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takyon writes:

A draft budget proposal would end support for the International Space Station (ISS) by 2025. The U.S. was previously committed to operating at the ISS until 2024:

The Trump administration is preparing to end support for the International Space Station program by 2025, according to a draft budget proposal reviewed by The Verge. Without the ISS, American astronauts could be grounded on Earth for years with no destination in space until NASA develops new vehicles for its deep space travel plans.

The draft may change before an official budget request is released on February 12th. However, two people familiar with the matter have confirmed to The Verge that the directive will be in the final proposal. We reached out to NASA for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Also at the Wall Street Journal.

Related: Five Key Findings From 15 Years of the International Space Station
Congress Ponders the Fate of the ISS after 2024
NASA Eyeing Mini Space Station in Lunar Orbit as Stepping Stone to Mars
NASA and Roscosmos Sign Joint Statement on the Development of a Lunar Space Station
Russia Assembles Engineering Group for Lunar Activities and the Deep Space Gateway
Can the International Space Station be Saved? Should It be Saved?

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

FBI Whistleblower on Pierre Omidyar and His Campaign to Neuter Wikileaks

FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds asserts Pierre Omidyar decided to create The Intercept to not only take ownership of the Snowden leaks but also to continue his blockade against WikiLeaks and create a "honey trap" for whistleblowers.

WikiLeaks, the transparency organization known for publishing leaked documents that threaten the powerful, finds itself under pressure like never before, as does its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Now, the fight to silence Wikileaks is not only being waged by powerful government figures but also by the media, including outlets and organizations that have styled themselves as working to protect whistleblowers.

As this three-part series seeks to show, these outlets and organizations are being stealthily guided by the hands of special interests, not the public interest they claim to serve. Part I focuses on the Freedom of the Press Foundation, The Intercept, and the oligarch who has strongly influenced both organizations in his long-standing fight to silence WikiLeaks.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

The social media giant may be guilty of violating of California law regarding discriminating against a political class, and being deceptive to their customer base. Twitter, by discriminating against people on the right, has exposed itself to a potential cascade of legal liability—including a potential class action suit.

Despite being from dangerous.com, this is not an attempted troll. The author gives a quite interesting analysis of Twitter's potential legal issues in censoring political speech in California.

Source: https://www.dangerous.com/40574/arroz-strong-case-twitter-censorship-violates-californias-civil-rights-laws/

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01125-y

The technique, described in Nature on 24 January, works more like a high-speed Etch a Sketch: it uses forces conveyed by a set of near-invisible laser beams to trap a single particle — of a plant fibre called cellulose — and heat it unevenly. That allows researchers to push and pull the cellulose around. A second set of lasers projects visible light — red, green and blue — onto the particle, illuminating it as it moves through space. Humans cannot discern images at rates faster than around 10 per second, so if the particle is moved fast enough, its trajectory appears as a solid line — like a sparkler moving in the dark. And if the image changes quickly enough, it seems to move. The display can be overlaid on real objects and viewers can walk around it in real space.

The images created so far are tiny — just millimetres across. And only simple line drawings can be created at the speeds needed to fashion moving images. The team managed to depict a moving spiral line drawing and the static outline of a butterfly. The technique needs substantial development but is a simple design with huge potential for improvement, says William Wilson, a researcher in nanotechnology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Also at Science Magazine and Phys.org (Associated Press).

A photophoretic-trap volumetric display (DOI: 10.1038/nature25176) (DX)

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

Free-space volumetric displays, or displays that create luminous image points in space, are the technology that most closely resembles the three-dimensional displays of popular fiction. Such displays are capable of producing images in 'thin air' that are visible from almost any direction and are not subject to clipping. Clipping restricts the utility of all three-dimensional displays that modulate light at a two-dimensional surface with an edge boundary; these include holographic displays, nanophotonic arrays, plasmonic displays, lenticular or lenslet displays and all technologies in which the light scattering surface and the image point are physically separate. Here we present a free-space volumetric display based on photophoretic optical trapping that produces full-colour graphics in free space with ten-micrometre image points using persistence of vision. This display works by first isolating a cellulose particle in a photophoretic trap created by spherical and astigmatic aberrations. The trap and particle are then scanned through a display volume while being illuminated with red, green and blue light. The result is a three-dimensional image in free space with a large colour gamut, fine detail and low apparent speckle. This platform, named the Optical Trap Display, is capable of producing image geometries that are currently unobtainable with holographic and light-field technologies, such as long-throw projections, tall sandtables and 'wrap-around' displays.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

It is sort of an electronics rule 34 that if something occurs, someone needs to sense it. [Bblorgggg], for reasons that aren't immediately obvious, needs to sense ants moving over trees. No kidding. How are you going to do that? His answer was to use graphene.

