Cool Science News

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

How Will Aircraft Carrier Crews Guide In Robot Planes?

Video: Aircraft Carrier Crews Guide In Robot Planes With Visible Hand Gestures -- Popular Science

Landing airplanes on moving ships is no mean feat, but this will be especially true when the airplanes are unmanned. Along with making decisions, autonomous airplanes will have to heed their human counterparts during aircraft carrier takeoff and landing — but can a robot read and understand arm-waving signals?

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My Comment: Hmmmm .... what happens if the operator coughs while directing an unmanned plane?

Bombs vs Bunkers

A B-52 releases a MOP during a weapons test.
U.S. Department of Defense

Bombs vs Bunkers In A Potential Iran Attack -- Popular Mechanics

The possibility of an Iran attack highlights the latest arms race: The United States trying to build new bunker-busting weapons while Iran buries its nuclear labs deep underground to try to avoid possible U.S. (or Israeli) bombs.

The United States and Iran have engaged in a war of words over their military capabilities in the last few weeks. But if an actual war breaks out, it will not be a war of U.S. bombs versus Iranian bombs, but of U.S. bombs versus Iran's bunkers.

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My Comment: The last sentence of this article is what caught my eye ....

.... Bombing those facilities would have huge consequences for the surrounding area, Cirincione argues. "We have never experienced such bombings in history," he says. "Up until now, they have been considered beyond the pale."

Indeed .... I guess the times are-a-changing.

Apple 'iPad Mini' Is Planned

Apple 'iPad Mini' Is Planned, Samsung Official Tells Korea Times -- L.A. Times

The rumor of Apple developing a smaller-screen "iPad Mini" is sticky. It won't go away. It seems not to want to die or be forgotten.

It's akin to stepping into a wad of melting gum on a burning Arizona summer sidewalk that leaves dirty remnants behind, even after you've cleaned it off, because that gum slid itself into the caverns between the grooved tread on the sole of your sneakers.

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My Comment: I guess this will be between an iPod and an iPad

Human: Contagion: Is a Killer Virus Out There? (Video)

The Best Pic Of The Apollo 11 Moonwalks Published

(Click on Image to Enlarge)
March 14, 2012 -- The clearest view yet of the famous Apollo 11 landing site on the moon was captured by a NASA spacecraft in orbit around our planet's natural satellite.

Most Detailed View Yet of the Apollo 11 Moonwalks: Big Pic -- Discovery News

The agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) zeroed in on Mare Tranquillitatis, or the Sea of Tranquility -- the place where humans first touched down on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. The new image from LRO captures amazing details of the historic site, even revealing the remnants of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's first steps on the moon.

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Why 'Warp Drive' May Not Be Feasible

The findings of a new study spell bad news for anybody at the warp drive destination. Credit: iStockPhoto

Warp Drive Could Be A Doomsday Weapon -- Cosmos

SYDNEY: The search for the holy grail of intergalactic travel has encountered a slight hitch, say Australian scientists.

Recent research predicts that upon reaching its destination, the theoretical Alcubierre warp drive – a speculative idea proposed by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994 by which a spacecraft could be accelerated to speeds greater than the speed of light - would unleash a high energy cocktail of particles and radiation, blasting anyone in its path “into oblivion”.

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My Comment: No warp drive .... say it ain't so.

Boeing's Phantom Eye Takes Flight

The Phantom Eye goes for a ride.
(Credit: NASA)

Boeing's Phantom Eye Goes For A Low Ride -- CNET

Someday the Phantom Eye will soar at 65,000 feet. For now, Boeing's excited just to see it go four-wheeling on the desert floor.

The hydrogen-powered unmanned aircraft earlier this month took a modest, ground-level spin at Edwards Air Force Base in its first medium-speed taxi test, Boeing said today. Nestled on its launch cart system, the Phantom Eye traveled some 4,000 feet at speeds of up to 30 knots in a trip that lasted less than two minutes. (In the air, it's expected to have a maximum speed of 200 knots.)

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More News On Boeing's Phantom Eye

Boeing Phantom Eye Conducts Medium-speed Taxi Test -- Defpro

Boeing’s Phantom Eye spy plane rolls closer to flight -- Geek Wire

Hydrogen-powered plane completes taxi test -- UPI
Phantom Eye enters taxi tests -- Flight Global
Boing Phantom Eye Hydrogen-Powered UAV [Video] -- Auto Evolution

Russia Will Finally Send A Man To The Moon

Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin Jr fulfilled John F. Kennedy’s promise to reach the Moon by the end of the decade, landing there on July 20, 1969, with NASA’s Apollo 11 Photo: Reuters

Russia To Finally Send Man To The Moon -- The Telegraph

Russia will send a team of cosmonauts to the Moon, 60 years after Neil Armstrong’s Apollo mission effectively ended the US-Soviet space race.

