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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for takyon

Mars moon got its grooves from rolling stones, study suggests

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study bolsters the idea that strange grooves crisscrossing the surface of the Martian moon Phobos were made by rolling boulders blasted free from an ancient asteroid impact.

The research, published in Planetary and Space Science, uses computer models to simulate the movement of debris from Stickney crater, a huge gash on one end of Phobos' oblong body. The models show that boulders rolling across the surface in the aftermath of the Stickney impact could have created the puzzling patterns of grooves seen on Phobos today.

"These grooves are a distinctive feature of Phobos, and how they formed has been debated by planetary scientists for 40 years," said Ken Ramsley, a planetary science researcher at Brown University who led the work. "We think this study is another step toward zeroing in on an explanation."

Phobos' grooves, which are visible across most of the moon's surface, were first glimpsed in the 1970s by NASA's Mariner and Viking missions. Over the years, there has been no shortage of explanations put forward for how they formed. Some scientists have posited that large impacts on Mars have showered the nearby moon with groove-carving debris. Others think that Mars' gravity is slowly tearing Phobos apart, and the grooves are signs of structural failure.

Still other researchers have made the case that there's a connection between the grooves and the Stickney impact. In the late 1970s, planetary scientists Lionel Wilson and Jim Head proposed the idea that ejecta — bouncing, sliding and rolling boulders — from Stickney may have carved the grooves. Head, a professor in Brown's department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, was also a coauthor of this new paper.

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martyb writes:

Elon Musk Says There's a '70 Percent' Chance He'll Move to Mars:

Elon Musk has talked about personally heading to Mars before, but how likely is he to make the trip, really? Well, he just put a number on it. In an interview for the Axios on HBO documentary series, Musk said there was a "70 percent" chance he'll go to Mars. There have been a "recent number of breakthroughs" that have made it possible, he said. And as he hinted before, it'd likely be a one-way trip -- he expects to "move there."

The executive also rejected the idea that traveling to Mars could be an "escape hatch for the rich" in its current form. He noted that an ad for going to Mars would be "like Shackleton's ad for going to the Antarctic," which (though likely not real) made clear how dangerous and the South Pole journey was. Even if you make it to Mars, you'll spend all your time building the base and struggling to survive harsh conditions, Musk said. And while it might be possible to come back, it's far from guaranteed. As with climbing Everest, Musk believes it's all about the "challenge."

The interview is available on YouTube.

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Anonymous Cow Herd writes:

Original URL

Federal labor officials have decided to reverse their longtime policy and release diversity numbers for government contractors such as Oracle and Palantir Technologies in response to a lawsuit filed by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.

Reveal submitted Freedom of Information Act requests for the workplace statistics of those and other tech companies as part of a project analyzing the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley. We requested the companies’ official EEO-1 reports, which show the race and gender numbers for total US employees grouped by broad job categories.

But five companies – Oracle, Palantir, Pandora Media, Gilead Sciences and Splunk – objected to the requests, claiming that the diversity data is a trade secret. In each case, the US Department of Labor initially agreed with the companies and denied Reveal’s FOIA requests.

[...] On Oct. 30, the Labor Department notified the five government contractors that it would disclose their diversity numbers over their objections. Citing the lawsuit, the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs told the companies that it has “undertaken a supplemental review” and “will initiate disclosure.” The companies had until Nov. 19 to take legal action to stop the release of the data.

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martyb writes:

Volvo's First Commercial Self-Driving Trucks Will be Used in Mining:

Volvo has announced a commercial first for its autonomous trucking endeavors. The Swedish automotive company has signed a deal with Norwegian mine Brønnøy Kalk to transport limestone along five kilometers of roads and tunnels from the mine to a nearby port using self-driving trucks.

Volvo has engaged in a number of pilots in recent years to get its autonomous trucks ready for commercial projects. In Brazil, Volvo trialed self-steering trucks to help sugarcane farmers improve crop yield, and it has also tested an autonomous garbage collection truck. As early as 2016, Volvo was testing autonomous trucks in an underground mine in Sweden, part of an initiative to demonstrate the technology as a means of improving both efficiency and safety in hazardous conditions.

Going commercial

Inking its first commercial deal, however, is a notable development not only for Volvo’s self-driving trucks, but for the broader autonomous vehicle push. Indeed, self-driving vehicles won’t just land on public roads overnight — they will likely seep into society gradually, with niche cases that use preset routes serving as the foundation for a bigger expansion.