Actually, his super sensitive sensors mix graphene in Silly Putty, an unlikely combination that he tried after reading (on Hackaday, no less) about similar experiments at Trinity College resulting in Gputty. The Gputty was highly sensitive to pressure, and so it appears is his DIY version called Goophene. At Trinity they claimed to be able to record the footsteps of a spider, so detecting ant stomping didn't seem too far-fetched. You can see a video of the result, below.

Silly Putty, which is just silicone putty, gives the graphene an unusually large dynamic range. That is, it can detect large pressures (say, a finger pressing) and still detect a very faint pressure (like your heart beating through the finger). Apparently, the graphene lines up to become pretty conductive in the putty and then any deformation causes the resistance to go up. However, when the pressure subsides, the graphene lines back up.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/01/23/diy-graphene-putty-makes-super-sensitive-sensor/

Original Submission

Tributes have been paid to actor Simon Shelton, best known for playing purple Teletubby Tinky Winky, following his death at the age of 52.

[...] The original Teletubbies ran on the BBC from 1997 to 2001 and spawned a number one single, called Teletubbies say 'Eh-oh!', in December 1997.

Speaking in 2008, Shelton said he had little inkling Teletubbies would be the success it was when he was cast as Tinky Winky.

"I didn't know it would be as big as it was, but I did know as soon as I started working on it that it had something special," he said.

The original Teletubbies series was watched by around one billion children in more than 120 countries in 45 languages.

Shelton, a father of three, lived in Ampthill in Bedfordshire.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-42788001

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Grumpy Cat wins $710,000 payout in copyright lawsuit

A cat made famous online because of its permanent scowl has been awarded $710,000 (£500,000) in a copyright case by a California federal court.

Grumpy Cat Limited sued the owners of US coffee company Grenade for exceeding an agreement over the cat's image. The company only had rights to use the cat to sell its "Grumppuccino" iced drink, but sold other Grumpy products.

The cat, real name Tardar Sauce, went viral in 2012 after photographs of her sour expression emerged online. Originally posted on the social website Reddit by the brother of the cat's owner, Tabatha Bundesen, the image of the cat quickly spread as a meme with funny text captions.

In 2013 Grenade Beverage, owned by father and son Nick and Paul Sandford, struck a $150,000 deal to market iced coffee beverages with the cat's scowl on its packaging.

[...] Grumpy Cat is thought to have earned millions in endorsement and advertising deals.

Also at Courthouse News.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

A Dozen Camels Disqualified From Saudi Beauty Pageant Over Botox Injections

Some pageant contestants hit a hump in the road this week. That is, a camel beauty contest in Saudi Arabia disqualified a dozen camels for receiving Botox injections to make them more attractive.

Saudi media reported that a veterinarian was caught performing plastic surgery on the camels a few days before the pageant, according to UAE's The National. In addition to the injections, the clinic was surgically reducing the size of the animals' ears to make them appear more delicate.

"They use Botox for the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw," Ali Al Mazrouei, a regular at such festivals and the son of a prominent Emirati breeder, told the newspaper. "It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it's like, 'Oh look at how big that head is. It has big lips, a big nose.' "

Real money is at stake: About $57 million is awarded to winners of the contests and camel races, The National reports, with more than $31.8 million in prizes for just the pageants.

Also at The New York Times, Reuters, and Newsweek.

Check out the world's tallest camel

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

A new definition of a planet could help to distinguish gas giants from brown dwarfs:

[Kevin] Schlaufman's definition is based on mass. In a paper published [DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa961c] [DX] January 22, 2018, in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal, Schlaufman has set the upper boundary of planet mass between four and 10 times the mass of the planet Jupiter.

Schlaufman found that objects of at least 10 Jupiter masses tend not to form around metal-rich solar-type dwarf stars:

Planets like Jupiter are formed from the bottom-up by first building-up a rocky core that is subsequently enshrouded in a massive gaseous envelope. It stands to reason that they would be found near stars heavy with elements that make rocks, as those elements provide the seed material for planet formation. Not so with brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs and stars form from the top-down as clouds of gas collapse under their own weight.

