Space-based detector could find anti-universe

[momopi]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67O3TH20100825

Space-based detector could find anti-universe
The search for dark matter and anti-matter
Wed, Aug 25 2010

Credit: Reuters/Denis Balibouse

By Robert Evans

GENEVA | Wed Aug 25, 2010 2:48pm EDT

GENEVA (Reuters) - A huge particle detector to be mounted on the International Space Station next year could find evidence for the anti-universe often evoked in science fiction, physicists said on Wednesday.

Speaking as the 8.5-tonne Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) machine was being loaded into a huge U.S. Air Force cargo plane at Geneva airport, they said the 20-year research program would bring a huge step forward in understanding the cosmos.

"If there is an anti-universe, perhaps out there beyond the edge of our universe, our space-based detector may well be able to bring us signs of its existence," U.S. scientist and Nobel laureate Samuel Ting told a news conference.

"The cosmos is the ultimate laboratory."

Ting, a 73-year-old professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is principal investigator for the project, which involves some 500 scientists and technicians round the globe.

Cosmologists say matter and anti-matter -- which annihilate each other on contact, releasing energy -- must have been made in equal quantities by the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. But the universe that emerged is overwhelmingly made up of matter.

Scientists hope the AMS will find clues to what happened to anti-matter, and whether there are other places that are almost entirely anti-matter, existing on the edge of the known universe and a mirror image of it and everything in it, including life.

DARK MATTER

The primary purpose of the detector, which has a super-powered magnet at its core, is to hunt another quarry -- the mysterious "dark," or invisible, matter that alongside dark energy makes up nearly 95 per cent of the known universe.

Scientists also hope the AMS will provide detailed knowledge of energy-charged cosmic rays -- an unexplored realm of research that can only be carried out in space.

But it may also answer questions not yet asked.

"It could turn up many surprises," said Roberto Battiston, an Italian physicist on the team. "Never have we been so aware of our ignorance -- we know that we know nothing about what makes up all but 5 per cent of our universe."

John Ellis, a British theoretical physicist described by Ting as the intellectual godfather of the project, said his aim had always been "to think of things for the experimenters to look for and hope they find something else."

The U.S. Super Galaxy aircraft is transporting the AMS to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for further tests.

In February it will be loaded onto a space shuttle and delivered to the space station on a flight specially approved by the U.S. Congress after heavy lobbying by Ting and colleagues.

The AMS has been developed by an international team working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, whose Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator is also aiming to solve mysteries of the cosmos.

The AMS project's costs, currently estimated at around $2 billion, are being covered by 16 countries, mostly in Europe but also including the United States and China.

(Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Kevin Liffey)

[momopi]

China aims for next moon orbit shot this year

BEIJING | Fri Sep 10, 2010 7:54am EDT

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will launch its second lunar exploration probe by the end of 2010, boosting the country's effort to rise as a space power eventually capable of landing on the moon, official media said Friday.

A senior engineer overseeing China's lunar exploration program, Wu Weiren, said work on the Chang'e-2 lunar orbiter was "proceeding smoothly," the People's Daily reported.

"It is now at the stage of pre-launch testing and preparations, and the plan is to carry out a trial flight mission by the end of the year," the paper cited Wu as saying.

The Chang'e is named after a mythical Chinese goddess who flew to the moon. A successful Chang'e-2 mission would mark another advance in China's plan to establish itself as a space power in the same league as the United States and Russia.

In 2003, China became only the third country, after the United States and Russia, to send a man into space aboard its own rocket. In October 2005, it sent two men into orbit, and in 2008 it staged its first "space walk," when an astronaut floated outside a vehicle orbiting the Earth.

Chinese space officials said they are considering a manned landing on the moon by 2025-2030, state media reported last year.

China launched its first moon orbiter, the Chang'e-1, in October 2007, accompanied by a blaze of patriotic propaganda celebrating the country's technological prowess.

The project engineer Wu said the Chang'e-2 would fly as close as 15 km (9.3 miles) above the moon, testing skills and technology intended to pave the way for an unmanned landing, which previous Chinese reports have said would happen in 2013.

China is jostling with neighbors Japan and India for a bigger presence in outer space but its plans have faced international scrutiny.

Fears of a space arms race with the United States and other powers have mounted since China blew up one of its own weather satellites with a ground-based missile in January 2007.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley)

[momopi]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67F0T620100816?

Hong Kong film hopes to break new ground with 3-D porn
Credit: Reuters/Bobby Yip
By Stefanie McIntyre and James Pomfret

HONG KONG | Mon Aug 16, 2010 7:17am EDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) - On the leafy fringes of Hong Kong in a shabby film studio, a nude ponytailed actor stretched out on animal-skins with his lover as the cameras rolled in a set evoking a subterranean sex lair in ancient China.

Turning away from a slightly blurred high definition TV screen as the actors writhed, director Christopher Sun shouted "cut" whilst yanking off his 3-D glasses. "Good" he yelled.

No ordinary porn flick, "3-D Sex & Zen: Extreme Ecstasy" is being touted as the world's first IMAX-3-D erotic film.

First out of the gates, the soft porn Hong Kong film comes as the stricken industry, hit hard by free Internet porn in recent years, turns to 3-D as a potential money-spinner, following on from the success of Hollywood blockbusters such as James Cameron's Avatar.

"Somehow when you're doing a 3-D movie you always want to make an impressive image because the viewers ... are going to buy tickets with double or even triple the ticket price to get into a world they've never seen before," said the U.K.-educated Sun

"It's not just erotica, they want some 'wow factor!.'"

Based on a classic Chinese erotic text, "The Carnal Prayer Mat," the $3 million film follows a young man as he befriends a duke and enters a world of royal orgies and other sexual peccadilloes.

The producers are hoping the erotic period drama will prove a titillating hit with 3-D-glasses-wearing audiences and help develop a lucrative, niche film market.

"It's because it's forbidden in China, (that there) is so much enthusiasm in China for this film," said film maker Stephen Shiu, who was responsible for the original 1991 erotic film "Sex and Zen," which grossed over USD$2.6 million and held the mantle as the city's highest-grossing adult film for over a decade.

Taking almost twice the time to shoot than conventional films and with a higher budget, more advanced equipment and elaborate lighting, the takeup of 3-D productions has been relatively slow in the porno industry despite early excitement at its promise.

"We have to change the lenses for a long time, the setting, lighting, we need more time than a normal movie," said Japanese porn star Saori Hara after completing a scene.

Despite this, other major 3-D sex flicks are now reportedly in the works. Adult entertainment firm Hustler is reportedly working on a three-dimensional porno-spoof of the lithe, blue aliens in "Avatar," while Italian director Tinto Brass plans to film a 3-D version of his classic 1979 erotic film "Caligula," based loosely on the dissolute life of the Roman emperor.

The Hong Kong film has attracted the attention of distributors across Asia and Europe.

"The sex scenes are explicit and sometimes violent, but the main theme of the story is love," said Sun, the director.