Unknown Country has been keeping a keen eye on the skies just recently, and with good cause: following the revelation last week that the Earth had narrowly escaped serious damage from 26 very sizeable asteroids over the past few years, another lucky escape was reported over the weekend.
read more
A recent study suggests that killer whales and other marine mammals are far more likely to pick up sonar signals than was previously thought.
Scientists have discovered that commercially available sonar systems, which are designed to create signals beyond the range of hearing of such animals, do in fact emit signals known to be within their hearing range.
The sound is likely very soft and audible only when the animals are within a few hundred meters of the source, say the authors of a new study. The signals would not cause any actual tissue damage, but it’s possible that they affect the behavior of some marine mammals, which rely heavily on sound to communicate, navigate, and find food.
read more
A particularly reflective air seems to pervade today, on this, the third anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death. Whatever your personal views are on who perpetrated the worst terrorist atrocity ever committed; whether you subscribe to the theory that al Qaeda were responsible, or whether your beliefs lie firmly within conspiracy territory, the name of Osama Bin Laden will forever be entwined with the events of that fateful day, and the anniversary of his death has become just another annual reminder for those who lost loved ones in the awful events.
Can those people ever truly find forgiveness? Is forgiveness always appropriate, even for the most heinous of transgressions?
read more
The most common perception regarding the purpose of our brain is the major processor for all of our thought, that this is where an individual’s "mind" resides, along with their essence of self and identity. Certainly, brain damage can affect our cognitive abilities, substantiating the purely scientific stance that we are no more than biological entities without souls, but is that the full story?
A recent study that claims to be able to "switch off" brain activity suggests that the brain is ultimately controllable via external and internal sources, like a computer operating system.
read more