TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Paying More for Flights Eases Guilt, Not Emissions The sheer size of the airline industry’s emissions makes it hard to judge the effectiveness of carbon offset programs. feeds.nytimes.com |
Scientist at Work: A. Thomas Mclellan: Addiction on 2 Fronts: Work and Home A. Thomas McLellan, the deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, has had personal experience with addiction. feeds.nytimes.com |
Personal Health: As Bones Age, Who’s at Risk for Fracture? The World Health Organization has devised a risk calculator for fractures that, if used properly, could help doctors and patients decide whether to use drug therapy. feeds.nytimes.com |
Q & A: Temperature and Exercise Does a person tend to burn more fat exercising outdoors in colder weather or in hotter weather? feeds.nytimes.com |
ET or BBC3? Pick one … | Media Monkey Along with more channels, better reception and the joys of the electronic programme guide, digital television may have one unexpected consequence – blowing a bloody great big hole in the chances we will ever make contact with aliens. Dr Frank Drake, who as the founder of SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – is interested in this sort of thing, said the digital age was effectively gagging the planet by cutting the transmission of TV and radio signals into space. How? Because digital TV transmissions are rather weaker than their analogue counterparts, and satellites tend to point towards the earth rather than old-school transmitters which beam their signals all over the place. And what hope an alien from a distant solar system picking up anything on cable TV? It's underground for goodness' sake! Unless, of course, it turns out the aliens are here already and living in the earth's core. Anyway, over to Dr Drake, who was speaking at a meeting at the Royal Society in London called The Detection of Extra-terrestrial Life and the Consequences for Science and Society. Snappy, huh? "Now the actual amount of radiation escaping into space is about two watts, not much more than you get from a cell phone," said Dr Drake. "If this continues into the future very soon our world will become undetectable. Using ourselves as an example, it means the difficulty of finding other civilisations will be much greater. We're going to have to search many more stars and many more frequencies." Alternatively, retune your set-top box to Syfy.Digital switchoverTelevision industryMonkeyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |