Ok, so i've been asking around, and hardly anyone knows the name of the capital of Nepal. This is horrible. What has become of the world ?

*Shakes his head in dispair*

Well, my escape to the place where I actually find hope for humainty is actually Star Trek. And here's an extract from a Star Trek news-letter I got recently (star trek newsletter? agga agga - ed.):

ONE STEP CLOSER TO WARP DRIVE

CARDIFF, Sept 10
Swiss-based scientists said on Thursday that they had manufactured anti- matter, one of the staple substances of science fiction, but in such tiny amounts it would be of little use in powering a Star Trek spaceship.

The scientists at the European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN), on the Franco-Swiss border, have now set up the world's first anti-matter factory, one of them, Professor Frank Close, told the annual science festival in Wales.

Nine atoms of anti-hydrogen were produced just over a year ago. Now, the new factory will produce them at a rate of more than 2,000 atoms per hour, Close said.

But those harbouring dreams of a spaceship fuelled by anti-matter, as in cult television series Star Trek, will have to wait for an awfully long time. "About 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of anti-matter would be needed to power a spaceship," Close told a news conference.

"Thousands of atoms an hour sounds a lot, but kilograms of the stuff would be needed for an astrocruiser which means making over a billion billion billion of them."

CERN will attempt to compare anti-hydrogen with hydrogen atoms to shed light on one of science's great mysteries.

As any sci-fi boffin will tell you, when matter meets anti-matter, they annihilate each other in a flash. The scientific consensus is that, when the universe was created, matter and anti-matter emerged equally from the Big Bang. So why did the universe survive?

One answer may be that matter and anti-matter are not mirror images of each other, something the scientists hope to find out by comparing anti-hydrogen atoms with hydrogen. If there is a difference, "that itself would be a revolutionary discovery," Close said. "A lot of the foundations of physics will fall."

"There is no evidence of any anti-matter in bulk anywhere in the universe now," Close said. "Anti-hydrogen promises to be a tool of fantastic sensitivity for finding out whether a world made of anti-matter would really be indistinguishable from its own."

The techniques for capturing anti-matter in electrical and magnetic bottles or traps, ready for analysis, should be in place by spring 1999, he said.

But Star Trek fans, or Trekkies as they are known, will be disappointed. "If ever a real Star Trek with anti-matter engines comes to be, then this is where the technology will have begun," Close said.

But no one in their wildest dreams really imagines that this will come to be."

Web-posted: 09-10-98

Well, I find Tech-Babble like that very interesting, i'm also very lazy at times, hehe, So bear with me on this blab, but I do believe this message had to be told to everyone. :)

Gnug's log, stardate 53376.6 signing off :o)