Stories By Van

1. Fibre Optics Fibre optic technology was first demonstrated in the 1840’s by Colladon and Babinet. Fibre optic tubes refract light within glass tubes with little loss of light over the length of the tube. In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell developed the technology to transmit voice signals over an optical beam. Bundled together, fibre optic cables are immune to electrical interference making them good for use in computer networking. Fibre optic transmissions are also much harder to snoop and are therefore considered more secure. 2. Graphene Graphene will completely revolutionise technology. Created at the University of Manchester, UK, graphene is a layer of graphite one atom thick. It is very strong, an excellent conductor of heat and electricity and is predicted to transform mobile devices. Imagine a flexible cellphone or tablet. 3. Cellphone Technology The technology to enable cellphones to communicate from a base station was proposed in 1947, h...

This article was first published by The Ecologist in December 2007.   Ii summarizes several in-depth and detailed articles written by the author on the HAARP program.   It should be noted that while the HAARP program based in Gakona, Alaska was closed down, the US Air Force which managed the HAARP project, nonetheless confirms that environmental modification techniques are slated to continue: “We’re moving on to other ways of managing the ionosphere, which the HAARP was really designed to do,” he said. “To inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it. But that work has been completed.” The debate on climate change does not acknowledge the role of climatic warfare, namely the deliberate manipulation of climate for military use. “HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, capable of destabilizing agricultural and ecological systems globally. Climatic warfare’ potentially threatens the future of humanity, but has casually been excluded from the ...

The ancient Egyptians' attitude towards death was influenced by their belief in immortality. They regarded death as a temporary interruption, rather than the cessation of life. To ensure the continuity of life after death, people paid homage to the gods, both during and after their life on earth. When they died, they were mummified so the soul would return to the body, giving it breath and life. Household equipment and food and drink were placed on offering tables outside the tomb's burial chamber to provide for the person's needs in the afterworld. Written funerary texts consisting of spells or prayers were also included to assist the dead on their way to the afterworld. To prepare the deceased for the journey to the afterworld, the "opening of the mouth" ceremony was performed on the mummy and the mummy case by priests. This elaborate ritual involved purification, censing (burning incense), anointing and incantations, as well as touching the mummy wit...

Like mortals, the gods could take each other as husband and wife, and would bear children. Sometimes though, a child could be born into the world as a terrible, misshapen form and be seen as a ‘monster’ by others, even their own parents. Such was the case with the Hecatonchires, also named the Hundred-Handed Ones. Mortals can see the helplessness of a newborn baby just by the way that the child cannot yet control its limbs or facial expressions; they see these motions as endearing, and cute even. Something about the baby’s helplessness is a part of what makes us want to care and nurture them. And the gods are no exception to this in life. And like mortals, they too are also able to see a monstrosity when it is born, as was the case with the Hecatonchires. Picture not a normal baby with two flailing arms, but one with 100 quivering, shaking, and unmatched limbs. Added to this were 50 wailing heads with wide-open mouths, producing furious cries that shook Olympus itself. Im...

The halo effect is a type of cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person influences how we feel and think about his or her character. Essentially, your overall impression of a person ("He is nice!") impacts your evaluations of that person's specific traits ("He is also smart!"). One great example of the halo effect in action is our overall impression of celebrities. Since we perceive them as attractive, successful, and often likable, we also tend to see them as intelligent, kind, and funny. Definitions of the Halo Effect "Also known as the physical attractiveness stereotype and the "what is beautiful is good" principle, the halo effect, at the most specific level, refers to the habitual tendency of people to rate attractive individuals more favorably for their personality traits or characteristics than those who are less attractive. Halo effect is also used in a more general sense to describe the global impact o...

First, there is the basic existentialist standpoint, that existence precedes essence, has primacy over essence. Man is a conscious subject, rather than a thing to be predicted or manipulated; he exists as a conscious being, and not in accordance with any definition, essence, generalization, or system. Existentialism says I am nothing else but my own conscious existence. A second existentialist theme is that of anxiety, or the sense of anguish, a generalized uneasiness, a fear or dread which is not directed to any specific object. Anguish is the dread of the nothingness of human existence. This theme is as old as Kierkegaard within existentialism; it is the claim that anguish is the underlying, all-pervasive, universal condition of human existence. Existentialism agrees with certain streams of thought in Judaism and Christianity which see human existence as fallen, and human life as lived in suffering and sin, guilt and anxiety. This dark and foreboding picture of human life...

A letter was recently published in Nature on 329,000 young people identifying 74 genetic variants—spelling mistakes in single nucleotides in the six billion letter human genome—which can be used to predict nearly 20 percent of the variation in school years completed, a quantitative trait of fortitude which is correlated to general intelligence, and which you can learn about by sequencing your own genome. Staple that to your college application. Even before the “molecular age,” we were on guard for the slightest tips that show we are more or less valued than our peers. But there was also caution from the academics that there was actually very little we could do to leverage our biology for improvement. In 1924, the Harvard geneticist William Castle quipped that “we are scarcely as yet in a position to do more than make ourselves ridiculous in this matter. We are no more in a position to control eugenics than the tides of the ocean.” Enter Crispr-Cas9, the first pair o...