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Mars Base

Study shows how bilinguals switch between languages - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...3-05-bilinguals-languages.html

scibyte95

shared by Mars Base on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • Individuals who learn two languages at an early age seem to switch back and forth between separate "sound systems" for each language, according to new research
  • The research
  • addresses enduring questions in bilingual studies about how bilingual speakers hear and process sound in two different languages.
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • "A lot of research has shown that bilinguals are pretty good at accommodating speech variation across languages, but there's been a debate as to how,"
  • lead author Kalim Gonzales, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Arizona
  • two views: One is that bilinguals have different processing modes for their two languages—they have a mode for processing speech in one language and then a mode for processing speech in the other language
  • Another view is that bilinguals just adjust to speech variation by recalibrating to the unique acoustic properties of each language."
  • Gonzales's research supports the first view—that bilinguals who learn two languages early in life learn two separate processing modes, or "sound systems
  • The study looked at 32 Spanish-English early bilinguals, who had learned their second language before age 8.
  • Participants were presented with a series of pseudo-words beginning with a 'pa' or a 'ba' sound and asked to identify which of the two sounds they heard
  • 'pa' and 'ba' sounds exist in both English and Spanish, how those sounds are produced and perceived in the two languages varies subtly
  • 'ba,' for example, English speakers typically begin to vibrate their vocal chords the moment they open their lips
  • Spanish speakers begin vocal chord vibration slightly before they open their lips and produce 'pa' in a manner similar to English 'ba.'
  • English-only speakers might, in some cases, confuse the 'ba' and 'pa' sounds they hear in Spanish
  • most people think about differences between languages
  • different words and they have different grammars
  • at their base languages use different sounds
  • One of the reasons it sounds different when you hear someone speaking a different language is because the actual sounds they use are different
  • someone might sound like they have an accent if they learn Spanish first is because their 'pa' is like an English 'ba,' so when they say a word with 'pa,' it will sound like a 'ba' to an English monolingual
  • For the study, the bilingual participants were divided into two groups. One group was told they would be hearing rare words in Spanish, while the other was told they would be hearing rare words in English
  • Both groups heard audio recordings of variations of the same two words—bafri and pafri—which are not real words in either language
  • Each group heard the same series of words, but for the group told they were hearing Spanish, the ends of the words were pronounced slightly differently, with the 'r' getting a Spanish pronunciation
  • Participants perceived 'ba' and 'pa' sounds differently depending on whether they were told they were hearing Spanish words, with the Spanish pronunciation of 'r,' or whether they were told they were hearing English words, with the English pronunciation of 'r.'
  • when you put people in English mode, they actually would act like English speakers, and then if you put them in Spanish mode, they would switch to acting like Spanish speakers
  • hearing the exact same 'ba's and 'pa's would label them differently depending on the context
  • When the study was repeated with 32 English monolinguals, participants did not show the same shift in perception; they labeled 'ba' and 'pa' sounds the same way regardless of which language they were told they were hearing
  • that lack of an effect
  • provided the strongest evidence for two sound systems in bilinguals
  • true primarily for those who learn two languages very young
  • If you learn a second language later in life, you usually have a dominant language and then you try to use that sounds system for the other language, which is why you end up having an accent
Mars Base

Regaining proper hearing at last - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...2013-04-regaining-proper.html

