Surf's Up! and it's bringing in an new GUT!

Shaun Saunders sends in this article from the Uk's Telegraph online

The headline reads:
Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything!

An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists. Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder. Despite this unusual career path, his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics. Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles. Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, describes Lisi's work as "fabulous". "It is one of the most compelling unification models I've seen in many, many years," he says. The new theory reported today in New Scientist has been laid out in an online paper entitled "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" by Lisi, who completed his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1999 at the University of California, San Diego.

Click article title or here for complete story

By their irises, ye shall know them.

Is it the real Gordon Cooper? Anything could have happened during those 3.3 million miles he traveled aboard Gemini 5. But ...the Scanner knows...

Returning space stationeers and the rest of the off-planet crowd will likely have to do the eye scan before being set loose on Terra. Ditto for Terrans boarding the coming orbital mini-earths?

Could be soon...In the ongoing slouch towards Dystopia, England is taking the Great Leap Forward: all UK-ers re-entering their kingdom from elsewhere shall shortly have to pass biometric screens before disembarking on Albion's shore; with universal biometry of all Britons but a few years off, and offplanet eye-dee-ing before we know it. Image(s) courtesy us govt

Incredible Comet Bigger than the Sun

The Nov. 1 photo at left, by an amateur astronomer, shows Comet Holmes' coma consists of concentric shells of dust and a faint tail. The Hubble image at right, made Nov. 4 and enhanced to reveal details, reveals the bow-tie appearance created by twice as much dust existing along the horizontal direction. Credit: NASA,ESA, and H. Weaver (The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory); Alan Dyer

Thanks to Cathy for the post

Spaceflights now for sale; scary part is price

Considering space travel on one of Virgin Galactic's new ships?

The sales pitch goes like this: The first hour will be relatively painless, a graceful ascent in a spaceship attached to a mother ship. Once the vessels reach 50,000 feet, the ship containing you, five more tourists and two pilots will detach and fall for a moment.

Then, the thrusters will propel it up for 90 seconds, traveling three times the speed of sound. All of the spacecraft's fuel will burn away, leaving its tanks empty.

The G-forces on your body will push your blood toward your feet. It is hoped that you won't black out, but if you do, you'll come to when you're at zero gravity.

Once above the undefined line that delineates Earth from space, your craft will arch to a height of 360,000 feet for about four minutes. You will be weightless and have stunning views of Earth's curvature, 1,000 miles in any direction.

And then gravity will beckon the vessel down to Earth, the human bodies within it feeling pressure six times their weight, sort of like a "big, hairy, fat cat sitting on your chest."

Total approximate time: two hours and nine minutes. All this for only $200,000 -- a lot of money to most folks, but a mere fraction of the millions spent by previous space tourists.

(Join us this week when we talk to Virgin's sale rep! That will be on BMU #79 for 11/19/07)

Antipodean #114 is online!

I have been informed that the newest issue of Antipodean online flash fiction magazine is now available online.

This is AntipodeanSF Issue 114 for November-December 2007

Here is the table of contents of issue 114

"Conversations At A Garden Party" by Andrea Gawthorne

"For The Love Of Mike" by Bren MacDibble

"The Death Of A Man" by Peter Tennant

"Things That Make You Go MMMMM" by Barbara J. Holten

"I Spy" by Shaun A. Saunders

"Love Your Pet" by Carl Palmer

"Wishes" by Amanda Pillar

"Selling The Plan" by Robin Hillard

"Heaven, As Built By Tackleby Ames", by Bart Meehan

"Apocalypse...Now?" by Matt Tighe

Click the title or here to go to Antipodean's newest issue