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takyon writes:

A new species of whale has been identified by using genetic evidence:

For decades, Japanese fishermen have told stories about the existence of a dark, rare beaked whale that they called karasu — the "raven." But now, scientists say they have genetic proof to back up these tales. Long mistaken for its relative, the Baird's beaked whale, scientists say it represents an entirely new species.

"There have been a lot of people out there surveying whales for a long time and never come across this in scientific research," Phillip Morin, research molecular geneticist at the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, tells The Two-Way. "So it is a huge thing to discover this; it's kind of baffling that we haven't seen it before." The team's research was published Tuesday in Marine Mammal Science [DOI: 10.1111/mms.12345].

[...] Some samples were hidden in plain sight. A whale skull from the new species was on display at the Smithsonian, incorrectly identified as a Baird's beaked whale. A Japanese scientist spotted it on a visit to the museum, Morin says. Also, a skeleton was found on display at an Alaska high school. [...] The mysterious whale has never been spotted alive by scientists. Traditionally, species identification involves "detailed measurements and description of a physical specimen," Morin says. "But with whales, that's a really difficult thing to do. And with a whale as rare as this, it's even more difficult because we just don't have those materials." He explains that they're using "genetics as a line of evidence" to prove the existence of a new species.

There were two previously known types of beaked whale — Baird's, which resides in the Northern Hemisphere, and Arnoux's, which lives in the Southern Hemisphere. The scientists said in their article that the two known species "share a common ancestor more recently than they do with the black form."

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takyon writes:

Astronomers have proposed that Jupiter's Great Red Spot is heating the upper atmosphere of the planet by hundreds of degrees:

Scientists may have found their answer to why temperatures in Jupiter's upper atmosphere are similar to those on Earth, even though the planet lies five times further away from the sun. Using an infrared telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, observers found that above the Great Red Spot (GRS) the upper atmosphere is hundreds of degrees hotter than other observable parts of the planet.

"We could see almost immediately that our maximum temperatures at high altitudes were above the Great Red Spot far below - a weird coincidence or a major clue?" Boston University research scientist James O'Donoghue said. The study was described in the journal Nature [DOI: 10.1038/nature18940]. Through a process of elimination, scientists worked out that the hot spot must be being heated via the storm below. The exact process for such heat transfer is unknown, but experts have put forward that acoustic or gravity waves from below could be raising the temperature.

As National Geographic puts it, the Great Red Spot is churning out air "hotter than lava" (≥ 1300°C).

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Sonnenseite reports:

History was made [July 26] when Bertrand Piccard gently touched the nose of the Solar Impulse 2 (SI2) aircraft down on to the hot, dry runway in Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emerites] at 4:05 am local time, marking the end point of an epic journey that began in this same spot 17 months ago.

The SI2's epic journey has covered 43,000km [26,700 miles], made 16 stops, crossed both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and captured the world's imagination by doing all this without a single drop of fuel. Upon emerging from the one-man cockpit, Bertrand was immediately embraced by fellow pilot and Solar Impulse co-founder Andre Borschberg, who shared flying duties during the historic journey.

Covered in 17,248 SunPower solar cells, it was the sun what won it: Solar PV technology kept the plane in the skies and ensured there was enough juice in the four lithium polymer batteries to fly through the night.

Our previous coverage of Solar Impulse 2.

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takyon writes:

NPR brings us this story of lawlessness ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Brazil:

A reported abduction in Brazil is sending shock waves through the sporting world, as the mother-in law of Bernie Ecclestone, the billionaire who runs the Formula One Group, is apparently being held for ransom. From Rio de Janeiro, NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro reports for our Newscast unit:

"Bernie Ecclestone is the head of the Formula One car racing franchise and one of the richest men in Britain. His wife is Brazilian, and her mother was apparently grabbed by criminals in Sao Paulo, who are asking for a $37 million ransom from the billionaire.

"Information is scant and local press have said they won't report details in order to protect the victim. NPR contacted the anti-kidnapping police in Brazil, who declined to comment. Kidnapping in Brazil is rare these days, but security across the country has deteriorated on the back of a historic recession."

While most Olympic events will be held in Rio de Janeiro, some will take place in Sao Paulo and other cities.

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

TechDirt reports

Last week, Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab (and a very sharp thinker on a variety of topics related to innovation) announced a really cool new award that the lab was putting together: a Rewarding Disobedience award, for $250,000, funded by LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman:

This prize is a one-time experiment that, if successful, we will consider repeating in the future. It will go to a person or group engaged in what we believe is excellent disobedience for the benefit of society. The disobedience that we would like to call out is the kind that seeks to change society in a positive way, and is consistent with a set of key principles. The principles include non-violence, creativity, courage, and taking responsibility for one's actions. The disobedience can be in--but is not limited to--the fields of scientific research, civil rights, freedom of speech, human rights, and the freedom to innovate.

