Science Science is Cool.... - Page 160

Fish · 11:19 PM

This is a repository for all cool scientific discussion and fascination. Scientific facts, theories, and overall cool scientific stuff that you'd like to share with others. Stuff that makes you smile and wonder at the amazing shit going on around us, that most people don't notice.

Post pictures, vidoes, stories, or links. Ask questions. Share science.

Why should I care?:

Fish · 07-06-2016, 08:37 PM

Fish · 07-06-2016, 08:51 PM

More Juno awesomeness...

Juno switched to autopilot mode for Jupiter final approach

Four days out from arriving at the solar system’s biggest planet, NASA’s Juno spacecraft received a final uplink of commands Thursday governing the robotic probe’s high-velocity braking maneuver Monday to steer into orbit around Jupiter.

Juno will run on autopilot for the rest of its approach, counting down to a series of tightly-choreographed maneuvers Monday leading to ignition of the craft’s main engine to slow its speed by 1,212 mph (541.7 meters per second), just enough to be captured in orbit by the firm grasp of Jupiter’s gravity.

Before uploading the final command sequence, ground controllers stationed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and at a control center run by Lockheed Martin, the spacecraft’s builder and operator, prepared the engine for Monday’s critical burn.

“Ten days ago, we opened the main engine cover so that the engine would be ready to fire when we get to July 4, and a couple of days ago we pressurized the whole system, so that the engine is ready to go, (and) all the propulsion, all the pipes and valves are all ready to fire,” said Ed Hirst, Juno mission manager at JPL.

Engineers transmitted the final command file, dubbed “ji4040,” to Juno around 3:15 p.m. EDT (1915 GMT) Thursday via an antenna in NASA’s Deep Space Network located in Goldstone, California.

“Once those commands are sent, it will be hands-off from the team here on the ground,” Hirst told reporters Thursday before sending the order for Juno to launch its Jupiter arrival sequence. “We’ll continue to monitor the spacecraft and make sure everything is executing as we expect it to execute, but the spacecraft is on its own, and it’s designed to take care of itself with all the command sequences that we’ve sent it.”

[...]

Radio tones broadcast by Juno will be picked up by an array of huge dish antennas on the ground. Each tone comes in at a slightly different frequency, indicating when Juno accomplishes one of the many steps during the arrival sequence.

Juno’s high-gain antenna will not be pointed toward Earth during the insertion burn, eliminating any chance engineers will receive detailed telemetry on the progress of the engine firing.

Instead, controllers will listen for tones at the start and end of the burn, and watch for a subtle fluctuation in the radio signal coming from Juno caused by the Doppler shift, a variation in the frequency of the spacecraft’s transmission as its velocity changes.

The Doppler effect is similar to the change in pitch of an emergency siren as an ambulance passes.

Heading for a point 2,900 miles (4,667 kilometers) above Jupiter, Juno will configure itself for the make-or-break engine firing beginning shortly after 9 p.m. EDT Monday (0100 GMT Tuesday), when the spacecraft will begin turning to face the right direction for the burn.

The pointing maneuver will turn Juno’s three huge solar array wings, each stretching nearly 30 feet (9 meters) long, away from the sun, forcing the probe to drain power from its batteries. Juno is the first spacecraft to travel to Jupiter’s distance, where the sun is 25 times dimmer than it is at Earth, and rely solely on solar power.

Built with lean power requirements in mind, the power-efficient space probe can run all its systems and scientific instruments on enough juice to power five 100-watt light bulbs.

About 22 minutes before ignition, Juno’s smaller pointing thrusters will increase the craft’s spin rate from 2 rpm to 5 rpm for added stability during the main engine burn.

At the time of Juno’s engine firing, Jupiter’s gravity will exert a tight tug on the spacecraft, accelerating it to approximately 150,000 mph (about 250,000 kilometers per hour), making Juno one of the fastest human-made objects in history.

Soon after the insertion maneuver is complete, Juno will spin down back to its standard two revolutions per minute, then turn back toward the sun to start recharging its batteries and beam telemetry to engineers on Earth.

Juno’s Leros 1b engine, supplied by Moog-ISP in the United Kingdom, needs to fire for at least 20 minutes for the probe to reach a safe orbit around Jupiter, according to Rick Nybakken, the mission’s project manager at JPL.

