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takyon writes:

Domino's is taking a bold step that would replace fleshy delivery drones with robots that would deliver slabs of dough, cheese, flesh slices, and vegetables:

Pizza delivery boys and girls, beware! Pizza giant Domino's has unveiled an autonomous pizza delivery robot that is being trialled in New Zealand. On Friday the company unveiled the Domino's Robotic Unit (DRU), and announced that the bot had already carried out its first successful pizza delivery on March 8. "DRU is an autonomous delivery vehicle and is set to take the world by storm," the company wrote in a statement on its website.

The vehicle's development started in 2015 and was pushed towards commercialisation by Domino's Australia-based skunkworks DLab. According to a promotional video (embedded below), DRU uses software developed by the Australian military contractor Marathon, which manufactures autonomous robots with obstacle-avoidance capabilities.

This feature has been incorporated in DRU, which according to Domino's can dodge hurdles thanks using on-board sensors. The autonomous four-wheeler is about one metre tall and contains two different compartments to keep beverages cool and pizzas (up to ten per robot) hot, which customers can unlock with an order-specific code. It can carry out a delivery within 20 kilometres from the store before needing a battery charge, and it is designed to move on both footpaths and roads.

It is not really clear how the cute-looking automaton would defend its precious cargo from glutton thieves or random troublemakers, but the company said in Facebook posts that it "will be taking every precaution necessary to ensure he is safe including surveillance and security etc."

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takyon writes:

A NASA scientist suggests that building a base on the moon would be feasible within a $10 billion budget, in a special issue of New Space focusing on the feasibility of lunar colonization:

What if I told you there's no reason we couldn't set up a small base on the moon by 2022 without breaking the bank? The endeavor would cost about $10 billion, which is cheaper than one U.S. aircraft carrier. Some of the greatest scientists and professionals in the space business already have a plan. NASA's Chris McKay, an astrobiologist, wrote about it in a special issue of the New Space journal, published just a few weeks ago.

Before we get into the details, let's ask ourselves: Why the moon? Although scientists (and NASA) don't find it all that exciting, the moon is a great starting point for further exploration. Furthermore, building a lunar base would provide us with the real-world experience that may prove invaluable for future projects on other planets like Mars, which NASA plans to reach by 2030. The main reason the moon is not a part of NASA's plan is simply because of the agency's crimped budget.

NASA's leaders say they can afford only one or the other: the moon or Mars. If McKay and his colleagues are correct, though, the U.S. government might be able to pull off both trips. All it takes is a change of perspective and ingenuity. "The big takeaway," McKay says, "is that new technologies, some of which have nothing to do with space — such as self-driving cars and waste-recycling toilets — are going to be incredibly useful in space, and are driving down the cost of a moon base to the point where it might be easy to do." The document outlines a series of innovations — already existing and in development — that work together toward the common goal of building the first permanent lunar base.

[cont..]

takyon writes:

Hulk Hogan has been awarded damages of $115 million in a privacy suit against Gawker, which posted a sex tape featuring Hogan (real name: Terry G. Bollea) online:

The retired wrestler Hulk Hogan was awarded $115 million in damages on Friday by a Florida jury in an invasion of privacy case against Gawker.com over its publication of a sex tape — an astounding figure that tops the $100 million he had asked for, that will probably grow before the trial concludes, and that could send a cautionary signal to online publishers despite the likelihood of an appeal by Gawker.

The wrestler, known in court by his legal name, Terry G. Bollea, sobbed as the verdict was announced in late afternoon, according to people in the courtroom. The jury had considered the case for about six hours.

Mr. Bollea's team said the verdict represented "a statement as to the public's disgust with the invasion of privacy disguised as journalism," adding: "The verdict says, 'No more.' "

NYT also has this guide to the case.

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Randolph Carter writes:

Quoth The Guardian:

A long-lost manuscript by HP Lovecraft, an investigation of superstition through the ages that the author was commissioned to write by Harry Houdini, has been found in a collection of magic memorabilia.

