official science and technology thread

ASUHATER! · Post by **ASUHATER!** » Sat Jul 02, 2016 7:23 pm

ghostwhitehorse wrote:Coming this July 4th. . .http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6554" target="_blank

J.O.I.

Excited for this. Should be some amazing data and images coming.

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Mon Jul 04, 2016 7:28 pm

ASUHATER! · Post by **ASUHATER!** » Mon Jul 04, 2016 9:44 pm

Juno successfully entered orbit. If you go outside right now you can see Saturn, Mars and Jupiter all at the same time...and the United States has orbiters around all 3.

Puerco · Post by **Puerco** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 4:23 am

Let's see China try to build some islands there! USA! USA!

Daryl Zero · Post by **Daryl Zero** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 9:04 am

ghostwhitehorse wrote:Coming this July 4th. . .http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6554" target="_blank

J.O.I.

NASA has really upped its PR game. The video is like a trailer for a Ridley Scott movie or something.
From watching the live feed, I learned really nothing much happened on July 4 other than the probe slowed down to get into an orbit which will allow it to pass back in 52 days in order to start getting information. They turned off all the collection instruments while this happened. The real show begins later.

Anyone know how long it takes information to get from the probe to earth?

scumdevils86 · Post by **scumdevils86** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 9:10 am

i think it is less than an hour. but dunno for sure.

ASUCatFan · Post by **ASUCatFan** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 9:44 am

According to this, it varies from just over a half hour to about 54 minutes depending on where Jupiter and Earth are in their respective orbits.

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questi ... to-jupiter" target="_blank

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 7:07 pm

RichardCranium · Post by **RichardCranium** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:05 pm

4Life wrote:I think what this is shows is that we really don't know as much as we thought we did about the world.

That's why we do science... to learn new stuff about the world.

Einstein always doubted quantum mechanics, maybe because he was a Deist

The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The concept that there might be a conflict between science and and whatever religious beliefs he had never entered his mind. That is just a silly suggestion.

I don't think you can fairly call Einstein a Deist, but what ever religious belief he may have held he absolutely did not believe in a personal God.

Furthermore, Einstein didn't "doubt" quantum theory - he didn't like it, but he didn't doubt it.

, but now is proving to be true.

Quantum theory has been "proven" for almost a hundred years and you are communicating with one of the earliest practical applications of Quantum theory. Your computer is stuffed with millions of quantum devices called 'transistors'.

Einstein of course famously spent the remainder of his life looking for a Unified Field Theory.

Yes and its still only a pipe dream for physicists. I miss he relevance of this thought however. I'm not sure how it relates to the rest of your post.

Anyway, clearly, this advancement in movement of information across distances should prove to advance communication and computing technology.

Well it is, at least, interesting.

RichardCranium · Post by **RichardCranium** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:06 pm

Hmmph.

I think I just got trapped in a time warp.

(just a step to the left...)

Post by **UAdevil** » Wed Jul 13, 2016 6:28 pm

http://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who-l ... mitstart=1" target="_blank

A man who lives without 90% of his brain is challenging our concept of 'consciousness'

The father of two lives a normal life.

A French man who lives a relatively normal, healthy life - despite missing 90 percent of his brain - is causing scientists to rethink what it is from a biological perspective that makes us conscious.

Despite decades of research, our understanding of consciousness - being aware of one's existence - is still pretty thin. We know that it's somehow based in the brain, but then how can someone lose the majority of their neurons and still be aware of themselves and their surroundings?

First described in The Lancet in 2007, the case of the man with the missing brain has been puzzling scientists for almost 10 years.

The French man was 44 years old at the time the journal article came out, and although his identity was kept confidential, the researchers explained how he'd lived most of his life without realising anything was wrong with him.

He only went to the doctor complaining of mild weakness in his left leg, when brain scans revealed that his skull was mostly filled with fluid, leaving just a thin outer layer of actual brain tissue, with the internal part of his brain almost totally eroded away.

Doctors think the majority of the man's brain was slowly destroyed over the course of 30 years by the build-up of fluid in the brain, a condition known as hydrocephalus. He'd been diagnosed with it as an infant and treated with a stent, but it was removed when he was 14 years old, and since then, the majority of his brain seems to have been eroded.

But despite his minimal remaining brain tissue, the man wasn't mentally disabled - he had a low IQ of 75, but was working as a civil servant. He was also married with two children, and was relatively healthy.

Not only did his case study cause scientists to question what it takes to survive, it also challenges our understanding of consciousness.

In the past, researchers have suggested that consciousness might be linked to various specific brain regions - such as the claustrum, a thin sheet of neurons running between major brain regions, or the visual cortex.

But if those hypotheses were correct, then the French man shouldn't be conscious, with the majority of his brain missing.