Otherwise, Jupiter’s gravity will bend Juno’s trajectory and send it speeding back into interplanetary space, missing the planet entirely.

Software programmers installed safeguards to raise the probability of a good insertion burn, including an “auto restart” feature to allow the engine to quickly resume the burn if a computer fault or another anomaly interrupts it.

Monday’s engine burn, assuming it operates for all 35 minutes, will place Juno in an elongated orbit that takes the spacecraft around Jupiter’s poles once every 53-and-a-half days. A follow-up engine burn is scheduled for Oct. 19 to lower the high end of Juno’s orbit, placing the robot on a course around the planet that takes it as close as 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) over Jupiter’s cloud tops every two weeks.

During each close flyby of Jupiter, the body-mounted instruments aboard Juno will take turns looking at the planet’s clouds, measuring plasma, and quantifying the giant world’s gravitational and magnetic fields as the orbiter spins on its axis once every 30 seconds.

[...]

Juno is going into the most extreme environment ever visited by a spacecraft. An intense magnetic field and deadly radiation await Juno, hazards that threaten to fry the probe’s sensitive electronics. Engineers crammed Juno’s most critical computer gear inside a titanium vault to shield against the worst of Jupiter, but there are still risks.

NASA says Juno will be exposed to 20 million rads during its time at Jupiter, equivalent to more than 100 million dental X-rays. Officials say the radiation will likely strain Juno’s health, limiting it to a lifetime of about 20 months from the time the craft gets to Jupiter.

The magnetic field at Juno’s position is an order of magnitude stronger than any space vehicle has ever experienced.

“This spacecraft is going to fly in space through a magnetic field that is 10 times greater than anything we’ve ever experienced,” said Jack Connerney, Juno’s deputy principal investigator and head of the mission’s magnetometer investigation. “That is one of the curiosities. We’re going to have to see how it performs when we do that.”

**Buehler445** · 07-06-2016, 09:33 PM

Yeah, I saw that trajectory thing. Those guys are better at math than I am.

Thanks for posting the pics. I hadn't seen that.

**BigRedChief** · 07-06-2016, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Buehler445

Yeah, I saw that trajectory thing. Those guys are better at math than I am.

Thanks for posting the pics. I hadn't seen that.

**Gonzo** · 07-06-2016, 10:24 PM

It's amazing how we communicate with Juno. The amount of planning and prep it has to take is astounding.

Look how far we've come in a few hundred years.

Shit, look at the last 20 years. Imagine what we might be doing in 2-300 more years.

This is amazing shit.

**BigRedChief** · 07-11-2016, 08:53 AM

Researchers storing information securely in DNA

Experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider generate 15 million gigabytes of data per year. That is a lot of digital data to inscribe on hard drives or beam up to the "cloud."

George Bachand, a Sandia National Laboratories bioengineer at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, is exploring a better, more permanent method for encrypting and storing sensitive data: DNA. Compared to digital and analog information storage, DNA is more compact and durable and never becomes obsolete. Readable DNA was extracted from the 600,000-year-old remains of a horse found in the Yukon.

Tape- and disk-based data storage degrades and can become obsolete, requiring rewriting every decade or so. Cloud- or server-based storage requires a vast amount of electricity; in 2011 Google's server farms used enough electricity to power 200,000 U.S. homes. Furthermore, old-school methods require lots and lots of space. IBM estimated 1,000 gigabytes of information in book form would take up seven miles of bookshelves. In fact, Sandia recently completed a 15,000-square-foot building to store 35,000 boxes of inactive records and archival documents.

"Historically, the national laboratories and the U.S. government have a lot of highly secure information that they need to store long-term. I see this as a potentially robust way of storing classified information in the future to preserve it for multiple generations," said Bachand. "The key is how do you go from text to DNA and do that in a way that is safe and secure."

