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Phoenix666 writes:

This example of engineering on (and under) "the Ice,"—as Antarctica is known—demonstrates the need for ingenuity and improvisation beyond anything training can provide.

In fact, those characteristics are precisely how British Antarctic Survey (BAS) engineer Julius Rix got his job: "My boss told me I got my first job with him because of my hobby working on old cars," Rix says. Unlike O'Sullivan, who went to Antarctica as a contract engineer for a one-time gig and now advises startups in and around Palo Alto, Calif., Rix has grown increasingly involved in Antarctic engineering. Rix got that first job maintaining ionosphere-measuring equipment at Halley Research Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf in 2008 after doing a Ph.D. in vehicle dynamics. After two years, he took a medical-imaging job in the United Kingdom. But his old boss lured him back a few years later to move the equipment from the old Halley station to a new one. Now he is a staff engineer at the BAS Cambridge office and has returned to Antarctica twice with a scientific team searching for the world's oldest ice.
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Recent job ads for electrical or electronics engineering jobs in Antarctica confirm that while jobs are available for those seeking an unusual workplace, a diversity of experience and willingness to embrace difficult living conditions are prerequisites. Engineers on the Ice do everything from building new facilities to maintaining telescopes and tagging along with scientific teams for temporary projects, as O'Sullivan did. The diversity of roles means that many kinds of engineers can go, but be warned: The competition is stiff.

Good to see a return to the kind of engineering that waned when the embers of the Space Race went cold.

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HughPickens.com writes:

Melinda Beck reports in the WSJ that doctors, hospitals and insurers are bracing for possible disruptions on October 1 when the U.S. health-care system switches to ICD-10, a massive new set of codes for describing illnesses and injuries that expands the way ailments are described from 14,000 to 70,000. Hospitals and physician practices have spent billions of dollars on training programs, boot camps, apps, flashcards and practice drills to prepare for the conversion, which has been postponed three times since the original date in 2011. With the move to ICD-10, the one code for suturing an artery will become 195 codes, designating every single artery, among other variables, according to OptumInsight, a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc. A single code for a badly healed fracture could now translate to 2,595 different codes, the firm calculates. Each signals information including what bone was broken, as well as which side of the body it was on.

Proponents says ICD-10 will help researchers better identify public-health problems, manage diseases and evaluate outcomes, and over time, will create a much more detailed body of data about patients' health—conveying a wealth of information in a single seven-digit code—and pave the way for changes in reimbursement as the nation moves toward value-based payment plans. "A clinician whose practice is filled with diabetic patients with multiple complications ought to get paid more for keeping them healthy than a clinician treating mostly cheerleaders," says Dr. Rogers. "ICD-10 will give us the precision to do that." As the changeover deadline approaches some fear a replay of the Affordable Care Act rollout debacle in 2013 that choked computer networks, delaying bills and claims for several months. Others recollect the end-of-century anxiety of Y2K, the Year 2000 computer bug that failed to materialize. "We're all hoping for the best and expecting the worst," says Sharon Ahearn. "I have built up what I call my war chest. That's to make sure we have enough working capital to see us through six to eight weeks of slow claims."

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Phoenix666 writes:

There is a strong correspondence between a particular set of connections in the brain and positive lifestyle and behaviour traits, according to a new study by Oxford University researchers.

A team of scientists led by the University's Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain has investigated the connections in the brains of 461 people and compared them with 280 different behavioural and demographic measures that were recorded for the same participants. They found that variation in brain connectivity and an individual's traits lay on a single axis - where those with classically positive lifestyles and behaviours had different connections to those with classically negative ones. The findings are published in Nature Neuroscience.

The team used data from the Human Connectome Project (HCP), a $30m NIH-funded brain imaging study led by Washington, Minnesota and Oxford Universities. The HCP is pairing up functional MRI scans of 1,200 healthy participants with in-depth data gained from tests and questionnaires. "The quality of the imaging data is really unprecedented," explains Professor Stephen Smith, who was the lead author of the paper. "Not only is the number of subjects we get to study large, but the spatial and temporal resolution of the fMRI data is way ahead of previous large datasets." So far, data for 500 subjects have been released to researchers for analysis.

