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turgid writes:

The BBC has a story about how a secondary school Physics experiment in 1966 revealed the existence of a secret Soviet rocket launching site.

Physics teacher Geoff Perry of Kettering Grammar School in Northamptonshire was explaining the Doppler effect, most commonly experienced as the change in frequency of sound from a moving vehicle, to his pupils and realised that he could demonstrate the effect on radio waves transmitted from satellites.

Using a second-hand WWII vintage radio receiver and a home-made antenna, the pupils recorded the signals from several Soviet satellites. As the quantity and quality of their data improved, they were able to deduce that one of the satellites had a slightly different orbit from the others and therefore must have been launched from a different site.

Using their data, they were able to determine the location of the second site, Plesetsk in Russia, which was a secret. Officially, at that time the only Soviet launch site was at Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Chemists at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute have found a new, direct way to convert gaseous methane into liquid methanol. This offers industry the interesting prospect of using the gas, rather than simply burning it off, as is currently the case.

Methane is an abundant and inexpensive gas. Although it would be a suitable energy source and base material for the chemical industry, huge quantities of it are simply burnt off around the world - above all at oil fields and refineries. "On satellite images of Earth at night, the Middle East is brightly illuminated. This is not because the region has an especially high number of large, brightly lit settlements, but rather because of methane flaring at the oil fields," says Jeroen van Bokhoven, Professor for Heterogeneous Catalysis at ETH Zurich and Head of the Laboratory for Catalysis and Sustainable Chemistry at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI).

Another reason for this wasteful approach to methane is that, at present, it is not sufficiently profitable to convert the gas into methanol in liquid form, which is easier to transport and more reactive. On the industrial scale, this conversion is currently performed using an indirect, elaborate and energy-intensive method that involves the production of syngas as an intermediate step.

The key change here is that instead of needing to repeatedly vary the temperature during the conversion (up to 450 °C and then back down to 200 °C), researchers discovered that the reaction can be made to occur at a constant temperature of 200 °C if the process performed at high pressure: 36 bar.

An abstract is available (full article paywalled) — DOI: 10.1002/anie.201511065.

Bah! Real men get their methane from pigs.

Original Submission

GungnirSniper writes:

The long decline of Yahoo has had a variety of causes, and even the hiring of Marissa Mayer has not turned around the company's fortunes. While most of the largest names in the Internet have been speculated as potential buyers, Verizon and SoftBank are likely to bid. The UK tabloid The Daily Mail may also make a bid with an equity partner.

Yahoo has a number of assets including its stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, three percent annually of Yahoo Japan's gross profits, 6,000 patents, and over one million square feet of office space around its Sunnyvale, California main office. Much like the television deal made in the merger of the ABA-NBA, the perpetual payment terms have grown significantly in value.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

An unconfirmed incident near Heathrow Airport in London may fuel calls for a drone ban:

A plane approaching Heathrow Airport is believed to have hit a drone before it landed safely, the Metropolitan Police has said. The British Airways flight from Geneva was hit as it approached the London airport at about 12:50 BST with 132 passengers and five crew on board. After landing, the pilot reported an object - believed to be a drone - had struck the front of the Airbus A320. Aviation police based at Heathrow have launched an investigation. Police said no arrests have been made.

If confirmed, it is believed to be the first incident of its kind in the UK. A British Airways spokesman said: "Our aircraft landed safely, was fully examined by our engineers and it was cleared to operate its next flight." The airline will give the police "every assistance with their investigation", the spokesman added.

Also at The Guardian and Reuters.

Previously: Call for Research after Drone Near-Misses in the UK

Original Submission

tonyPick writes:

Hackaday has an article on a practical application for Tesla Coils in the self-assembly of matter:

A self-funded research team at Rice University has found that unordered heaps of carbon nanotubes will self-assemble into conductive wires when exposed to the electric field of a strong Tesla coil. The related paper by lead author and graduate student [Lindsey R. Bornhoeft], introduces the phenomenon as "Teslaphoresis".

The Tesla Coil was invented around 1891 by Nikola Tesla to produce high-voltage and high frequency electricity, and is commonly used to create impressive visual displays.

This story is also covered at phys.org, and quotes Rice chemist Paul Cherukuri:

In one experiment, nanotubes assembled themselves into wires, formed a circuit connecting two LEDs and then absorbed energy from the Tesla coil's field to light them.

Cherukuri realized a redesigned Tesla coil could create a powerful force field at distances far greater than anyone imagined. His team observed alignment and movement of the nanotubes several feet away from the coil. "It is such a stunning thing to watch these nanotubes come alive and stitch themselves into wires on the other side of the room," he said.

There is a YouTube video which includes a demonstration of Teslaphoresis in action (including the LED experiment mentioned), and the source press release has further details. (However the journal article itself is paywalled).

Also seen at HackerNews

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The inflatable Bigelow Expandable Activity Module has been installed on the International Space Station:

The International Space Station gained a brand new room on Saturday (April 16), but it will be another month before it grows large enough for the astronauts to enter. A first-of-its-type inflatable structure, the BEAM — or Bigelow Expandable Activity Module — built by Bigelow Aerospace, was attached to the rear-facing port of the space station's Tranquility node. It is the first new addition to the orbiting outpost in five years. Launched inside the unpressurized trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule on April 8, the BEAM arrived at the space station two days later.