Bachand was inspired by the recording of all of Shakespeare's sonnets into 2.5 million base pairs of DNA—about half the genome of the tiny E. coli bacterium. Using this method, the group at the European Bioinformatics Institute could theoretically store 2.2 petabytes of information—200 times the printed material in the Library of Congress—in one gram of DNA.
Marlene Bachand, a biological engineer at Sandia and George Bachand's spouse, added, "We are taking advantage of a biological component, DNA, and using its unique ability to encode huge amounts of data in an extremely small volume to develop DNA constructs that can be used to transmit and store vast amounts of encrypted data for security purposes."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-07-dna.html#jCp

GloryDayz · 07-11-2016, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish

Would have been better with a dick-shaped beaker.

'Hamas' Jenkins · 07-11-2016, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Researchers storing information securely in DNA

Experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider generate 15 million gigabytes of data per year. That is a lot of digital data to inscribe on hard drives or beam up to the "cloud."

George Bachand, a Sandia National Laboratories bioengineer at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, is exploring a better, more permanent method for encrypting and storing sensitive data: DNA. Compared to digital and analog information storage, DNA is more compact and durable and never becomes obsolete. Readable DNA was extracted from the 600,000-year-old remains of a horse found in the Yukon.

Tape- and disk-based data storage degrades and can become obsolete, requiring rewriting every decade or so. Cloud- or server-based storage requires a vast amount of electricity; in 2011 Google's server farms used enough electricity to power 200,000 U.S. homes. Furthermore, old-school methods require lots and lots of space. IBM estimated 1,000 gigabytes of information in book form would take up seven miles of bookshelves. In fact, Sandia recently completed a 15,000-square-foot building to store 35,000 boxes of inactive records and archival documents.

"Historically, the national laboratories and the U.S. government have a lot of highly secure information that they need to store long-term. I see this as a potentially robust way of storing classified information in the future to preserve it for multiple generations," said Bachand. "The key is how do you go from text to DNA and do that in a way that is safe and secure."

Bachand was inspired by the recording of all of Shakespeare's sonnets into 2.5 million base pairs of DNA—about half the genome of the tiny E. coli bacterium. Using this method, the group at the European Bioinformatics Institute could theoretically store 2.2 petabytes of information—200 times the printed material in the Library of Congress—in one gram of DNA.
Marlene Bachand, a biological engineer at Sandia and George Bachand's spouse, added, "We are taking advantage of a biological component, DNA, and using its unique ability to encode huge amounts of data in an extremely small volume to develop DNA constructs that can be used to transmit and store vast amounts of encrypted data for security purposes."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-07-dna.html#jCp

All thanks to supercoiling. However, I wonder how this would fare if exposed to even moderate heat, which causes DNA strands to denature.

**Easy 6** · 07-15-2016, 09:31 AM

Science!

**BigRedChief** · 07-17-2016, 07:52 AM

'Ghostbusters' Star Kate McKinnon Is Obsessed With Physics

I interviewed both MIT physicists who worked on the film, and they were excited to geek out on it. Was it interesting to work on a set that had this much scientific thought put into it?

Yeah, it was great. Just the notion of playing a scientist was why I wanted to do the movie in the first place. I think I probably geeked out with one of the scientists. I have been a big astrophysics and quantum mechanics fan for a long time, and this dealt very much with the possibility of quantum mechanics.

The rest here:
http://www.popsci.com/kate-mckinnon-...physics#page-2

**BigRedChief** · 07-17-2016, 10:23 PM

Some guy in China with no college education comes up with a new way to verify Carmichael numbers.

Beijing (CNN)A Chinesemigrant worker with no college degree has found a solution to a complex math problem -- in what appears to be a real life version of the Oscar-winning movie "Good Will Hunting."Yu Jianchun, who works for a parcel delivery company, said he'd always had a passion for numbers and has created an alternative method to verify Carmichael numbers.

His solution amazed academics, who said his proof was much more efficient than the traditional one.

"It was a very imaginative solution," said Cai Tianxin, a math professor at Zhejiang University.

"He has never received any systematic training in number theory nor taken advanced math classes. All he has is an instinct and an extreme sensitivity to numbers."

Carmichael numbers are sometimes described as "pseudo primes" -- they complicate the task of determining true prime numbers, which are dividable only by 1 and itself. They play an important role in computer science and information security.

Yu worked on his proof during his free time while building a new home in his village last year.