scibyte89 Hearing

shared by Mars Base on 08 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • In the case of patients with severe hearing impairments, however, conventional behind-the-ear hearing aids reach the limits of their usefulness
  • These patients' hearing can only be helped by an implant, which amplifies sounds more effectively than conventional systems and boasts better sound quality
  • these middle ear implants require complex operations that last several hours. The high risk and expense of the surgery mean that it is rarely performed
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The new solution is composed of three parts: a case with a microphone and battery; wireless, optical signal and energy transmission between the outer and middle ear; and an electro-acoustic transducer – the centerpiece and loudspeaker of the implant.
  • Researchers
  • are developing the electro-acoustic transducer, which will be round in shape and measure approximately 1.2 millimeters
  • To implant our system, all surgeons have to do is make a small incision at the side of the eardrum and then fold it forward. This can be done in outpatient surgery."
  • takes the form of a piezoelectric micro-actuator, is then placed directly at the connection between the middle and inner ear known as the "round window"
  • there it transmits acoustic signals to the inner ear in the form of amplified mechanical vibrations, thereby enhancing the hearing capacity of patients
  • it can output volumes of up to 120 decibels, which is roughly the noise a jackhammer makes.
  • This high performance is necessary for very good speech comprehension, particularly for high-pitched sounds, which people who are severely hard of hearing find especially difficult to pick up
  • currently testing a first working prototype in the laboratory. Results have been positive to date
  • The individual components of the hearing aid have all been developed. The next step is to optimize and assemble them
  • The implant must measure up to high requirements: the material must be encased so the body tolerates it and it has to remain stable over long periods
  • hearing aid implants should last at least ten years
  • optimized individual components should be ready by June of this year; testing of the overall system is planned for 2014
Mars Base

Sensory hair cells regenerated, hearing restored in mammal ear - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-cells-regenerated-mammal.html

scibyte77

shared by Mars Base on 10 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Sensorineural hearing loss is the most common form and is caused by the loss of sensory hair cells in the cochlea.
  • Hair cell loss results from a variety of factors including noise exposure, aging, toxins, infections, and certain antibiotics and anti-cancer drugs
  • there are no known treatments to restore hearing
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Medical School researchers demonstrate for the first time that hair cells can be regenerated in an adult mammalian ear by using a drug to stimulate resident cells to become new hair cells
  • resulting in partial recovery of hearing in mouse ears damaged by noise trauma
  • This finding holds great potential for future therapeutic application that may someday reverse deafness in humans.
  • This is the first demonstration of hair cell regeneration in an adult mammal
Mars Base

Researchers discover link between fear, sound perception - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...2013-06-link-perception.html

scibyte100

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • our emotions can actually affect how we hear and process sound
  • When certain types of sounds become associated in our brains with strong emotions, hearing similar sounds can evoke those same feelings
  • a phenomenon commonly seen in combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • a pair of researchers
  • has discovered how fear can actually increase or decrease the ability to discriminate among sounds depending on context
  • study
  • emotional conditioning in mice to investigate how hearing acuity (the ability to distinguish between tones of different frequencies) can change following a traumatic event, known as emotional learning
  • In these experiments
  • animals learn to distinguish between potentially dangerous and safe sounds—called "emotional discrimination learning."
  • This type of conditioning tends to result in relatively poor learning, but
  • designed a series of learning tasks intended to create progressively greater emotional discrimination in the mice, varying the difficulty of the
  • The researchers found that, as expected, fine emotional learning tasks produced greater learning specificity than tests in which the tones were farther apart in frequency
  • animals presented with sounds that were very far apart generalize the fear that they developed to the danger tone over a whole range of frequencies
  • animals presented with the two sounds that were very similar exhibited specialization of their emotional response
  • pitch discrimination abilities were measured in the animals, the mice with more specific responses displayed much finer auditory acuity than the mice who were frightened by a broader range of frequencies
  • Another interesting finding of this study is that the effects of emotional learning on hearing perception were mediated by a specific brain region, the auditory cortex
  • The auditory cortex has been known as an important area responsible for auditory plasticity
  • Surprisingly
  • found that the auditory cortex did not play a role in emotional learning
  • the specificity of emotional learning is controlled by the amygdala and sub-cortical auditory areas
  • hypothesis is that the amygdala and cortex are modifying subcortical auditory processing areas. The sensory cortex is responsible for the changes in frequency discrimination, but it's not necessary for developing specialized or generalized emotional responses
Mars Base

