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Phoenix666 writes:

ArsTechnica looks ahead to 2018 space news:

Last year offered a mixed bag for spaceflight aficionados. The highs were very high, with SpaceX flying, landing, and reflying rockets at an unprecedented rate while finally beginning to deliver on its considerable promise. But the lows were pronounced, too, with the loss of the Cassini spacecraft in the outer Solar System and NASA's continued lack (for nearly a full year) of an administrator.

There were also delays upon delays. The ultra-expensive James Webb Space Telescope saw its launch date slip from 2018 into some time in 2019. NASA's Space Launch System rocket saw its maiden launch slip from late 2018 into 2019 and then again into 2020. The Falcon Heavy also moved to the right on the calendar, from November, then December, and finally into early 2018.

But all of those delays mean that the last couple of years of the 2010s should feature a lot of spaceflight action, and a good chunk of that will occur in the next 12 months. Looking ahead at what is to come, here are the key spaceflight milestones we're most eager to see in 2018, grouped by the approximate quarter of the year in which they might happen.

Falcon Heavy, Solar Sails, Chinese Land on the Moon, and more.

[The 'loss' of the Cassini spacecraft was a planned event. Having nearly exhausted the fuel available for orbit corrections, it was sent on a trajectory to disintegrate in Saturn's atmosphere. This, instead of running the risk of possibly landing on, and contaminating, one of Saturn's potentially habitable moons (e.g. Enceladus) --martyb].

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takyon writes:

Encrypt and lock your electronic devices, because the border agents want to touch them:

Customs officers stationed at the American border and at airports searched an estimated 30,200 cellphones, computers and other electronic devices of people entering and leaving the United States last year — an almost 60 percent increase from 2016, according to Homeland Security Department data released on Friday.

Despite the surge, Customs and Border Protection officials said the searches affected fewer than 1 percent of the more than 300 million travelers who arrived in the United States last year.

Homeland Security officials say border searches are an important investigative tool and are used sparingly by its agents. "In this digital age, border searches of electronic devices are essential to enforcing the law at the U.S. border and to protecting the American people," said John Wagner, the deputy executive assistant commissioner at Customs and Border Protection. Mr. Wagner said the agency was committed to preserving the rights and civil liberties of travelers whose devices are searched.

Also at ABC.

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takyon writes:

The interstellar asteroid 'Oumuamua's likely movements have been tracked based on the relative positions of nearby stars. Observations of 'Oumuamua indicate that it has only been subjected to interstellar conditions (cosmic rays, gas, dust) for hundreds of millions of years rather than billions. There are likely to be around 46 million such interstellar objects entering the solar system every year, most of which are too far away to be seen with current telescopes, and are quickly ejected:

[My (Fabo Feng)] latest study gives us a glimpse of exactly where 'Oumuamua may have come from. Reconstructing the object's motion, my research suggests it probably came from the nearby "Pleiades moving group" of young stars, also known as the "Local Association". It was likely ejected from its home solar system and sent out to travel interstellar space.

Based on 'Oumuamua's trajectory, I simulated how it has probably travelled through the galaxy and compared this to the motions of nearby stars. I found the object passed 109 stars within a distance of 16 light years. It went by five of these stars from in the Local Association (a group of young stars likely to have formed together), at a very slow speed relative to their movement.

It's likely that when 'Oumuamua was first ejected into space, it was travelling at just enough speed to break away from the gravity of its planet or star of origin, rather than at a much faster speed that would require even more energy. This means we'd expect the object to move relatively slowly at the start of its interstellar journey, and so its slow encounters with these five stars suggests it was ejected from one of the group.

Pleiades star cluster. "Code and results" for the arXiv paper.

We should capture as many interstellar asteroids as possible and smash them together to create a new dwarf planet near the Earth.