The rest here:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/17/asia/c...inkId=26655547

Fish · 07-17-2016, 10:51 PM

A.I. DOWNS EXPERT HUMAN FIGHTER PILOT IN DOGFIGHT SIMULATION

In the military world, fighter pilots have long been described as the best of the best. As Tom Wolfe famously wrote, only those with the "right stuff" can handle the job. Now, it seems, the right stuff may no longer be the sole purview of human pilots.

A pilot A.I. developed by a doctoral graduate from the University of Cincinnati has shown that it can not only beat other A.I.s, but also a professional fighter pilot with decades of experience. In a series of flight combat simulations, the A.I. successfully evaded retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gene "Geno" Lee, and shot him down every time. In a statement, Lee called it "the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible A.I. I've seen to date."

And "Geno" is no slouch. He's a former Air Force Battle Manager and adversary tactics instructor. He's controlled or flown in thousands of air-to-air intercepts as mission commander or pilot. In short, the guy knows what he's doing. Plus he's been fighting A.I. opponents in flight simulators for decades.

But he says this one is different. "I was surprised at how aware and reactive it was. It seemed to be aware of my intentions and reacting instantly to my changes in flight and my missile deployment. It knew how to defeat the shot I was taking. It moved instantly between defensive and offensive actions as needed."

The A.I., dubbed ALPHA, was developed by Psibernetix, a company founded by University of Cincinnati doctoral graduate Nick Ernest, in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory. According to the developers, ALPHA was specifically designed for research purposes in simulated air-combat missions.

The secret to ALPHA's superhuman flying skills is a decision-making system called a genetic fuzzy tree, a subtype of fuzzy logic algorithms. The system approaches complex problems much like a human would, says Ernest, breaking the larger task into smaller subtasks, which include high-level tactics, firing, evasion, and defensiveness. By considering only the most relevant variables, it can make complex decisions with extreme speed. As a result, the A.I. can calculate the best maneuvers in a complex, dynamic environment, over 250 times faster than its human opponent can blink.

After hour-long combat missions against ALPHA, Lee says,"I go home feeling washed out. I'm tired, drained and mentally exhausted. This may be artificial intelligence, but it represents a real challenge."

The results of the dogfight simulations are published in the Journal of Defense Management.

Fish · 07-17-2016, 10:54 PM

Speaking of robots.......

This is the Curiosity Mars rover taking a pic at Earth...

Fish · 07-17-2016, 10:56 PM

Jupiter's immense gravity actually saves Earth from many asteroid strikes. Thanks Jupiter!

Fish · 07-17-2016, 10:59 PM

Now that's an awesome headline...

Drones that shoot vaccine-laden M&Ms will be used to save endangered ferrets

U.S. wildlife officials have a problem: How to save the endangered black-footed ferret from a plague.

So they’ve come up with a sweet plan. They’re going to shoot vaccine-smothered M&Ms over 1,200 acres in Montana from drones, according to The Guardian.

One wildlife biologist called the contraption a “glorified gumball machine.”

To get to the ferrets, the drones will fly over the prairie dog population at the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Montana, The Guardian reports.

Black-footed ferrets, North America’s only native ferret, depend on prairie dogs for their survival, eating them and invading their burrows for shelter.

Once thought to be extinct worldwide, these ferrets have been making a comeback over the last 30 years thanks to efforts from state and federal agencies, zoos, conservation groups and private landowners, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Nearly 300 are said to remain in a handful of sites across North America.

But both the black-footed ferret and prairie dogs are endangered by a current epidemic of the sylvatic plague, a flea-borne disease.

In an environmental assessment earlier this year the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service called the plague “a significant impediment to ferret recovery because of its lethality to ferrets, and because it can eliminate prairie dogs on which ferrets are dependent for both habitat, and as prey.”

Wildlife officials have been stumped on how to protect prairie dogs spread over large acres of land.

“We dropped the vaccine out of a bag while walking around, but that’s very hard to do over thousands of acres,” Randy Machett, a USFW biologist told the Guardian.

“Spraying burrows with insecticide to kill the fleas is also labor intensive and not a long-term solution. So we are working with private contractors to develop equipment to drop the vaccine uniformly across an area, rather than one hog getting to eat a big pile of them.”

Machett said a “glorified gumball machine” has been created to fit into a drone and spray M&Ms smeared with vaccine-laden peanut butter.