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Phoenix666 writes:

The governments of Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland plan to coordinate the development of offshore renewable energy projects in their shared ocean water. The goal is to build an interconnected network of offshore wind, tidal, and wave generation and transmission in the Irish Sea, the straits of Moyle, and the western coast of Scotland.

The countries launched a feasibility study five years ago. It culminated last week in a series of reports including: a business plan; recommendations for how to implement projects; three proposed projects to serve as initial proof of concepts; and a spatial plan that provides guidance to potential developers regarding the best places to install offshore wind, tidal, and wave energy projects.

The area between Ireland and Scotland has the potential to generate around 16.1 gigawatts of renewable energy, including 12.1 GW from offshore wind and 4.0 GW from wave and tidal energy. The ISLES project's initial goal is to connect 6.2 GW of that potential generation by 2020.

Will high winds, tides, and advantageous coast lines become the new oil fields?

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AnonTechie writes:

IF YOU'RE A science fiction or fantasy fan, chances are you've heard a language constructed by David J. Peterson. He created both Dothraki and Valyrian for HBO's Game Of Thrones, as well as written or spoken languages for Thor: The Dark World, SyFy's Defiance and Dominion, and The CW's The 100 and Star-Crossed. And in becoming the most recognizable name in the conlang (constructed language) community, he's been instrumental in raising not just awareness of constructed languages, but their quality as well.

By now, viewers expect their alien or foreign tongues to sound like they have syntax and grammar. No longer would a scene like this one from Return of the Jedi—Princess Leia/bounty hunter Boushh speaking fictional language Ubese to Jabba—pass muster.

Peterson has already written a guide to Dothraki, but his new book has even larger ambitions. The Art of Language Invention, out tomorrow, is a combination knowledge base and history lesson for those interested in constructing languages. It's a distillation of the knowledge Peterson gained from the original email listserv that popularized the term "conlang," blended with some of what he studied as a linguistics Ph.D. student at UC San Diego. But while it's presented as an introduction for anyone interested in learning more about conlangs, it's still incredibly dense.

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Phoenix666 writes:

The excitement around black phosphorus, which is also called phosphorene in reference to its 2-D cousin graphene, stems mainly from the fact that it has an inherent bandgap, something that graphene lacks. A bandgap, an energy band in which no electron states can exist, is essential for creating the on/off flow of electrons that are needed in digital logic and for the generation of photons for LEDs and lasers.

Black phosphorus doesn't just have any bandgap. Its bandgap can be fine-tuned by adjusting the number of layers of the material, explains Philip Feng, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Case Western Reserve University. His team has demonstrated some of the first black phosphorous mechanical and electronic devices.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Conductive inks made from silver nanoparticles have been available for some time; recently, a group at Georgia Tech demonstrated a way to use them in inkjet printers to create custom circuits. But they are quite pricey, and I'm not keen on the idea of pumping metal through my printer. In contrast, this new ink can be used in an ordinary roller-ball pen to draw circuit traces, and the recipe for making the ink is amazingly straightforward: Mix 75.5 parts gallium with 24.5 parts indium in a beaker of deionized water, heat to 50 °C, stir, and voilá: an alloy that's liquid at room temperature, costs about US $1 per milliliter, and is two orders of magnitude more conductive than the nanoparticle inks; its resistivity is just 17 times that of copper. This I had to try.

I phoned the senior author on the paper, professor Jing Liu of the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry at the Chinese Academy of Science, in Beijing, to check that this was really something I could do at home. Use 99.9 percent pure gallium and indium, he advised; I bought the metals from GalliumSource.com for about $130. The pen cartridge needs to be completely clean before filling, and the liquid alloy must be free of any solid bits that might clog the tip. Most important, write on plastic transparencies. The surface tension of the ink is so high that it beads up on paper.

Is this a good candidate to use at a school maker space to teach circuits, ie. by writing them on paper?

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story crawling on his floor:

Researchers at EPFL have come up with a folding, reconfigurable robot that is capable of crawling and jumping. Modelled on the inchworm, it represents a new paradigm in robotics.

