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Whenever we boot up our time machines, cruise back to 1200 B.C., and try to pick up chicks at our favorite wine bar in Western Syria, our rudimentary knowledge of Ugaritic is usually more embarrassing than helpful. The good folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have us stoked on some new software we hope to have in pocket form soon. It analyzes an unknown language by comparing letter and word patterns to another known language (in Ugaritic’s case, its close cousin is Hebrew) and spits out a translation quickly, using precious little computing power. To give some perspective, it took archaeologists four years to do the same thing back in 1928. It’s not quite Berlitz yet, but this proof of concept is kind of like the Michael Jordan of computational linguists – it’s probably the first time that machine translations of dead scripts has been proven effective. If we plug some hopeful numbers into our TI-83, we calculate that we’ll be inserting our own genes into the ancient Syrian pool in a matter of months. Thanks, MIT! (via New MIT software learns an entire dead language in just a few hours – Engadget)

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In the six-week pilot for the promotion, more than 100,000 in virtual Farm Cash was redeemed using the stickers, which appeared on 25 different Green Giant produce items. The promotion was launched in Target Fresh Grocery and SuperTarget stores first, but was expanded to stores nationwide as a result of the pilot promotion success.

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FarmVille, which has 65 million users and 20 million who play daily, has perhaps finally reached the mainstream by getting inside our grocery stores and refrigerators. Recently, we learned that Google is reportedly partnering with FarmVille game-maker Zynga to launch a hub for social online games after investing some $100 to $200 million in the company. And one of Zynga’s newest social games, FrontierVille, recently passed the 20 million user mark.

(via FarmVille Cash Invades Supermarkets Nationwide)

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“The discovery improves our knowledge of this species, but we need to focus our efforts on the conservation and restoration of the remaining montane forest (a high density forest) where this species still exists,” conservation biologist Dr. Craig Turner of the Zoological Society of London said in a press release. “Currently this accounts for less than one percent of the land area of Sri Lanka.” (via First pictures of the primate thought to be extinct)

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Now THIS is what I call “must-see TV!” A camera on the next Mars Rover — MSL, also known as Curiosity – will start recording high-definition video about two minutes before the rover lands on Mars, currently scheduled for August 2012. The Mars Descent Imager, or MARDI, will provide all of us Martian-wannabes with the first-ever ride along with the landing. And this will be a very unique landing, with the “Sky –Crane” lowering Curiosity to the planet’s surface. The video won’t be live, however – that’s way too much data for the spacecraft to send back to Earth at such an important event, but we will get to see it later. JPL provided a description of what the video should look like: (via Best Reality TV Ever: Camera Will Take Video of Next Mars Rover Landing | Universe Today)

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For the first time VSS Enterprise flew with crew on board. As planned, the spaceship remained attached to VMS Eve (captive) for the duration of the flight and numerous combined vehicle systems tests were conducted. In addition and for the first time, the two crew members on board VSS Enterprise, evaluated all of the spaceship’s systems and functions from end to end in the air. Objectives achieved. (via News – VSS Enterprise Makes First Crewed Flight | Virgin Galactic)

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