[...] I particularly like Michael Petricone's suggestion that the award should be named after Aaron Swartz. [...] One [thing] that becomes clear from the book [The Idealist] was the absolute disbelief by Swartz and his family of the fact that MIT refused to support Swartz after his arrest. The university basically turned its back on him completely. It's something that the university still ought to do something about, and naming this award after Swartz would be a step in the right direction.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Everything about the Rosetta comet mission has been epic. It took 10 years for the spacecraft to reach Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which it did in 2014. Rosetta then sent its plucky little lander Philae down to the comet's surface, but a faulty thruster landed it in shadows. Unable to charge itself properly, Philae floated in and out of contact. The Rosetta team last heard from Philae way back in July 2015. It's been silent ever since.

[...] Rosetta is scheduled to wrap up its mission by descending to the comet's surface on September 30. The comet is currently heading away from the sun, which saps the spacecraft of the solar power it needs to continue operations. There is a sense of poetry to Rosetta rejoining its lander on the comet. It may mark the end of Rosetta's activities, but scientists involved in the mission will stay busy for years studying the data sent back by both the craft and the lander.

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AnonTechie writes:

RUMPEL, a ground-breaking hyperdata web browser that makes it simpler for people to access and use online data about themselves, is being rolled out to the public this month.

RUMPEL gives users the ability to browse their very own private and secure 'personal data wardrobe' -- called a HAT (Hub-of-all-Things) -- which collates data about them held on the internet (eg on social media, calendars and their own smartphones, with the possibility of also including shopping, financial and other personal data) and allows them to control, combine and share it in whatever way they wish.

Launched in June 2013, HAT [PDF] will create the first ever Multi-sided Market Technology Platform for the home, allowing individuals to trade their personal data for personalised products and services in the future.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160727111929.htm

Is this yet another crack in the wall of privacy ?

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janrinok writes:

A story from scienceblog.com looks at a novel treatment and prevention of tooth decay:

The bacteria that live in dental plaque and contribute to tooth decay often resist traditional antimicrobial treatment, as they can "hide" within a sticky biofilm matrix, a glue-like polymer scaffold.

A new strategy conceived by University of Pennsylvania researchers took a more sophisticated approach. Instead of simply applying an antibiotic to the teeth, they took advantage of the pH-sensitive and enzyme-like properties of iron-containing nanoparticles to catalyze the activity of hydrogen peroxide, a commonly used natural antiseptic. The activated hydrogen peroxide produced free radicals that were able to simultaneously degrade the biofilm matrix and kill the bacteria within, significantly reducing plaque and preventing the tooth decay, or cavities, in an animal model.

"Even using a very low concentration of hydrogen peroxide, the process was incredibly effective at disrupting the biofilm," said Hyun (Michel) Koo, a professor in the Penn School of Dental Medicine's Department of Orthodontics and divisions of Pediatric Dentistry and Community Oral Health and the senior author of the study, which was published in the journal Biomaterials [DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2016.05.051]. "Adding nanoparticles increased the efficiency of bacterial killing more than 5,000-fold."

The paper's lead author was Lizeng Gao, a postdoctoral researcher in Koo's lab. Coauthors were Yuan Liu, Dongyeop Kim, Yong Li and Geelsu Hwang, all of Koo's lab, as well as David Cormode, an assistant professor of radiology and bioengineering with appointments in Penn's Perelman School of Medicine and School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Pratap C. Naha, a postdoctoral fellow in Cormode's lab.

The work built off a seminal finding by Gao and colleagues, published in 2007 in Nature Nanotechnology [DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2007.260], showing that nanoparticles, long believed to be biologically and chemically inert, could in fact possess enzyme-like properties. In that study, Gao showed that an iron oxide nanoparticle behaved similarly to a peroxidase, an enzyme found naturally that catalyzes oxidative reactions, often using hydrogen peroxide.

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fork(2) writes:

Ars Technica reports on an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics forum in Salt Lake City with the provocative title, "Launch Vehicle Reusability: Holy Grail, Chasing Our Tail, or Somewhere in Between?"

Moderator Dan Dumbacher said of the panel, "We purposefully tried to get a good cross-section of those who have been working on it." However, the panel included no one actually building reusable rockets and relied heavily on the old-guard perspective. Dumbacher himself, now a professor at Purdue University, previously managed development of the Space Launch System rocket for NASA, and he expressed doubt about the viability of reusable launch vehicles in 2014 by essentially saying that because NASA couldn't do it, it was difficult to see how others could.

[...] The panel featured three men tied to the reusable but costly space shuttle in one way or another. Gary Payton, a visiting professor at the United States Air Force Academy, is a former shuttle astronaut. Doug Bradley is chief engineer of advanced space & launch at Aerojet Rocketdyne, which built the shuttle's reusable engines. And Ben Goldberg is director of technology at Orbital ATK, which manufactured the shuttle's solid rocket boosters.

The discussion was predictably negative, even dismissive. (Think tones of IBM, Honeywell, Burroughs, Amdahl, DEC when a couple of punks debuted a new "computer" at a Homebrew Computer Club meeting in Menlo Park.) But, reality happens...

So where were the representatives of the new space companies actually building reusable launch systems in 2016 and flying them into space? Dumbacher addressed that question more than halfway through the two-hour discussion: SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic were all invited, but "unfortunately were unable to attend due to other commitments." Perhaps instead of debating the question, they're just getting on with the job.[emphasis added]

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n1 writes:

Workers in the UK have suffered the biggest fall in wages among the world's richest countries since the financial crisis, research has suggested.

