General science [Archive] - RonFez.net Messageboard

sailor

09-23-2011, 04:59 AM

Catchall for general science stories and discussion.

Scientists able to recreate YouTube videos from brain activity. (http://www.slashgear.com/scientists-reconstruct-youtube-videos-from-brain-activity-23182247/)

CountryBob

09-23-2011, 05:03 AM

What are we gonna disect a frog now or sumphin..... tss tstss...

cougarjake13

09-23-2011, 05:41 PM

Catchall for general science stories and discussion.

Scientists able to recreate YouTube videos from brain activity.

http://www.slashgear.com/scientists-reconstruct-youtube-videos-from-brain-activity-23182247/

an admin that cant post a linky ? tsk tsk

sailor

09-23-2011, 07:38 PM

an admin that cant post a linky ? tsk tsk

not from my phone at work.

cougarjake13

09-24-2011, 01:23 PM

sure sure

likely excuse

Crash

09-24-2011, 11:23 PM

Let's stick to the thread subject...

the article linked is fascinating...just not sure what to make of it. :unsure:

sailor

09-25-2011, 03:29 AM

Let's stick to the thread subject...

the article linked is fascinating...just not sure what to make of it. :unsure:

it really is the craziest shit. i just now saw the video and was blown away by it.

disneyspy

09-25-2011, 06:23 AM

bet you can't ban me from your phone either,can you chuckle-head?

Chigworthy

09-25-2011, 11:20 AM

I like how they plug both Youtube and shitty Steve Martin movies in the study.

hanso

09-25-2011, 04:55 PM

Crash

09-25-2011, 05:43 PM

Haven't watched the link, but everything I've read about this so far indicates that this one is going to be disproved. A lot of experts are saying equipment and measurement errors are pretty common in this field and even the CERN team that published it admits it's "crazy" and is asking for other teams to verify their data.

It would be pretty cool if it was true though.

Crash

10-03-2011, 05:45 PM

...ANOTHER hole in the ozone layer...

...and this one is closer to us Americans, so, you know, it's like more seriouser.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/earth/04ozone.html

...or maybe not. What the fuck do I know.

cougarjake13

10-04-2011, 08:19 PM

...ANOTHER hole in the ozone layer...

...and this one is closer to us Americans, so, you know, it's like more seriouser.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/earth/04ozone.html

...or maybe not. What the fuck do I know.

so r we fucked or not ?

hanso

10-04-2011, 09:37 PM

Can we have a general politics thread?

Crash

10-05-2011, 02:18 PM

so r we fucked or not ?

I don't know, I posted this like days ago. I've moved on.

My advice is to put on sun block. Lots of it. In February.

Chigworthy

10-05-2011, 02:44 PM

Can we have a general politics thread?

You'll have to get General Science and his staff to sign off on it.

jennysmurf

10-06-2011, 06:43 PM

You'll have to get General Science and his staff to sign off on it.

That, and there's a prerequisite for poly/sci 101.

cougarjake13

10-06-2011, 06:49 PM

I don't know, I posted this like days ago. I've moved on.

My advice is to put on sun block. Lots of it. In February.

ill just stay inside

StanUpshaw

10-06-2011, 09:20 PM

Haven't watched the link, but everything I've read about this so far indicates that this one is going to be disproved. A lot of experts are saying equipment and measurement errors are pretty common in this field and even the CERN team that published it admits it's "crazy" and is asking for other teams to verify their data.

It would be pretty cool if it was true though.

New theories emerge to disprove OPERA faster-than-light neutrinos claim (http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-theories-emerge-opera-faster-than-light-neutrinos.html)

It's been just two weeks since the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA) team released its announcement claiming that they have been measuring muon neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light, causing an uproar in the physics community. Since that time, many papers (perhaps as many as 30 to the preprint server arXiv alone) have been published seeking ways to discredit the findings. Thus far though, only two seem credible.

The first is by Carlo Contaldi of Imperial College London. He says that it’s likely the OPERA team failed to take gravity into their math equations and its effect on the clocks used to time the experiment. This because the degree of gravity at the two stations involved in the experiment (Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy and the CERN facility in Geneva) were different, thus one of the clocks would have been running slightly faster than the other, resulting in faulty timing. If this turns out to be the case, the OPERA team will most certainly be embarrassed to have overlooked such a basic problem with their study.