“It is exciting to reach this point where we introduce autonomous solutions,” said Volvo Trucks’ director of autonomous solutions, Sasko Cuklev. “By working in a confined area on a predetermined route, we can find out how to get the best out of the solution and tailor it according to specific customer needs. This is all about collaborating to develop new solutions, providing greater flexibility and efficiency, as well as increased productivity.”

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Phoenix666 writes:

New Scientist:

[...] In addition to the 9 percent of the proton's mass that comes from quarks' heft, 32 percent comes from the energy of the quarks zipping around inside the proton, Liu and colleagues found. (That's because energy and mass are two sides of the same coin, thanks to Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2.) Other occupants of the proton, massless particles called gluons that help hold quarks together, contribute another 36 percent via their energy.

The remaining 23 percent arises due to quantum effects that occur when quarks and gluons interact in complicated ways within the proton. Those interactions cause QCD to flout a principle called scale invariance. In scale invariant theories, stretching or shrinking space and time makes no difference to the theories' results. Massive particles provide the theory with a scale, so when QCD defies scale invariance, protons also gain mass.

The results of the study aren't surprising, says theoretical physicist Andreas Kronfeld of Fermilab in Batavia, Ill. Scientists have long suspected that the proton's mass was made up in this way. But, he says, "this kind of calculation replaces a belief with scientific knowledge."

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Watch Online | Landing – NASA's InSight Mars Lander

NASA InSight Mars geological survey landing at 11 AM PST / 2PM EST / 18:00 UTC today - watch live!

Source: https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/timeline/landing/watch-online/

NASA JPL YouTube.

Previously: NASA's InSight Mars Mission Rescheduled for 2018
NASA Launches InSight Mission to Study the Interior of Mars
CubeSats -- En Route to Mars with InSight -- Snap Another "Pale Blue Dot" Image
MarCO CubeSat Takes Image of Mars From 12.8 Million Kilometers Away
Mars InSight Lander on Course for Monday Touchdown at 2:54 PM EST (19:54 UTC)

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takyon writes:

Genome-edited baby claim provokes international outcry

A Chinese scientist claims that he has helped make the world's first genome-edited babies — twin girls who were born this month. The announcement has provoked shock, and some outrage, among scientists around the world.

He Jiankui, a genome-editing researcher from the Southern University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen, says that he implanted into a woman an embryo that had been edited to disable the genetic pathway that allows a cell to be infected with HIV.

In a video posted to YouTube, He says the girls are healthy and now at home with their parents. Genome sequencing of their DNA has shown that the editing worked, and only altered the gene they targeted, he says.

The scientist's claims have not been verified through independent genome testing or published in a peer-reviewed journal. But, if true, the birth would represent a significant — and controversial — leap in the use of genome-editing. So far these tools have only be used in embryos for research, often to investigate the benefit of using them to eliminate disease-causing mutations from the human germline. But reports of off-target effects in some studies have raised significant safety concerns.

Documents posted on China's clinical trial registry show that He used the ubiquitous CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing tool to disable a gene called CCR5, which forms a protein that allows HIV to enter a cell. Genome-editing scientist Fyodor Urnov was asked to review documents that described DNA sequence analysis of human embryos and fetuses gene-edited at the CCR5 locus for an article in MIT Technology Review. "The data I reviewed are consistent with the fact that the editing has, in fact, taken place," says Urnov, from the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Seattle. But he says the only way to tell if the children's genomes have been edited is to independently test their DNA.

Also at STAT News:

The Chinese university where He is an associate professor issued a statement saying that it had been unaware of his research project and that He had been on leave without pay since February, Reuters reported. The work is a "serious violation of academic ethics and standards," Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen said in the statement. The university said it would immediately launch an investigation.

See also: As a genome editing summit opens in Hong Kong, questions abound over China, and why it quietly bowed out

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deimios writes:

If you've ever tried to use the CONCATENATE function in Microsoft Excel to merge the values in a range of cells, you know it doesn't work unless you add each cell to the function, one by one.

You might have noticed the following message in the support article for CONCATENATE:

Important: In Excel 2016, Excel Mobile, and Excel Online, this function has been replaced with the CONCAT function. Although the CONCATENATE function is still available for backward compatibility, you should consider using CONCAT from now on. This is because CONCATENATE may not be available in future versions of Excel.

