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Phoenix666 writes:

Neuroscientists from Tübingen and Okasaki (Japan) have uncovered a mechanism that might clarify the meaning of "attention." This often non-quantifiable term is supposed to describe how strongly we react to a visual stimulus. An international team of neuroscientists from the Tübingen Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN) and the Okasaki National Institute for Physiological Sciences (NIPS) now explain the mechanism of "attention," not by looking at the visual system, but into the rhythm and direction of tiny eye movements that we constantly make. Their hypotheses and experimental validations are published in two back-to-back articles recently published in Frontiers in System Neuroscience. Results from four decades of research are now cast in a very different light.

Good science is supposed to be "frugal," i.e., it ought to make use of as few assumptions and abstractions as possible. In neuroscience, the abstract concept of "attention" is a concept that is considerably less frugal than would be desirable. It is basically a black box and does not necessarily explain which processes in the brain it actually addresses -- a central question of perception research today.

For several decades, "attention" was thought to be a barely definable state of certain brain regions. In visual perception, for instance, eye movements towards a stimulus are triggered in the Superior Colliculus, a part of the midbrain. The direction of attention in the brain does not react equally to all stimuli, though: when there is a high level of "attention in the sensory system, reactions are swift and intense; neuroscientists call this state "attentional capture." A state of slow and comparatively weak reactions, on the other hand, is called "inhibition of return" (IOR). Attentional capture and IOR both follow an alternating pattern, which rides on a rhythm with approximately 10 oscillations per second.

But what causes this rhythm, and how does "attention" control it?

Attention is a juicy steak and frosty beer on a Friday. Achieves "attentional capture" every time.

Original Study

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

An international group of researchers including Russian scientists from the Moscow State University has been studying the behaviour of the recently-discovered iron oxide Fe₄O₅ . The group has succeeded in describing its complex structure, and proposed an explanation for its very unusual properties. The article appeared in the current issue of the journal Nature Chemistry.

The scientists discovered that when Fe₄O₅ iron oxide is cooled to temperatures below 150K, it goes through an unusual phase transition related to a formation of charge-density waves—which lead to a "four-dimensional" crystal structure. Artem Abakumov, one of the paper's authors, said that the study of this material would contribute to the understanding of the interconnection between magnetic and crystal structures.

The origins of this research date back to 1939, when the German physicist E.J.W. Verwey first discovered that the iron oxide Fe₃O₄—commonly known as the mineral magnetite—had a strange phase transition. Magnetite in its normal state is a relatively good electrical conductor, but when cooled below 120K its conductivity markedly decreased, and the material practically became an insulator. Scientists discovered that below 120K, the iron atoms arrange themselves into a kind of ordered structure. In this structure, the electrons cannot move freely within the material and act as charge carriers, and the oxide even becomes a ferroelectric. But the scientists could not explain what exactly changes in the structure, which physicists have spent the last century studying. Researchers guessed that the phenomenon was related to the presence of iron atoms in two different oxidation states (valences)—two and three—and their consequent ability to form ordered structures.

[...] "We have found that here, just as in magnetite, when cooling to lower than 150K occurs, an unusual structure evolves. It's something of a mixture between standard charge density waves forming dimers," Artem Abakumov said. "And the situation with the trimerons that was observed in magnetite. This was very complicated in the case of Fe₄O₅—what's known as a 'incommensurately modulated structure', in which we can't identify three-dimensional periodicity. However, the periodicity can be observed in a higher-dimensional space—in this specific case, in the four-dimensional space. When we mention the four-dimensionality of such structures, we are not actually talking about the existence of these oxides in four dimensions, of course. This is just a technical construct for the mathematical description of such highly complex ordering."

Charge-ordering transition in iron oxide Fe₄O₅ involving competing dimer and trimer formation (DOI: 10.1038/NCHEM.2478)

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Major League Baseball (MLB) has approved two wearable biometric devices for use during games, the organization told IEEE Spectrum this week. Players will be allowed to wear the Motus baseball sleeve, which tracks strain on pitching arms, and the movement-tracking Zephyr bioharness during the 2016 season says Mike Teevan, an MLB spokesperson. The organization had previously remained silent on the issue. 

