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yes, the internet is going crazy over this one :) (http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/nasas-astrobiology-press-conference/) This is the most likely scenario I've seen so far for what will be announced tomorrow: http://skymania.com/wp/2010/11/alien-life-form-is-here-on-earth.html/ "...discovery of microbes in a deadly poisonous lake that get their energy from arsenic. Experts say this shows they had a completely different origin to any other creature known on our planet. It means that life began not just once but at least twice on Earth."

well, we've all seen the movie Evolution (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251075/) ;p ... this is exactly this scenario indeed.

yaaawnnn... Let's wait until they actually announce it.

A critical view on Prof. Markram's Blue Brain project (in German).

so critical that the comment needed to be posted twice :-) ?

Yes, I know; I still don't know how to deal with this f.... Diigo Toolbar! Shame on me!!!

Would be nice to read something about the modelling, but it appears that there is nothing published in detail. Following the article, the main approach is to model each(!) neuron taking into account the spatial structure of the neurons positions. Once achieved they expect intelligent behaviour. And they need a (type of) supercomputer which does not exist yet.

Perhaps some of ACTers will find this conference interesting... One of the talks: "Would Einstein be on Twitter? Exploring the potential and limits of Web 2.0 in science & science communication" [Edit] Oh, I see someone has already posted this link... a year ago. Anyway, if anyone of you plans to go, let me know - I'll be around ;-)

Just came back from ESOF 2010... I was on look for ACT agents undercover, but either they were not there or the cover was good enough... Anyway here's a few remarks from me (I could write a nice report... if you paid): 1) In general, to say that ESA was underrepresented on the conference as a whole is not enough (I guess ESA just failed to notice the event taking place). For instance, on the GMES presentation, ESA as such was not mentioned at all... at some point I started to wonder if ESA is actually involved in the project, but now I checked the website and apparently it is. On the other hand, GMES presentation was crap anyway, as after 1:15 of talking, I didn't gain any knowledge of what GMES is and what its contributions to the EU community will be. 2) There was a lot of talk about LHC and particle research (well, at least among those that I attended). Some of them were very good, some of them rather crap... 3) "Would Einstein be on Twitter? Exploring the potential and limits of Web 2.0 in science & science communication" talk - quite interesting, but focusing mainly on Science-to-Wide Public and Science-to-Journalists communication. Not really on Science-to-Science (as in Ariadnet). There was quite an extensive discussion with the public. You may be interested that Nature is trying to stimulate Web 2.0 communication, running blog service, but also I think a kind of social network - perhaps you'd like to have a look. In general the conclusion was that Web 2.0 is not so useful for scientific communication because practising it requires TIME (blogs, etc.) and often some professional skills (podcasts/videocasts, etc.), and scientists have neither of these. This can be run on corporation level (like ESA does actually), but then it looses the "intimate" character. 4) "How much can robots learn?" talk... very nicely presented: understandable by the wide public, but conveying the message... which is something like "we can already make the robots do stuff absolutely imp

Well, my comment was cut in half, and I don't feel like typing it again... the most important highlight from the rest is that the only presenter from ESA (ESTEC) did not show up on his talk because his department was undergoing some sort of audit on the same day :)

Fantastic comment - or better report!! thanks very much Marek! Who was the supposed no-show speaker from ESA?