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mendax writes:

The New York Times reported recently in an article how the ancient Babylonians appear to have used a form of pre-calculus to describe Jupiter's motion across the night sky relative to distant background stars. They did this only a millennium and a half earlier than the Europeans who were credited with doing the same thing.

For people living in the ancient city of Babylon, Marduk was their patron god, and thus it is not a surprise that Babylonian astronomers took an interest in tracking the comings and goings of the planet Jupiter, which they regarded as a celestial manifestation of Marduk.

What is perhaps more surprising is the sophistication with which they tracked the planet, judging from inscriptions on a small clay tablet dating to between 350 B.C. and 50 B.C. The tablet, a couple of inches wide and a couple of inches tall, reveals that the Babylonian astronomers employed a sort of precalculus in describing Jupiter's motion across the night sky relative to the distant background stars. Until now, credit for this kind of mathematical technique had gone to Europeans who lived some 15 centuries later.

"That is a truly astonishing find," said Mathieu Ossendrijver, a professor at Humboldt University in Berlin, who describes his archaeological astronomy discovery in an article on Thursday in the journal Science.

"It's a figure that describes a graph of velocity against time," he said. "That is a highly modern concept."

Mathematical calculations on four other tablets show that the Babylonians realized that the area under the curve on such a graph represented the distance traveled.

Ancient Babylonian astronomers calculated Jupiter's position from the area under a time-velocity graph (open, DOI: 10.1126/science.aad8085)

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Phoenix666 writes:

College students spend one-fifth of their time in class using digital devices—such as smartphones—for non-educational purposes, new research reveals.

The main culprit is texting. Almost nine out of 10 reported that texting was their main digital diversion while in class. About three-quarters said they emailed or checked the time on their devices. Seventy percent reported checking in on social media (for example, Facebook), while 40 percent surfed the web. One in 10 spent time in class playing games on their devices.

"Most of us love technology," said study author Barney McCoy, an associate professor in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "And we want it to benefit us. But technology also affords a view that can be distracting.

"So the question now is, how do we balance this out?" he added. "How can we take in all the constructive dynamic benefits that this technology enables us to have, and then also be disciplined enough to recognize that there is a time and place to put it aside, and pay attention and stay focused?

McCoy and his colleagues reported their findings in the January issue of the Journal of Media Education.

Both an abstract and full article (pdf) for "Digital Distractions in the Classroom Phase II: Student Classroom Use of Digital Devices for Non-Class Related Purposes" are available on-line.

[They were probably reading an on-line article about distractions in the classroom. -Ed.]

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-- OriginalOwner_ sends news that The Register reports:

At approximately 11:00 a.m. on December 28, a male subject refused to let a computer technician leave the residence until his computer was fixed. The suspect allegedly had a gun in his possession and threatened to kill the victim. Joseph Nestor Mondello, 50, of Arlington VA was arrested and charged with abduction.

[...] The repair guy, a Dell technician, told Mondello that he needed to leave to get a part to fix his PC. This made Mondello very cross. "You're not leaving this house until the computer is fixed", he said and then left the room--to return with a gun. He then issued this threat: "I am going to kill you slowly", police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck told local press.

Luckily for the technician, Mondello's wife heard the commotion and intervened, enabling him to escape. The gun turned out to be a replica but, still, a bad customer experience...or, to be more accurate, a very bad experience with a customer.

It's gonna be hard to beat this one, but I'm betting there are some good stories waiting to be told by Soylentils.

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takyon writes:

Mammoth bones were discovered this week during construction at Oregon State University, but the show must go on:

A construction crew working on an expansion and renovation of the OSU Beavers' Valley Football Center uncovered the remains of the beast while digging in the north end of Reser Stadium. They found a large femur bone — likely a mammoth's — as well as bones from other extinct, ice-age mammals, including a bison and what is either an ancient horse or a camel.

"There are quite a few bones, and dozens of pieces," Loren Davis, an associate professor of anthropology at OSU, said in a statement. "Some of the bones are not in very good shape, but some are actually quite well preserved."

Davis and his students have yet to determine the mammoth's species — for instance, it could be a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) or a woolly mammoth (M. primigenius), although the latter tended to live farther north.

[...] Construction workers found the animal bones in a 10-foot-deep (3 meters) plot. They stopped work as soon as they uncovered the femur, said Tim Sissel, the senior project manager of Hunt/Fortis, a joint venture and general contractor on the project. However, because there were no human artifacts or remains found, the site is not considered an archaeological site, Davis said. So, he and his colleagues removed the dirt containing the bones, and construction on the stadium continued.

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Phoenix666 writes:

DNAinfo asks: why are so many police dashcam videos silent?

Chicago Police Department officers stashed microphones in their squad car glove boxes. They pulled out batteries. Microphone antennas got busted or went missing. And sometimes, dashcam systems didn't have any microphones at all, DNAinfo Chicago has learned.

Police officials last month blamed the absence of audio in 80 percent of dashcam videos on officer error and "intentional destruction."

A DNAinfo Chicago review of more than 1,800 police maintenance logs sheds light on the no-sound syndrome plaguing Police Department videos — including its most notorious dashcam case.

