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Astronaut Edgar Mitchell Claims Alien Cover-up

Dr. Edgar Mitchell is a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission and he was the sixth man to walk on the Moon. Dr. Mitchell also insists that aliens have visited Earth and that governments are actively covering it up. "I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real," Dr Mitchell said. "It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it. "I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes - we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it's been happening quite a bit." Dr Mitchell, who has a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics claimed Roswell was real and similar alien visits continue to be investigated. He told the astonished Kerrang! radio host Nick Margerrison: "This is really starting to open up. I think we're headed for real disclosure and some serious organisations are moving in that direction." NASA issued a quick denial. In a statement, a spokesman said: "NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe. "Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue." If Dr. Mitchell is correct about a cover-up than this is exactly the type of denial one would expect NASA to make. You can listen to the interview with Dr. Mitchell where he discusses the UFO phenomena here. Permalink | Recent Headlines | News Feeds Read more…

Scientists Develop Tower of Babel Device

13.12.2006 16:04 Science - Source: ScienceNewsBlog.com

Scientists Develop Tower of Babel Device

The BBC reports that scientists have developed a device that translates silently mouthed words into another language. Users simply have to silently mouth a word in their own language for it to be translated and read out in another.

The researchers said the effect was like watching a television programme that had been dubbed.

The system, detailed in New Scientist, is not yet fully accurate, but experts said it showed the technology was "within reach".

The translation systems that are currently in use work by using voice recognition software. The BBC says the scientists are working on a Chinese into English version and an English to Spanish or German version. They hope that eventually the device will let you mouth words into the device in English and it will speak them in Chinese, Spanish or German. The ultimate goal would be a device that could translate any language. The New Scientistarticle calls the device the "closest thing to the babel fish." The article says the device still has trouble with sequence of words it has never heard before. The researchers use software that has been taught to recognise which phonemes are most likely to appear next to each other and in what order. When it encounters a string of phonemes it is unfamiliar with or has only partially heard, it uses this knowledge to come up with a range of sequences that make sense given the surrounding phonemes and words, assigns a probability to each one, and then picks the one with the highest probability.

The system still has some way to go. Faced with a sequence of words it has never heard before, it picks the right phoneme sequence only 62 per cent of the time. This nevertheless ranks as "a very significant achievement" according to Chuck Jorgensen, who is working on using sub-vocal speech recognition to control robots at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "This is showing that the technology is really within reach." The universal translator is not far away.