Meanwhile, the National Basketball Association (NBA) last week reprimanded a player for wearing the Whoop wristband, which, along with all wearables, is banned during NBA games. The contrasting league policies, along with some ambiguity about what exactly is allowed, has resulted in a rocky start for the niche market for wearables tailored for elite athletes.  

Outside of official games, the use of wearable biometric devices in professional sports has exploded in the last couple of years. Teams pay thousands of dollars for high tech gadgets that track physiological measurements so players can optimize performance and avoid injury. These sensors offer far more detailed and accurate data than consumer-oriented fitness trackers like Fitbit, and tend to be backed with analytics tailored for the athletic elite. Professional athletes have been spotted wearing biometric trackers during practice, warm-ups, around town, and even in commercial spots. (Check out LeBron James' wrist in a recent Kia commercial).

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Part 1: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/7/a_torturer_s_confession_former_abu

Part 2: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/7/ex_abu_ghraib_interrogator_israelis_trained

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will allow the voluntary fortification of corn masa flour with folic acid, which could reduce the occurrence of neural tube birth defects:

Foods made with corn masa flour — like tortillas, tacos and tamales — could soon play a critical role in the health of babies born to Latina mothers in the U.S. That's because, as of today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is now allowing manufacturers to fortify their corn masa foods with folic acid. That's a synthetic form of folate, a B vitamin that helps prevent severe defects of the brain and spinal cord when consumed by women early in pregnancy. "I think it will be really monumental for the Latino population," says Michael Dunn, a Brigham Young University food scientist.

Since 1988, the FDA has required that breads, pasta, breakfast cereals and other grains made with enriched flour be fortified with folic acid. In the years since, the number of babies born in the U.S. with neural tube defects has dropped by roughly 35 percent — or about 1,300 babies a year. But these birth defects remain "stubbornly higher" in the Hispanic community, says Dr. Edward McCabe, the chief medical officer at the March of Dimes. Researchers have suspected that the reason why might lie in tortillas and other foods made with corn masa flour – a dietary staple for many Hispanic families.

That's because until now, the FDA had banned fortification of products made with corn masa flour. The agency was concerned that the folic acid might not remain stable. Dunn led a study that helped change the FDA's mind. His research involved lengthy testing in the lab – as well as tests at a local facility making corn masa flour in Utah. He and his team found that the heat and production process doesn't significantly change the quantity of folic acid in a fortified product through its shelf life.

The FDA now says that manufacturers may voluntarily add up to 0.7 milligrams of folic acid per pound of corn masa.

Original Submission

mendax writes:

Ars published an article that on the surface sounds rather odd:

This month the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) updated its offender handbook (PDF) to stipulate that inmates are not allowed to have social media accounts. While blog posts are still permitted, a spokesperson for the TDCJ told Ars that the rule was developed to get social media platforms to comply with the corrections department's takedown requests more readily.

Since Texas inmates are not allowed Internet access, this rule applies to social media accounts managed by friends or family. As Fusion explains, "Prisoners write posts, send them to a friend or family member through snail mail, and ask the friend to post them on Facebook." If an inmate is caught having a friend or family member update an account for them, they're charged with a "level three violation," which TDCJ characterizes as the lowest level of violation in the Texas prison system.

The EFF, of course, has gotten involved:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), however, says that level three violations can result in loss of privileges, extra work duty, or confinement to an inmate's cell for up to 45 days. The EFF objects to the new rules in Texas, arguing that "a person does not lose all of their rights to participate in public discourse when they are incarcerated... This policy would not only prohibit the prisoners' exercise of their First Amendment rights, but also prevent the public from exercising their First Amendment rights to gather information about the criminal justice system from those most affected by it." The TDCJ had no response to the EFF's argument.

My take:

As someone who has studied First Amendment issues and has personally sued a government entity (and won) over its First Amendment violations, I feel this Texas regulation does not stand much of a chance in hell of surviving constitutional scrutiny, especially if it reaches the U.S. Supreme Court. All prisoners have First Amendment rights and these can only be restricted under very specific circumstances, usually those related to prison institutional security. Given that prisons can and usually review outgoing mail, it seems that TDCJ has no legs to stand upon.

