Are We Alone - Next show available Sept. 1, 2008

Are We Alone - Next show available September 1, 2008 TXT MSG: Thought
From iPods to Google to Facebook - information swims at our fingertips and friends are just a txt msg away. Digital devices have re-defined what it means to be connected - but how else are they shaping behavior? Join us for the first of a two-part series on how the network is changing how we think and act.

Part I: Thought: whether Google is making us stupid... how the Internet is curtailing creativity... and the future of a hyper-networked world that does all our thinking for us.
Guests:

• Nick Carr - Journalist and author of The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google. His article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" is the cover story of the July/August 2008 issue of Atlantic Monthly
• Jonathan Grudin - Researches human-computer interaction at Microsoft Corporation
• David Kirsh - Cognitive scientist, University of California, San Diego
• Jonathan Zittrain - Author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It and co-founder of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society

You can listen to this and other episodes at: http://radio.seti.org/ and be sure to check the Are We Alone Profile and Blog on MySpace.

Space Weather News for Aug 31, 2008

Posted on behalf of Space Weather.com

Volcanic Sunsets
Space Weather News for Aug 31, 2008
http://spaceweather.com

Sky watchers across the USA and Europe are reporting unusually colorful sunsets and sunrises. The cause appears to be the August 7th eruption of the Kasatochi volcano in Alaska's Aleutian islands. The volcano hurled a massive cloud of ash and sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere; high winds have since carried the aerosols over parts of the USA and Europe. "Violet domes," long pink rays crossing the sky, campfire-red aureoles around Venus--these are just a few of the sights documented on Spaceweather.com in recent days. When the sun goes down tonight, look west. You may be in for a treat.

Ongoing coverage of the phenomenon may be found at http://spaceweather.com .

First reports of the volcanic sunsets are documented in the Aug. 27th edition of SpaceWeather.com, located in our archives at this URL:

http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=27&month=08&year=2008

Are We Alone - August 25, 2008: Skeptical Sunday

Are We Alone - Next show available August 25, 2008: Skeptical Sunday: Bigfoot Press Conference
Finally, Bigfoot meets habeus corpus: three men claim they have the body of the elusive hirsute creature on ice, and throw a big press conference to prove it. Lots of journalists show up, as do the Bigfoot baggers. Days later the purported historic discovery turned out to be - gasp! - a hairy hoax. How did these men perpetuate the con - and why did the media, including Are We Alone?, bother to cover it?
Join us front row and center at this peculiar press event and for the post-mortem (sans body) of the latest chapter in the ongoing mythology that is Bigfoot.
Guests for this episode are:

• Lori Marino - Behavioral Biologist at Emory University
• James Underdown - Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry West in Los Angeles

You can listen to this and other episodes at: http://radio.seti.org/

NASA Science News for August 25, 2008

The following is posted on behalf of NASA Science news:

Strange Clouds at the Edge of Space - NASA Science News for August 25, 2008

High above Earth, astronauts on board the International Space Station have taken one of the best-ever photos of electric-blue noctilucent clouds. Their image, featured in today's story from Science@NASA, highlights a growing mystery: Where do these clouds come from and why
are they spreading?

FULL STORY at

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/25aug_nlc.htm?list894285

Check out our RSS feed at http://science.nasa.gov/rss.xml!

Moses Lake doubles for the Moon

KOMONews.Com posted this article a while back about NASA conducting tests with prototype space suits and vehicles in Moses Lake WA. According to the article "The tests started in late May in the Moses Lake Sand Dunes, a 3,000-acre off-road vehicle park." The article is fairly detailed and has some great shots of the spaces suits and vehicles. One thing I didn't know about Moses Lake is that there is a closed B-52 base there that NASA has designated as an emergency landing site for the space shuttle. Hopefully NASA will come back for more tests, and if they do it might be worth a trip out to Moses Lake to maybe catch a glimpse of the new Lunar hardware.

MSNBC ‘cosmic ghost’ article

There have been quite a few articles about the recently discovered "cosmic ghost", and here is another one from MSNBC. Congrats to Hanny van Arkel, the Dutch amateur astronomer who discovered the object as part of the Galaxy Zoo Project. You have to love the nickname: "Hanny's Voorwerp"! ~ Jim