Previously: Possible Interstellar Asteroid/Comet Enters Solar System
Interstellar Asteroid Named: Oumuamua
ESO Observations Show First Interstellar Asteroid is Like Nothing Seen Before
Breakthrough Listen to Observe Interstellar Asteroid 'Oumuamua for Radio Emissions (none were found)

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martyb writes:

Researchers have found a way to modify vancomycin — a last-ditch antibacterial — and "supercharge" it to create vancapticins which are far more effective against antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections:

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria – superbugs – cause 700,000 deaths worldwide each year, and a UK government review has predicted this could rise to 10 million by 2050.

[University of Queensland's] Dr Blaskovich said the old drug, vancomycin, was still widely used to treat extremely dangerous bacterial infections, but bacteria were becoming increasingly resistant to it.

“The rise of vancomycin-resistant bacteria, and the number of patients dying from resistant infections that cannot be successfully treated, stimulated our team to look at ways to revitalise old antibiotics,” Dr Blaskovich said.

“We did this by modifying vancomycin’s membrane-binding properties to selectively bind to bacterial membranes rather than those of human cells, creating a series of supercharged vancomycin derivatives called vancapticins.”

The rebooted vancomycin has the potential to treat methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE).

[...] “Drug development is normally focused on improving binding to a biological target, and rarely focuses on assessing membrane-binding properties.

“This approach worked with the vancapticins, and the question now is whether it can be used to revitalise other antibiotics that have lost effectiveness against resistant bacteria.

“Given the alarming rise of multi-drug resistant bacteria and the length of time it takes to develop a new antibiotic, we need to look at any solution that could fix the antibiotic drug discovery pipeline now,” Professor Cooper said.

Having been treated for an infection with vancomycin, I can attest it's a scary feeling when, after three days' treatment, the infection commences to spread! Fortunately, an increased dose turned the tide, but it was touch-and-go for a while. Sadly, is this just another step in the cat-and-mouse battle of increasing bacterial resistance?

Journal Reference:

1. Mark A. T. Blaskovich, et. al. Protein-inspired antibiotics active against vancomycin- and daptomycin-resistant bacteria. Nature Communications, 2018; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02123-w

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Phoenix666 writes:

America's space agency wants you to head for the mountains with a smartphone and a measuring stick.

NASA's earth science arm is funding research that recruits citizen scientists on skis, snowshoes and snowmobiles to measure the depth of snow in backcountry locations in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

Their measurements will be incorporated into computer models that calculate how much water will end up in the region's rivers and reservoirs.

Early results have been promising.

"Our initial model runs show that citizen science measurements are doing an amazing job of improving our simulations," said David Hill, an Oregon State University professor of civil engineering, who is collaborating with Alaska and University of Washington researchers. They received one of 16 NASA citizen science grants for the project.

Be sure to ski in a grid pattern.

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"MrPlow" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Hoping the Meltdown and Spectre security problems might mean Intel would be buying you a shiny new computer after a chip recall? Sorry, ain't gonna happen.

Intel famously paid hundreds of millions of dollars to recall its Pentium processors after the 1994 discovery of the "FDIV bug" that revealed rare but real calculation errors. Meltdown and Spectre are proving similarly damaging to Intel's brand, sending the company's stock down more than 5 percent.

[...] But Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said the new problems are much more easily fixed -- and indeed are already well on their way to being fixed, at least in the case of Intel-powered PCs and servers. Intel said Thursday that 90 percent of computers released in the last 5 years will have fixes available by the end of next week. "This is very very different from FDIV," Krzanich said, criticizing media coverage of Meltdown and Spectre as overblown. "This is not an issue that is not fixable... we're seeing now the first iterations of patches."

Source: Nope, no Intel chip recall after Spectre and Meltdown, CEO says

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Phoenix666 writes:

[...] Some experts estimate that climate change could force between 150 and 300 million people to find a new place to live by the middle of this century, though there is considerable uncertainty about the amount. Finding suitable locations to house them will be a significant impediment. As Michael Gerrard explained, "part of the problem is scale. If we're talking about millions of people having to be on the move, it just doesn't work."

In the U.S., there are very few habitable places that aren't already occupied by homes, businesses, or agriculture, or preserved as park lands or forests. Meanwhile, rural areas would provide few opportunities for migrants to find employment and rebuild their lives.