Original Submission

Appalbarry writes:

Back in the days before Games + Video was a thing, many of us were forced to actually leave our basements and go to a chess club to get our gaming fix. Thirty or forty avid players would meet in a room somewhere, and play for few hours with only the sound of the chess clock to break the silence.

A group of chess players has been meeting regularly at a West Vancouver BC mall for more than fifty years to play. They've moved to different locations, and at one point even bought tables for the mall to install, but eventually wound up in the mall's Food Court.

That was until April 1st, when they were given letters threatening to have them arrested if they continued to play chess:

[Sophia] Hague's daughter, Ashley "Chess Girl" Tapp, started learning the game from Park Royal regulars when she was eight.

She's competed at the World Youth Chess Championships and promoted chess for girls, but if not for the Park Royal players she might never have learned the game, according to Hague.

"You have to sit at a board and not at a computer," Hague said. "It's the only place and only people in the city that welcomed her."

After much back and forth, including an appeal by the Mayor of West Vancouver, the mall has refused to budge. The mall then offered them $500 to go away.

Now the chess players have defied the Mall, and have returned. One local church is promising a "gentle protest" to support the players, while others have set up the usual Change.org petition.

Damn! I always knew that playing chess was cool!

Original Submission

devlux writes:

According to a recent article published in the journals of the Royal Astronomical Society:

Deep radio imaging by researchers in the University of Cape Town and University of the Western Cape, in South Africa, has revealed that supermassive black holes in a region of the distant universe are all spinning out radio jets in the same direction – most likely a result of primordial mass fluctuations in the early universe.

[...] A large-scale spin distribution has never been predicted by theories – and an unknown phenomenon like this presents a challenge that theories about the origins of the universe need to account for, and an opportunity to find out more about the way the cosmos works.

This reminds me of an old saying. The Most Exciting Phrase in Science Is Not 'Eureka!' But 'That's funny ...'

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

If you saw a USB dongle sticking out of the wall of your building, what would you do? That's part of the premise of dead drops, a media arts project started by Germany's Aram Bartholl in 2010. Dead drops consist of USB sticks that people place in the world—in any public place—to encourage anonymous file sharing between strangers.

Bartholl was staying in New York as artist in residence when he began leaving dead drops in the Big Apple; they were eventually featured as part of the "Talk to Me" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. While dead drops appear to focus on information sharing, it's not the first GPS-based discovery system of its kind. Geocaching has been around much longer than dead drops, and it even has an app that records where the hidden objects—geocaches—are located.

That said, dead drops emphasize anonymity and file sharing as well the the serendipity of finding a sort of key to unknown information in the real world. However, because they are supposed to be placed in public areas, they are subject to a lot of variables. Anyone could notice a dead drop and pick it up out of pure curiosity, or they could remove the USB stick altogether if it's seen as a prohibited object in a certain space (think storefronts or public transit entrances). There's also the weather factor: dead drops could be blown away by a wind gust in seconds or damaged by the elements in a rain or snow storm.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

This might be important in my line of work. QuickTime is an integral part of a lot of media workflows to this day; but I didn't see this story here yet:

Apple stops patching QuickTime for Windows despite 2 active vulnerabilities:

The Windows app hasn't received an update since January, and security researchers from Trend Micro said it won't receive any security fixes in the future. In a blog post published Thursday, the researchers went on to say they know of at least two reliable QuickTime vulnerabilities that threaten Windows users who still have the program installed.

"We're not aware of any active attacks against these vulnerabilities currently," they wrote. "But the only way to protect your Windows systems from potential attacks against these or other vulnerabilities in Apple QuickTime now is to uninstall it."

Personally I'm smelling the sweet air-gap but a lot of folks probably won't be!

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

With particles that can exist in two places at once, the quantum world is often considered to be inherently counterintuitive. Now, a group of scientists has created a video game that follows the laws of quantum mechanics, but at which non-physicist human players excel (J. J. W. H. Sørensen et al. Nature 532, 210–213; 2016).

