Stephen's Personal Blog

You may not be aware of this. When we sent out some of our research probes the math/theory did match observation. For some reason these little guys are moving very slightly faster for no apparent reason. This is very funny, because there’s some fundamental action taking place within our own solar system that we can’t account for and yet we still make pronouncements about the speed of light, size/age of the universe, and ether, um I’m mean dark matter.

American Institute of Physics
More Spacecraft Velocity Anomalies
A new look at the trajectories for various spacecraft as they fly past the Earth finds in each case a tiny amount of surplus velocity. For craft that pursue a path mostly symmetrical with respect to the equator, the effect is minimal. For craft that pursue a more unsymmetrical path, the effect is larger. In the case of the NEAR asteroid rendevous craft (), for instance, the velocity anomaly amounts to 13 mm/sec. Although this is only one-millionth of the total velocity, the precision of the velocity measurements, carried out by looking at the Doppler shift in radio waves bounced off the craft, is 0.1 mm/sec, and this suggests that the anomaly represents a real effect, one needing an explanation.

Some ten years ago another anomaly was identified for the Pioneer 10 spacecraft (see http://www.aip.org/pnu/1998/split/pnu391-1.htm) and a certain amount of controversy has clung to the subject since then. One of the researchers on that earlier measurement is part of the new study, conducted by Jet Propulsion Lab scientists. John D. Anderson (jdandy@earthlink.net, 626-449-0102) says that the JPL scientists are now working with German colleagues to search for possible velocity anomalies in the recent flyby of the Rosetta spacecraft. (Anderson et al., Physical Review Letters, upcoming article; designated as an editor’s suggested articlePhysical Review Letters)

Blind Irishman sees with the aid of son’s tooth in his eye

DUBLIN (AFP) – An Irishman blinded by an explosion two years ago has had his sight restored after doctors inserted his son’s tooth in his eye, he said on Wednesday.
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The technique, pioneered in Italy in the 1960s, involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient’s own tooth and the surrounding bone.

The procedure used on McNichol involved his son Robert, 23, donating a tooth, its root and part of the jaw.

McNichol’s right eye socket was rebuilt, part of the tooth inserted and a lens inserted in a hole drilled in the tooth.
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ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2008) — Contrary to our previous beliefs, identical twins are not genetically identical. This surprising finding may be of great significance for research on hereditary diseases and for the development of new diagnostic methods. How can it be that one identical twin might develop Parkinson’s disease, for instance, but not the other? Until now, the reasons have been sought in environmental factors. The current study complicates the picture.
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Humans receive one chromosome from their mother and one from their father, providing for two copies of the genome. In some cases, bits of DNA are missing from a chromosome, leaving the offspring with just one copy of that bit of DNA. In other instances, mutations may produce three, four or more copies of a particular bit of DNA. In most cases, variation in the number of copies likely has no impact on health or development. But in others, it may be one factor in the likelihood of developing a disease.
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Identical Twins Not As Identical As Believed