Between 2007 and 2015 wages in the UK fell by 10.4%, a drop equalled only by Greece, the analysis by the TUC [Trades Union Congress] found.

Women's pay in particular needs to be boosted, the union body said. Women earn on average 19.2% less than men, according to the latest official data.

The Treasury said the TUC's analysis did not fully reflect living standards.

The UK is the joint biggest faller on pay in 29 countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - a forum for wealthy countries who work together to promote financial growth and social wellbeing.

The UK, Greece and Portugal were the only three OECD countries that saw real wages fall, according to the research complied by the TUC.

Source: BBC News

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[redacted] Coward writes:

https://eng.uber.com/mysql-migration/

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Earlier this year, France passed a labor reform law that banned checking emails on weekends. New research—to be presented next week at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management—suggests other countries might do well to follow suit, for the sake of employee health and productivity.

[...] Using data collected from 365 working adults, [Liuba] Belkin [of Lehigh University], and her colleagues [William Becker of Virginia Tech and Samantha A. Conroy of Colorado State University] look at the role of organizational expectation regarding "off" hour emailing and find it negatively impacts employee emotional states, leading to "burnout" and diminished work-family balance, which is essential for individual health and well-being. The study—described in an article entitled "Exhausted, but unable to disconnect: the impact of email-related organizational expectations on work-family balance"—is the first to identify email-related expectations as a job stressor along with already established factors such as high workload, interpersonal conflicts, physical environment or time pressure.

[...] Interestingly, they found that it is not the amount of time spent on work emails, but the expectation which drives the resulting sense of exhaustion. Due to anticipatory stress—defined as a constant state of anxiety and uncertainty as a result of perceived or anticipated threats, according to research cited in the article—employees are unable to detach and [therefore] feel exhausted regardless of the time spent on after-hours emails.

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janrinok writes:

A story from Engadget reports:

Satellites often rely on reaction wheels, or constantly spinning flywheels, to tweak their attitudes without using precious fuel. However, they tend to be very delicate -- since they use ball bearings, they spin relatively slowly (under 6,000RPM), take up a lot of space, need tightly controlled environments and aren't very precise. Thankfully, researchers at Celeroton have a better way. They've created a magnetically levitated motor that achieves the effect of a regular reaction wheel with virtually none of the drawbacks. Since its rotor floats in a magnetic field, it can spin much faster (up to 150,000RPM) without wearing out, creating vibrations or requiring a special, lubricated environment. And given that it produces the same angular momentum as a much larger reaction wheel, it's perfect for CubeSats and any other tiny satellite where internal space is at a premium.

The motor is only a prototype at the moment, and it'll take a while before there's something commercially viable. However, multiple potential partners (including the European Space Agency) are reportedly interested. You may well see production satellites that can always adjust their positions, which might keep them useful well after conventional orbiters break down and become space junk.

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takyon writes:

The Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 4,726 American adults and asked them about gene editing to prevent diseases in babies, brain chip implants for improved cognition, and synthetic blood for enhanced physical abilities. A majority of Americans said they were "somewhat" or "very" worried about these three developments. 48% said they would use gene editing to prevent diseases in their own babies, while 50% said they would not:

Whatever appeal these ideas may have, they also raise fundamental questions about what it means to be human. From the earliest days of civilization, people have sought to better their condition through the use of tools, medications, surgeries and other therapies. But as new scientific and technological breakthroughs arise, so do questions about whether such developments move beyond limits set by God, nature or reason. Thus, this research is aimed in part at understanding where, if at all, the public might "draw the line" on human enhancements and the possibilities they could bring to society.

The developments are not far off from becoming a clinical reality; for example, the NHS will begin giving small transfusions of artificial/synthetic blood to 20 healthy people in 2017.

[Continues...]

fork(2) writes:

SpaceNews reports that Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that Jeff Bezos and Neil deGrasse Tyson will join the Defense Innovation Advisory Board.

Carter has asked the board to identify private-sector practices that the Pentagon could adopt. A first round of recommendations is expected in October.

The full list of current board members is:

· Eric Schmidt, executive chairman, Alphabet Inc.

· Jeff Bezos, president, chairman and CEO, Amazon Inc.

· Adam Grant, professor, Wharton School of Business

· Danny Hillis, computer theorist & co-founder, Applied Inventions

· Reid Hoffman, co-founder, LinkedIn, and partner, Greylock Partners

· Walter Isaacson, president & CEO, Aspen Institute, former TIME magazine editor and Steve Jobs biographer

· Eric Lander, president and founding director, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

· Marne Levine, chief operating officer, Instagram

· J. Michael McQuade, senior vice president for science and technology, United Technologies

· William McRaven, chancellor, University of Texas System

· Milo Medin, vice president, Access Services, Google Capital

· Richard Murray, professor, California Institute of Technology

· Jennifer Pahlka, founder, Code for America

· Cass Sunstein, professor, Harvard Law School

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