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What was highest label on your first car speedometer?

  • 80 mph
  • 88 mph
  • 100 mph
  • 120 mph
  • 150 mph
  • it was in kph like civilized countries use you insensitive clod
  • Other (please specify in comments)

[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:47 | Votes:101

posted by Fnord666 on Friday April 28 2017, @11:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the total-eclipse-of-the-stamp dept.

The U.S. Postal Service will issue a "Forever Stamp" commemorating an August 21st total solar eclipse. The stamp includes thermochromic ink that will reveal an image of the full moon when heated/rubbed. The ink is sensitive to ultraviolet light, so of course the USPS is also offering a "special envelope to hold and protect the stamp pane for a nominal fee":

Tens of millions of people in the United States hope to view this rare event, which has not been seen on the U.S. mainland since 1979. The eclipse will travel a narrow path across the entire country for the first time since 1918. The path will run west to east from Oregon to South Carolina and will include portions of 14 states.

The June 20, 1:30 p.m. MT First-Day-of-Issue ceremony will take place at the Art Museum of the University of Wyoming (UW) in Laramie. The University is celebrating the summer solstice on June 20. Prior to the event, visitors are encouraged to arrive at 11:30 a.m. to witness a unique architectural feature where a single beam of sunlight shines on a silver dollar embedded in the floor, which occurs at noon on the summer solstice in the UW Art Museum's Rotunda Gallery.

[Ed. Note: "Due to the expected high volume of requests for the Google Map for the 2017 August 21 eclipse, the map is temporarily moved to the NASA Eclipse 2017 site maps page."]


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posted by Fnord666 on Friday April 28 2017, @10:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-barley-is-a-rye dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Looking for a better beer or single malt Scotch whiskey?

A team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside may have you covered. They are among a group of 77 scientists worldwide who have sequenced the complete genome of barley, a key ingredient in beer and single malt Scotch. The research, 10 years in the making, was just published in the journal Nature.

"This takes the level of completeness of the barley genome up a huge notch," said Timothy Close, a professor of genetics at UC Riverside. "It makes it much easier for researchers working with barley to be focused on attainable objectives, ranging from new variety development through breeding to mechanistic studies of genes."

The research will also aid scientists working with other "cereal crops," including rice, wheat, rye, maize, millet, sorghum, oats and even turfgrass, which like the other food crops, is in the grass family, Close said.

Source: https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/46631

Journal Reference:
Martin Mascher, et. al., A chromosome conformation capture ordered sequence of the barley genome, Nature (27 April 2017), doi:10.1038/nature22043


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posted by Fnord666 on Friday April 28 2017, @09:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the silver-lined-clouds dept.

Maybe Alfred E. Neuman had it all wrong? Recent research argues that not all worry is bad — it's a matter of degree.

Worry — it does a body good. And, the mind as well. A new paper by Kate Sweeny, psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside, argues there's an upside to worrying.

"Despite its negative reputation, not all worry is destructive or even futile," Sweeny said. "It has motivational benefits, and it acts as an emotional buffer."

In her latest article, "The Surprising Upsides of Worry," published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass, Sweeny breaks down the role of worry in motivating preventive and protective behavior, and how it leads people to avoid unpleasant events. Sweeny finds worry is associated with recovery from traumatic events, adaptive preparation and planning, recovery from depression, and partaking in activities that promote health, and prevent illness. Furthermore, people who report greater worry may perform better — in school or at the workplace — seek more information in response to stressful events, and engage in more successful problem solving.

The article notes that worry can act as a motivator. People dislike the feeling of worry and thus become willing to take steps to avoid the a feared outcome and so allay that feeling:

  • Worry serves as a cue that the situation is serious and requires action. People use their emotions as a source of information when making judgements and decisions.
  • Worrying about a stressor keeps the stressor at the front of one's mind and prompts people toward action.
  • The unpleasant feeling of worry motivates people to find ways to reduce their worry.

Worry can also act as a buffer, encouraging us to anticipate a feared outcome and not be so blindsided should it occur:

Worry can also benefit one's emotional state by serving as an emotional bench-mark. Compared to the state of worry, any other feeling is pleasurable by contrast. In other words, the pleasure that comes from a good experience is heightened if preceded by a bad experience.

Worry becomes problematic when one senses that a feared outcome is unavoidable and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy leading to a downward spiral into depression.

From my experience, I tend to see possible outcomes that others overlook (hence a career in software test/QA), and must make a conscious effort to look on the possible positive outcomes. I've not mastered it, entirely, but at least am now aware of what is happening when I feel that whirlpool drawing me in and can take steps to avoid it.

I'm curious how my fellow Soylentils deal with worry. Do you find it overwhelming? Are you upbeat and fearless all the time? Some middle ground? What benefits have you perceived from experiencing worry?