"Any theory of consciousness has to be able to explain why a person like that, who's missing 90 percent of his neurons, still exhibits normal behaviour," Axel Cleeremans, a cognitive psychologist from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, told Quartz.

In other words, it's unlikely that one specific region on its own is going to be responsible for consciousness.

Cleeremans has instead come up with a hypothesis that's based on the brain learning consciousness over and over again, rather than being born with it. Which means its location can be flexible and learnt by different brain regions.

"Consciousness is the brain’s non-conceptual theory about itself, gained through experience - that is learning, interacting with itself, the world, and with other people," he explains.

He first published this idea back in 2011, and has now given a lecture on the subject at the 2016 Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness conference in Buenos Aires in June.

He calls his hypothesis the 'radical plasticity thesis', and it fits in pretty well with recent research that suggests the adult brain is more adaptable than we previously thought - and capable of taking on new roles in case of injury.

As Olivia Goldhill reports for Quartz:

"Cleeremans argues that in order to be aware, it’s necessary not simply to know information, but to know that one knows information. In other words, unlike a thermostat that simply records temperature, conscious humans both know and care that they know.

Cleeremans claims that the brain is continually and unconsciously learning to re-describe its own activity to itself, and these descriptions form the basis of conscious experience."

But what does all that have to do with a man surviving with only 10 percent of his brain? According to Cleeremans, even though his remaining brain was only tiny, the neurons left over were able to still generate a theory about themselves, which means the man remained conscious of his actions.

In itself, the concept isn't new - we're discovering more and more each day just how flexible and adaptable our brains really are. Just this week, scientists were able to trigger brain cells to start growing again in order to restore vision in blind mice.

But it's a striking reminder of what our brains can learn to achieve, even when they're incredibly damaged, and provides hope that we might one day learn how to reverse some of the illnesses that cause neurodegeneration.

Daryl Zero · Post by **Daryl Zero** » Wed Jul 13, 2016 9:52 pm

I think one of the biggest keys to consciousness is memory.

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Thu Jul 14, 2016 10:48 am

Here's a pic of my niece at work.

That's some of the Space Launch System hardware behind her at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 9:30 am

Juno's first image.

Merkin · Post by **Merkin** » Tue Jul 26, 2016 8:23 am

and of course

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Sat Jul 30, 2016 11:14 am

https://news.uic.edu/breakthrough-solar ... nable-fuel" target="_blank

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have engineered a potentially game-changing solar cell that cheaply and efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide directly into usable hydrocarbon fuel, using only sunlight for energy.
The finding is reported in the July 29 issue of Science and was funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. A provisional patent application has been filed.
Unlike conventional solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity that must be stored in heavy batteries, the new device essentially does the work of plants, converting atmospheric carbon dioxide into fuel, solving two crucial problems at once. A solar farm of such “artificial leaves” could remove significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and produce energy-dense fuel efficiently.

This is BIG.

Merkin · Post by **Merkin** » Sat Jul 30, 2016 11:49 am

ghostwhitehorse wrote:https://news.uic.edu/breakthrough-solar ... nable-fuel

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have engineered a potentially game-changing solar cell that cheaply and efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide directly into usable hydrocarbon fuel, using only sunlight for energy.
The finding is reported in the July 29 issue of Science and was funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. A provisional patent application has been filed.
Unlike conventional solar cells, which convert sunlight into electricity that must be stored in heavy batteries, the new device essentially does the work of plants, converting atmospheric carbon dioxide into fuel, solving two crucial problems at once. A solar farm of such “artificial leaves” could remove significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and produce energy-dense fuel efficiently.
This is BIG.

Amin Salehi-Khojin (left), UIC assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, and postdoctoral researcher Mohammad Asadi with their breakthrough solar cell that converts atmospheric carbon dioxide directly into syngas.

Better get it finished before Trump deports them.

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Sat Jul 30, 2016 2:37 pm

They're witches! Burn them!!!

- 2016 GOP

Puerco · Post by **Puerco** » Tue Aug 02, 2016 4:55 am

Will believe it when I see it... (this is spoken as a chemist)

ANGCatFan · Post by **ANGCatFan** » Thu Aug 04, 2016 3:51 pm

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Sun Aug 07, 2016 5:53 am

ANGCatFan wrote:

Puerco · Post by **Puerco** » Mon Aug 08, 2016 7:04 am

No one has explained to me how that bus is going to make a left turn.

PieceOfMeat · Post by **PieceOfMeat** » Mon Aug 08, 2016 7:15 pm

Puerco wrote:No one has explained to me how that bus is going to make a left turn.

It's on rails, so I'd assume the same way a train does.

Puerco · Post by **Puerco** » Tue Aug 09, 2016 3:58 am

Don't think it is on rails, and trains don't have automobiles driving between their wheels...