“It is the fastest, cheapest way to distribute the vaccine,” he told the Guardian. “We are hopeful this oral vaccine will be used to mitigate plague sites and treat tens of thousands of acres each year.”

The plan still has to survive a public comment period; farmers who consider both animals a pest are not fans of the drone plan, according to Wired.

“Local farmers are perfectly happy to see both species dead as doornails and don’t want to find peanut-smeared chocolate in their meadows,” notes Uproxx.

“But until they work out a way to get ferrets and prairie dogs onto a health plan, the candy-hosing drone will have to do.”

Machett told the Guardian that wildlife officials hope to have the drones in the air by Sept. 1. If the plan works in Montana similar efforts are expected in Arizona and Colorado.

05-21-2012, 09:43 PM
Fish Ain't no relax! Join Date: Sep 2005 Casino cash: $258919	Science is Cool.... This is a repository for all cool scientific discussion and fascination. Scientific facts, theories, and overall cool scientific stuff that you'd like to share with others. Stuff that makes you smile and wonder at the amazing shit going on around us, that most people don't notice. Post pictures, vidoes, stories, or links. Ask questions. Share science. Why should I care?: Last edited by Fish; 05-05-2021 at 11:19 PM..
Posts: 48,456

07-06-2016, 08:37 PM	#2386
Fish Ain't no relax! Join Date: Sep 2005 Casino cash: $258919	__________________
Posts: 48,456

