There is a playable demo of Aphelion now on the Unity3D development page.

Cryonics Boston, or The Boston Cryonics Group is the new name for the Alcor New England mailing list and group that meets in Cambridge. The name change follows a discussion with members in February about better representation of the interests of the members, and to show that we don’t have any implied bias as the old name might imply.

The new site is organized through Meetup.com at:
http://www.meetup.com/Cryonics-Boston/

We try to meet monthly or so, and organize to not conflict with other area meetups such as the Transhuman H+ meetup or the Nanotech meetup, etc.

Well this Hubble imaging of Ceres is incredible news. Most asteroids have always conjured imagery of Thistledown for me, being the hollowed-out asteroid/spaceship from Greg Bear’s Eon. This image however, is more likely to conjure thoughts of baobabs.

Although the article is intriguing and makes for some sort of Treasure Island type musings late at night, I find personally that the theory of Panspermia and theories of exogenesis in general are highly academic; imho the origin of life anywhere is exactly where it originated.

Panspermia presupposes that life is somehow difficult to evolve. This despite the fact that amino acids, PAHs, water in some form, respirable chemistry (whether CO2, methane, salts/perchlorate, acids) are pretty much everywhere we look.

I think we will find - especially with The Dawn Mission - that life is not the exception, but the default state of anywhere significant resources can be leveraged in a location with energy and chemistry to warrant it. The ingredients for life will simply be expressed as a chemical/energy gradient that indicates there is an advantage to be had, that life will show up to exploit.

>> Image credit: Hubble ACS
>> More Ceres info at Wikipedia
>>Dawn Mission Home Page

Also see: The Potential for Fungal Life in the Asteroid Belt

a safe return: 29 September 2006: the crew takes Хлеб и соль .

Anousheh Ansari is a successful Iranian-born American entrepreneur whose family provided the backing for the Ansari X-Prize. Anousheh is currently on-orbit in the International Space Station, and maintaining a blog with a slogan that states “Imagine. Inspire. Be The Change.” What a great opportunity to share between communities of interest in this person’s adventure, while bringing together politically diverse people.

My understanding is that she is also making contact to amateur HAMs around the globe. I will update with that info shortly.

The downlink is 145.800 Mhz, and her call sign is RS0ISS
The uplink is 437.800 Mhz

More info is available at:

ARRL website “Success Tips for Using the ISS Voice Repeater
http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2004/10/06/1/?nc=1

http://www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm
http://www.issfanclub.com/node/5440

A sound file on her pass over Iran is also available:
http://home.twin.at/swl-chmy/Downloads/Frau_Ansari_via_RS0ISS.wav

~ We are not the sum total of our species. We are a variable in a longer equation. We are on our way, genetically, to another place.