One implication of the team's results is that efforts to use computer games to crowdsource solutions to science problems can now be extended to quantum physics. In the past, such gamification projects have been limited to challenging but less mind-bending problems, such as protein folding.

But the work also suggests that the human mind might be more capable of grasping the rules of the bizarre quantum world than previously thought — a revelation that could have implications for how scientists approach quantum physics, says Jacob Sherson, a quantum physicist at Aarhus University, Denmark, who led the study. "Maybe we should allow some of that normal intuition to enter our problem solving," he says. Scientists studying quantum foundations have also long said that finding a more intuitive approach to quantum physics could help to crack outstanding puzzles, although many doubted that this would ever be possible without new theories.

The technique might help with topics thornier than quantum mechanics, like understanding the opposite sex.

Original Submission

AndyTheAbsurd writes:

Pale Moon, the browser forked from Firefox that is popular with some Soylentils, was recently contacted by Mozilla, according to one of the developers:

Click here to read the rest of Moonchild's response, and some comments from the community as well.

Kellnik.Kupa adds an additional perspective [heavily edited, see Original Submission #2]:

[Continues...]

Phoenix666 writes:

Jupiter's moon Europa is under a constant gravitational assault. As it orbits, its icy surface heaves and falls with the pull of Jupiter's gravity. Scientists now believe that as it does so, it creates enough heat to support a salty ocean beneath the moon's solid shell.

Now, experiments suggest that the process—called tidal dissipation—could create far more heat in Europa's ice than scientists had previously thought. The findings could ultimately help researchers to better estimate the thickness of moon's outer shell.
...
"[Scientists] had expected to see cold, dead places, but right away they were blown away by their striking surfaces," says Christine McCarthy, a faculty member at Columbia University who led the new research while a graduate student at Brown University. "There was clearly some sort of tectonic activity—things moving around and cracking. There were also places on Europa that look like melt-through or mushy ice."

The only way to create enough heat for these active processes so far from the sun is through tidal dissipation. The effect is a bit like what happens when someone repeatedly bends a metal coat hanger, McCarthy says.

"If you bend it back and forth, you can feel it making heat at the junction. The way it does that is that internal defects within that metal are rubbing past each other, and it's a similar process to how energy would be dissipated in ice."

"Tidal dissipation in creeping ice and the thermal evolution of Europa" (DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2016.03.006)

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

The car is the star. That's been true for well over a century—unrivaled staying power for an industrial-age, pistons-and-brute-force machine in an era so dominated by silicon and software. Cars conquered the daily culture of American life back when top hats and child labor were in vogue, and well ahead of such other innovations as radio, plastic, refrigerators, the electrical grid, and women's suffrage.

A big part of why they've stuck around is that they are the epitome of convenience. That's the allure and the promise that's kept drivers hooked, dating all the way back to the versatile, do-everything Ford Model T. Convenience (some might call it freedom) is not a selling point to be easily dismissed—this trusty conveyance, always there, always ready, on no schedule but its owner's. Buses can't do that. Trains can't do that. Even Uber makes riders wait.

But convenience, along with American history, culture, rituals, and man-machine affection, hide the true cost and nature of cars. And what is that nature? Simply this: In almost every way imaginable, the car, as it is deployed and used today, is insane.

The article doesn't make any new points, but with recent news about how millennials are less interested in car ownership, perhaps the trends say the negatives are beginning to outweigh the positives.

Original Submission

Update by takyon: Not anymore.

The theater chain said on Friday morning that it was not going to make good on CEO Adam Aron's suggestion that the theater chain could allow people to text during film showings. [...] The response was swift and unfavorable, with the public telling AMC in no uncertain terms that the idea was a bad one.

mendax adds this link.

Phoenix666 writes:

One of the largest cinema chains in the US is considering letting customers use their mobile phones during films. AMC chief executive Adam Aron said he wanted to encourage so-called millennials to visit the cinema. He told Variety magazine: "You can't tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone. That's not how they live their life."

But he said he would have to find a solution that did not disturb other movie-goers. [...] Mr Aron said young adults today were not visiting the cinema as much as their parents did when they were young.

Why go to the cinema when you can download and watch whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, while doing or consuming whatever you want?

Original Submission