Schlaufman's idea was to find the mass at which point objects stop caring about the composition of the star they orbit. He found that objects more massive than about 10 times the mass of Jupiter do not prefer stars with lots of elements that make rocks and therefore are unlikely to form like planets. For that reason, and while it's possible that new data could change things, he has proposed that objects in excess of 10 Jupiter mass should be considered brown dwarfs, not planets.

Abstract:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

Celestial bodies with a mass of M ≈ 10 M_Jup have been found orbiting nearby stars. It is unknown whether these objects formed like gas-giant planets through core accretion or like stars through gravitational instability. I show that objects with M ≲ 4 M_Jup orbit metal-rich solar-type dwarf stars, a property associated with core accretion. Objects with M ≳ 10 M_Jup do not share this property. This transition is coincident with a minimum in the occurrence rate of such objects, suggesting that the maximum mass of a celestial body formed through core accretion like a planet is less than 10 M_Jup. Consequently, objects with M ≳ 10 M_Jup orbiting solar-type dwarf stars likely formed through gravitational instability and should not be thought of as planets. Theoretical models of giant planet formation in scaled minimum-mass solar nebula Shakura–Sunyaev disks with standard parameters tuned to produce giant planets predict a maximum mass nearly an order of magnitude larger. To prevent newly formed giant planets from growing larger than 10 M_Jup, protoplanetary disks must therefore be significantly less viscous or of lower mass than typically assumed during the runaway gas accretion stage of giant planet formation. Either effect would act to slow the Type I/II migration of planetary embryos/giant planets and promote their survival. These inferences are insensitive to the host star mass, planet formation location, or characteristic disk dissipation time.

[Ed. note: I long ago stumbled upon an image showing the relative sizes of the planets against the size of the sun... and now can no longer find it, or anything like the one I remembered. Does anyone have a good link to recommend? --martyb]

Original Submission

takyon writes:

First monkey clones created in Chinese laboratory

Two monkeys have been cloned using the technique that produced Dolly the sheep. Identical long-tailed macaques Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua were born several weeks ago at a laboratory in China.

Scientists say populations of monkeys that are genetically identical will be useful for research into human diseases. But critics say the work raises ethical concerns by bringing the world closer to human cloning.

Qiang Sun of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience said the cloned monkeys will be useful as a model for studying diseases with a genetic basis, including some cancers, metabolic and immune disorders. "There are a lot of questions about primate biology that can be studied by having this additional model," he said.

[...] Prof Robin Lovell-Badge of The Francis Crick Institute, London, said the [somatic cell nuclear transfer] technique used to clone Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua remains "a very inefficient and hazardous procedure". "The work in this paper is not a stepping-stone to establishing methods for obtaining live born human clones," he said.

China will get the job done while 洋鬼子 twiddle their thumbs in their ivory towers.

Cloning of Macaque Monkeys by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.01.020) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Rocket Lab has put a highly reflective object into orbit around Earth:

US spaceflight startup Rocket Lab put three commercial satellites into orbit during its rocket launch this past weekend — but it turns out there was another satellite that hitched a ride on the vehicle too. The company's Electron rocket also put into orbit a previously undisclosed satellite made by Rocket Lab's CEO Peter Beck, called the Humanity Star. And the probe will supposedly become the "brightest thing in the night sky," the company announced today.

Shaped a bit like a disco ball, the Humanity Star is a 3-foot-wide carbon fiber sphere, made up of 65 panels that reflect the Sun's light. The satellite is supposed to spin in space, too, so it's constantly bouncing sunlight. In fact, the probe is so bright that people can see it with the naked eye. The Humanity Star's orbit also takes it all over Earth, so the satellite will be visible from every location on the planet at different times. Rocket Lab has set up a website that gives real-time updates about the Humanity Star's location. People can find out when the satellite will be closest to them, and then go outside to look for it.

The goal of the project is to create "a shared experience for all of humanity," according to Rocket Lab. "No matter where you are in the world, or what is happening in your life, everyone will be able to see the Humanity Star in the night sky," Beck said in a statement. "Our hope is that everyone looking at the Humanity Star will look past it to the vast expanse of the Universe and think a little differently about their lives, actions, and what is important for humanity." That includes coming together to solve major problems like climate change and resource shortages, Beck says.

Some astronomers are not happy about the geodesic sphere:

The only good thing about the "Humanity Star" (aka the NZ pollutes the night sky project) is that it burns up in 9 months. 9 months is way too far away IMHO.

— Ian Griffin (@iangriffin) January 24, 2018

Also at BBC.

