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Phoenix666 writes:

NASA has successfully tested a parachute designed for low-density atmospheres like that found on Mars.

The test saw the NASA Wallops facility launch a Black Brant IX rocket, a 58-footer often used for tests and sub-orbital missions, as part of the agency's Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE).

The 58 km (31.62 mile) flight ended with an Atlantic splashdown, and success for the ASPIRE payload that tests parachutes in a “low density, supersonic environment”.

Thin atmospheres are a challenge for parachutes, so projects like ASPIRE are one way humanity plans to end journeys across space without a too-hard landing on another planet or moon.

As well as inflating in a thin atmosphere, a Martian landing would also need to withstand – and decelerate from – much higher starting velocities than an Earth-bound parachutist (or even an uncrewed payload passing through Earth's dense atmosphere).

Let us hope these parachutes will not impact Mars.

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Phoenix666 writes:

In this study, 290 heterosexual Canadian students between the ages of 17 and 30 years old completed three questionnaires. One measured how competitive the participants are towards members of the same sex as their own, especially in terms of access to the attention of potential mates. The other questionnaires measured the tendency and likelihood of the participants to gossip about others, the perceived social value of gossip, and whether it is okay to talk about others behind their backs.

It was found that people who were competitive towards members of their own sex had a greater tendency to gossip. They were also more comfortable with the practice than others. Women had a greater tendency to gossip than men, and they also enjoyed it more, and saw more value in participating in such chit-chat. Men were more likely to gossip about the achievements of others. Such talk among women often targeted the physical appearance of another, and was used to share social information. Women also found gossip to have greater social value, which may allow them [to] gather more information about possible competitors in the game of finding a mate. It may also help to hone their ability to gossip in future.

There you have it--it's been scientifically proven.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Just like freight trucking, mining operations where trains haul heavy loads along the same route seem a high-potential application for autonomous vehicle technologies. Mining giant Rio Tinto has been busy exploring these possibilities in the Australian Outback and has now completed the nation's first autonomous heavy haul rail journey as it looks for more efficient ways to move iron ore around the country.

Rio Tinto's AutoHaul project has been underway since 2012 and is hoped to help the company expand its operations by allowing the trains hauling iron ore to largely control themselves. The company also has 69 autonomous haulage trucks in operation at its mine sites in the Pilbara, a remote region of north-western Australia.

Sounds unstoppable.

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Phoenix666 writes:

To use DelivAir, clients would start by requesting a delivery via a smartphone app. Possible scenarios could include a hiker in need of a first aid kit, a stranded cyclist needing a spare inner tube, or even a remotely-located person requiring life-saving equipment such as an EpiPen or defibrillator.

At a store, depot, or other location, the required item would then be loaded onto a drone, which would autonomously fly out to the client's smartphone GPS coordinates. Using the app, the client could in turn check the GPS coordinates of the drone in real time, to see how close it was getting to them.

Now when you break your Ming vase, a drone can deliver another one to you on the spot.

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Phoenix666 writes:

What do you get when you cross a plane with a blimp? A Plimp. That's not a joke, it's what the thing is actually called. Manufactured by Seattle-based Egan Airships, the 28-ft (8.5-m) unmanned aircraft has a helium-filled envelope allowing for blimp-like buoyancy, while its winged rigid body allows it to travel quick-ish like a conventional drone.

When the Plimp is taking off and landing – or just hovering on the spot – its two wings rotate so that the electric motors/propellers are facing straight up. This allows it to move vertically. Once it's time to get a move on, however, the wings rotate into a more airplane-like orientation, in which the props are facing forward. In this mode, it can achieve a maximum speed of 40 mph (64 km/h) with at least one hour of flight time depending on payload.

Should the motors conk out, the sub-55-lb (25-kg) Plimp won't just plummet from the sky. Thanks to the buoyancy of its envelope and the lift provided by its wings, it can reportedly glide down at a speed of 9 mph (14 km/h).

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martyb writes:

Nearly two months ago, we received notice from Linode (which hosts the servers for SoylentNews) that they would be migrating our servers to a new data center in Dallas, TX. Our systems would gradually be scheduled for migration. We could either accept their scheduled date/time or trigger a manual migration. In theory, this should be a no-worry activity as we have redundancy on almost all of our servers and processes. But in practice, that is not always the case. Rather than take our chances, we were proactive and manually performed migrations as they became possible.