The second is by Andrew Cohen and Sheldon Glashow, who together point out that if the neutrinos in the study were in fact traveling as fast as claimed, they should have been radiating particles as they went, leaving behind a measurable trail; this due to the energy transfer that would occur between particles moving at different speeds. And since the OPERA team didn’t observe any such trail (or at least didn’t report it) it follows that the neutrinos weren’t in fact traveling as fast as were claimed and the resultant speed measurements would have to be attributed to something else.

Neither of these papers actually disproves the results found by the OPERA team of course, the first merely suggests there may be a problem with the way the measurements were taken, the second takes more of a “it can’t be true because of…” approach which only highlight the general disbelief in the physics community regarding the very possibility of anything, much less the speed of neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light, messing with Einstein’s most basic theories. The first can be addressed rather easily by the OPERA team if it so desires, and the second, well, if the neutrinos did in fact travel faster than the speed of light and did so without leaving a trail, a lot of physics theory will have to be rethought. Though that may not necessarily be a bad thing, physics is supposed to be about finding answers to explain the natural world around us after all, even if it means going back to the drawing board now and then.

StanUpshaw

10-06-2011, 11:53 PM

I dream of a future where my son will be able to store his 6PB porn collection on a jar full of Chlamydia.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3243

Data stored in multiplying bacteria

A message encoded as artificial DNA can be stored within the genomes of multiplying bacteria and then accurately retrieved, US scientists have shown.

Their concern that all current ways of storing information, from paper to electronic memory, can easily be lost or destroyed prompted them to devise a new type of memory - within living organisms.

"A big concern is the protection of valuable information in the case of a nuclear catastrophe," says information technologist Pak Chung Wong, of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State. The laboratory was set up as a nuclear energy research institute.

A similar catastrophe strikes the US in the cult television series Dark Angel, in which a colossal electromagnetic pulse wipes out the electronic infrastructure. "Bacteria may be an inexpensive and stable long-term means of data storage," Wong told New Scientist.

The scientists took the words of the song It's a Small World and translated it into a code based on the four "letters" of DNA. They then created artificial DNA strands recording different parts of the song. These DNA messages, each about 150 bases long, were inserted into bacteria such as E. coli and Deinococcus radiodurans.

The latter is especially good at surviving extreme conditions, says Wong. It can tolerate high temperatures, desiccation, ultraviolet light and ionising radiation doses 1000 times higher than would be fatal to humans.

The beginning and end of each inserted message have special DNA tags devised by the scientists. These "sentinels" stop the bacteria from identifying the message as an invading a virus and destroying it, says Wong.

"The magic of the sentinel is that it protects the information, so that even after a hundred bacterial generations we were able to retrieve the exact message," says Wong. "Once the DNA message is in bacteria, it is protected and can survive." And as a millilitre of liquid can contain up to billion bacteria, the potential capacity of such a memory system is enormous.

Deinococcus is adapted to survive in extreme conditions and is consequently very good at repairing any mutations that spontaneously arise in its DNA code. But Huw Williams, a bacteriologist at Imperial College, London, says that the small size of the inserted messages makes it no surprise that they survive 100 generations intact.

Williams thinks a greater danger than mutations changing the message is that they could make some bugs better adapted to their environment than others. So far, Wong and colleagues have kept the different message colonies separate, but in future they aim to retrieve messages from a mixed colony.

"If you grow the colonies indefinitely, less well-adapted bacteria may be lost over time," he says. "The question is whether you will be able to retain all your message populations. But this is intriguing work and very forward looking."

hanso

10-09-2011, 05:59 PM

StanUpshaw

10-09-2011, 06:09 PM

Can't wait for those tweets.

Crash

11-19-2011, 10:02 PM

hanso

11-20-2011, 04:02 AM

There maybe kisses sweeter than wine also.

hanso

12-10-2011, 04:48 PM

Crash

12-10-2011, 08:09 PM

hanso

12-11-2011, 05:30 AM

Bones & stones duuuude!

hanso

12-27-2011, 05:22 PM

While Drafting SOPA, the U.S. House Harbors BitTorrent Pirates

In recent weeks we discovered BitTorrent pirates at the RIAA, Sony, Fox, Universal and even law-abiding organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security. By now it should be clear that people are using BitTorrent pretty much everywhere, and not only for lawful downloads. Today we can add the U.S. House of Representatives to that list, the place where lawmakers are drafting the much discussed “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA).

http://torrentfreak.com/while-drafting-sopa-us-house-harbors-bittorrent-pirates-111226/

cougarjake13

12-27-2011, 05:48 PM

Hilarious

But it's prob some intern

sailor

02-01-2012, 04:56 AM

Cal-Berkeley neuroscientists have made great strides to translate electrical activity in the brain to words.

hanso

02-11-2012, 06:35 PM

sailor

02-11-2012, 06:48 PM

I thought I read they found a shrimp-like creature there last week.

