In September 1959, physicists Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison published an article in the journal Nature with the provocative title "Searching for Interstellar Communications."  Cocconi and Morrison argued that radio telescopes had become sensitive enough to pick up transmissions that might be broadcast into space by civilizations orbiting other stars.  Such messages, they suggested, might be transmitted at a wavelength of 21 centimeters (1,420.4 megahertz).  This is the wavelength of radio emission by neutral hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, and they reasoned that other intelligences might see this as a logical landmark in the radio spectrum.  Seven months later, radio astronomer Frank Drake became the first person to start a systematic search for intelligent signals from the cosmos.  Using the 25 meter dish of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia.  Drake listened in on two nearby Sun-like stars: Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti.  In this project, that he called Project Ozma, he slowly scanned frequencies close to the 21 cm wavelength for six hours per day from April to July 1960.  The project was well designed, cheap, simple by today's standards, and unsuccessful.  Soon thereafter, Drake hosted a "search for extraterrestrial intelligence" meeting on detecting their radio signals.  The meeting was held at the Green Bank facility in 1961. The equation that bears Drake's name arose out of his preparations for the meeting.  Read much more and learn about the Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

Vinton Cerf, widely recognized as one of the “Fathers of the Internet” for his work on the design of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet, has served as Vice President and Chief Internet evangelist for Google since October 2005.  He was chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000-2007.  He is currently also President of the Association for Computing Machinery.  Mr. Cerf is also the former Senior Vice President of Technology Strategy and Architecture and Technology for MCI.  While working with MCI, Mr. Cerf led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet.  He currently serves on several boards and has received numerous awards for his continuously pioneering work including the U.S. National Medal of Technology, the ACM Alan M. Turing award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Japan Prize and the Queen Elizabeth II Prize for Engineering.  David Brin is a scientist, inventor, and New York Times bestselling author.  With books translated into 25 languages, he has won multiple Hugo, Nebula, and other awards.  A film directed by Kevin Costner was based on David’s novel The Postman.  Other works have been optioned by Paramount and Warner Bros.  David’s science-fictional Uplift Saga explores genetic engineering of higher animals, like dolphins, to speak.  His new novel from Tor Books is Existence.  As a scientist/futurist, David is seen frequently on television shows such as The ArchiTechs, Universe, and Life After People (most popular show ever on the History Channel) – with many appearances on PBS, BBC and NPR.  http://ipnsig.org/2014/01/16/speaer-bios/  

In the March 2014 issue of Communications of the ACM, Vinton Cerf discusses David Brin's speech at a January 2014 conference organized by the Internet Society's chapter on Interplanetary Communication.  Brin said:  What if we are the ones who are supposed to light the galaxy?  What if our species is destined to spread outward from Earth to populate the galaxy?  Some of the questions raised by the speaker in Cerf's mind:  What technologies do we need to expand beyond our planet and our solar system?  How should we prepare ourselves for such an ultimate goal?  If we encounter a similarly inclined species, how would we communicate?  What Rosetta stone should we prepare?

Power of the Pen is an interscholastic writing league founded by Lorraine B. Merrill in 1986. It is a non-profit creative writing program for students in grades seven and eight in Ohio.   Power of the Pen is exclusive to the state of Ohio, having no competition at a national level.  Over 80 school districts compete, each starting off with teams of twelve students, six from each grade.

Power of the Pen is also the name of a Public Relations and Communications agency founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1997.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_the_Pen

No Wizards, no wands  In the 1990s, Duncan Scott, then the New Mexico Senator, became so fed up with psychological expert witnesses he proposed this amendment to a State Bill:  “When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant’s competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than two feet tall.  The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts.  Additionally, a psychologist or psychiatrist shall be required to don a white beard that is not less than 18 inches in length, and shall punctuate crucial elements of his testimony by stabbing the air with a wand.”   http://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/nlj/content/no-wizards-or-wands  Turns out the story is true. Mr. Scott tacked this amendment onto a Bill in 1995 and, despite its clearly satirical nature, it passed with a unanimous Senate vote.   The amendment was then removed from the Bill prior to receiving House approval so it never did become law.  http://bc-injury-law.com/blog/making-psychiatrists-dress-wizards

