Does mysticism have a place in quantum mechanics today, or is the idea that the mind plays a role in creating reality best left to philosophical meditations? Harvard historian Juan Miguel Marin argues the former – not because physicists today should account for consciousness in their research, but because knowing the early history of the philosophical ideas in quantum mechanics is essential for understanding the theory on a fundamental level.

In a recent paper published in the European Journal of Physics, Marin has written a short history, based on a longer analysis, of the mysticism controversy in the early quantum physics community. As Marin emphasizes, the controversy began in Germany in the 1920s among physicists in reaction to the new theory of quantum mechanics, but was much different than debates on similar issues today. At the turn of the last century, science and religion were not divided as they are today, and some scientists of the time were particularly inspired by Eastern mysticism.
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If all goes well with France’s disclosure this guy better start thinking about freshening up the old resume, either that or retirement.

When will we find evidence of life outside our solar system? 

That was one of the many questions posed by Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, during a presentation Saturday evening at Western Nevada College.
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I wonder where DARPA got the idea for this stuff. HMMM…I seem to remember hearing of something out of New Mexico called, wait, what was it, oh yes, memory metal.

Even by the standards of the Pentagon fringe science arm, this project sounds far-out: that can be ordered to “self-assemble or alter their shape, perform a function and then disassemble themselves.” But researchers back by Darpa are actually making progress on this incredible goal, Henry Kenyon at Signal magazine reports.
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An old personal computer inside the Perkins Observatory in Delaware County is hard at work searching for aliens.

Observatory Director Tom Burns can’t remember when the donated PC joined the worldwide network of 235,000 computers analyzing radio waves for a signal from deep space.

“Since the beginning, I think,” he said.

That would be impressive.The SETI@home (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) program just celebrated its 10th anniversary.
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So what’s the deal? Is it Atlantis or is it some quirk of Google Maps imaging technology? Is it even paranormal? Well if anything it’s a mystery that people have been trying to solve for centuries. And it seems every few years there’s a new claim of the discovery of the ancient land of Atlantis. The latest occurred last week when Google Earth’s mapping of the ocean floor displayed a rectangle the size of a small state off the coast of Africa.
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