Edit: never mind: "—A tiny shrimp was captured on a NASA video floating under thick ice sheets in a different part of Antarctica."

Pitdoc

02-11-2012, 06:55 PM

hanso

02-11-2012, 07:03 PM

I thought I read they found a shrimp-like creature there last week.

Edit: never mind: "—A tiny shrimp was captured on a NASA video floating under thick ice sheets in a different part of Antarctica."

Heard on radio they found a giant worm, but looking up news now it looks like it's not there yet.

Edit; just saw something out of Iceland that looks what the DJ must have ment.
Let's hope they test everybody's blood before they come back

Lol

CountryBob

02-12-2012, 08:22 AM

This is the beginning - they will unleash a super virus that has laid dormant all of these years and mankind will be wiped out by end of 2012.

Its all written down

2012!

hanso

02-12-2012, 04:07 PM

MIT scientists unveil a camera capable of taking pictures at a rate of one trillion frames per second, which can track pulses of light.

Google.com

StanUpshaw

02-12-2012, 04:43 PM

MIT scientists unveil a camera capable of taking pictures at a rate of one trillion frames per second, which can track pulses of light.

Google.com

Thanks for citing your sources. That's a big help.

Chigworthy

02-12-2012, 06:42 PM

I can't wait to see Danger Ehrin take a salmon to the face at 3 million fps.

SonOfSmeagol

02-13-2012, 04:32 PM

"To Antarctic scientists, Lake Vostok, deep beneath this Russian outpost, is almost mythical. ... For at least 14 million years it's been covered by more than three and a half kilometers of ice."

That's 14 million years -- without contact with the rest of the world. Scientists are split over whether life could survive such an extreme environment. But NPR explains, if there is life to be found there it will be unlike anything else on the planet.

the first picture has come in...

http://i854.photobucket.com/albums/ab109/SonOfSmeagol/fish2.jpg

StanUpshaw

02-22-2012, 01:24 PM

Faster-than-light neutrino result reportedly a mistake caused by loose cable
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/02/faster-than-light-neutrino-result-apparently-a-mistake-due-to-loose-cable.ars

Since September, scientists have been scratching their head over results that appear to show neutrinos traveling between Switzerland and Italy faster than light would. As far as anyone could tell, the team behind the results had done everything they could to eliminate errors, and had even released some preliminary data that had strengthened their results. But the results remained difficult to square with everything else we know about how the Universe operates.

But now, ScienceInsider is reporting that there was a good reason the measurements and reality weren't lining up: a loose fiber optic cable was causing one of the atomic clocks used to time the neutrinos' flight to produce spurious results. If the report is confirmed (right now, there's only one source), then it provides a simple explanation for the fascinating-yet-difficult-to-accept results. According to the new report, researchers are preparing to gather new data with the clocks properly hooked into computers, which should definitively indicate whether the loose connection was at fault.

It's somewhat ironic that ScienceInsider, which is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, broke the news now. Over the weekend, the AAAS held its annual meeting, which included a discussion of the biggest news in physics, where the neutrino results were highlighted. The session indicated that five different neutrino experiments were upgrading their hardware in order to check timing, and some would have data before the year is out. So even if this report doesn't pan out, we should know more soon.

At the AAAS meeting's discussion, CERN's director of research, Sergio Bertolucci, placed his bet on what the results would be: "I have difficulty to believe it, because nothing in Italy arrives ahead of time."

hanso

03-15-2012, 09:09 PM

American ISPs to launch massive copyright spying scheme on July 12

If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and they’re coming for you.

Specifically, they’re coming for you on Thursday, July 12.

That’s the date when the nation’s largest ISPs will all voluntarily implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users’ bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they will not download copyrighted materials.

Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration. The same groups have weighed in heavily on controversial Internet policies around the world, with similar facilitation by the Obama’s Administration’s State Department.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/15/american-isps-to-launch-massive-copyright-spying-scheme-on-july-12/

StanUpshaw

03-15-2012, 09:26 PM

That's some outstanding science there, hanso.

hanso

03-27-2012, 09:18 PM

New Surveillance Camera Can Search 36 Million Faces For Matches In One Second

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-surveillance-camera-million.html

A new surveillance camera by Hitachi Kokusai Electric can look at footage that contains an image of someone, either still or video, and then search other video or still images on file for other instances of that same face. In so doing, it can search, process and display up to thirty six million faces in just one second. Each hit is displayed immediately in its native format, i.e. still or video, in thumbnail form, which its makers say, allows the camera to display the actions of a person prior to, or even after, being seen by the surveillance camera. All they need do is click on the thumbnail to watch the video play.

As one example, if a person walks into a convenience store and robs the cashier, if his or face is captured by a video camera, police could use that imagery to search for that same face in prior video recorded by the store to see if that person has been to the store before, and if so, if they left any clues as to who they might be, by say, using a credit card to pay for purchase. Similarly, the same face could be searched in a much larger database of still or video that the police have stockpiled from surveillance cameras from other places, allowing them to see, almost instantly, if that person has been caught on tape at any other point in time doing anything that might help lead to an arrest, such as trying to pawn stolen merchandise. Perhaps more interestingly, the system can be used to scan for that face in a large crowd. It will look at each individual face in every scene in a video for a match.

Representatives from Hitachi say the system works by using image recognition software combined with algorithms that group people who have similar faces.

StanUpshaw

05-27-2012, 04:55 AM

Boy wonder from Kolkata cracks Newton's puzzles (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Boy-wonder-from-Kolkata-cracks-Newtons-puzzles/articleshow/13539376.cms)

A 16-year-old boy who migrated to Germany from Kolkata four years ago has cracked puzzles set by Isaac Newton that baffled mathematicians for more than 350 years.

Shouryya Ray, who now lives in Dresden, was hailed as a genius after solving two fundamental particle dynamics theories, which physicists have previously been able to calculate only by using powerful computers. His solutions mean scientists can now calculate the flight path of a thrown ball and then predict how it will hit and bounce off a wall, the Daily Mail reported.

Ray came across the problems during a school trip to Dresden University, where professors claimed they were uncrackable. "I just asked myself, 'why not?'" he said. "I think it was just schoolboy naivety. I didn't believe there couldn't be a solution," the modest Ray added, brushing off the 'genius' tag, saying he had his weak points as a mathematician. "There are other things at school I wish I was better at - football for one," said the boy who began solving complicated equations as a six-year-old.

For years, Ray has enjoyed what he calls the "intrinsic beauty" of maths. When he was young, his father, an engineer, began testing him by setting him arithmetic problems.

sailor

05-27-2012, 07:24 AM

i gave up Bombay, but i'm not giving up on Calcutta just yet.

StanUpshaw

05-27-2012, 07:40 AM

What are your feelings on Siam? Leningrad?

PapaBear

05-27-2012, 07:36 PM

. His solutions mean scientists can now calculate the flight path of a thrown ball and then predict how it will hit and bounce off a wall, the Daily Mail reported.
That kid REALLY needs to get a nice pool cue for his birthday.

Crash

05-28-2012, 10:54 AM

His solutions mean scientists can now calculate the flight path of a thrown ball and then predict how it will hit and bounce off a wall, the Daily Mail reported.

Newton's tenacious "handball dilemma" at last resolved!

sailor

05-28-2012, 11:17 AM

What are your feelings on Siam? Leningrad?

Ambivalent.

hanso

06-01-2012, 09:41 PM

You can now greet by name two new residents of the period table of elements: Flerovium and Livermorium.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/flerovium-livermorium/

StanUpshaw

06-23-2012, 02:17 PM

Boy wonder from Kolkata cracks Newton's puzzles (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Boy-wonder-from-Kolkata-cracks-Newtons-puzzles/articleshow/13539376.cms)

Mother fucker. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/16-year-old-genius-shoury_n_1616085.html)

hanso

07-26-2012, 09:19 PM

Google announced its highly anticipated Google Fiber service today, bringing 1Gbps Internet access to selected residents of Kansas City.

