HackingTheUniverse

You are browsing the archives of 2009 July.

Refueling at spaced out intervals instead of requiring space propulsion units to carry all of their fuel with them for the entire trip can enable both longer trips and smaller fuel containers. Orbiting gas station could refuel lunar missions – [newscientist.com] This would allow NASA to mount moon missions without spending billions of dollars developing [...]

Evolution can take place in a shorter time span than scientists previously thought, according to a study of lizards that were transplanted into a new environment, then left alone for thirty-six years. Could a similar process be accomplished in a laboratory environment designed to stimulate specific evolutionary adaptations? Rapid Evolution Driven by Invasion into New [...]

The new revision of NIST SP 800-53 (rev3) is now in FINAL Public Draft (FPD) and should be published in final form soon. When NIST moves a draft document from IPD status to FPD status, the changes are often few as the document is nearly ready for final publishing. In this case, however, the changes [...]

Isaac Asimov may have been the first to propose rules of ethics for robots, but he won’t be the last. As AI and robots become more integrated into our daily lives, the ethical considerations that govern their actions will become more important. The ethics of robots is becoming an issue in our everyday lives. Robot [...]

DOD, SANS, CSIS, several universities and other partner organizations are collaborating to find students with cyber abilities and train them to become future cyber warriors. Pentagon Seeks High School Hackers – [forbes.com] The so-called Cyber Challenge, which will be officially announced later this month, will create three new national competitions for high school and college [...]

The Titius Bode law or hypothesis is a theory that planetary orbits in the Solar System are spaced in a proportional progression such that each successive orbit is roughly twice the distance from the Sun as the orbit just inside it. Titius-Bode Law – [milanovic.org] The Titius-Bode Law or Rule is the observation that orbits [...]

The concept of nanotechnology may have been first introduced by the famous physicist Richard Feynman in 1959 when he delivered a lecture titled, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.” The lecture inspired Eric Drexler years later, who then helped popularize the concept. Nanotechnology: From Feynman to Funding The Feynman Vision and Its Implications Feynman [...]

Another short but brilliant post by Eric Drexler, well worth reading several times over as short as it is. A Telescope Aimed at the Future – [metamodern.com] Our time is also unique in that growing computational capacity can enable us to simulate systems that have not yet been built: New aircraft typically fly as expected, [...]

A new version of nmap has been released. From Fyodors announcement: Hello everyone. I’m delighted to announce the release of Nmap 5.00! This is the first major release since 4.50 in 2007, and includes about 600 significant changes since then! We consider this the most important Nmap release since 1997, and we recommend that all [...]

APT or Advanced Persistent Threat describes cyber attacks mounted by organizational teams that have deep resources, advanced penetration skills, specific target profiles and are remarkably persisent in their efforts. They tend to use sophisticated custom malware that can circumvent most defenses, stealthy tactics and demonstrate good situational awareness by evaluating defenders responses and escalating their [...]