07-06-2016, 08:51 PM	#2387
Fish Ain't no relax! Join Date: Sep 2005 Casino cash: $258919	More Juno awesomeness... Juno switched to autopilot mode for Jupiter final approach Four days out from arriving at the solar system’s biggest planet, NASA’s Juno spacecraft received a final uplink of commands Thursday governing the robotic probe’s high-velocity braking maneuver Monday to steer into orbit around Jupiter. Juno will run on autopilot for the rest of its approach, counting down to a series of tightly-choreographed maneuvers Monday leading to ignition of the craft’s main engine to slow its speed by 1,212 mph (541.7 meters per second), just enough to be captured in orbit by the firm grasp of Jupiter’s gravity. Before uploading the final command sequence, ground controllers stationed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and at a control center run by Lockheed Martin, the spacecraft’s builder and operator, prepared the engine for Monday’s critical burn. “Ten days ago, we opened the main engine cover so that the engine would be ready to fire when we get to July 4, and a couple of days ago we pressurized the whole system, so that the engine is ready to go, (and) all the propulsion, all the pipes and valves are all ready to fire,” said Ed Hirst, Juno mission manager at JPL. Engineers transmitted the final command file, dubbed “ji4040,” to Juno around 3:15 p.m. EDT (1915 GMT) Thursday via an antenna in NASA’s Deep Space Network located in Goldstone, California. “Once those commands are sent, it will be hands-off from the team here on the ground,” Hirst told reporters Thursday before sending the order for Juno to launch its Jupiter arrival sequence. “We’ll continue to monitor the spacecraft and make sure everything is executing as we expect it to execute, but the spacecraft is on its own, and it’s designed to take care of itself with all the command sequences that we’ve sent it.” [...] Radio tones broadcast by Juno will be picked up by an array of huge dish antennas on the ground. Each tone comes in at a slightly different frequency, indicating when Juno accomplishes one of the many steps during the arrival sequence. Juno’s high-gain antenna will not be pointed toward Earth during the insertion burn, eliminating any chance engineers will receive detailed telemetry on the progress of the engine firing. Instead, controllers will listen for tones at the start and end of the burn, and watch for a subtle fluctuation in the radio signal coming from Juno caused by the Doppler shift, a variation in the frequency of the spacecraft’s transmission as its velocity changes. The Doppler effect is similar to the change in pitch of an emergency siren as an ambulance passes. Heading for a point 2,900 miles (4,667 kilometers) above Jupiter, Juno will configure itself for the make-or-break engine firing beginning shortly after 9 p.m. EDT Monday (0100 GMT Tuesday), when the spacecraft will begin turning to face the right direction for the burn. The pointing maneuver will turn Juno’s three huge solar array wings, each stretching nearly 30 feet (9 meters) long, away from the sun, forcing the probe to drain power from its batteries. Juno is the first spacecraft to travel to Jupiter’s distance, where the sun is 25 times dimmer than it is at Earth, and rely solely on solar power. Built with lean power requirements in mind, the power-efficient space probe can run all its systems and scientific instruments on enough juice to power five 100-watt light bulbs. About 22 minutes before ignition, Juno’s smaller pointing thrusters will increase the craft’s spin rate from 2 rpm to 5 rpm for added stability during the main engine burn. At the time of Juno’s engine firing, Jupiter’s gravity will exert a tight tug on the spacecraft, accelerating it to approximately 150,000 mph (about 250,000 kilometers per hour), making Juno one of the fastest human-made objects in history. Soon after the insertion maneuver is complete, Juno will spin down back to its standard two revolutions per minute, then turn back toward the sun to start recharging its batteries and beam telemetry to engineers on Earth. Juno’s Leros 1b engine, supplied by Moog-ISP in the United Kingdom, needs to fire for at least 20 minutes for the probe to reach a safe orbit around Jupiter, according to Rick Nybakken, the mission’s project manager at JPL. Otherwise, Jupiter’s gravity will bend Juno’s trajectory and send it speeding back into interplanetary space, missing the planet entirely. Software programmers installed safeguards to raise the probability of a good insertion burn, including an “auto restart” feature to allow the engine to quickly resume the burn if a computer fault or another anomaly interrupts it. Monday’s engine burn, assuming it operates for all 35 minutes, will place Juno in an elongated orbit that takes the spacecraft around Jupiter’s poles once every 53-and-a-half days. A follow-up engine burn is scheduled for Oct. 19 to lower the high end of Juno’s orbit, placing the robot on a course around the planet that takes it as close as 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) over Jupiter’s cloud tops every two weeks. During each close flyby of Jupiter, the body-mounted instruments aboard Juno will take turns looking at the planet’s clouds, measuring plasma, and quantifying the giant world’s gravitational and magnetic fields as the orbiter spins on its axis once every 30 seconds. [...] Juno is going into the most extreme environment ever visited by a spacecraft. An intense magnetic field and deadly radiation await Juno, hazards that threaten to fry the probe’s sensitive electronics. Engineers crammed Juno’s most critical computer gear inside a titanium vault to shield against the worst of Jupiter, but there are still risks. NASA says Juno will be exposed to 20 million rads during its time at Jupiter, equivalent to more than 100 million dental X-rays. Officials say the radiation will likely strain Juno’s health, limiting it to a lifetime of about 20 months from the time the craft gets to Jupiter. The magnetic field at Juno’s position is an order of magnitude stronger than any space vehicle has ever experienced. “This spacecraft is going to fly in space through a magnetic field that is 10 times greater than anything we’ve ever experienced,” said Jack Connerney, Juno’s deputy principal investigator and head of the mission’s magnetometer investigation. “That is one of the curiosities. We’re going to have to see how it performs when we do that.” __________________
Posts: 48,456

07-06-2016, 09:33 PM	#2388
Buehler445 Supporter Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Scott City KS Casino cash: $264734	Yeah, I saw that trajectory thing. Those guys are better at math than I am. Thanks for posting the pics. I hadn't seen that.
Posts: 58,282

07-11-2016, 08:53 AM	#2391
BigRedChief Has a particular set of skills Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: On the water Casino cash: $1038962 VARSITY	Researchers storing information securely in DNA Experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider generate 15 million gigabytes of data per year. That is a lot of digital data to inscribe on hard drives or beam up to the "cloud." George Bachand, a Sandia National Laboratories bioengineer at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, is exploring a better, more permanent method for encrypting and storing sensitive data: DNA. Compared to digital and analog information storage, DNA is more compact and durable and never becomes obsolete. Readable DNA was extracted from the 600,000-year-old remains of a horse found in the Yukon. Tape- and disk-based data storage degrades and can become obsolete, requiring rewriting every decade or so. Cloud- or server-based storage requires a vast amount of electricity; in 2011 Google's server farms used enough electricity to power 200,000 U.S. homes. Furthermore, old-school methods require lots and lots of space. IBM estimated 1,000 gigabytes of information in book form would take up seven miles of bookshelves. In fact, Sandia recently completed a 15,000-square-foot building to store 35,000 boxes of inactive records and archival documents. "Historically, the national laboratories and the U.S. government have a lot of highly secure information that they need to store long-term. I see this as a potentially robust way of storing classified information in the future to preserve it for multiple generations," said Bachand. "The key is how do you go from text to DNA and do that in a way that is safe and secure." Bachand was inspired by the recording of all of Shakespeare's sonnets into 2.5 million base pairs of DNA—about half the genome of the tiny E. coli bacterium. Using this method, the group at the European Bioinformatics Institute could theoretically store 2.2 petabytes of information—200 times the printed material in the Library of Congress—in one gram of DNA. Marlene Bachand, a biological engineer at Sandia and George Bachand's spouse, added, "We are taking advantage of a biological component, DNA, and using its unique ability to encode huge amounts of data in an extremely small volume to develop DNA constructs that can be used to transmit and store vast amounts of encrypted data for security purposes." Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-07-dna.html#jCp __________________ Mind you own damn business
Posts: 80,256

