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Article HERE (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=475587&in_page_id=1965)

Great. Book me on the first ship to Alpha Centauri.  :teddyr:

At least it gives hope that someday we'll figure out a way to move objects at FTL speeds. I wish I could live to see it.

Now THAT's really cool.  Makes my head hurt trying to wrap my brain around what this could bring, but cool nonetheless.   :teddyr:

Sorry guys, this ain't so.  This (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070816-faster-than-the-speed-of-light-no-i-dont-think-so.html) article explains it better than I could.

Thanks, Grunge, you beat me to it.

This is one of my pet peeves.  Every couple of years (the cycle seems to be about 3-5), someone gets a lot of attention claiming to have 'beaten' one the key tenets of either Quantum Mechanics (Hiesenberg's Uncertainty Principle) or Relativity (the speed of light).  In every case, all they are demonstrating is their own ignorance.

We hear talk all the time about the sad state of science eduction - in the US particularly.  Well, this sort of thing shows it.  The scientists in the early 20th century knew, and understood, more about Quantum Theory than any 100 do today.  I know, that's a bold statement, but I'll stick by it.  I've reviewed text books for BIG publishers - books written by supposed experts in the field - that show woeful lack of understanding of the material.  Some of this gets through (and I've seen cases where the publishers sided with the author rather than multiple reviewers).  If we are using crappy books, AND our teachers have foundational ignorance, is there any hope for science education?

Sorry for the rant.  I keep telling myself that I know longer care, but given some of the stuff I've encountered this week (one of my clients) and now reading this, well, it's all on my mind again.

And also, the quality of science reporting is bad.  For example, take the whole "cell phones are killing the bees" kefluffle.  In reality, the science report the stories were based on made no such claim, it was merely that a cordless phone base (inside of a hive) in one instance kept bees from returning to that hive.  The scientists even had to put out an announcement that their study made no such claim about bees and cell phones.

It's stuff like this that makes me skeptical about the whole "humans are causing global warming" theme.  Yes, there are some indications that the planet is warming up, but there are so many variables involved and the dynamics of earth's climate are not well understood yet that I'm not ready to go and have heavy handed government regulation over more of my life.

So I need to get a refund on those Alpha Centuari tickets?

Crap. :teddyr: