The Bionic Era Arrives

NBC's new Bionic Woman series (2007).

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him.  We have the technology.  An entire generation grew up with that opening line to the 1973-1978 TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man.  The series was based on Martin Caidin's 1970s' series of novels, starting with Cyborg (1972).  Caidin died in 1997, before the bionic era he popularized would come to pass.

Caidin's Cyborg (1972).

 NBC's new Bionic Woman series (2007)

Unabomber Copycat Targets Nanotechnologists

A police officer stands guard after a mail bomb injured two professors at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, near Mexico City. Image © (2011) Arnulfo Franco, AP Images.

Following from my earlier post about the Unabomber's one-man assault on the Technological Revolution, the Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that a copycat letterbomb killer is stalking the exclusive and secretive research halls of Nanotechnology.  People working in Nanotech facilities across North America are very alarmed. 

We're Going to Mars

Image Source: I09.

As one era of space exploration ended with the retirement of the Space Shuttles, so a new one begins.  NASA is saving face following the end of the Shuttle program with a flurry of bright announcements.  I09 is reporting on NASA's press release yesterday about a giant rocket they are building - the largest in all of human history.  This is the launch vehicle that will take us to Mars:

Say hello to NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) — it's about to become the largest, most powerful space rocket we've ever built. The Agency announced a design for the rocket earlier today, saying it will be a "safe, affordable and sustainable means of reaching beyond our current limits and opening up new discoveries from the unique vantage point of space." Buckle up, everybody — we're going to Mars.

The crew capsule is the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle - also just announced.  See the bottom right of my blog page for a selection of NASA's main headlines.  See below the jump for the promotional videos.

Open the pod bay doors, please Hal. Will there be leaps in Artificial Intelligence to accompany our reach for the stars?  The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. Image Source: NASA.

Genuine Cryptid Found: The White Cheetah

Image Source: I09.

I09 kicked off the summer of 2011 by offering a $2,000 bounty to anyone who could send them real evidence of a real mystery animal, or cryptid.  And they have found one!  The White Cheetah, a legend since the mid-17th century.  See the report here.  One runner-up was a horrifying 3-foot long rat found in New York City, see here.  And the best faker?  A photoshopped bat-dog, here.

Blue Stonehenge

The super blog, Unsolved Mysteries of the World, recently did a great piece on a circle of blue standing stones near Stonehenge which was discovered in 2008.  The monument was erected 5,000 years ago and is another piece of the Stonehenge puzzle.  Have a look at the post with more details, here.

King Arthur's Round Table Possibly Discovered

The King's Knot at Stirling Castle. Image © Patrick Taylor. Image Source: Red Ice Creations.

It looks like legends that King Arthur met with his knights near Stirling Castle may be true.  The Telegraph recently reported that archaeologists may have confirmed that the King's Knot near the Castle may be the site of the Round Table:

The King's Knot, a geometrical earthwork in the former royal gardens below Stirling Castle, has been shrouded in mystery for hundreds of years. Though the Knot as it appears today dates from the 1620s, its flat-topped central mound is thought to be much older. Writers going back more than six centuries have linked the landmark to the legend of King Arthur. Archaeologists from Glasgow University, working with the Stirling Local History Society and Stirling Field and Archaeological Society, conducted the first ever non-invasive survey of the site in May and June in a bid to uncover some of its secrets. Their findings were show there was indeed a round feature on the site that pre-dates the visible earthworks.

Historian John Harrison, chair of the SLHS, who initiated the project, said: "Archaeologists using remote-sensing geophysics, have located remains of a circular ditch and other earth works beneath the King's Knot.

"The finds show that the present mound was created on an older site and throws new light on a tradition that King Arthur's Round Table was located in this vicinity." Stories have been told about the curious geometrical mound for hundreds of years -- including that it was the Round Table where King Arthur gathered his knights.

Around 1375 the Scots poet John Barbour said that "the round table" was south of Stirling Castle, and in 1478 William of Worcester told how "King Arthur kept the Round Table at Stirling Castle". 

Perhaps it's significant that we are finding the Round Table now.  It is one of the original symbols of English culture, and whether real or merely a symbol, it marked a turning point.

Millennia of Male Gods

Temple of Athena, Greece. Image Source: Guild of Sommeliers.

The anniversary of 9/11 yesterday got me thinking about how we live in a world of male gods. If you are a man, it is easy to be completely oblivious to the sweatlodge mentality that has dominated the concept of divinity over the past 2,000 years. This is not a post about warlike men and peaceful women. Nor is this a call for hand-holding and harvest goddess votives. This is merely a contemplation on what happened to our spiritual worlds, starting with the Ancient Greeks and ending now.

The Website that really made me think about the masculinizing of religions was the excellent blog, An Inner Journey, the Moon, Mythology, and You. Every day, that blog offers a profile of a different goddess. There are thousands of them from all of human history that millions of people once worshipped for thousands upon thousands of years. Where did these female gods go? And is the world really a better place with no serious, mainstream, respected religion that includes an all-powerful female deity?

Anniversaries: Lest We Forget September 11

I can think of several events in recent history where the world was not the same before as it was after the event.  Of the ones that come most quickly to mind, I wish most had never, ever, ever - ever happened.  The 11 September 2001 attacks are at the top of that list of terrible watersheds.  The 21st century could not have had a darker debut.