07-15-2016, 09:31 AM	#2394
Easy 6 pie is never free Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: the drivers seat Casino cash: $1677775	Science!
Posts: 95,217

07-17-2016, 07:52 AM	#2395
BigRedChief Has a particular set of skills Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: On the water Casino cash: $1038962 VARSITY	'Ghostbusters' Star Kate McKinnon Is Obsessed With Physics I interviewed both MIT physicists who worked on the film, and they were excited to geek out on it. Was it interesting to work on a set that had this much scientific thought put into it? Yeah, it was great. Just the notion of playing a scientist was why I wanted to do the movie in the first place. I think I probably geeked out with one of the scientists. I have been a big astrophysics and quantum mechanics fan for a long time, and this dealt very much with the possibility of quantum mechanics. The rest here: http://www.popsci.com/kate-mckinnon-...physics#page-2 __________________ Mind you own damn business
Posts: 80,256

07-17-2016, 10:23 PM	#2396
BigRedChief Has a particular set of skills Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: On the water Casino cash: $1038962 VARSITY	Some guy in China with no college education comes up with a new way to verify Carmichael numbers. Beijing (CNN)A Chinesemigrant worker with no college degree has found a solution to a complex math problem -- in what appears to be a real life version of the Oscar-winning movie "Good Will Hunting."Yu Jianchun, who works for a parcel delivery company, said he'd always had a passion for numbers and has created an alternative method to verify Carmichael numbers. His solution amazed academics, who said his proof was much more efficient than the traditional one. "It was a very imaginative solution," said Cai Tianxin, a math professor at Zhejiang University. "He has never received any systematic training in number theory nor taken advanced math classes. All he has is an instinct and an extreme sensitivity to numbers." Carmichael numbers are sometimes described as "pseudo primes" -- they complicate the task of determining true prime numbers, which are dividable only by 1 and itself. They play an important role in computer science and information security. Yu worked on his proof during his free time while building a new home in his village last year. The rest here: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/17/asia/c...inkId=26655547 __________________ Mind you own damn business
Posts: 80,256

07-17-2016, 10:51 PM	#2397
Fish Ain't no relax! Join Date: Sep 2005 Casino cash: $258919	A.I. DOWNS EXPERT HUMAN FIGHTER PILOT IN DOGFIGHT SIMULATION In the military world, fighter pilots have long been described as the best of the best. As Tom Wolfe famously wrote, only those with the "right stuff" can handle the job. Now, it seems, the right stuff may no longer be the sole purview of human pilots. A pilot A.I. developed by a doctoral graduate from the University of Cincinnati has shown that it can not only beat other A.I.s, but also a professional fighter pilot with decades of experience. In a series of flight combat simulations, the A.I. successfully evaded retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gene "Geno" Lee, and shot him down every time. In a statement, Lee called it "the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible A.I. I've seen to date." And "Geno" is no slouch. He's a former Air Force Battle Manager and adversary tactics instructor. He's controlled or flown in thousands of air-to-air intercepts as mission commander or pilot. In short, the guy knows what he's doing. Plus he's been fighting A.I. opponents in flight simulators for decades. But he says this one is different. "I was surprised at how aware and reactive it was. It seemed to be aware of my intentions and reacting instantly to my changes in flight and my missile deployment. It knew how to defeat the shot I was taking. It moved instantly between defensive and offensive actions as needed." The A.I., dubbed ALPHA, was developed by Psibernetix, a company founded by University of Cincinnati doctoral graduate Nick Ernest, in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory. According to the developers, ALPHA was specifically designed for research purposes in simulated air-combat missions. The secret to ALPHA's superhuman flying skills is a decision-making system called a genetic fuzzy tree, a subtype of fuzzy logic algorithms. The system approaches complex problems much like a human would, says Ernest, breaking the larger task into smaller subtasks, which include high-level tactics, firing, evasion, and defensiveness. By considering only the most relevant variables, it can make complex decisions with extreme speed. As a result, the A.I. can calculate the best maneuvers in a complex, dynamic environment, over 250 times faster than its human opponent can blink. After hour-long combat missions against ALPHA, Lee says,"I go home feeling washed out. I'm tired, drained and mentally exhausted. This may be artificial intelligence, but it represents a real challenge." The results of the dogfight simulations are published in the Journal of Defense Management. __________________
Posts: 48,456