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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @07:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the Pythonesque...-Slithery-serpent?-Scripting?-Dead-parrot? dept.

The controversial Adani coal mine in Queensland is unlikely to get funding from Australia's big four banks after the second biggest, Westpac, tightened its funding criteria.

Westpac released its third Climate Change Action Plan today, which has a $10 billion target for lending to climate change solutions by 2020 and $25 billion by 2030.

[...] The bank's tougher criteria rule out Adani's new $16 billion Carmichael coal mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin to supply the Indian market.

[...] But Westpac's new environmental policy has infuriated Queensland LNP senator and resources minister Matt Canavan, who accused the company of being "unAustralian" before turning to Twitter to say Westpac had "turned its back" on the state.

Canavan said Westpac's decision was ridiculous, nonsensical and "Pythonesque"

"Adani itself hasn't asked Westpac for a loan. It seems to me that some corporations today are whimps in regard to standing up to these activists. You know, a few people that angrily turned up to a Westpac dinner and apparently changed the world," he said.

"I'm confident that the development in the Galilee Basin makes sense in terms of the world's energy needs."

Source: Business Insider Australia


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posted by takyon on Friday April 28 2017, @06:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the free-barrett-again dept.

D Magazine and The Intercept report that Barrett Brown has been re-arrested:

Faced with the possibility of 100 years in prison, Brown pleaded guilty in 2014 to two charges related to obstruction of justice and threatening an FBI agent, and was sentenced to five years and 3 months. In 2016, Brown won a National Magazine Award for his scathing and often hilarious columns in The Intercept, which focused on his life in prison. He was released in November.

[...] According to his mother, who spoke with Brown by phone after his arrest, Brown believes the reason for his re-arrest was a failure to obtain "permission" to give interviews to media organizations. Several weeks ago, Brown was told by his check-in officer that he needed to fill out permission forms before giving interviews.

Since his release, Brown has given numerous interviews, on camera and by phone. But according to his mother, Brown said that the Bureau of Prisons never informed him about a paperwork requirement. When he followed up with his check-in officer, he was given a different form: a liability form for media entering prisons.


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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @04:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-that's-a-stretch dept.

Synthetic rubber and plastics - used for manufacturing tires, toys and myriad other products - are produced from butadiene, a molecule traditionally made from petroleum or natural gas. But those manmade materials could get a lot greener soon, thanks to the ingenuity of a team of scientists from three U.S. research universities.

The scientific team—from the University of Delaware, the University of Minnesota and the University of Massachusetts - has invented a process to make butadiene from renewable sources like trees, grasses and corn.

The findings, now online, will be published in the American Chemical Society's ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, a leading journal in green chemistry and engineering. The study's authors are all affiliated with the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation (CCEI) based at the University of Delaware. CCEI is an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

"Our team combined a catalyst we recently discovered with new and exciting chemistry to find the first high-yield, low-cost method of manufacturing butadiene," says CCEI Director Dionisios Vlachos, the Allan and Myra Ferguson Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UD and a co-author of the study. "This research could transform the multi-billion-dollar plastics and rubber industries."

Butadiene is the chief chemical component in a broad range of materials found throughout society. When this four-carbon molecule undergoes a chemical reaction to form long chains called polymers, styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) is formed, which is used to make abrasive-resistant automobile tires. When blended to make nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR), it becomes the key component in hoses, seals and the rubber gloves ubiquitous to medical settings.

Abstract: Biomass-Derived Butadiene by Dehydra-Decyclization of Tetrahydrofuran.

Not good news for Big Oil, which is already nervously eying electric vehicle advances.


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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @02:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the under-pressure dept.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/27/15436154/mars-soil-simulant-study-building-human-missions

Simulated Mars soil can be packed together into a solid brick-like material — without needing any added ingredients to hold it together. That might mean real Martian soil could be easily used as a tool for building structures like habitats on the Red Planet's surface, which could make human missions to Mars less complicated to pull off.

A group of engineers figured this out by using a high-pressure hammer to mash together material known as Mars soil simulant. It's a collection of rocks from Earth that have the same chemical makeup as the dirt found on Mars, as well as grains that are of a similar shape and size as Martian grains. After working with the material for a while, the engineers found that just adding the right amount of pressure was enough to form the soil into tiny, stiff blocks — stronger than steel-reinforced concrete.

[...] the researchers think there is some ingredient already in the Martian soil that helps it to stick together. They ultimately landed on iron oxide — a chemical compound that gives Martian soil its signature red color. When iron oxide is crushed, it can crack easily, forming fractures with very clean and flat surfaces, according to [Yu] Qiao [a structural engineer at University of California, San Diego, and the lead researcher on a NASA-funded study about this technique]. And when these surfaces are firmly pressed together, they form super strong bonds.

