

Six bidders were registered for the auction. Oro Direct offered the bid in a written form, while the other five applicants participated through telephone.

The coin was originally owned by Auer von Welsbah (AvW), an Austrian investment management company, which went bankrupt in May 2010.

The coin which was minted in 2007 in Canada with purest and finest gold (99.999 percent) has been listed in the Guinness book of world records.

It bears the largest official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in solid gold. Three maple leaves, the national symbol of Canada, were minted on the back of the coin.

Mars' entire surface was shaped by water

The whole of Mars' surface was shaped by liquid water around four billion years ago, say scientists.


Signs of liquid water had been seen on southern Mars, but the latest findings reveal similar signals in craters in the north of the Red Planet.

The team made their discovery by examining data from instruments on board Europe's Mars Express and Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

They report the findings in the latest issue of the journal Science.

John Carter, of the University of Paris, led the team of France- and US-based scientists.

"Until now, we had no idea what half Mars was made of in terms of mineral composition".

"Now, with the Esa and Nasa probes, we have been able to get a mixture of images and spectral information about the composition of the rock."

He explained that these instruments had revealed clay-type minerals called phyllosilicates - "the stuff you would find in mud and in river beds."

"It's not the species of mineral itself that's important," said Dr Carter, "it's more the fact that the minerals contain water.

"This enhances the picture of liquid water on Mars."

Liquid rock

Previously, researchers have seen similar signs of water in the highlands of southern Mars in rocks that are up to four billion years old. But in the northern part of the planet, more recently formed rocks have buried the older geology.

The prevailing theory for why this is, is that a giant object slammed into northern Mars, turning nearly half of the planet's surface into the Solar System's largest impact crater.

Dr Carter explained that this meant a thick veneer of younger rock covered the older geology, "so the craters are the only way of accessing the older stuff".

But the craters are relatively small and more difficult for the orbiting probes to take measurements from.

"There's also ice and dust coverage in the north of the planet, making it harder to get signals from these craters," said Dr Carter.

The new findings suggest that at least part of the wet period on Mars, that could have been favourable to life, extended into the time between that giant impact and when volcanic and other rocks formed an overlying mantle.

This indicates that, 4.2 billion years ago, the planet was probably altered by liquid water on a global scale.

But Dr Carter said that the findings did not paint a picture of huge Martian oceans.

"It was probably a very dry place," he said. "But we're seeing signals of what were once river beds, small seas and lakes."

The Girl Who Never Ages

A young girl is under the scrutiny of scientists who say she may be one of the most important finds in the often sought fountain of youth.  The girl has been alive for seventeen years, but still looks and behaves like a one-year-old child.  She weighs 16 lbs and is only 30 inches in height.  Most people who see her say Brooke Greenberg is only a toddler.  But Brooke Greenberg is almost old enough to vote.  Scientists say the child is suffering from a rare genetic mutation.  And if scientists map her genome as they are hoping to do, they may find out why.

Brooke, age 17

When many scientists look at Brooke Greenburg, they see an opportunity to discover why we age.  When her mother sees her, she sees the girl who will never grow up - literally.  Researchers at the University of South Florida School of Medicine, led by Richard Walker, have suggested that the girl's rare condition is an opportunity for the team to study something that they have been attempting to uncover for years: why we age.  There are several theories, but the actual mechanics behind the aging process are often unclear or misleading.  "If we can compare her genome," Walker says, "to the normal version then we might be able to find those genes and see exactly what the do and how to control them."

Age is a matter that all humans have to come to terms with at some point in their lives.  We are born, we reach a peak age, and then we begin gradually to deteriorate before we die.  But what about a world where we didn't age?  That's the question several scientists are proposing.  If genes could be studied accurately, then not only could the aging process potentially be halted, there are some who suggest it could even be (in some ways) reversed.  Of course this field of research is still new, and there are a thousand different avenues of research that could help the whole world.

Meanwhile, life for Melanie and Howard Greenberg goes on in the suburb where they live.  It's a struggle as they continue to help Brooke through her life as an eternal toddler, changing her, rocking her to sleep, and attempting to teach her to speak.  Brooke crawls, smiles, and giggles when tickled, but has not yet mastered the art of speech.  In addition, she has suffered several potentially deadly illnesses and conditions.  But the girl who may hold the future in her genes is not without hope.  As research into her condition continues she may not only help others, but herself as well.  Scientists have already discovered that parts of her body are aging, just at different speeds.  Those researching her case have suggested that it's likely that her genes have been damaged in such a way that it makes it difficult for her body to coordinate the rate at which her body develops.  Scientists suggest if they could only figure out which gene, they could switch it on and off at will.  And maybe switching it on in Brooke would help her develop into an adult.  Would it be possible to then stop aging for the rest of us?

Apple patent case 'could affect all android phones'

Apple's legal action against HTC may have "wider implications" for all phone makers using Google's Android operating system, an analyst has warned.

Ian Fogg of Forrester Research said that the case against HTC, in which Apple alleges infringement of 20 of its patents, could be the first of many.

Although Apple has not named Google in the suits, many of the named patents relate to operating system processes.

Google has taken the unusual step of publicly supporting HTC in the case.

"We are not a party to this lawsuit," said a Google spokesperson.

"However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it."

Wider implications

HTC was the first manufacturer to use Android in its phones and is also the maker of Google's own brand Nexus One handset.

Some have speculated that Apple - which makes the popular iPhone - are attacking Google "by proxy" by filing the case against HTC.

"I think this is kind of an indirect lawsuit against Google," analyst Shaw Wu of Kaufman Brothers told Reuters.

Some of the patents that Apple alleges have been infringed are 15 years old and cover aspects of operating systems.

As a result, some believe that the patents cannot just relate to HTC and believe the case may just be an opening salvo against other firms and possibly Google.

"Simply because Apple has focused on HTC now doesn't mean it won't take action against other manufacturers later," Mr Fogg told BBC News.

"[This case] could have implications for all other phone manufacturers which have just announced their phones at Mobile World Congress."

Mobile World Congress is a showcase for the phone industry, held every February in Barcelona, Spain.

Manufacturers including Sony Ericsson, LG, Samsung and HTC announced new handsets running Android at the show.

"2010 is going to be the year of Android," said Mr Fogg.

Legal web

In a statement Apple boss Steve Jobs said: "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it.

"We've decided to do something about it."

The Californian firm alleges that HTC have infringed 20 patents owned by Apple that are used in the iPhone.

Apple is seeking an injunction which would effectively bar HTC from selling phones that use the disputed technology in the US.

The legal action has been filed with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and a district court in Delaware.

HTC has said it is unable to comment on the case until it has had a chance to assess the validity of the claims.

It is the latest in a series of legal wrangles involving Apple.

Finnish phone giant Nokia sued Apple for patent infringement in October 2009, alleging it had stolen patented technology.

In response, Apple countersued in December 2009, followed by a second round of legal action from Nokia.

Apple is also being investigated by the ITC following a complaint by camera manufacturer Kodak. The firm alleges that the iPhone uses technology for previewing pictures that infringe Kodak patents.