Hearing quality restored with bionic ear technology used for gene therapy - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ionic-ear-technology-gene.html

scibyte128 MedicalDevice

shared by Mars Base on 24 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Researchers
  • have for the first time used electrical pulses delivered from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, thereby successfully regrowing auditory nerves
  • The research also heralds a possible new way of treating a range of neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, and psychiatric conditions such as depression through this novel way of delivering gene therapy.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • "People with cochlear implants do well with understanding speech, but their perception of pitch can be poor, so they often miss out on the joy of music," says UNSW Professor Gary Housley
  • The work centres on regenerating surviving nerves after age-related or environmental hearing loss, using existing cochlear technology
  • The cochlear implants are "surprisingly efficient" at localised gene therapy in the animal model, when a few electric pulses are administered during the implant procedure.
  • It has long been established that the auditory nerve endings regenerate if neurotrophins – a naturally occurring family of proteins crucial for the development, function and survival of neurons – are delivered to the auditory portion of the inner ear, the cochlea.
  • until now, research has stalled because safe, localised delivery of the neurotrophins can't be achieved using drug delivery, nor by viral-based gene therapy
  • developed a way of using electrical pulses delivered from the cochlear implant to deliver the DNA to the cells close to the array of implanted electrodes. These cells then produce neurotrophins.
  • the neurotrophin production dropped away after a couple of months
  • ultimately the changes in the hearing nerve may be maintained by the ongoing neural activity generated by the cochlear implant.
  • "We think it's possible that in the future this gene delivery would only add a few minutes to the implant procedure,"
  • Jeremy Pinyon, whose PhD is based on this work
  • "The surgeon who installs the device would inject the DNA solution into the cochlea and then fire electrical impulses to trigger the DNA transfer once the implant is inserted."
  • Integration of this technology into other 'bionic' devices such as electrode arrays used in deep brain stimulation
  • the treatment of Parkinson's disease and depression, for example) could also afford opportunities for safe, directed gene therapy of complex neurological disorders
  • implications far beyond hearing disorders
  • Professor Matthias Klugmann
  • "Gene therapy has been suggested as a treatment concept even for devastating neurological conditions and our technology provides a novel platform for safe and efficient gene transfer into tissues as delicate as the brain."
Mars Base

Printable 'bionic' ear melds electronics and biology - 0 views

phys.org/...nic-ear-melds-electronics.html

scibyte92 scibyte93 BionicEar

shared by Mars Base on 02 May 13 - No Cached
  • Scientists at Princeton University used off-the-shelf printing tools to create a functional ear that can "hear" radio frequencies far beyond the range of normal human capability
  • primary purpose was to explore an efficient and versatile means to merge electronics with tissue
  • used 3D printing of cells and nanoparticles followed by cell culture to combine a small coil antenna with cartilage, creating what they term a bionic ear.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Previously, researchers have suggested some strategies
  • That typically happens between a 2D sheet of electronics and a surface of the tissue
  • our work suggests a new approach—to build and grow the biology up with the electronics synergistically and in a 3D interwoven format
  • Last year, a research effort
  • resulted in the development of a "tattoo" made up of a biological sensor and antenna that can be affixed to the surface of a tooth
  • This project, however, is the team's first effort to create a fully functional organ: one that not only replicates a human ability, but extends it using embedded electronics
  • Creating organs using 3D printers is a recent advance; several groups have reported using the technology for this purpose in the past few months
  • this is the first time that researchers have demonstrated that 3D printing is a convenient strategy to interweave tissue with electronics
  • Ear reconstruction "remains one of the most difficult problems in the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery
  • the team turned to a manufacturing approach called 3D printing
  • The finished ear consists of a coiled antenna inside a cartilage structure
  • Two wires lead from the base of the ear and wind around a helical "cochlea" – the part of the ear that senses sound – which can connect to electrodes
  • further work and extensive testing would need to be done before the technology could be used on a patient
  • the ear in principle could be used to restore or enhance human hearing.
  • electrical signals produced by the ear could be connected to a patient's nerve endings, similar to a hearing aid
  • The current system receives radio waves, but he said the research team plans to incorporate other materials, such as pressure-sensitive electronic sensors, to enable the ear to register acoustic sounds
  • researchers used an ordinary 3D printer to combine a matrix of hydrogel and calf cells with silver nanoparticles that form an antenna. The calf cells later develop into cartilage
Mars Base