Early Saturday, flight controllers at NASA's Mission Control in Houston began sending commands to the space station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to extract the deflated, compressed BEAM from the Dragon and move it into position next to its attach point on the Tranquility module. [...] BEAM, which was compacted for its launch to a size of just 7 feet (2.1 meters) in diameter and 8 feet (2.4 m) in length, will be expanded to nearly five times its size at the end of May. The space station's air supply will be used to inflate the new room to its fully-formed shape and then the BEAM's own air tanks will pressurize the module on or around May 26.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

An earthquake struck Ecuador late on Saturday:

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck on Ecuador's coast Saturday, leaving at least 28 people dead and causing buildings to shake in cities more than 100 miles away and collapsing an overpass, authorities and witnesses said.

The temblor struck just before 7 p.m. local time (8 p.m. ET) with an epicenter 16 miles south-southeast of the coastal town of Muisne, located on the country's northwestern coast, the U.S. National Geological Survey said. The quake was recorded at a depth of about 12 miles.

USGS.

[Ed. addition.] There were major quakes over the past few days in Japan, as well:
2016-04-15 16:25:06 (UTC) Magnitude: 7.0
2016-04-14 15:03:46 (UTC) Magnitude 6.0
2016-04-14 12:26:36 (UTC) Magnitude 6.2

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

"Clementine is a modern music player and library organizer for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X."

Clementine 1.3 Free Music Player Is a Massive Release with Over 150 Changes

The final release of the Clementine 1.3 open-source and multiplatform music player software has been released today for all supported operating systems, bringing dozens of new features and improvements over previous releases.

Announcements, Downloads, Changelog.

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Unusually Early Greenland Melt:

Based on observation-initialized weather model runs by DMI, almost 12% of the Greenland ice sheet had more than 1mm of melt on Monday 11th April, following an early start to melting the previous day. Scientists at DMI were at first incredulous due to the early date. "We had to check that our models were still working properly" said Peter Langen, a climate scientist at DMI. "Fortunately we could see from the PROMICE.dk stations on the ice sheet that it had been well above melting, even above 10 °C. This helped to explain the results". The former top 3 earliest dates for a melt area larger than 10% were previously all in May (5th May 2010, 8th May 1990, 8th May 2006).

Even weather stations quite high up on the ice sheet observed very high temperatures on Monday", said Robert Fausto, a scientist at GEUS who maintains PROMICE.dk melt data. "At KAN_U for example, a site at 1840 m above sea level, we observed a maximum temperature of 3.1°C. This would be a warm day in July, never mind April". Other PROMICE stations in the network at lower levels had daily average temperatures between 5 and 10 °C.

Also at phys.org.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

A modern twist on an old technology could soon help detect rogue methane leaks, hidden explosives and much more. A Duke University team is using software to dramatically improve the performance of chemical-sniffing mass spectrometers.

Conventional mass spectrometers separate compounds by giving them an electric charge and passing them through electric and/or magnetic fields. The lighter the compound, the more it bends in the field. By determining what compounds make up a given sample, these instruments can identify almost any substance.

Mass spectrometers were invented in the 1930s, and they're still typically the size of an oven or refrigerator. Inherent hurdles to miniaturization have made it difficult to use them outside of a laboratory. But with the help of modern data analytics, researchers at Duke have demonstrated a technology using a so-called "coded aperture" that promises to shrink these devices while maintaining their performance. The advance could lead to portable mass spectrometers that could be used to detect environmental or safety hazards in the field.

Who needs lipstick on a collar when the new mass spectrometer can detect a couple of particles of her perfume on his clothes?

Compatibility of Spatially Coded Apertures with a Miniature Mattauch-Herzog Mass Spectrograph (DOI: 10.1007/s13361-015-1323-7)

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

A woman from Ohio has been charged with streaming the rape of a teenage girl via Twitter's live video app Periscope. The offence is alleged to have occurred two months ago and was brought to the authorities' attention by someone who said they had seen the broadcast.

The accused's lawyer says that she "categorically" denies the charges. An expert said the case highlighted the impossibility of controlling content on live-streaming services, which are gaining in popularity. According to the indictment, the sexual assault took place in the city of Columbus on 27 February.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

3D and 4K were nothing! It's all about HDR now!

Netflix has confirmed it has begun its rollout of high dynamic range content on its TV and film streaming service. HDR videos display millions more shades of colour and extra levels of brightness than normal ones, allowing images to look more realistic.

However, to view them members will need a new type of TV or monitor and a premium-priced Netflix subscription. Some HDR content had already been available via Amazon's rival Instant Video service. Ultra-high-definition 4K Blu-ray discs - which launched in the UK earlier this week - also include HDR data.

Netflix's support follows January's creation of a scheme defining the HDR standards a television set must meet to be marketed with an "Ultra HD Premium" sticker. [...] The US firm recommends its members have at least a 25 megabits per second connection to view them.

High-dynamic-range imaging at Wikipedia.

Related:

A Look at AMD's GPU Plans for 2016
LG to Demo an 8K Resolution TV at the Consumer Electronics Show

Original Submission

JNCF writes:

The New York Times reports (and Yahoo! News repeats without any paywall) that the government of Saudi Arabia is threatening to sell $750 billion in treasury securities and other unidentified assets if Congress passes the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. The bill would allow foreign governments to be sued by 9/11 victims and their families. The threat was issued by Saudi Arabian foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir to unnamed US lawmakers while he was visiting Washington sometime last month, on the grounds that these assets could be in danger of being frozen by US courts.

Original Submission

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