A spacecraft will “conduct a demonstrative manned circumlunar test flight with the subsequent landing of cosmonauts on [the Moon’s] surface and their return to Earth” by 2030, according to a leaked strategy document from Russia’s space agency, Roskosmos.

Moscow has periodically announced ambitious plans for space exploration in recent years, but this is the first time a firm deadline has been set for a manned lunar mission.

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My Comment: Better late than never.

Is Google Losing It's Mojo?

Is Google+ an asset or a distraction?
(Credit: Screenshot by Ben Parr/CNET)

Has Google Lost Its Magic? -- CNet

Google's empire is under direct assault from Facebook. Its big weapons -- Search, AdWords, and AdSense -- are not as potent as they once were, thanks to the rise of social media.

This frightens Google immensely. Facebook is now the Web's top destination, and it's quickly becoming the platform that powers the Web. It even threatens Google's core advertising business. If Facebook were to ever launch a social version of AdSense, it could snap up advertisers and cause a serious disruption to Google's cash cow.

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My Comment: They still control and dominate search .... and their business plan is still sound.

The Secret To Smarter Computers?

Scientists think adding a baby's imaginative powers and all-around braininess to computers would make these machines smarter and more human. CREDIT: Aphichart | Shutterstock

Baby Brains May Be The Secret To Smarter Computers -- Live Science

Cognitive scientists hope to bottle up a baby's brain — and the imagination and air of possibility that comes with it — and use the result to make computers smarter.

"Children are the greatest learning machines in the universe," Alison Gopnik, a developmental psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley, said in a statement. "Imagine if computers could learn as much and as quickly as they do," said Gopnik, author of the books "The Scientist in the Crib" (William Morrow, 2000) and "The Philosophical Baby" (Picador, 2010).

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My Comment: A unique and different way to look at making computers "smarter".

Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops The Print Edition After More Than 200 Years

A set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the shelves of the New York Public Library. Ángel Franco/The New York Times

After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses -- New York Times

After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print.

Those coolly authoritative, gold-lettered reference books that were once sold door-to-door by a fleet of traveling salesmen and displayed as proud fixtures in American homes will be discontinued, company executives said.

In an acknowledgment of the realities of the digital age — and of competition from the Web site Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools. The last print version is the 32-volume 2010 edition, which weighs 129 pounds and includes new entries on global warming and the Human Genome Project.

DARPA Wants Swarms of Cheap And Disposable Satellites

SeeMe Satellites The SeeMe program would give warfighters the ability to receive timely imagery of their specific overseas location directly from a small satellite, all at the press of a button. DARPA

DARPA Wants Swarms of Cheap, Disposable Satellites That Take Pictures On Demand -- Popular Science

Warfighters have plenty of eyes in the sky, with a massive drone fleet and a satellite network that can spot their locations on the ground. But satellites are only helpful when they’re overhead, and battlefield situations can’t wait for orbital physics. To solve this problem, DARPA wants a swarm of cheap satellites nestled between the big ones up above and the aerial drones down below. The satellite swarm would be positioned in tactical orbits and able to send a space-based image back to any individual who wants a picture.

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My Comment: This is taking surveillance and reconnaissance to an entirely different level.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

A Robot In Every Home Within The Decade?

Simon the Robot, created in the lab of Andrea Thomaz (School of Interactive Computing), learns a new task from a participant in a study seeking to determine the best questions a robot learner can ask to facilitate smooth human-robot interaction. (Credit: Image courtesy of Georgia Institute of Technology)

Teach Your Robot Well -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2012) — Within a decade, personal robots could become as common in U.S. homes as any other major appliance, and many if not most of these machines will be able to perform innumerable tasks not explicitly imagined by their manufacturers. This opens up a wider world of personal robotics, in which machines are doing anything their owners can program them to do -- without actually being programmers.

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My Comment: I think we are still far away from having 'crude personal robots' in our homes .... but we will one day get there.

Location Of Lost Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Found?