The Cancer of Superstition was previously known only in outline and through its first chapter. Houdini had asked Lovecraft in 1926 to ghostwrite the treatise exploring superstition, but the magician's death later that year halted the project, as his wife did not wish to pursue it.

According to Potter & Potter Auctions of Chicago, the 31-page typewritten manuscript was discovered in a large collection of memorabilia from a now-defunct magic shop.

Three sections have been discovered: "The Genesis of Superstition", "The Expansion of Superstition", and "The Fallacy of Superstition" covering everything from 'worship of the dead to werewolves and cannibalism, theorising that superstition is an "inborn inclination" that "persists only through mental indolence of those who reject modern science"' and concluding with "Most of us are heathens in the innermost recesses of our hearts,"

According to Lovecraft scholar ST Joshi, the manuscript was a joint effort between Lovecraft and fellow author CM Eddy with the synopsis written by Lovecraft, and the chapters themselves written by Eddy, with 'Lovecraft's interlinear emendations and additions'.

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tonyPick writes:

According to a report at Quartz research confirms that for many online commenters, the article is beside the point:

More than half of the people who leave comments on news stories spend as much or more time on the comments as with the actual story, according to the study, from the Engaging News Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Almost 20% cop to spending more time on the comment section than on the story.

The results are part of an extensive examination of the people who comment on news organizations' websites, social media pages, apps, and in other forums. Talia Stroud, the study's lead author and an associate professor of communications at Austin, presented her report at a SXSW panel this week looking at news organizations' vexed relationship with user comments.

The Engaging News Project has a summary of the conclusions, and offers a direct download of the report (PDF).

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takyon writes:

A U.S. Admiral is warning of new activity near another disputed island in the South China Sea:

The United States has seen Chinese activity around a reef China seized from the Philippines nearly four years ago that could be a precursor to more land reclamation in the disputed South China Sea, the U.S. Navy chief said on Thursday.

The head of U.S. naval operations, Admiral John Richardson, expressed concern that an international court ruling expected in coming weeks on a case brought by the Philippines against China over its South China Sea claims could be a trigger for Beijing to declare an exclusion zone in the busy trade route. Richardson told Reuters the United States was weighing responses to such a move. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.

Richardson said the U.S. military had seen Chinese activity around Scarborough Shoal in the northern part of the Spratly archipelago, about 125 miles (200 km) west of the Philippine base of Subic Bay. "I think we see some surface ship activity and those sorts of things, survey type of activity, going on. That's an area of concern ... a next possible area of reclamation," he said. Richardson said it was unclear if the activity near the reef, which China seized in 2012, was related to the pending arbitration decision.

Asked about Richardson's statement, Lu Kang, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said it was hypocritical for the United States to criticize China for militarizing the region when it carries out its own naval patrols there. "This is really laughable and preposterous," he said. [...] Richardson said he was struck by how China's increasing militarization of the South China Sea had increased the willingness of other countries in the region to work together.

China recently opened up a tsunami alert center, which has also been linked to its claims of jurisdiction in the disputed waters. Japan's ruling party has urged the Prime Minister to seek international arbitration over Chinese drilling activities.

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HughPickens.com writes:

Is there such a thing as being too safe? Jeff Kaufman writes that buses are much safer than cars, by about a factor of 67 but buses are not very popular and one of the main reasons is that if you look at situations where people who can afford private transit take mass transit instead, speed is the main factor. According to Kauffman, we should look at ways to make buses faster so more people will ride them, even if this means making them somewhat more dangerous. Kauffman presents some ideas, roughly in order from "we should definitely do this" to "this is crazy, but it would probably still reduce deaths overall when you take into account that more people would ride the bus": Suggestions include not to require buses to stop and open their doors at railroad crossings, allow the driver to start while someone is still at the front paying, allow buses to drive 25mph on the shoulder of the highway in traffic jams where the main lanes are averaging below 10mph, and leave (city) bus doors open, allowing people to get on and off any time at their own risk. "If we made buses more dangerous by the same percentage that motorcycles are more dangerous than cars," concludes Kauffman, "they would still be more than twice as safe as cars."