Drug Enables Deafened Mice to Hear Again - ScienceNOW - 0 views

news.sciencemag.org/...ables-deafened-mice-to-he.html

scibyte77

shared by Mars Base on 10 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • The treatment isn't anywhere near ready for use in humans
  • hair cells in the inner ear, so named for their bristlelike appearance, keep the process humming along, converting mechanical vibrations caused by sound waves into nerve impulses.
  • The drug prompted supporting cells in the inner ear to become hair cells, and the treated mice regained some hearing
Mars Base

Reading wordless storybooks to toddlers may expose them to richer language - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...-toddlers-expose-richer_1.html

scibyte93

shared by Mars Base on 30 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Researchers
  • have found that children hear more complex language from parents when they read a storybook with only pictures compared to a picture-vocabulary book
  • often, parents dismiss picture storybooks, especially when they are wordless, as not real reading or just for fun
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • these findings show that reading picture storybooks with kids exposes them to the kind of talk that is really important for children to hear, especially as they transition to school
  • a graduate student, recorded 25 mothers while they read to their toddlers both a wordless picture storybook and a vocabulary book with pictures
  • moms in our study significantly more frequently used forms of complex talk when reading the picture storybook to their child than the picture vocabulary book
  • especially interested in looking at the language mothers use when reading both wordless picture storybooks and picture vocabulary books
  • to see if parents provided extra information to children like relating the events of the story to the child's own experiences or asking their child to make predictions.
  • The results of the study are significant for both parents and educators because vocabulary books are often marketed as being more educationa
  • even short wordless picture books provide children with exposure to the kinds of
  • language that they will encounter at school
  • lay the foundation for later reading developmen
Mars Base

GRAIL First Results Provide Most Precise Lunar Gravity Map Yet - 0 views

www.universetoday.com/...most-precise-lunar-gravity-map

scibyte74 Grail

shared by Mars Base on 06 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • first science results from NASA’s twin GRAIL lunar orbiters provide incredible detail of the Moon’s interior and the highest resolution gravity field map of any celestial body, including Earth
  • Ebb and Flow, send radio signals to each other and any changes in distance between the two as they circle the Moon are measured, down to changes as small as
  • 1/ 20,000th the velocity that a snail moves
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • new gravity maps reveals an abundance of features such as tectonic structures, volcanic landforms, basin rings, crater central peaks and numerous simple, bowl-shaped craters
  • the moon’s gravity field is unlike that of any terrestrial planet in our solar system.
  • Ninety-eight percent of local gravity is associated with topography, while 2 percent are other gravitational features
  • You can see bull’s-eyes of the lunar mascons, but otherwise we see a smooth inner surface
  • The only way this could happen is if impacts to the early Moon shattered the inner surface
  • also revealed evidence for ancient volcanic activity under the surface of the Moon and strange linear gravitational anomalies
  • identified a large population of linear gravitational anomalies. We don’t see any expression of them on topography maps, so we infer that these are an ancient internal structures
  • Basin, which forms one of the ‘man on moon’s’ eyes, the gravity maps shows a linear feature crossing the basin while topography maps show no such correlating feature
  • the gravity anomaly formed before the impacts
  • Additional data reveal that the Moon’s inner crust in almost completely pulverized
  • Using GRAIL gravity data, we found the average thickness of the crust is 32-34 kilometers which is about 10 km less than previous studies
  • We found the bulk abundance of aluminum on Moon is nearly the same as that of the Earth
  • consistent with a recent hypothesis that the Moon is derived of materials from the Earth when it was formed during a giant impact event
  • GRAIL finishes the primary science mission in May and are currently working in an extended mission where the spacrafts’ altitude was lowered to just 23 km above the surface
  • During its prime mission, the two GRAIL spacecraft orbited just 55 km above the Moon’s surface
  • hearing results from the new data sets soon
  • the team will lower the GRAIL spacecraft down to just 11 km above the lunar surface.
  • extended mission will end soon, in mid-December, and soon after that, the two spacecraft will be crashed intentionally onto the lunar surface
  • they are still formulating ideas for the impact scenario, and looking at the possibility of aiming the crashes so they are within the field-of-view of instruments on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
Mars Base

