Fans think the wait was worth it as they get their hands on the new iPhone, the BBC’s Laura Smith-Spark reports.

Sun Microsystems announced today that its hardware will power the largest supercomputer ever built, weighing in with 62,976 CPU cores, 125 terabytes of memory, 1.7 terabytes of disk space, and 504 teraflops of performance.
The computer, which has been dubbed “Ranger,” will be hosted at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas, Austin. […]

“Analysis Beleaguered ISP PlusNet is attempting a comeback with a suite of new deals, backed by its new owner BT.
PlusNet’s 200,000 subscribers were picked up by BT at the tail end of a year which saw its long standing good reputation dismantled at its own hand. Technical cock ups, followed up with terrible customer service […]

Space.com reports that noted physicist Lowell Wood is suggesting that Mars will be terraformed to “increase its habitability for humans.”

“I suggest that the near-term outlook is that Mars will be terraformed,” Wood said, and seriously underway by the middle of this century and essentially complete by the end of the 21st century.



Wood defined terraforming as “the purposeful alteration of the physical environment to increase its habitability for humans.” He noted that we homo sapiens are a terraforming species, pointing to our own planet’s alteration over time.



“We’re currently in the tenth millennium of the terraforming era,” Wood said. Similarly, Mars will be terraformed…as will every other piece of the solar system that we can get to…if-and-as humanity becomes truly space-faring, he explained.



“The terraforming impulse in humankind will be quenched only by massive adverse selective pressure,” Wood reported. Terraforming nay-sayers seem to ignore the fundamentals of population genetics, sociobiology and human history, he argued.



Mars is far easier to terraform than the Moon, Wood advised. “It’s kids’ stuff as far as rendering it [Mars] into something that’s human habitable quickly and easily. The Moon is a good bit tougher.”

Wood does sound a little optimistic when he says, “I believe it’s roughly a 50/50 chance that young children now alive will walk on martian meadows…will swim in martian lakes.” Wow. What kid wouldn’t want to do that? It might sound far-fetched but technology does advance in leaps and bounds. Mars may also be the only game in town as far as alternative for Earth goes. The closest potentially habitable planet (that we know of) — Gliese 581 C — is 20.5 light years away.



Photo Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission



Posted in Space



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