Instead, Gerrard suggested moving people from high-risk areas to cities whose populations are shrinking, such as Detroit, Michigan. He sees cities' potential for vertical development, energy-efficient buildings, and public transportation as a way to sustainably host climate migrants.

What if refugees from Caribbean islands don't want to live in Detroit?

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Phoenix666 writes:

The disproportionately high number of motorcycle-related traffic accidents may be linked to the way the human brain processes—or fails to process—information, according to new research published in Human Factors, "Allocating Attention to Detect Motorcycles: The Role of Inattentional Blindness." The study examines how the phenomenon of inattentional blindness, or a person's failure to notice an unexpected object located in plain sight, might explain the prevalence of looked-but-failed-to-see (LBFTS) crashes, the most common type of collision involving motorcycles.

According to human factors/ergonomics researchers Kristen Pammer, Stephanie Sabadas, and Stephanie Lentern, LBFTS crashes are particularly troublesome because, despite clear conditions and the lack of other hazards or distractions, drivers will look in the direction of the oncoming motorcycle - and in some cases appear to look directly at the motorcycle - but still pull out into its path.

The study authors suggest training drivers to be more alert for motorcycles.

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"MrPlow" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

If birds left tracks in the sky, what would they look like? For years Barcelona-based photographer Xavi Bou has been fascinated by this question. Just as a sinuous impression appears when a snake slides across sand, he imagined, so must a pattern form in the wake of a flying bird. But of course birds in flight leave no trace—at least none visible to the naked eye. Bou, now 38, spent the past five years trying to capture the elusive contours drawn by birds in motion, or, as he says, “to make visible the invisible.”

[...] Ultimately he chose to work with a video camera, from which he extracts high-resolution photographs. After he films the birds in motion, Bou selects a section of the footage and layers the individual frames into one image. He finds the process similar to developing film: He can’t tell in advance what the final result will be. There’s one magical second, he says, when the image—chimerical and surreal—begins to emerge.

Source: If Birds Left Tracks in the Sky, They’d Look Like This

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Phoenix666 writes:

Cable and satellite TV providers are ringing in the new year with an unwelcomed gift: higher cable bills.

Comcast, for instance, says customer bills will rise 2.2 percent, on average, in 2018. AT&T is raising DirecTV's prices by up to $8 a month in mid-January. Smaller providers are planning increases, too.

Over the past decade, prices for TV service have risen almost twice as fast as inflation, according to an analysis of government data. Data provider S&P Global Market Intelligence says customers' cable and satellite TV bills have soared 53 percent since 2007, to $100.98 in 2017.

Annual rate hikes are as guaranteed as death and taxes. But you can push back and trim your bill.

What are you gonna do instead, read?

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martyb writes:

Researchers are closing in on a non-addictive opiod-based pain-killer with limited side effects:

[...] [An] international team [has] captured the crystal structure of the kappa opioid receptor—critical for providing pain relief—in action on the surface of human brain cells. The researchers also made another important discovery: a new opioid-based compound that, unlike current opioids, activates only the kappa opioid receptor, raising hopes that they may develop a painkiller that has no risk of addiction and, therefore, none of the devastating consequences and side effects that accompany it.

The findings were published Jan. 4 in the journal Cell.

[...] Currently, most opioids bind to several opioid receptors on the membrane of brain cells, which has its share of drawbacks. They alleviate pain but cause a range of side effects, from nausea to numbness, constipation, anxiety, severe dependency, hallucinations and even death by respiratory depression.

In this study, the computer models revealed the formulations that would create the strongest bond between the ligand and the kappa opioid receptor without affecting other receptors.

Katritch said the latest research may pave the way for a major drug breakthrough.

"We have already found the structure of the inactive kappa opioid receptor highly useful for discovering potential candidates for a new painkiller," Katritch said. "Now with the structure of the active receptor, we have a template for designing new types of pain medications that have no disruptive side effects for patients and would reduce the burden that opioid addiction has placed on society."