Dog sniffs out grammar | Psychology | Science News - 0 views

www.sciencenews.org/...Dog_sniffs_out_grammar

scibyte95

shared by Mars Base on 22 May 13 - No Cached
  • Chaser isn’t just a 9-year-old border collie
  • She’s a grammar hound.
  • In experiments directed by her owner
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • Chaser demonstrated her grasp of the basic elements of grammar by responding correctly to commands such as “to ball take Frisbee” and its reverse, “to Frisbee take ball.”
  • The dog had previous, extensive training to recognize classes of words including nouns, verbs and prepositions
  • Throughout the first three years of Chaser’s life, Pilley and a colleague trained the dog to recognize and fetch more than 1,000 objects by name
  • researchers also taught Chaser the meaning of different types of words, such as verbs and prepositions
  • Chaser learned that phrases such as “to Frisbee” meant that she should take whatever was in her mouth to the named object.
  • Exactly how the dog gained her command of grammar is unclear
  • suspects that
  • first mentally linked each of two nouns she heard in a sentence to objects in her memory. Then
  • held that information in mind while deciding which of two objects to bring to which of two other objects.
  • Chaser started sentence training at age 7. She stood facing a pair of objects she knew by name
  • An experimenter would say, for instance, “to ball take Frisbee.” In initial trials, the experimenter pointed at each item while saying its name.
  • After several weeks of training, two experiments conducted
  • had to choose an object from one pair to carry to an object from the other pair
  • read commands that included words for those objects. Only some of those words had been used during sentence training
  • To see whether Chaser grasped that grammar could be used flexibly
  • student also read sentences in the reversed form of “take sugar to decoy.”
  • In 28 of 40 attempts, Chaser grabbed the correct item in her mouth and dropped it next to the correct target.
  • Another experiment tested Chaser’s ability to understand commands when she couldn’t see the objects at first
  • with two objects behind her at the other end of the bed
  • After hearing a command, Chaser turned around and nabbed one of the objects.
  • then ran to the living room and delivered the item to one of another pair of objects. She succeeded on all 12 trials
Mars Base

Eyeglasses read to the blind (w/ Video) - 0 views

phys.org/...2013-04-eyeglasses-video.html

scibyte90 HandicapAids

shared by Mars Base on 13 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • The Eyetalk
  • initially conceived for a student competition in social entrepreneurship, has been hailed by venture investors as a potentially breakthrough product that could make a difference for disabled people worldwide
  • By using a pair of eyeglasses and lightweight components, Eyetalk will allow a blind user to access printed material while walking around a store or library, which now requires bulkier, more expensive equipment
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Eyetalk
  • is designed to be portable, affordable, and operate without requiring an Internet connection
  • Future versions of Eyetalk will target a global market and enable users to hear information aloud in one of many languages.
  • early prototype, known as the FreedomLens, was one of 16 semi-finalists chosen from 29 nations to present at the 2013 Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (GSEC), February 25-30 at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business in Seattle
  • The project began with a challenge issued by
  • faculty member Seema Pissaris, a successful entrepreneur who founded Games Trader
  • Last fall, Pissaris urged students in several of her classes to think about developing a social entrepreneurship project
Mars Base