The service will be available for a $300 installation fee to households in Kansas City, and will launch this fall. It will also come with 1TB of Google Drive storage, and Google Fiber TV service. That includes high-definition cable channels and a DVR-style recorder that can record up to 500 hours of HD TV. The service is also going to be available symmetrically - meaning you can upload and download as much as you like at ridiculous speeds.

"We believe there's no need to wait," said Patrick Pitchette, Google's chief financial officer. "There's no need for caps. There's no need for slow - why slow?"

Google representatives pointed out that American ISPs have done a terrible job of maintaining high levels of speeds at low costs.

Net & TV 120$ will roll out to other areas after KC looks good to me I would think about getting it.

hanso

07-28-2012, 06:06 PM

More on above here

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2012/0727/Google-Fiber-Why-does-Kansas-City-get-to-go-high-speed-video

hanso

09-07-2012, 09:05 PM

Anti-Piracy Outfits Think Megaupload, Demonoid & BTjunkie Are Still Alive

Almost nine months on from the raids that took down Megaupload and bizarrely some of the world’s biggest record labels still think that the site is hosting infringing content. In a clear sign that anti-piracy companies aren’t bothering to carry out even the most rudimentary checks before they send DMCA notices, Google is receiving daily takedown demands not only for Megaupload, but also Demonoid, BTjunkie, and other dead file-sharing services.

http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-outfits-think-megaupload-demonoid-btjunkie-are-still-alive-120907/

Wow!

hanso

09-28-2012, 09:30 PM

Google's Copyright Crackdown Punishes Author For Torrenting His Own Book

A few years ago, Jackson, while deployed in Iraq, wrote a book about Python (the programming language) called Start Programming with Python. He decided to give away the book for free, as a "thank you" to the open source community which, he notes, has provided him with tremendous value over the years. He has always made the book available for free, and linked to various sources where you can get it. At the same time, he's offered people the option to support him via donation. He also made a little bit of money via Google AdSense ads on his site.

Last week, he was contacted by a Google bot, telling him that AdSense had been disabled.(his account has been disabled ) Why? Because they claimed he was distributing copyrighted content illegally.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120923/22351120487/googles-copyright-crackdown-punishes-author-torrenting-his-own-book.shtml

hanso

06-03-2013, 11:21 AM

Sonar image may be a new clue to Amelia Earhart’s missing plane
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/01/sonar-image-may-be-a-new-clue-to-amelia-earharts-missing-plane/

A team of researchers says it may be debris from Amelia Earhart’s airplane, which crashed in 1937 and was never recovered.(The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery) The blocky sonar image of the Pacific…

keithy_19

06-03-2013, 11:29 AM

Sonar image may be a new clue to Amelia Earhart’s missing plane
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/01/sonar-image-may-be-a-new-clue-to-amelia-earharts-missing-plane/

A team of researchers says it may be debris from Amelia Earhart’s airplane, which crashed in 1937 and was never recovered.(The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery) The blocky sonar image of the Pacific…

Just more proof that women can't drive (fly).

:innocent:

hanso

07-21-2013, 01:26 PM

hanso

11-26-2013, 08:32 AM

AOL announced the impending death of Winamp

"Winamp.com and associated Web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date," AOL announced.

But fans of the venerable software have launched a "Save Winamp" website and petition asking AOL either to keep Winamp alive or to open source its code.

Shoutcast is also part of this.

There is a Techcrunch story that Microsoft In Talks To Buy Shoutcast And Winamp From AOL

Snoogans

11-26-2013, 10:23 AM

AOL announced the impending death of Winamp

"Winamp.com and associated Web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date," AOL announced.

But fans of the venerable software have launched a "Save Winamp" website and petition asking AOL either to keep Winamp alive or to open source its code.

Shoutcast is also part of this.

There is a Techcrunch story that Microsoft In Talks To Buy Shoutcast And Winamp From AOL

what the fuck does this have to do with science?

sailor

11-26-2013, 12:03 PM

what the fuck does this have to do with science?

He's following the trivial pursuit science and technology categorization.

spoon

11-26-2013, 12:31 PM

mother fucker

sailor actually made me laugh

hanso

11-26-2013, 02:50 PM

There is no geek talk thread but this got the tag and is closest to it.