Nexus - 1103 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GLOBAL NEWS ... NEWS This year, the US Air Force will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to find ways to track enemy satellites and, if nec- essary, blind those eyes in the sky. So far, space-based arms are legal. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 only bans nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction from orbit. Over the years, US administrations have looked into developing such weapons— most notably, as part of President Reagan's "Star Wars" anti-missile initiative. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has long advocated sending arms into orbit. Just before taking office in 2001, he chaired a commission on space and national security which warned that the country could face a "space Pearl Harbor" in the years to come. This calamity must be avoided, the commission declared, asserting that the best way to do that is to "vigorously pursue the capabilities...to ensure that the President will have the option to deploy weapons in space". (Source: Wired Magazine, 20 February 2004, http:/www.wired.com) publishing excerpts of From Major Jordan's Diaries (see NEXUS 4/01, 4/02), detailing the covert handover of A-bomb materials to the Russians. It is clear that Harry Hopkins was not acting alone in helping arm the Soviet Union. Another case of manufacturing your own (bogus) enemy?] (Source: Accuracy in Media, 4 March 2004, http://www.aim.org/publications/media_ monitor/2004/03/03. html) signal to multiple cells within the network. A transistor located on the chip then recorded that conversation between cells. Syed said the discovery is groundbreaking. "We've made a giant leap in answering several fundamental questions of biology and neuro-electronics that will pave the way for us to harness the power of nanotechnology," he said. The findings could help in the design of devices that combine electronic compo- nents and brain cells—for example, for controlling artificial limbs or restoring sight for the visually impaired. Future research will focus on interfacing silicon chips with the human brain to con- trol artificial limbs and develop "thinking" computers. (Source: The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Canada, 2 February 2004) NERVE CELLS GROWN ON CHIP CAN COMMUNICATE esearchers at the University of Calgary, Canada, have found that nerve cells grown on a microchip can learn and memorise information which can be communicated to the brain. "We discovered that when we used the chip to stimulate the neurons, their synap- tic strength was enhanced," said Naweed Syed, a neurobiologist at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine. The nerve cells also exhibited memory traces that were successfully read by the chip, said Syed, co-author of the landmark study published in the February edition of the international journal Physical Review Letters. The research was done in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany. The team cultured nerve cells from a snail and placed them on a specially designed silicon chip. Using a microcapacitor on the chip, scientists stimulated one nerve cell to communicate with a second cell which transmitted that FORMER ASTRONAUT ADMITS "WE ARE NOT ALONE" Ihe sixth man to walk on the Moon, Apollo XIV astronaut Edgar Mitchell, declared "The aliens have landed" in front of more than 200 admirers at a conference in St Petersburg, Florida, in February. "A few insiders know the truth...and are studying the bodies that have been discovered," he said. Mitchell, who landed on the Moon with Alan B. Shepard, said a "cabal" of insiders stopped briefing presidents about extrater- restrials after President Kennedy. Dr Mitchell, who has a science doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted that 30 years ago it was accepted that man is alone in the Universe. FDR'S CLOSEST ADVISER WAS A SOVIET SPY lhe British government has announced that former Soviet KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, 81, died from pneumonia on 23 January. Mitrokhin first came to the public's attention in 1999 with the publication of The Sword and The Shield, an exposé of the KGB and its operations in the US and Europe. The book was based on notes and materials from classified KGB files, copied by Mitrokhin from 1972 until his retirement in 1984. He defected in 1992 and his materials were later spirited out of Moscow by British agents. Accuracy in Media first reported on Mitrokhin's revelations shortly after the book's publication. Reed Irvine particularly valued the book for providing "new evidence" that Harry Hopkins, Franklin D. Roosevelt's closest and most influential adviser, was a Soviet spy. Mitrokhin turned to British intelligence, where his materials eventually led to the identification of several Soviet spies in both Britain and the United States. Among these were Melita Norwood, who admitted giving British nuclear secrets to the Soviets, and a former Scotland Yard policeman, who became the KGB's first "Romeo spy". [Editor's Note: Readers may recall our tamedot tte Fomeky lle APRIL — MAY 2004 NEXUS +7 www.nexusmagazine.com