Meet the alternatives: CONCAT and TEXTJOIN

for CONCAT and TEXTJOIN:

Note: This feature is not available in Excel 2016 unless you have an Office 365 subscription. If you are an Office 365 subscriber, make sure you have the latest version of Office.

While it is admirable that Microsoft is finally fixing some of the idiosyncrasies of its software, I fear the future will bring a level of fragmentation unseen since the office 2003 to 2007 switch.

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sumanqpt writes:

https://www.rtoz.org/2018/11/24/food-safety-detection-by-mits-rfiq-which-uses-rfid-and-ai/

MIT Media Lab researchers have developed a wireless system that leverages the cheap RFID tags already on hundreds of billions of products to sense potential food contamination — with no hardware modifications needed. With the simple, scalable system, the researchers hope to bring food-safety detection to the general public.

The researchers’ system, called RFIQ, includes a reader that senses minute changes in wireless signals emitted from RFID tags when the signals interact with food. For this study they focused on baby formula and alcohol, but in the future, consumers might have their own reader and software to conduct food-safety sensing before buying virtually any product.

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upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for SoyCow1984.

Ohio is the first state to accept bitcoin for paying business taxes:

There's a lot of legal uncertainty in the US surrounding cryptocurrency, but Ohio is pressing forward. As of this week, it'll be the first state to accept bitcoin for paying tax bills. The Wall Street Journal notes this will be limited to businesses purposes and isn't going directly into Ohio's coffers (an Atlanta firm, BitPay, converts the virtual cash to dollars first). However, it could still be much more convenient for shops that take bitcoin and would rather not exchange the format just to cover their sales tax payments.

You should eventually have the option of paying personal taxes with bitcoin.

From the https://ohiocrypto.com/ web site:

• QUICK & EASY: Businesses can pay their taxes in three quick steps using the Cryptocurrency Tax Payment Portal.
• REAL-TIME TRACKING: Payments on the blockchain can be tracked on a second by second basis.
• SECURE PAYMENTS: Cryptocurrencies cannot be transferred to third parties without user initiation, thereby practically eliminating fraud.
• LOW FEES: A minimal fee is charged to confirm transactions on the blockchain network.
• TRANSPARENCY: Anyone can view all transactions on the blockchain network.
• MOBILE OPTIONS: Easily make tax payments on your mobile phone or tablet.

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RandomFactor writes:

The Virginian-Pilot reports: https://pilotonline.com/news/military/local/article_eec71122-ecfd-11e8-bc0e-73bf42b0bc87.html

Anyone who has driven home late at night after being up for more than 18 hours knows the inevitable drooping eyelids and wheel jerking that can result. I was once in a conversation where the argument was made that driving tired was far more dangerous than being drunk (YMMV)

In recognition of this truth that all late night drivers realize sooner or later, the U.S. Navy has decided that driving their ships should only be done while alert and awake. To this end:

All Navy sailors working aboard aircraft carriers are now being given the chance to get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep per 24-hour period after a change in policy in the wake of two fatal collisions that killed 17 crew members in the Pacific Fleet in summer 2017.

The change extends to all carrier sailors, not just those working in aviation-related jobs, said Lt. Travis Callaghan, a spokesman for the Pacific Coast-based Commander, Naval Air Forces. It also makes it mandatory that all aircraft carrier sailors are not to be scheduled for more than 18 hours of continuous duties requiring them to remain awake. Previously, that was a recommendation that only applied to flight crews.

The article continues

"The longer you're awake, you're just basically, essentially, performing under the influence of your own fatigue, but just not alcohol," Rice said. "No one would say, 'I'm driving a little drunk,' to your skipper but we often will say, 'I'm a little tired.' "

I'm not sure why one would intentionally run sailors routinely to the point that if they had to keep going during an emergency they would potentially be starting in a sleep deprived state, but there you are. Perhaps someone that has more perspective on the Navy can explain it.

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MrPlow writes in with a submission via IRC for SoyCow1984:

How I changed the law with a GitHub pull request:

Recently, I found a typo in the District of Columbia’s legal code and corrected it using GitHub. My feat highlights the groundbreaking way the District manages its legal code.