07-17-2016, 10:54 PM	#2398
Fish Ain't no relax! Join Date: Sep 2005 Casino cash: $258919	Speaking of robots....... This is the Curiosity Mars rover taking a pic at Earth... __________________
Posts: 48,456

07-17-2016, 10:56 PM	#2399
Fish Ain't no relax! Join Date: Sep 2005 Casino cash: $258919	Jupiter's immense gravity actually saves Earth from many asteroid strikes. Thanks Jupiter! __________________
Posts: 48,456

07-17-2016, 10:59 PM	#2400
Fish Ain't no relax! Join Date: Sep 2005 Casino cash: $258919	Now that's an awesome headline... Drones that shoot vaccine-laden M&Ms will be used to save endangered ferrets U.S. wildlife officials have a problem: How to save the endangered black-footed ferret from a plague. So they’ve come up with a sweet plan. They’re going to shoot vaccine-smothered M&Ms over 1,200 acres in Montana from drones, according to The Guardian. One wildlife biologist called the contraption a “glorified gumball machine.” To get to the ferrets, the drones will fly over the prairie dog population at the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Montana, The Guardian reports. Black-footed ferrets, North America’s only native ferret, depend on prairie dogs for their survival, eating them and invading their burrows for shelter. Once thought to be extinct worldwide, these ferrets have been making a comeback over the last 30 years thanks to efforts from state and federal agencies, zoos, conservation groups and private landowners, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Nearly 300 are said to remain in a handful of sites across North America. But both the black-footed ferret and prairie dogs are endangered by a current epidemic of the sylvatic plague, a flea-borne disease. In an environmental assessment earlier this year the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service called the plague “a significant impediment to ferret recovery because of its lethality to ferrets, and because it can eliminate prairie dogs on which ferrets are dependent for both habitat, and as prey.” Wildlife officials have been stumped on how to protect prairie dogs spread over large acres of land. “We dropped the vaccine out of a bag while walking around, but that’s very hard to do over thousands of acres,” Randy Machett, a USFW biologist told the Guardian. “Spraying burrows with insecticide to kill the fleas is also labor intensive and not a long-term solution. So we are working with private contractors to develop equipment to drop the vaccine uniformly across an area, rather than one hog getting to eat a big pile of them.” Machett said a “glorified gumball machine” has been created to fit into a drone and spray M&Ms smeared with vaccine-laden peanut butter. “It is the fastest, cheapest way to distribute the vaccine,” he told the Guardian. “We are hopeful this oral vaccine will be used to mitigate plague sites and treat tens of thousands of acres each year.” The plan still has to survive a public comment period; farmers who consider both animals a pest are not fans of the drone plan, according to Wired. “Local farmers are perfectly happy to see both species dead as doornails and don’t want to find peanut-smeared chocolate in their meadows,” notes Uproxx. “But until they work out a way to get ferrets and prairie dogs onto a health plan, the candy-hosing drone will have to do.” Machett told the Guardian that wildlife officials hope to have the drones in the air by Sept. 1. If the plan works in Montana similar efforts are expected in Arizona and Colorado. __________________
Posts: 48,456