But these bricks aren't a complete solution to construction on Mars — at least not yet. The team only made miniature bricks, so it's possible that larger Martian bricks won't hold up so well. And it's not clear how durable they are either, which is important for a few reasons. Obviously, you don't want your structure to collapse. But less obviously, dust from the soil could break off into the air that astronauts are breathing, and inhaling large enough particles could cause health problems. The dust may also contain a type of salt known as perchlorate, which has been found throughout the Martian surface. Perchlorates can be toxic to human thyroid glands. So more research needs to be done to better understand these risks.

The full report is available: Direct Formation of Structural Components Using a Martian Soil Simulant, Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 1151 (2017) doi:10.1038/s41598-017-01157-w.


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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @01:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the BIG-iron dept.

Here is a status update on the U.S. path to exascale (as well as some details about Chinese, Japanese, and EU efforts):

Paul Messina, director of the U.S. Exascale Computing Project, provided a wide-ranging review of ECP's evolving plans last week at the HPC User Forum in Santa Fe, NM. The biggest change, of course, is ECP's accelerated timetable with delivery of the first exascale machine now scheduled for 2021. While much of the material covered by Messina wasn't new there were a few fresh details on the long awaited Path Forward hardware contracts and on progress-to-date in other ECP fronts.

"We have selected six vendors to be primes, and in some cases they have had other vendors involved in their R&D requirements. [We have also] been working on detailed statements of work because the dollar amounts are pretty hefty, the approval process [reaches] high up in the Department of Energy," said Messina of the Path Forward awards. Five of the contracts are signed and the sixth is not far off. Even his slide had the announcement to be ready by COB April 14, 2017. "It would have been great to announce them at this HPC User Forum but it was not meant to be." He said the announcements will be made public soon.

The duration of the ECP project has been shortened to seven years from ten years although there's a 12-month schedule contingency built in to accommodate changes, said Messina. Interestingly, during the Q&A, Messina was asked about U.S. willingness to include 'individuals' not based in the U.S. in the project. The question was a little ambiguous as it wasn't clear if 'individuals' was intended to encompass foreign interests broadly, but Messina answered directly, "[For] people who are based outside the U.S. I would say the policy is they are not included."

The plan is for the U.S. to have a system capable of a peak of 1 exaflops by 2021, and sustained by 2023. Power consumption is intended to be around 20-30 MW, and each system should cost somewhere from $300-500 million (not counting related R&D).

This slide lists some expected applications for an exascale supercomputer.

Here is the project's website.


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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @11:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the shoulda-made-a-left-at-Albuquerque dept.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39710311

A study that claims humans reached the Americas 130,000 years ago - much earlier than previously suggested - has run into controversy.

Humans are thought to have arrived in the New World no earlier than 25,000 years ago, so the find would push back the first evidence of settlement by more than 100,000 years.

The conclusions rest on analysis of animal bones and tools from California.

But many experts contacted by the BBC said they doubted the claims.


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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @10:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the What-a-relief! dept.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/no-bones-no-problem-dna-left-cave-soils-can-reveal-ancient-human-occupants

Fifty thousand years ago, a Neandertal relieved himself in a cave in present-day Belgium, depositing, among other things, a sample of his DNA. The urine clung to minerals in the soil and the faeces eventually decomposed. But traces of the DNA remained, embedded in the cave floor, where earth falling from the cave's ceiling and blowing in from outside eventually entombed it. Now, researchers have shown they can find and identify such genetic traces of both Neandertals and Denisovans, another type of archaic human, enabling them to test for the presence of ancient humans even in sites where no bones have been found.


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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @08:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the british-values dept.

Journalists in the UK are less free to hold power to account than those working in South Africa, Chile or Lithuania, according to an index of press freedom around the world.

Laws permitting generalised surveillance, as well as a proposal for a new espionage act that could criminalise journalists and whistleblowers as spies, were cited by Reporters Without Borders as it knocked the UK down two places from last year, to 40th out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index.

In the past five years, the UK has slipped 12 places down the index. Rebecca Vincent, RSF's UK bureau director, said this year's ranking would have been worse were it not for a general decline in press freedom around the world, making journalists in Britain comparatively better off than those in countries such as Turkey and Syria.

[...] Among the concerns raised by RSF was the passage of the UK's "menacing" Investigatory Powers Act last November, which met only token resistance within parliament, despite giving UK intelligence agencies and police the most sweeping surveillance powers in the western world.

RSF said the act was a possible "death sentence" for investigative journalism in Britain, owing to its lack of protections for whistleblowers, journalists and their sources, and that it set a damaging precedent for other countries to follow.