We had a couple hiccups with one server, but with NCommander, TMB, PJ on hand (among others), we were able to get that one straightened out with only limited impact to the site. We also lost access to our IRC server for about 20 minutes when that server was migrated.

So, with that backdrop, I'm pleased to announce that we completed the migration of our last Linode (hydrogen) to the new data center in Dallas this morning! Shoutout to TheMightyBuzzard for tweaking our load balancer to facilitate the migration, and for being on hand had things gone sideways.

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Phoenix666 writes:

This biotech startup uses methane-eating bacteria to create fully biodegradable polymers.

Mango Materials is a biotech startup from San Francisco that has come up with an ingenious method for transforming methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into plastic. The process involves feeding methane to bacteria, which then produce a biodegradable polymer (polyhydroxyalkanoate, or PHA). This polymer can be spun into polyester fabric and used for clothing, carpets, and possibly packaging, although the company is most focused on the garment industry right now.

The methane used by Mango Materials comes from a waste treatment plant in the Bay Area, but the company is looking at partnering with other sources of methane, such as dairy farms, in order to get more. The technology creates value for methane, which is a novel idea.

How long would it take to fart a sweater — are we talking one burrito, or two?

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AnonTechie writes:

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, as the Norwegian Nobel Committee warned that the risk of a nuclear conflict is greater than for a long time.

ICAN describes itself as a coalition of grassroots non-government groups in more than 100 nations. It began in Australia and was officially launched in Vienna in 2007.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nobel-prize-peace/anti-nuclear-campaign-ican-wins-2017-nobel-peace-prize-idUSKBN1CB0XR

[Also Covered By]:
Nobel peace prize 2017: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons wins award
2017 Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
International Campaign To Abolish Nuclear Weapons Wins 2017 Nobel Peace Prize

Given the current tensions due to North Korea, this prize seems somehow apt. What do you think?

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Phoenix666 writes:

Copenhagen prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen announced in a court hearing Wednesday that "images" of the torture, decapitation, and burning of a woman were found on a computer hard drive at RML Spacelab, the organization devoted to building a manned suborbital rocket led by Danish aerospace engineer Peter Madsen. The BBC reports that the images, "which we presume to be real," said Buch-Jepsen, were on a computer believed to belong to Madsen—the suspect in the death of journalist Kim Wall in an incident aboard his submarine the UC3 Nautilus.

Madsen, for his part, claimed the video was not his and that the computer the video was on was a computer that everyone in the lab had access to. But other evidence presented in this latest hearing on his case has prompted the judge overseeing the case to order he be held in custody another four months, as Buch-Jepsen told the court of the video and other evidence that have "strengthened" the case against Madsen since his last hearing on September 5.

Pro tip: do not keep torture pr0n on your work computer.

Previously: Submarine Builder Charged With Manslaughter After Burying Journalist at Sea

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Phoenix666 writes:

"The biggest challenges with stem cells are gathering enough of them to work with and keeping them viable until they are needed," Dr. Mah said.

He and UNLV biomedical sciences professor Karl Kingsley—along with a handful of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral dental students—decided to take on this challenge, cutting their teeth in stem cell research by exploring those pearly whites in new ways. In the process, they developed a new method for extracting large numbers of stem cells they could then preserve from a surprisingly abundant source: wisdom teeth.

"More and more adults—approximately 5 million throughout the country—have their wisdom teeth, or third molars, removed," Kingsley said. "Extracting teeth is relatively common among patients undergoing orthodontic treatments. And the majority of those teeth are healthy, containing viable tooth root pulp that offers opportunities for reproducing cells that have been damaged or destroyed by injuries or disease."

So, keeping those teeth would be wise.

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quietus writes:

Last week, President Trump signed a memorandum for $200M per year in federal funding to advance K-12 computer science education.

A good initiative, says IEEE, but, for just this once, let's not spend this money on yet again a bunch of 3D-printers, laptops or educational robots.

Ideal CS courses should teach computational thinking: logical thinking, abstraction, algorithmic expression, problem decomposition, stepwise fault isolation, and debugging. Hardware ain't helping there. Good, qualified, teachers do. But how do you get (good) CS graduates in front of the classroom when they can easy make a multitude writing software, or doing network engineering?