Threading the endoscope into the Vasari wall to find signs of the lost Leonardo painting "The Battle of Anghiari" in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio. (Credit: Dave Yoder)

Data Support Theory On Location Of Lost Leonardo Da Vinci Painting -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2012) — Evidence uncovered during research conducted in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio late last year appears to support the theory that a lost Leonardo da Vinci painting existed on the east wall of the Hall of the 500, behind Giorgio Vasari's mural "The Battle of Marciano." The data supporting the theoretical location of the da Vinci painting "The Battle of Anghiari" was obtained through the use of an endoscopic probe that was inserted through the wall on which the Vasari fresco was painted. The probe was fitted with a camera and allowed a team of researchers, led by scientist Maurizio Seracini, to see what was behind the Vasari and gather samples for further testing.

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My Comment: Why did someone cover over a Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece? I guess there are some mysteries that we will never know.

How Yahoo Weaponized My Work

A Patent Lie: How Yahoo Weaponized My Work -- Epicentre

While most of the tech world was partying at South by Southwest in Austin yesterday, Yahoo announced it was filing a lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly infringing on 10 patents from their 1,000+ patent warehouse.

I’m no fan of Facebook, but this is a deplorable move. It’s nothing less than extortion, expertly timed during the SEC-mandated quiet period before Facebook’s IPO. It’s an attack on invention and the hacker ethic.

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My Comment: Lawyers and patent law .... not a good place to be if you are the target, and right now Facebook is the target..

Close Encounter Between Jupiter And Venus Dazzles Amateur Astronomers

Jupiter And Venus Conjunction Dazzles Amateur Astronomers -- The Telegraph

Jupiter and Venus last night appeared next to each other in the night sky in a display that delighted amateur astronomers.

The planets are 450 million miles apart in space, but because they are aligned in the same direction from Earth they last night appeared just three degrees apart.

They were visible towards the West just after sunset and before the stars appeared. They will appear bright and relatively close over the next few weeks, and will be most visible in rural areas where there is less light pollution.

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South Korean And Russian Scientists Agree To Try And Clone A Mammoth

A near-perfect frozen mammoth resurfaces after 40,000 years, bearing clues to a great vanished species. National Geographic

South Korean And Russian Scientists Bid To Clone Mammoth -- The Telegraph

Russian and South Korean scientists signed a deal on Tuesday on joint research intended to recreate a woolly mammoth, an animal which last walked the earth some 10,000 years ago.

The deal was signed by Vasily Vasiliev, vice rector of North-Eastern Federal University of the Sakha Republic, and controversial cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-Suk of South Korea's Sooam Biotech Research Foundation.

Hwang was a national hero until some of his research into creating human stem cells was found in 2006 to have been faked. But his work in creating Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, in 2005, has been verified by experts.

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My Comment: I wish them luck.

Live World-Wide Earthquakes Map

CSN Editor: The following web page gives an up-to-date report of earthquake incidences around the world. The link to the website is here.

Google 'To Unveil Seven-Inch iPad Rival' In May

Asus's hit EEEPad - the tablet maker is said to be developing a seven-inch tablet in collaboration with Google which would carry both Asus and Google branding

Google 'To Unveil Seven-Inch iPad Rival' In May - And Android Tablet Could Cost As Little As £130 -- Daily Mail

* Built to play music and video from Google's Play store
* Seven-inch Android device to compete with Kindle Fire
* Apple rumoured to be working on 'iPad Mini'

Google is to unveil a smaller, cheaper Android rival to Apple's iPad as early as May - made in partnership with tablet-maker Asus.

The tablet could sell for as little as £130, and will have a seven-inch screen, according to a leak reported in Digitimes.

The device would be a competitor to Amazon's Kindle Fire - and like Fire, would be built to sell content such as video and music via Google's own online store.

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My Comment: You got to love the competition and the market choice that is now happening.

Astronauts' Eyeballs Deformed By Long Missions In Space

Astronaut Leroy Chiao performs an ultrasound examination of the eye on Salizhan Sharipov aboard the space station. Brain and eye problems have surfaced in astronauts who spent more than a month in space. Discovery News

Long Space Missions 'May Damage Eyesight' -- BBC

The eyes and brains of astronauts who have spent long periods of time in orbit can develop abnormalities, new research has suggested.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on 27 spacefarers found effects similar to those that can occur in intracranial hypertension, which results in a build up of pressure within the skull.

The concern would be that astronauts could suffer eyesight problems.

The study is reported in the Journal of Radiology.