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hubie writes:

In 1936 a major collection of Isaac Newton's theological and alchemical works, known as the Portsmouth Papers, were broken into lots and sent to auction by Gerard Wallop. The historical importance of Newton's works in alchemy was recognized by John Maynard Keynes, but he wasn't alerted of the auction until most of the works had been sold, and he devoted considerable effort to obtaining as many of these works as he could (his collection was bequeathed to King's College, Cambridge and became the corpus from which we came to understand Newton's interest in alchemy). Over the decades, most of the Portsmouth Papers that Keynes didn't obtain eventually made their way into the public eye.

One of the manuscripts that hasn't been public has been bought by the US's Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF). The manuscript is a hand-written copy Newton made of a paper, written by George Starkey, describing how to make philosophic mercury, an important step in the pursuit of the Philosopher's Stone.

Now that this particular text has resurfaced, Voelkel says it will be added to 'The chymistry of Isaac Newton' project, an online repository curated by Indiana University, so it can be shared and studied more widely. 'We've already imaged it, so the images and the transcription will [be uploaded] and it'll become a known alchemical document,' he says.

'The collection is gigantic ... the estimate of Newton's alchemical output is something like a million words in his own hand. This is just another little page in a corpus of hundreds and hundreds of documents.'

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mendax writes:

While not exactly related to tech, many here will be interested in learning about the crash of a Flydubai Boeing 737-800 (FZ981) at the Rostov-on-Don airport. Russian news media reports no survivors of the 55 passengers and 7 crew. Read about it here or here for starters. What's interesting about this crash is that it was caught on a surveillance camera, as the Reuters article linked to above and this link show. As always with these kinds of disasters, it's too soon to tell the cause although it may be due to a stall.

takyon: RT: "Pilot error, bad weather & technical failure suspected in FlyDubai crash that killed 62."

Air-traffic control and local emergency services confirmed that the Boeing 737-800 jet crashed near the runway during a second approach in conditions of poor visibility. "According to preliminary data, the Boeing 738 crashed in poor visibility conditions, some 50-100 meters left of the runway," the source said.

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takyon writes:

Mice continue to grow stronger, as researchers at the University of Toronto have found that osteoporosis can be reversed with a single injection of stem cells:

Imagine telling a patient suffering from age-related (type-II) osteoporosis that a single injection of stem cells could restore their normal bone structure. This week, with a publication in Stem Cells Translational Medicine, a group of researchers from the University of Toronto and The Ottawa Hospital suggest that this scenario may not be too far away.

[...] Professor William Stanford, senior author of the study, had in previous research demonstrated a causal effect between mice that developed age-related osteoporosis and low or defective mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in these animals. "We reasoned that if defective MSCs are responsible for osteoporosis, transplantation of healthy MSCs should be able to prevent or treat osteoporosis," said Stanford, who is a Senior Scientist at The Ottawa Hospital and Professor at the University of Ottawa.

To test that theory, the researchers injected osteoporotic mice with MSCs from healthy mice. Stem cells are "progenitor" cells, capable of dividing and changing into all the different cell types in the body. Able to become bone cells, MSCs have a second unique feature, ideal for the development of human therapies: these stem cells can be transplanted from one person to another without the need for matching (needed for blood transfusions, for instance) and without being rejected. After six months post-injection, a quarter of the life span of these animals, the osteoporotic bone had astonishingly given way to healthy, functional bone.

"We had hoped for a general increase in bone health," said John E. Davies, Professor at the Faculty of Dentistry and the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) at the University of Toronto, and a co-author of the study. "But the huge surprise was to find that the exquisite inner "coral-like" architecture of the bone structure of the injected animals—which is severely compromised in osteoporosis—was restored to normal."

Found at Futurity.

Systemic Mesenchymal Stromal Cell Transplantation Prevents Functional Bone Loss in a Mouse Model of Age-Related Osteoporosis (DOI: 10.5966/sctm.2015-0231)

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hellcat writes:

Got this earlier this morning. Thought I'd share it just in case others were concerned about their personal data:

2016-03-17

Dear Site User,

Fair processing notice - Data Protection Act 1998

We are writing to let you know that with effect from 27 January 2016, the Slashdot Media business, which provides online services through various web sites including Slashdot.org and SourceForge.net (the "Slashdot Media Services") has been purchased by SourceForge Media LLC of 1660 Logan Avenue, San Diego, California, 92113, USA ("we" or "us").

