On:

An Arab newspaper reports that an al-Qaeda member says that bin Laden has placed 10 decoys, who look just like him, in Afghanistan to foil U.S. attempts to capture him.

The London-based al-Hayat daily quotes ?Abul Noor? (a pseudonym) as saying, ?Even if the American attacks against Afghanistan succeeded in finishing the Taliban movement, they would not succeed in arresting bin Laden. Not merely because that is difficult, but because bin Laden has 10 lookalikes. Two of them are north Africans and they all are in Afghanistan.? He claims the only physical differences between the decoys and the real bin Laden are the birthmarks on their backs.

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The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is based on the idea that a search of the cosmos may reveal artificial signals that are being transmitted intentionally or as electromagnetic noise, like TV and radio signals.

But if we do detect these signals, what will they tell us other than the fact that we are not alone? The signals may contain messages from an alien civilization that we cannot decipher and SETI currently focuses on finding artificial signals, not on decoding them.

SETI researchers believe that the content of messages intentionally beamed toward Earth would rely on the universal language of math and science. But how would ETs transmit knowledge of their culture and history?
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Officials have dismissed the spraying of white powder over the Grassmire subdivision in Clarksville, Tennessee late Thursday afternoon as a coincidence.

There were rumors that a plane or helicopter spread a mysterious substance over the neighborhood, according to FBI Special Agent Bret Murray. Residents were told to stay indoors with their doors and windows closed. The substance tested negative for anthrax, and turns out to have been ash from a nearby fire at a construction site. It blew over the neighborhood, rather than being dropped out of the sky, but residents believed it was dropped by planes because the neighborhood is in the flight pattern of nearby Outlaw Field, he says.
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The White House has replaced NASA administrator Daniel Goldin with a budget buster known for his relentless cost-cutting. President Bush has nominated Sean O?Keefe, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, to the top job at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The 45-year-old O?Keefe served as Navy secretary for Bush?s father and also worked for Vice President Dick Cheney, when Cheney was defense secretary in the 1990s. O?Keefe was known for his budget cutting at the Pentagon. He must be confirmed by the Senate.

Reaction to Daniel Goldin was mixed. He was the agency?s longest-serving chief, serving a record 3,517 days. Some criticized him from turning NASA into a bloated, money wasting bureaucracy.
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