Source: The Guardian


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posted by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @07:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-take-a-long-nap dept.

After some serious number crunching, a University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus) researcher has come up with a mathematical model for a viable time machine.

Ben Tippett, a mathematics and physics instructor at University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus, recently published a study about the feasibility of time travel. Tippett, whose field of expertise is Einstein's theory of general relativity, studies black holes and science fiction when he's not teaching. Using math and physics, he has created a formula that describes a method for time travel.

"People think of time travel as something as fiction," says Tippett. "And we tend to think it's not possible because we don't actually do it. But, mathematically, it is possible."

"The time direction of the space-time surface also shows curvature. There is evidence showing the closer to a black hole we get, time moves slower," says Tippett. "My model of a time machine uses the curved space-time -- to bend time into a circle for the passengers, not in a straight line. That circle takes us back in time."

The division of space into three dimensions, with time in a separate dimension by itself, is incorrect, says Tippett. The four dimensions should be imagined simultaneously, where different directions are connected, as a space-time continuum. Using Einstein's theory, Tippett says that the curvature of space-time accounts for the curved orbits of the planets.

[...] "While is it mathematically feasible, it is not yet possible to build a space-time machine because we need materials--which we call exotic matter--to bend space-time in these impossible ways, but they have yet to be discovered."

[...] For his research, Tippett created a mathematical model of a Traversable Acausal Retrograde Domain in Space-time (TARDIS). He describes it as a bubble of space-time geometry which carries its contents backward and forwards through space and time as it tours a large circular path. The bubble moves through space-time at speeds greater than the speed of light at times, allowing it to move backward in time.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170427091717.htm

[Abstract] Traversable acausal retrograde domains in spacetime

What do you think ?


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posted by n1 on Friday April 28 2017, @05:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the distracted-reality dept.

Nintendo says the success of its new Switch console will help it to double annual profits.

It has become the fastest-selling games console in the Japanese firm's history, with 2.7 million units bought in March - the first month it was available.

But Nintendo's profit estimate of 65bn yen ($583.9m; £453m) for the year to March 2018 was below market forecasts.

Like other console makers, Nintendo is having to counter the rise of the smartphone as a tool for gaming.

And because - unlike Sony and Microsoft - Nintendo relies on games and consoles for almost all its sales, it is arguably more vulnerable to this trend.

Does gaming on phones really cannibalize gaming on consoles and PCs, or is it in addition to?


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posted by n1 on Friday April 28 2017, @04:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the venezuexit dept.

Various news outlets are reporting on an announcement by the Venezuelan government that it will leave the Organization of American States (OAS), a process that takes two years. The country will stop participating in OAS meetings immediately. No country has left the OAS since its founding in 1948.

According to Venezuela-based teleSUR, the move comes in response

[...] to a meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States to discuss Venezuela scheduled for Wednesday, which violates the rules of the organization because it does not have the consent of the affected country.

[The foreign minister] indicated that there is also a group of countries with right-wing governments working under U.S. imperialist orders against Venezuela.

According to ABC News,

Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets demanding [President Nicolás] Maduro hold elections and denouncing his government as being responsible for triple-digit inflation, food shortages and a rise [in] crime.

It also says that 29 people have been killed in connection with the protests.

Additional coverage:


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posted by n1 on Friday April 28 2017, @02:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the flying-high dept.

Early Monday morning, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson set a new record for the longest time in space for any US astronaut, hitting a landmark 534 cumulative days in orbit. Fellow astronaut Jeff Williams set the previous record only last year.

Dr. Whitson will continue to extend the new record for the duration of her stay as current commander on the International Space Station, ultimately to more than 650 cumulative days, setting a high bar for those looking to break her record.

This is not the first time Whitson has made NASA history, however. The astronaut and biochemist also became the first woman commander of the ISS in 2007 and the first woman to command the station twice, earlier this year. She is also the oldest US woman to have completed a spacewalk, and has done more spacewalks than any other female NASA astronaut.

It's not just girls who are inspired by accomplishments like Dr. Whitson's.


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posted by n1 on Friday April 28 2017, @01:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the dear-little-Bottle-of-mine dept.

Various news outlets are reporting on work published in Nature Communications (open, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15112) (DX) on:

[...] a system that incorporates a pumpless oxygenator circuit connected to the fetus of a lamb via an umbilical cord interface that is maintained within a closed 'amniotic fluid' circuit that closely reproduces the environment of the womb. [...] fetal lambs that are developmentally equivalent to the extreme premature human infant can be physiologically supported in this extra-uterine device for up to 4 weeks.

Coverage:

Related stories:
Scientists Keep Human Embryos Alive Longer Outside of the Womb
Prematurely Born Lambs Kept Alive With Artificial External Placenta - Human Babies Could be Next


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