Maintenance records of the squad car used by Jason Van Dyke, who shot and killed Laquan McDonald, and his partner, Joseph Walsh, show months-long delays for two dashcam repairs, including a long wait to fix "intentional damage."

Vest- and dashboard cameras have been pushed as a technological fix for the epidemic of police use of excessive force.

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bob_super writes:

Check the server room, or the back of your desk. How many cables are still there, which are not actually used? I just moved my desk, the answer was only three. The LHC, on the other hand, has to figure out how to identify and remove over 9000 obsolete cables, a process that will take four years to avoid disrupting the machine's regular operation.

Why bother? Because 2019 will bring a major upgrade.

See that rat's nest in the corner? Scientists recommend you stop procrastinating and pick it up now.

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Dice Sells Slashdot and SourceForge to BIZX

GungnirSniper writes:

DHI Inc (Dice Holdings) has sold the once-venerable Slashdot and SourceForge sites to BIZX, a tourism and VoIP website media company. The price for the sites was not announced. In 2012, Dice Holdings paid $20 million dollars for Slashdot, SourceForge, and the now-defunct Freecode (formerly Freshmeat). Other sites from BIZX include Wirefly, MyRatePlan, VoIPReview, and VoIP-Info.

On Twitter, founder and former owner of Slashdot Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda posted "The rumor is that the entire Slashdot staff has been let go except for the lucky few that get to train their replacements!"

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) announces:

FTC Alleges DeVry Misled Students About Employment and Income Prospects That Were Central to School's Advertising and Marketing

[...] The Federal Trade Commission has filed suit against the operators of DeVry University,[PDF] alleging that DeVry's advertisements deceived consumers about the likelihood that students would find jobs in their fields of study, and would earn more than those graduating with bachelor's degrees from other colleges or universities.

[...] In its complaint against DeVry, the FTC alleges that the defendants' claim that 90 percent of DeVry graduates actively seeking employment landed jobs in their field within six months of graduation was deceptive. The complaint charges that another key claim made by DeVry, that its graduates had 15 percent higher incomes one year after graduation on average than the graduates of all other colleges or universities, also was deceptive.

The complaint notes that these claims appeared in the defendants' advertising on television, radio, online, print and other media. The 90 percent claim was central to their marketing efforts since at least 2008 and the income superiority claim began in 2013.

[...] The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is also taking action against DeVry for its marketing practices. ED is providing notice to DeVry that it will be requiring the institution both to stop certain advertising regarding the post-graduation employment outcomes of its students and to take additional steps to ensure that DeVry can substantiate the truthfulness of its post-graduation employment outcomes.

Search for our coverage of the similar practices of Corinthian Colleges

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Phoenix666 writes:

It is not only animals that rely on physical cues to gauge the fertility of potential rivals for a mate, an unusual study asserted on Wednesday.

Without knowing it, human women seem to be able to recognise others in the most fertile phase of their menstrual cycle, around ovulation, simply by looking at their faces, it said.

And intriguingly, this ability was pronounced in women with high levels of oestradiol, a female sex hormone linked to high general fertility.

The findings implied that more fertile women, who are likely to have more children in their lifetime, "are better at guarding their mate from potential adultery," study co-author Janek Lobmaier of the University of Bern told AFP.

The paper was published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Previous research had shown that men prefer portraits of women taken around the ovulation period over those of the same women in a non-fertile phase.

Can women detect cues to ovulation in other women's faces? (open, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2015.0638)

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AnonTechie writes:

Specialised computer software components to improve the security, speed and scale of data processing in cloud computing are being developed by a University of Cambridge spin-out company. The company, Unikernel Systems, which was formed by staff and postdoctoral researchers at the University Computer Laboratory, has recently been acquired by San-Francisco based software company Docker Inc.

Unikernels are small, potentially transient computer modules specialised to undertake a single task at the point in time when it is needed. Because of their reduced size, they are far more secure than traditional operating systems, and can be started up and shut down quickly and cheaply, providing flexibility and further security.

They are likely to become increasingly used in applications where security and efficiency are vital, such as systems storing personal data and applications for the so-called Internet of Things (IoT) – internet-connected appliances and consumer products.

Researchers at the Computer Laboratory started restructuring VMs into flexible modular components in 2009, as part of the RCUK-funded MirageOS project. These specialised modules – or unikernels - are in effect the opposite of generic VMs. Each one is designed to undertake a single task; they are small, simple and quick, using just enough code to enable the relevant application or process to run (about 4% of a traditional operating system according to one estimate).

The small size of unikernels also lends considerable security advantages, as they present a much smaller 'surface' to malicious attack, and also enable companies to separate out different data processing tasks in order to limit the effects of any security breach that does occur. Given that resource use within the cloud is metered and charged, they also provide considerable cost savings to end users.

http://phys.org/news/2016-01-safer-faster-unikernels.html

[Source]: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/making-operating-systems-safer-and-faster-with-unikernels

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xpda writes:

"These ad blocking companies are little piss ants. They are run by a handful of people with silly titles and funny walks who are individually irrelevant... diminishing freedom of expression."

Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), was somewhat critical of adblockers in his speech on Monday. He said that Adblock Plus is "an unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes."

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Contrary to current clinical belief, regular caffeine consumption does not lead to extra heartbeats, which, while common, can lead in rare cases to heart-or stroke-related morbidity and mortality, according to UC San Francisco researchers.

The study, which measured the chronic consumption of caffeinated products over a 12-month period, rather than acute consumption, appears in the January 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association. It is the largest to date to have evaluated dietary patterns in relation to extra heartbeats.

"Clinical recommendations advising against the regular consumption of caffeinated products to prevent disturbances of the heart's cardiac rhythm should be reconsidered, as we may unnecessarily be discouraging consumption of items like chocolate, coffee and tea that might actually have cardiovascular benefits," said senior author Gregory Marcus, MD, MAS, a UCSF Health cardiologist and director of clinical research in the UCSF Division of Cardiology. "Given our recent work demonstrating that extra heartbeats can be dangerous, this finding is especially relevant."

Excessive premature atrial contractions (PACs) have been shown to result in atrial fibrillation, stroke and death, while excessive premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) have been shown to result in increased heart failure, coronary artery disease and death. Both abnormalities have been tied to caffeine consumption through studies and trials, but these studies were performed several decades ago and did not use PACs and PVCs as a primary outcome.

Still pretty sure a triple-red eye shot in a Vente coffee was not a good idea.

Consumption of Caffeinated Products and Cardiac Ectopy (open, DOI: 10.1161/JAHA.115.002503)

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Environmental Defense Fund reports:

"Today's Supreme Court decision is a victory for all Americans who want greater choice and [who] value broader customer access to clean, low-cost energy", said Fred Krupp, president of EDF. "Demand response is helping millions of Americans get low-cost, clean, and reliable electricity. Today's court ruling will help expand customer choice and [will] solidify demand response as a crucial part of our clean energy future."

The Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling and decided in favor of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) well-designed clean energy policy in [the two counts of the case it reviewed]. The Supreme Court vote was 6-to-2 in the case; Justice Alito was recused.

[...] Justice Kagan, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy, wrote the majority opinion, saying, "The Commission, not this or any other court, regulates electricity rates".

The case centered on FERC Order 745, the landmark policy that provides fair-market compensation for demand response in wholesale energy markets. Demand response is an energy conservation tool that relies on people and [distributed] technology, not [centralized] power plants, to meet America's electricity needs affordably.

[Continued.]

AndyTheAbsurd writes:

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/oracle-says-it-is-killing-the-java-plugin-795547

Also covered at BBC.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers have solved an apparently overwhelming physics problem involving some truly huge numbers.

In research carried out at the University of Cambridge, a team developed a computer program that can answer this mind-bending puzzle: Imagine that you have 128 soft spheres, a bit like tennis balls. You can pack them together in any number of ways. How many different arrangements are possible?

The answer, it turns out, is something like 10²⁵⁰ (1 followed by 250 zeros). The number, also referred to as ten unquadragintilliard, is so huge that it vastly exceeds the total number of particles in the universe.[*]

Far more important than the solution, however, is the fact that the researchers were able to answer the question at all. The method that they came up with can help scientists to calculate something called configurational entropy – a term used to describe how structurally disordered the particles in a physical system are.

Being able to calculate configurational entropy would, in theory, eventually enable us to answer a host of seemingly impossible problems – such as predicting the movement of avalanches, or anticipating how the shifting sand dunes in a desert will reshape themselves over time.

These questions belong to a field called granular physics, which deals with the behaviour of materials such as snow, soil or sand. Different versions of the same problem, however, exist in numerous other fields, such as string theory, cosmology, machine learning, and various branches of mathematics. The research shows how questions across all of those disciplines might one day be addressed.

Stefano Martiniani, a Benefactor Scholar at St John's College, University of Cambridge, who carried out the study with colleagues in the Department of Chemistry, explained: "The problem is completely general. Granular materials themselves are the second most processed kind of material in the world after water and even the shape of the surface of the Earth is defined by how they behave."

[*] Estimates are on the order of 10⁸⁰ particles in the observable universe.

An abstract (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.93.012906) is available; full article is paywalled.

Your configurational entropy problems are solved.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Here's a real treat. The National Library of Scotland's Map Department, supported by David Rumsey, have taken some very high-resolution scans of the Ordnance Survey 1:1056 (that's 60 inches to the mile!) set of 500+ maps of London issued between 1893 and 1896 and, crucially, reorientated and stitched them together, so that they can be presented seamlessly (using OpenLayers) on top of a "standard" Google web map or OpenStreetMap, with the base map acting as a modern context.

The detail in these maps is breathtaking. In the above extract (direct link) of the eastern end of Fleet Street, you can see each individual alleyway. Much of London has of course changed in the intervening 120 years. In the extract, the printing works have been replaced with banks and other offices, the pub and several of the alleyways ("courts" here) themselves have disappeared, as has the tiny fire station, and the urinals are long derelict and locked shut.

Fun for those who like maps.

Original Submission