In 2013, the cost of making pennies and nickels exceeded their face value for the eighth year in a row.  The cost of minting a penny stood at 1.8 cents, nearly twice its face value.  Nickels cost twice as much as dimes – 9.4 cents vs. 4.6 cents – despite being worth only half as much.  All told, the Mint (and ultimately, U.S. taxpayers) lost $105 million on the production of pennies and nickels last year.  The least controversial approach would be to simply change the metal composition of the coins to make them less expensive.  Canadian nickels, for example, are 95% steel, which makes them cheaper to produce than their American cousins.  As of last year, Canadian nickels still cost less than their face value.  The other option would be to discontinue pennies and nickels entirely – Canada ditched its pennies when their production cost approached 1.6 cents, well below what U.S. pennies cost now.  To be fair, the penny has plenty of supporters in the general public.  A 2012 survey by penny lobbying firm ‘Americans for Common Cents’ – funded, not surprisingly, by the zinc industry – found that 2/3rds of Americans favored keeping the penny. While any poll conducted by a lobbying outfit should be treated with skepticism, it’s probably safe to say that the penny and nickel hold special places in many Americans’ hearts – see, for starters, the remarkable number of penny-centric phrases and idioms in English.  Past attempts to discontinue penny production have been thwarted by the zinc industry (pennies are 97.5% zinc), and Coinstar, which operates the change-redeeming kiosks that are ubiquitous in U.S. grocery stores, as David Owen reported in The New Yorker in 2008.  Christopher Ingraham  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/10/taxpayers-lost-105-million-on-pennies-and-nickels-last-year/

Texas State Representative Tom Moore, Jr. introduced legislation on April 1, 1971 commending Albert de Salvo—more commonly known as the Boston Strangler—including this wording:  This compassionate gentleman's dedication and devotion to his work has enabled the weak and the lonely throughout the nation to achieve and maintain a new degree of concern for their future.  He has been officially recognized by the state of Massachusetts for his noted activities and unconventional techniques involving population control and applied psychology.   

After it was passed unanimously by the House, Moore later withdrew the legislation, explaining he had only offered it to prove an important point that his fellow legislators didn't read much of the legislation they voted on.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Moore,_Jr.

Bookish, acquired by Zola Books in January, is an independent book recommendation engine, except it was never entirely independent.  Bookish was founded by three major publishers with a big announcement and then a fizzling, much-delayed launch.  It claimed editorial independence from its funders but never found a clear foothold online, struggling to reach readers.  Since being acquired by Zola, an independent book discovery site and online store, Bookish has been employed as the recommendation engine for the New York Public Library, as announced March 24, 2014.  Bookish's recommendations have been added to a service called BiblioCommons, which is or will be implemented by public libraries that include Seattle, Santa Monica, Chicago, Omaha, Boston and more.  Does it work?  Visitors to this section of the New York Public Library's website see book covers go by in a scroll that looks not unlike Amazon's more static "people who bought this also bought" row.  Clicking through to any single title pulls up "Bookish Recommends" along the right-hand side.   Zola says it has 780,000 titles in its database and it has figured out how to classify them so the connections make sense.  But Zola is in the business of selling books.  So why provide tools to library borrowers?  In a model not being employed by the NYPL, Radosevich explained, "clicks on recommended books point back to book pages on Zola's Bookish.com and partners earn a revenue share for any sales."  Carolyn Kellogg  http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-zola-bookish-recommendation-engine-for-libraries-20140325,0,101462.story#axzz2x5NR3rur

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1128  March 28, 2014  On this date in 1920, at least 31 tornados crossed the Midwest, and portions of Alabama and Georgia.   It ranks among the deadliest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history, killing more than 150 and injuring more than 900.