Study of friction reveals clues about arthritis - 0 views

phys.org/...n-reveals-clues-arthritis.html

scibyte80 arthritis

shared by Mars Base on 30 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • A new, noninvasive, and low-cost method for the early detection and monitoring of osteoarthritis (arthritis caused by wear and tear) may be on its way
  • By studying patterns of friction between cartilage pads, the researchers discovered a different type of friction that is more likely to cause wear and damage
  • work suggests ways to detect this friction, and points to new research directions for getting to the root cause of arthritis
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • Imagine going to the doctor for your aching knees
  • what if your doctor could actually listen to your body, monitoring the way your knees sound as they bend and flex
  • an instrument called a Surface Forces Apparatus (SFA), a device that measures the adhesion and friction forces between surfaces—in this case cartilage, the pad of tissue that covers the ends of bones at a joint.
  • degeneration of cartilage is the most common cause of osteoarthritis: The pads wear away, leaving bone grinding against bone
  • researchers found is that it isn't just any kind of friction that leads to the irreversible wear and tear on the material
  • currently believed that a high-friction force, or 'coefficient of friction,' is the primary factor in surface wear and damage
  • found is that this is not the case
  • The critical feature is not a high-friction force, but what is known as "stick-slip" friction, or, sometimes, "stiction."
  • Both are characterized by surfaces that initially stick together, and then accelerate away quickly once the static friction force is overcome
  • With stick-slip friction, the surfaces eventually pull slightly apart and slide across each other, stick again, and pull apart, causing jerky movements.
  • That's when things get damaged microscopically
  • Stick-slip is a common phenomenon. It is responsible for everything from computer hard drive crashes and automobile failures, to squeaking doors and music
  • same thing happens with a violin string
  • Even if you're pulling the bow steadily, it's moving in hundreds or thousands of little jerks per second, which determine the sound you hear
  • Each little jerk, no matter how submicroscopic, is an impact, and over time the accumulation of these impacts can deform surfaces, causing irreparable damage—first microscopically, then growing to macroscopic
  • it's not easy to tell the difference between types of friction at the microscopic level
  • Smooth-sliding joints might feel the same as those undergoing stiction, or the even more harmful stick-slip, especially in the early stages of arthritis
  • when measured with an ultra-sensitive and high-resolution instrument like the SFA, each type of friction revealed its own characteristic profile
  • Smooth-sliding joints yielded an almost smooth constant line (friction force or friction trace
  • with stiction showed up as a peak, as the "sticking" was being overcome, followed by a relatively smooth line
  • stick-slip shows the jagged saw-tooth profile of two surfaces repeatedly pulling apart, sticking, and pulling apart again
  • these measurements could be recorded by placing an acoustic or electric sensing device around joints, giving a signal similar to an EKG.
  • this could be a good way to measure and diagnose damage to the cartilage
  • to measure the progression, or even the early detection of symptoms related to arthritis
  • Early detection of conditions like arthritis has been a priority for many years
  • the functioning of joints is more complicated
  • scientists will continue their work by studying synovial fluid—the lubricating fluid between two cartilage surfaces in joints
  • plays a major role in whether or not the surfaces wear and tear, and the synergistic roles of the different molecules (proteins, lipids, and polymers
  • all involved in lubricating and preventing damage to our joints.
  • a number of directions to take, both fundamental and practical
  • it looks as if we need to focus our research on finding ways to prevent stick-slip motion, rather than lowering the friction force
Mars Base