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Tue Aug 09, 2016 4:01 am

From the Popular Mechanics article I linked:

The height of the model presents even more problems. The maximum height of vehicles on the road in China is 4.2 to 4.5 meters, but the TEB only can accommodate vehicles that are 2.1 meters tall. Furthermore, it's unclear how the vehicle would turn or evade stoplights. To top all this off, the Transit Elevated Bus isn't even a bus. It runs on tracks, so it is, in fact, a train.

Puerco · Post by **Puerco** » Tue Aug 09, 2016 4:13 am

So from what I understand it runs on separate tracks which are like a miniature sunken road, but it still has normal bus-like wheels. The designers say they would put guardrails along the road between the cars and the train to minimize the potential damage from collisions. That's all fine and good, but something that long would have to get most of the way into an intersection before even beginning to turn if it's to avoid the cars parked between its wheels.

Chi, the height restriction is a problem which would eventually snarl up traffic, causing it all to move at the same speed as the bus. But what isn't mentioned is the problem of bridges and underpasses and how this tall thing is going to navigate under (or through) all those.

Seems like a plausible concept which would work if you designed your city around the idea. Retrofitting it into an existing one might be a little trickier.

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Thu Aug 11, 2016 10:49 am

This is technically technology:

Peek America Achievement: Unlocked

Puerco · Post by **Puerco** » Fri Aug 12, 2016 12:05 am

Chinese state media have raised concerns that the company behind a futuristic elevated bus vaunted as a solution to congestion on the country’s crowded roads is using the innovation to lure investors.

Unveiled to the public last week in the seaside town of Qinhuangdao near Beijing, the prototype “Batie Line 1” or Transit Elevated Bus is an electrically powered vehicle whose passenger compartment is raised above the highway, allowing road traffic to flow beneath it. The technology has been heralded by some as the solution to China’s urban congestion and pollution woes.

But concerns have emerged that the technology may be a vehicle to lure investors into buying financial products sold on funding platforms run by Bai Zhiming, the chief executive of TEB Technology, which last year purchased the patent for the bus.

https://www.ft.com/content/aa01000e-5fa ... baadeb1c93

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Fri Aug 12, 2016 2:49 pm

Post by **UAdevil** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 5:49 pm

https://www.inverse.com/article/19695-n ... a-centauri" target="_blank

Since the Kepler mission began hunting for exoplanets in 2009, we’ve discovered enough potential “Earth-like planets” to have become slightly inured to the phrase. But one of the latest finds is extra-special because it’s close —- like, really, really close.

The newly discovered exoplanet is orbiting a red dwarf star called Proxima Centauri, which is only about 4.25 lightyears away. Proxima Centauri, as the name suggests, is the closest star to Earth save for the sun. The discovery of exoplanets possibly capable of supporting life is often bittersweet — while they’re fascinating from a purely scientific standpoint, they’re almost always too distant for us to reach within a human lifetime.

ASUHATER! · Post by **ASUHATER!** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 3:44 pm

the proxima b news is pretty exciting.

interesting fact...it's probably the closest exo planet to us in the universe...but it would still take the fastest man made object ever (helios 2 solar probe) 18,127 years to get there.

Post by **UAdevil** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 9:16 pm

ASUHATER! wrote:the proxima b news is pretty exciting.

interesting fact...it's probably the closest exo planet to us in the universe...but it would still take the fastest man made object ever (helios 2 solar probe) 18,127 years to get there.

http://www.space.com/33839-proxima-cent ... spc_514630" target="_blank

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 3:22 pm

This should go well.

signed,'

Michael Crichton

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Wed Sep 14, 2016 9:26 pm

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 1:31 pm

RIP Jack Garman

http://www.space.com/34135-jack-garman- ... tuary.html" target="_blank

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 12:09 pm

SPACE WHALES!!!!!!!!

84Cat · Post by **84Cat** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 12:31 pm

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 6:48 am

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:35 am

Astronomers discover there are 10 times more galaxies than previously thought

http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2 ... e-galaxies" target="_blank

We know so very, very little about the universe, as a paper published today in the Astrophysical Journal reminds us. We thought the observable universe contained billions of galaxies. But it seems there are at least 2 trillion galaxies out there — 10 times greater than astronomers’ previous estimates.

Examining decades of data from the Hubble Space Telescopes and other observatories around the world, an international team of scientists now believe that 90 percent of the galaxies in the universe are “too faint and too far away to be seen.”

But they are out there.

Let’s pause for a moment to let this all sink in.

A galaxy can house hundreds of billions of stars, and each star system can contain dozens of planets. Astronomers have estimated there may be a billion Earth-like planets rocky planets orbiting in a star’s “habitable zone” in our galaxy alone. And now, we learn, there are around 2 trillion (12 zeros!) galaxies. Whoa. (As Forbes points out, that’s 200 galaxies for each human on Earth.)