Previously: Rocket Lab's Second "Electron" Rocket Launch Succeeds, Reaches Orbit

Original Submission

mcgrew writes:

The New York Times reports that Renowned fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin has died at age 88. From the article:

Ursula K. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books like "The Left Hand of Darkness" and the Earthsea series, died on Monday at her home in Portland, Ore. She was 88.

Her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, confirmed the death. He did not specify a cause but said she had been in poor health for several months.

I'm not a fantasy fan (except for Prachett and Tolkien), but she will be missed none the less. I'm sure quite a few Soylents are fans of hers. Any author's loss is a loss to us all.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/24/16841580/spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-static-fire-first-launch

Today, SpaceX simultaneously fired up all 27 engines on its new massive Falcon Heavy rocket — a crucial final test for the vehicle before its first flight in the coming weeks. An hour after the test, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the test was good, and that the Falcon Heavy will launch in "a week or so." When SpaceX gives an official target day and time, it'll be the first time a definitive launch date has been given for the rocket's inaugural voyage, a flight that was initially promised to happen as early as 2013.

SpaceX has posted a 31-second video of the Falcon Heavy test firing to the SpaceX YouTube channel.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Creating Raspberry Pi clusters is a popular hacker activity. Bitscope has been commercializing these clusters for a bit now and last year they created a cluster of 750 Pis for Los Alamos National Labs. You might wonder what an institution know for supercomputers wants with a cluster of Raspberry Pis. Turns out it is tough to justify taking a real high-speed cluster down just to test software. Now developers can run small test programs with a large number of CPU cores without requiring time on the big iron.

[...] The system is modular with each module holding 144 active nodes, 6 spares, and a single cluster manager. This all fits in a 6U rack enclosure. Bitscope points out that you could field 1,000 nodes in 42U and the power draw — including network fabric and cooling — would be about 6 kilowatts. That sounds like a lot, but for a 1,000 node device, that's pretty economical. The cost isn't bad, either, running about $150,000 for 1,000 nodes. Sure, that's a lot too but not compared to the alternatives.

Huh. That's actually not a bad idea for sounding so silly at face value.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/01/24/firing-up-750-raspberry-pis/

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

El Reg reports

[January 23] a Tesla Model S slammed into a stationary firetruck at around 65mph on Interstate 405 in Culver City, California. The car was driven under the fire engine, although the driver was able to walk away from the crash uninjured and refused an offer of medical treatment.

The motorist claimed the Model S was driving with Autopilot enabled when it crammed itself under the truck. Autopilot is Tesla's super-cruise-control system. It's not a fully autonomous driving system.

[...] The fire truck was parked in the carshare lane of the road with its lights flashing. None of the fire crew were hurt, although Powell noted that if his team had been in their usual position at the back of the truck then there "probably would not have been a very good outcome."

Tesla will no doubt be going over the car's computer logs to determine exactly what happened, something the California Highway Patrol will also be interested in. If this was a case of the driver sticking on Autopilot, and forgetting their responsibility to watch the road ahead it wouldn't be the first time.

In 2016, a driver was killed after both he and the Tesla systems missed a lorry pulling across the highway. A subsequent investigation by the US National Transportation Safety Board found the driver was speeding and had been warned by the car six times to keep his hands on the wheel.

Tesla has since beefed up the alerts the car will give a driver if it feels they aren't paying full attention to the road. The safety board did note in its report that the introduction of Tesla's Autosteer software had cut collisions by 40 per cent.

Previous: Tesla's Semiautonomous System Contributed to Fatal Crash

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

The payment service, Stripe, has ended its support for Bitcoin due to rising transaction fees and long confirmation times. Particularly the latter contribute to failed transfers. So Bitcoin is over as an experiment, and more are realizing that. However, the expectation is that some other cryptocurrency will become widely used, eventually.

Therefore, starting today, we are winding down support for Bitcoin payments. Over the next three months we will work with affected Stripe users to ensure a smooth transition before we stop processing Bitcoin transactions on April 23, 2018.

Despite this, we remain very optimistic about cryptocurrencies overall. There are a lot of efforts that we view as promising and that we can certainly imagine enabling support for in the future.

[ TMB Note: Yes, this will absolutely break our ability to accept BitCoin. Again. Which is fine this time as BitCoin transaction fees are now as high as the minimum price for a year's subscription. If you have a preferred alternative that we can accept without actually touching cryptocurrency, drop the info in a comment. ]

Original Submission