Companies like Microsoft already have programs that encourage volunteer employees to spend a couple of hours each week, teaching classes at high schools. An even better idea, IEEE claims, would be if those employees spent several days at the school, teaching students, while also mentoring teachers.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Way to go, New York City! All 1,200 schools in the New York City public school district will now offer a vegan hummus option every day at the beginning of this school year, thanks to The Coalition for Healthy School Food (CHSF), a non-profit that helps introduce plant-based foods into schools. Vegan options for students that are available on the school’s vegetarian menu will range from Mexicali Chili, Lentil Stew, Lentil Sloppy Joes, Braised Black Beans with Plantains, and Zesty BBQ Crunchy Tofu. These yummy meals will be on rotation for the vegetarian menus.

And this isn’t CHSF‘s first initiative to help students have access to fresh, healthy food. CHSF has worked with the city’s department of education to help three NYC schools, Active Learning Elementary School in Queens (PS244), Peck Slip School in Manhattan (PS343), and The Bergen Elementary School (PS1) in Brooklyn, to transition to an all-vegetarian menu.

How can they have any pudding if they don't eat their meat?

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takyon writes:

Tabby's star, aka KIC 8462852, is likely surrounded by orbiting dust grains that block ultraviolet light:

The bizarre long-term dimming of Tabby's star—also known as Boyajian's star, or, more formally, KIC 8462852—is likely caused by dust, not a giant network of solar panels or any other "megastructure" built by advanced aliens, a new study suggests.

Astronomers came to this conclusion after noticing that this dimming was more pronounced in ultraviolet (UV) than infrared light. Any object bigger than a dust grain would cause uniform dimming across all wavelengths, study team members said.

"This pretty much rules out the alien megastructure theory, as that could not explain the wavelength-dependent dimming," lead author Huan Meng of the University of Arizona said in a statement. "We suspect, instead, there is a cloud of dust orbiting the star with a roughly 700-day orbital period."

Aliens left to roam free once again.

Previously: Tabby's Star Under Observation After Dimming Event Detected
Tabby's Star Dimming Could be Explained by a Saturn-Like Exoplanet

Extinction and the Dimming of KIC 8462852 (DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa899c) (DX) (arXiv)

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Phoenix666 writes:

"It was known that green tea polyphenols are more effective and offer more health benefits than black tea polyphenols since green tea chemicals are absorbed into the blood and tissue," said Susanne Henning, the study's lead author and an adjunct professor at the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition. "Our new findings suggest that black tea, through a specific mechanism through the gut microbiome, may also contribute to good health and weight loss in humans."

That specific mechanism seems to be that it changes the ratio of bacteria in the intestine by increasing the microbes associated with lean body mass and decreasing those associated with obesity. While both green and black teas act as prebiotics in this way, it seems that black tea might have a leg up over its green partner.

The study fed four groups of mice different diets. One group ate low-fat, high-sugar foods,while another had high-fat, high-sugar meals. The other two were both on a high-fat, high-sugar diet but one got green tea extract, while the other received black tea extract.

[...] Because black tea seems to work in the gut, while green tea works in the liver as well as the gut, a combination of both drinks might be most helpful, especially since both beverages have been linked to multiple health benefits beyond weight loss.

The researchers did not specify how much sugar to mix with your black tea.

UCLA Newsroom

Susanne M. Henning, et. al. Decaffeinated green and black tea polyphenols decrease weight gain and alter microbiome populations and function in diet-induced obese mice, European Journal of Nutrition, doi:10.1007/s00394-017-1542-8

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Phoenix666 writes:

the Good Housekeeping Institute's recent publication of a dishwashing guide for all those young people (2 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds in the UK) who have never learned the ancient art of washing up. In a nutshell, use hot water and rubber gloves, pre-scrape and soak dirty pans, change your water halfway through, and wash in the following order: glasses, mugs, cups, saucers, side plates, dinner plates, cutlery, serving dishes, pans, roasting tins.

While not knowing how to wash dishes is kind of a big deal, it's the whole idea of not being to handle oneself as a versatile, independent adult that is most concerning. Young people lack a wide range of practical skills these days, as revealed in a recent study by YouGov. More than half of young people (18-24) do not know how to set up utility bills upon moving to a new place; 54 percent cannot replace a fuse in a plug; 34 percent can't reset the fuse box after a switch has tripped; 37 percent do not know how to defrost a freezer; and 11 percent is clueless when it comes to changing lightbulbs. (You can see the entire sad list here.)

So what? There's an app for that.

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