"It boggles the mind that over 90 percent of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied,” Christopher Conselice, who led the study at the University of Nottingham, says in a press release. “Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we discover these galaxies with future generations of telescopes?”

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Mon Oct 17, 2016 3:11 pm

There should be a choice you can program in. Such as, if I'm alone, kill me not the pedestrian, but if there are others in the car kill the pedestrian.

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Wed Oct 19, 2016 10:44 am

Chicat wrote:
There should be a choice you can program in. Such as, if I'm alone, kill me not the pedestrian, but if there are others in the car kill the pedestrian.

Road and city planning can mitigate this kind necessity. But (eyeballs current state of the infrastructure and the attitudes of far to many politicos. . .) that is boring shyte so. . .

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Mon Oct 24, 2016 7:26 pm

NASA Launches Eighth Year of Antarctic Ice Change Airborne Survey

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/201 ... rne-survey" target="_blank

At the southern end of the Earth, a NASA plane carrying a team of scientists and a sophisticated instrument suite to study ice is returning to surveying Antarctica. For the past eight years, Operation IceBridge has been on a mission to build a record of how polar ice is evolving in a changing environment.

The information IceBridge has gathered in the Antarctic, which includes data on the thickness and shape of snow and ice, as well as the topography of the land and ocean floor beneath the ocean and the ice, has allowed scientists to determine that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be in irreversible decline. Researchers have also used IceBridge data to evaluate climate models of Antarctica and map the bedrock underneath Antarctic ice.

IceBridge completed the first research flight of its 2016 Antarctic campaign on October 14. The campaign will continue through November 19. This year, the mission is based in Punta Arenas, a city at the southern tip of Chile. From there, IceBridge is carrying 12-hour flights back and forth to Antarctica, covering most of the western section of the frozen continent – the region that is experiencing the fastest changes and is Antarctica’s biggest contributor to sea level rise.

“We have a total of 46 flight lines to choose from this year,” said John Sonntag, IceBridge mission scientist. “If we’re lucky –the weather is very tricky in Antarctica– we’ll fly around half of them, for a total of 300 flight hours.”

What's really cool (see what I did there?) about this deal is my niece's husband is on this trip. His Facebook feed has some pics and video of their trip.

https://www.facebook.com/steve.tanner2? ... ED&fref=nf" target="_blank

His name is Steve Tanner and he's a scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

https://www.facebook.com/NSIDC/?pnref=about.overview" target="_blank

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:27 am

Physics is. . .crunchy.

Daryl Zero · Post by **Daryl Zero** » Fri Oct 28, 2016 5:53 pm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bra ... e1b4b22e4c

Scientists Take Big Step Toward Being Able To Repair Brain Injuries

Scientists have long been working toward a day when a traumatic injury or stroke doesn’t cause brain cells to be permanently lost.

Executing this extremely difficult task would involve figuring out how to transplant new neurons into brain tissue. But neurons form precise connections with each other, and are guided by physiological signals that are active during early brain development ― meaning that you can’t sow a fistful of new neurons into mature brain tissue and expect them to grow the way they should.

But scientists are making progress.

Embryonic neurons transplanted into the damaged brain of mice formed proper connections with their neighbors and restored function, researchers wrote in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

By the fourth week, the transplanted young cells became the type of cells normally seen in that area of the brain. They were functional and responded to visual signals from the eyes. Moreover, the cells didn’t develop aberrant connections, something that could lead to epileptic seizures.

“What we did there is proof of concept,” said neuroscientist Magdalena Götz of Ludwig-Maximilians University and the Institute of Stem Cell Research at the Helmholtz Center in Munich, Germany.

“We took the best type of neurons, chosen at a specific time, and then we put them in the lesioned brain,” she said. “That was to find out how well can it work.”

The finding is an important step forward for someday repairing brain injury by using replacement neurons, other researchers said. Still, there are many challenges left.

ASUHATER! · Post by **ASUHATER!** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 9:49 pm

Do yourself a favor and go look at the full moon tonight. It's a supermoon, meaning it's the closest to earth and brightest it's been in 68 years tonight. It's almost hard to look at it's so bright.

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 10:59 am

Merkin · Post by **Merkin** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 11:03 am

If I remember my reading, didn't they use amber to get dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park?

Daryl Zero · Post by **Daryl Zero** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 11:37 am

Merkin wrote:If I remember my reading, didn't they use amber to get dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park?

I think there was a mosquito trapped in amber that had dinosaur DNA in it from drinking its blood.

Chicat · Post by **Chicat** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 11:38 am

So... is that fur?

ASUHATER! · Post by **ASUHATER!** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 11:42 am

looks like early feathers. like a close up of a bird feather

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