As a result your personal data have been transferred to us and will be used in connection with the continued provision of the Slashdot Media Services to you. Your personal data will continue to be processed fairly and lawfully in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 for the same purposes as those it was originally collected by Dice Career Solutions Inc and/or eFinancialCareers Limited including to:

[Continues...]

Phoenix666 writes:

It had long been known that people with extraordinary vision like Antico should in theory exist, thanks to an unusual difference in the way their eye is constructed.

Imagine the retina as a kind of mosaic, composed of different kinds of light-sensitive cells known as cones. Most of us have three kinds of cones tuned to different sets of light wavelengths (making us "trichromat"). The light from each part of a scene will activate these cells to different degrees, with the exact combination of signals determining the colour we perceive.

Some women, however, are "tetrachromat". Thanks to two different mutations on each of the X chromosomes, they have four cones – increasing the combination of colours they should be able to see. The mutation isn't very rare (estimates of the prevalence vary and depend on your heritage, but it could be as high as 47% among women of European descent), but scientists struggled to find someone who reliably demonstrated enhanced perception.

Then Antico came along, passing a string of tests that showed her vision was different. Studies proved that her tetrachromacy gave her enhanced vision in low lighting – allowing her to see astonishingly vivid scenes at dusk, for instance. After BBC Future broke the story, she soon became famous as the "woman with rainbow vision".

Tetrachromacy has been covered once or twice before on Soylent/Slashdot. It's interesting to re-visit the topic as discussion of body- and sensory modification increases. Would you do it if you could get tetrachromatic or infravision vision?

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butthurt writes:

The brains of users of a social media site have been examined with fMRI. The resulting images appear to indicate that when people disclose information about themselves, activity takes place in specific parts of the brain already known to be active when people think about themselves. The research was published in Scientific Reports (open, DOI: 10.1038/srep22491).

In the news:

• The Telegraph
• The Independent
• Times of India

Original Submission

"exec" submitted from IRC an article about a complex new quantum computing chip:

An international team of scientists has set a new record for the complexity possible on a quantum computing chip, bringing us one step closer to the ultra-secure telecommunications of the future. A key component of quantum science and technology is the notion of entangled particles – typically either electrons or particles of light called photons. These particles remain connected even if separated over large distances, so that actions performed by one affect the behaviour of the other.

In a paper, published today in the journal Science, the research team outlines how it created entangled photon states with unprecedented complexity and over many parallel channels simultaneously on an integrated chip. Importantly, the chip was also created with processes compatible with the current computer chip industry, opening up the possibility of incorporating quantum devices directly into laptops and cell phones.

The researchers were led by Professor David Moss, the newly appointed Director of the Centre for Micro-Photonics at Swinburne University of Technology, and Professor Roberto Morandotti from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS-EMT) in Montreal, Canada.

The researchers used 'optical frequency combs' which, unlike the combs we use to detangle hair, actually help to 'tangle' photons on a computer chip. Their achievement has set a new record in both the number and complexity of entangled photons that can be generated on a chip to help crack the code to ultra-secure telecommunications of the future.

Also at ScienceAlert.

Generation of multiphoton entangled quantum states by means of integrated frequency combs (DOI: 10.1126/science.aad8532)

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Phoenix666 writes:

A single-dose dengue vaccine, tested in a small clinical trial, was 100 percent effective in protecting human volunteers from a strain of the most prevalent mosquito-borne virus in the world.

The vaccine, developed at the National Institutes of Health, was tested in a trial led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine .

It could represent a major advance in the battle against dengue, which infects nearly 400 million people across more than 120 countries each year. Most survive with few or no symptoms, but more than 2 million annually develop what can be a dangerous dengue hemorrhagic fever. That kills more than 25,000 people each year.

I've never had it, but have met enough survivors on my travels to know you'd never want to. Good news.

Original Submission