The word robot generally conjures up images of a rigid structure and electronic motors. In Jamie Paik's Reconfigurable Robotics Laboratory, however, the word takes on a whole new meaning. Researchers have thrown convention out the window by creating robots patterned on origami: flat, ultra-light and foldable.

The most recent of these origami robots or "robogamis", Tribot, has been unveiled at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Tribot's gait pattern is modelled after inchworms, but what makes it unique is its gait mode: it can simultaneously switch between crawling and jumping, which means it can jump over obstacles and then resume moving forward. Tribot is two centimetres tall, weighs 4 grams and has a T-shaped structure with three legs. "This unusual robot can jump up to seven times its height, and it does not need to be reset between jumps," said Paik.

Creating a robot as light as a Swiss 20-centime coin was not easy for the team, which had to overcome several technical challenges. They could not use conventional motors, which are too heavy and bulky. All movement comes from a special kind of actuator and intelligent springs, which are made from shape memory alloy (SMA).

More after the break.

AnonTechie writes:

India's first satellite dedicated to astronomy, ASTROSAT, blasted off into space on 28 September from the space port of Sriharikota in the Bay of Bengal, equipped with five instruments to study astrophysical phenomena over a wide range of wavelengths simultaneously.

An Indian-built Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) carrying the 1.5-tonne probe lifted off at 10:00 am India time and successfully placed it in a 650-kilometre orbit above Earth 22 minutes later, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) confirmed.

ASTROSAT, with a mission life of five years, is armed with telescopes that will simultaneously study the space in visible light, ultraviolet (UV) rays and low- and high-energy X-rays, plus an X-ray scanning sky monitor to detect transient X-ray emissions and γ-ray bursts. The observatory aims to study star-birth regions and high-energy processes, including binary star systems of neutron stars and black holes (see 'Indian ASTROSAT telescope set for global stardom').

http://www.nature.com/news/india-launches-its-first-astronomy-satellite-1.18445

[Also Covered By]: TIME, Spaceflight Now, Phys.org, The Wire

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basstard writes:

The mystery of why some people appear to have healthy lungs despite a lifetime of smoking has been explained by UK scientists.

The analysis of more than 50,000 people showed favourable mutations in people's DNA-enhanced lung function and masked the deadly impact of smoking. The Medical Research Council scientists say the findings could lead to new drugs to improve lung function. But not smoking will always be the best option, they say.

Many, but not all, smokers will develop lung disease. But so too will some who have never touched a cigarette in their lives. The researchers analysed the huge amount amount of health and genetic data from volunteers to the UK's Biobank project.

They looked at Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) which leads to breathlessness, coughing and repeat chest infections. The condition is thought to affect three million people in the UK and includes diseases such as bronchitis and emphysema. By comparing smokers and non-smokers as well as those with the disease and without they discovered sections of our DNA that reduce the risk of COPD. So smokers with "good genes" had a lower risk of COPD than those with "bad genes".

More after the break...

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

While those interested in running Microsoft's Windows 10 IoT Core—its free OS for hobbyist boards like the Raspberry Pi 2 and MinnowBoard Max—will likely have the chops to put together their own custom hardware configuration, the company wants to give newbies a helping hand. Microsoft has partnered with Adafruit to release the Windows IoT Core Starter Kit, which gives users everything they need to get started with IoT development.

The $75 (~£50) kit comes comes complete with an SD card preloaded with Windows 10 IoT Core, a Raspberry Pi 2 case, full size 40-pin breadboard, miniature WiFi module, BMP280 environmental sensor, RGB colour sensor, eight channel 10-Bit ADC with SPI interface, and a whole host of different resistors and LEDs. Those who needed Raspberry Pi 2 can pick up a $114.95 (~£70) with one included. A full list of the included components is below.

Microsoft is hoping that kit, along with some free sample code, will encourage users to ditch Linux on their IoT projects in favour of Windows 10. While that's a big ask, the company has been heavily courting the hobbyist community of late. Earlier this year, Microsoft revealed that it was bringing Windows 10 to the ever popular Arduino microcontroller boards, starting with the release of two open source libraries that connect Arduinos to Windows 10 devices.