Journal reference: Tao Che et al. Structure of the Nanobody-Stabilized Active State of the Kappa Opioid Receptor, Cell (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.12.011

Having known several people who got addicted to painkillers after receiving prescriptions for oxycodone or similar compounds from their doctors, this can't happen soon enough.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Ten years of planning and sampling has led to the creation of the largest harmonised European soil dataset, and the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission's science and knowledge service, is ready to carry out the most comprehensive assessment of soil biodiversity across the continent.
...
Around 22,000 samples were collected from all European Union (EU) Member States in 2009-2012, while a further 23 000 samples were acquired in 2015 from the EU, Switzerland and Western Balkan countries.

Scientists are now concluding the process of analysing the physico-chemical soil properties of the second batch. Once completed, the JRC will be able to carry out assessments of how the impacts of EU and national land based policies—such as those designed to tackle climate change and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) - are manifested through changes in soil characteristics over time.

The assessment includes things like the physical and chemical properties of the soil, biodiversity, density, structure and pollutants present.

The dataset will give agricultural scientists, climatologists, microbiologists, geographers, and others the most fine-grained survey ever undertaken in Europe to inform their research.

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Phoenix666 writes:

As a hard and brittle material, silicon has practically no natural elasticity. But in a new study, researchers have demonstrated that amorphous silicon can be grown into superelastic horseshoe-shaped nanowires that can undergo stretching of more than twice their original length, and still maintain their excellent electric properties.

The results are exciting news for the area of stretchable electronics, as they suggest that silicon nanowire springs could serve as a stretchable semiconducting material for future flexible, bendable electronic devices. So far, almost all of the stretchable electronics that have been demonstrated have been made of polymer and organic semiconductors, whose semiconducting properties are inferior to those of silicon.
...
As the researchers explain, the new method is somewhat like a nanoscale, in-plane version of crystal pulling. The process, called line-shape engineering, involves guiding molten indium droplets to move along a pre-patterned track that is coated with amorphous silicon. As the droplet moves along the track, it takes in amorphous silicon and precipitates crystalline silicon nanowires.

The technique could prove to be useful in producing flexible electronics.

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martyb writes:

According to a report at phys.org, The moon is about to do something it hasn't done in more than 150 years:

Three separate celestial events will occur simultaneously that night, resulting in what some are calling a super blue blood moon eclipse. The astronomical rarity hasn't happened for more than 150 years.

A super moon, like the one visible on New Year's Day, is the term for when a full moon is closest to the Earth in its orbit, appearing bigger and brighter than normal.

On Jan. 31, the moon will be full for the second time in a month, a rare occasion—it happens once every two and a half years—known as a blue moon.

To top it off, there will also be a total lunar eclipse. But unlike last year's solar eclipse, this sky-watching event isn't going to be as visible in the continental United States. The best views of the middle-of-the-night eclipse will be in central and eastern Asia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia, although Alaska and Hawaii will get a glimpse, too.

For the rest of the U.S., the eclipse will come too close to when the moon sets for the phenomenon to be visible.

Because of the way the light filters through the atmosphere during an eclipse, blue light is bounced away from the moon, while red light is reflected. The eclipsed moon's reddish color earned it the nickname blood moon.

Super blue blood moon?

So, an extremely noble or socially prominent moon? ;)

I wonder what differences, if any, there would be in the appearance of the Earth from a person standing on the moon, compared to a "normal" full moon?

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fliptop writes:

TrendMicro has discovered 36 apps in Google Play that execute unwanted behavior:

These apps posed as useful security tools under the names Security Defender, Security Keeper, Smart Security, Advanced Boost, and more. They also advertised a variety of capabilities: scanning, cleaning junk, saving battery, cooling the CPU, locking apps, as well as message security, WiFi security, and so on.

The apps were actually able to perform these simple tasks, but they also secretly harvested user data, tracked user location, and aggressively pushed advertisements.

The apps in question have been removed from Google Play.

Related: Google Pauses Crackdown on Apps That Use Accessibility Features

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