As a member of the DC Mayor’s Open Government Advisory Group, I was researching the law that establishes DC’s office of open government, which issues regulations and advisory opinions for the District’s open meetings law (OMA) and open records law (FOIA). The law was updated last month, and something seemed to have changed: there was no longer a reference to issuing advisory opinions for FOIA. Comparing the DC Code to the act that made the change, I noticed that something was amiss in section (d):

(d) The Office of Open Government may issue advisory opinions on the implementation of subchapter I of Chapter 5 of Title 2.

It had a typo.

Subchapter I of Chapter 5 of Title 2 of the DC Code is about how the DC government makes regulations. FOIA is subchapter II, not subchapter I. In other words, the link to “subchapter I of Chapter 5 of Title 2” took visitors to the wrong part of the law.

[...] Last week, I opened the file on GitHub that had the typo, edited the file, and submitted my edit using GitHub’s “pull request” feature. A pull request is a request to the file’s maintainer to review a change and then, if approved, pull it in to the main file:

[...] A few days later, the Council’s codification lawyer merged my pull request:

... and the DC Code website was automatically updated, showing what you’ll see on the page today:

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Are You Sitting Down? Standing Desks Are Overrated

Let's start with what we know about research on sitting, then explain why it can be misleading as it relates to work. A number of studies have found a significant association between prolonged sitting time over a 24-hour period and increased risk for cardiovascular disease. A 2015 study, for instance, followed more than 150,000 older adults — all of whom were healthy at the start of the study — for almost seven years on average. Researchers found that those who sat at least 12 hours a day had significantly higher mortality than those who sat for less than five hours per day.

A 2012 study in JAMA Internal Medicine [open, DOI: 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.2174] [DX] followed more than 220,000 people for 2.8 years on average and found similar results. Prolonged sitting over the course of a day was associated with increased all-cause mortality across sexes, ages and body mass index. So did a smaller but longer (8.6 years on average) study published in 2015 in the Journal of Physical Activity & Health [DOI: 10.1123/jpah.2013-0364] [DX].

Another study from 2015, which followed more than 50,000 adults for more than three years, also found this relationship. But it found that context mattered. Prolonged sitting in certain situations — including when people were at work — did not have this same effect.

Why might that be? Sitting itself may not be the problem; it may be a marker for other risk factors that would be associated with higher mortality. Unemployed or poorer people, who would also be more likely to have higher mortality, may be more likely to spend large amounts of time sitting at home. For some, sedentary time is a marker, not the cause, of bad outcomes.

Studies looking specifically at work don't find a causal pattern. One 2015 paper focused on workers age 50 to 74 in Japan, for more than 10 years on average per participant. It found that — among salaried workers, professionals and those in home businesses — there was no association between sitting at work and cardiovascular risk. A 2016 study examining Danish workers [open, DOI: 10.5271/sjweh.3540] [DX] also failed to find a link.

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Mars InSight Lander on Course for Monday Touchdown

After a six-month voyage from Earth, NASA’s InSight Mars lander, streaking through space at at some 12,300 mph, will slam into the thin martian atmosphere Monday afternoon to begin a nail-biting six-and-a-half-minute descent to the surface, kicking off a billion-dollar mission to probe the red planet’s hidden interior.

“The goal of InSight is nothing less than to better understand the birth of the Earth, the birth of the planet we live on, and we’re going to do that by going to Mars,” said Principle Investigator Bruce Banerdt.

On Earth, plate tectonics and the constantly churning mantle have altered the planet’s deep interior, obscuring its history and evolution. But Mars is a smaller planet and much less active than Earth, retaining the “fingerprints” of those earlier processes.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Time to break academic publishing's stranglehold on research

HERE is a trivia question for you: what is the most profitable business in the world? You might think oil, or maybe banking. You would be wrong. The answer is academic publishing. Its profit margins are vast, reportedly in the region of 40 per cent.

The reason it is so lucrative is because most of the costs of its content is picked up by taxpayers. Publicly funded researchers do the work, write it up and judge its merits. And yet the resulting intellectual property ends up in the hands of the publishers. To rub salt into the wound they then sell it via exorbitant subscriptions and paywalls, often paid for by taxpayers too.

[...] The latest attempt to break the mould is called Plan S, created by umbrella group cOAlition S. It demands that all publicly funded research be made freely available (see "An audacious new plan will make all science free. Can it work?"). When Plan S was unveiled in September, its backers expected support to snowball. But only a minority of Europe's 43 research funding bodies have signed up, and hoped-for participation from the US has failed to materialise. Meanwhile, a grass-roots campaign against it is gathering momentum.

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