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AnonTechie writes:

SUPPORT GROUPS HELP cult and gang members break free of their former lives. Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous help addicts overcome their dependencies. And now one group of privacy campaigners wants to offer its target audience an escape route for what it sees as a equally insidious trap: Their jobs working for intelligence agencies like the NSA.

On Monday, a group of Berlin-based anti-surveillance activists launched Intelexit, a campaign to encourage employees of the NSA and British spy agency GCHQ to reconsider the morality of their spy work and to persuade them to quit. They planned to kick the project off with a series of billboards strategically posted near intelligence agency buildings around the world.

One, reading "listen to your heart, not to private phone calls," was to be installed next to the Dagger Complex, a military base and NSA outpost in Darmstadt, Germany, the group told WIRED. Another, with the text "the intelligence community needs a backdoor," will appear outside GCHQ's Cheltenham, UK headquarters, playing on the UK and US governments' demands for a "backdoor" system to allow the decryption of citizens' encrypted communications. A third sign, pictured above, is meant to be affixed to a van patrolling the area around the NSA's Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters, where the activists today plan to hand out fliers to employees with information on where they can get support and counselling if they choose to leave the agency.

http://www.wired.com/2015/09/campaign-help-surveillance-agents-quit-nsa-gchq/

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NotSanguine writes:

The folks over at Phys.Org are reporting on research [Abstract only. Full paper paywalled] by collaborators from the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) and the University of Iceland.

From the article:

Fusion energy may soon be used in small-scale power stations. This means producing environmentally friendly heating and electricity at a low cost from fuel found in water. Both heating generators and generators for electricity could be developed within a few years, according to research that has primarily been conducted at the University of Gothenburg.
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A collaboration between researchers at the University of Gothenburg and the University of Iceland has been to study a new type of nuclear fusion process. This produces almost no neutrons but instead fast, heavy electrons (muons), since it is based on nuclear reactions in ultra-dense heavy hydrogen (deuterium).

"This is a considerable advantage compared to other nuclear fusion processes which are under development at other research facilities, since the neutrons produced by such processes can cause dangerous flash burns," says Leif Holmlid, Professor Emeritus at the University of Gothenburg.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

According to The Independent report, Apple is now facing an investigation and a potential fine of up to one million rubles from Russia government. This investigation is about the built in same-sex emotion icons in iOS keyboard. Russia claims that these emotions violated the "Russian LGBT propaganda law" approved in 2013.

This law is mainly approved to protect children from exposing to content that promotes homosexuality as being a norm in society—contradicting "traditional" family values, According to the law, if any content related to homosexual promotion is distributed among minors, it is considered violating this law. Organizations or businesses can be fined up to 1 million rubles and be forced to cease operations for up to 90 days if they are violating this law.

In this sense, Apple has used recent iOS updates to add the same-sex couple emoji among many others as it expands its support for more diverse characters with realistic skin tones and additional national flags. Although some states in United States have allowed homosexual behavior, this is not accepted by most countries in the world. So Apple may have to reconsider this action.

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Phoenix666 writes:

When we gave our impressions of Sony's Vita-based PlayStation TV microconsole last year, our biggest complaint was with the tiny unit's widespread lack of compatibility with existing portable software. Hundreds of games that work just fine on the portable PlayStation Vita just refused to load on a PlayStation TV. That makes sense for games that make heavy use of the Vita's camera or rear touchpad, but not for Vita games like Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, and dozens more portable titles that seem ideal for TV play but are nonetheless incompatible with PlayStation TV.

Now, some enterprising hackers have apparently gone a long way toward fixing this problem by increasing the PlayStation TV's software compatibility with a simple hack. The method, as outlined on HackInformer, exploits an error in the PlayStation TV's e-mail app that lets users write files to the system memory by attaching them as fake images in a message. Using this method and a specially built "whitelist" file, players can unlock the ability to play many (but not all) previously incompatible Vita games and apps on their PlayStation TV.

Were there more of this sort of news, the term "hacker" would probably enjoy a much better reputation...

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