Smartpen takes handwritten notes into mobile, cloud era - 0 views

phys.org/...dwritten-mobile-cloud-era.html

scibyte81 Smartpen

shared by Mars Base on 08 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • When used on special paper, the pens record your every scribble with a built-in camera
  • they can also record audio at the same time and sync that audio with what you write
  • recently updated its lineup of pens for the cloud-based, mobile computing era
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Sky, the new smartpens sync with Evernote, the popular Internet-based notetaking and storage service, rather than with the user's computer. And they typically connect to Evernote directly through their built-in Wi-Fi radios
  • near a hotspot, their Sky pens will begin syncing their notes as soon as they stop recording them.
  • the new pens is that they - and the notes they record - are no longer tethered to an individual computer
  • Sky pen owners can send up to 500 megabytes of data for free from their smartpens. That's about 70 hours worth of recordings or 10,000 pages of notes
  • The two companies have built into Evernote a Livescribe player that allows users to see and hear their notes at the same time
  • Evernote arranges the notes by page in their notebook, but when you click or tap on the page, the Livescribe player will collect and display all the pages of notes from that particular recording.
  • the service scans them for recognizable characters and words so users can search them
  • has several shortcomings
  • the pen is married to Evernote. You can't choose to sync your notes with any other service
  • Another limitation of the Sky pen is that it can be slow to transfer recordings
  • All Livescribe pens allow users to replay audio recordings by simply tapping their pen on their written notes
  • you have to use them with company approved paper
  • does allow users to print out paper with the patterns on it, but if you want to use a notebook, you have to choose one approved by the company
Mars Base

Meteorite From California Fireball Is Meteor-wrong, Scientist Says | Space.com - 0 views

www.space.com/all-meteorite-normal-rock.html

scibyte69 meteor

shared by Mars Base on 26 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • A rock thought to be a meteorite from a recent fireball seen over Northern California is in fact, just a regular Earth rock
  • Projected band (light area) where meteorites of different size may have fallen over Marin and Sonoma counties from an Oct. 17, 2012 meteor.
  • Novato, Calif. resident
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • read about the fireball and recalled hearing a sound on her roof that night
  • she and neighbors found a ding on the roof
  • On closer inspection, that crust was a product of weathering of a natural rock, not from the heat of entry
  • Examination of the rock under a petrographic microscope quickly revealed the stone was not a meteorite
  • the ding on Webber's roof, along with her recollection of the sound she heard that night, suggest her house may in fact have been hit by a still-missing meteorite.
  • r Marin and Sonoma counties
Mars Base

Listen to solar storm activity in new sonification video - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...-storm-sonification-video.html

scibyte38 solar flare

shared by Mars Base on 14 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • What does a solar storm sound like
  • Take a listen
  • sonification of the recent solar storm activity turns data from two spacecraft into sound
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • measurements from the NASA SOHO spacecraft and the University of Michigan's Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS) on NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury
  • creator is Robert Alexander, a design science doctoral student at the University of Michigan and NASA fellow.
  • a composer with a NASA fellowship to study how representing information as sound could aid in data mining.
  • raw information to an audio waveform
  • To sonify the data
  • in its original sampling rate of 44,100 hertz, it played back in less than a quarter of a second
  • benefits of sonifying data. You can zip through days' worth of information in an instant
  • Sonification is the process of translating information into sound
  • used in Geiger counter radiation detectors, which emit clicks in the presence of high-energy particles
  • not typically used to pick out patterns in information, but scientists on the U-M Solar and Heliospheric Research Group are exploring its potential in that realm. They're looking to Alexander to make it possible.
  • used to looking at wiggly-line plots and graphs, but humans are very good at hearing things. We wonder if there's a way to find things in the data that are difficult to see."
  • his approach led to a new discovery
  • a particular ratio of carbon atoms that scientists had not previously keyed in to can reveal more about the source of the solar wind than the ratios of elements they currently rely on. The solar wind is a squall of hot plasma, or charged particles, continuously emanating from the sun.
  • hopes to build a bridge between science and art.
  • movies were silent and people just accepted that that's the way it
  • this high res footage of what's happening on the surface of the sun, and it's silent. I'm creating a soundtrack
Mars Base

Neil Armstrong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Neil_Armstrong

scibyte60 NeilArmstrong

shared by Mars Base on 28 Aug 12 - Cached
  • Armstrong was active in the Boy Scouts and he eventually earned the rank of Eagle Scout
  • was recognized by the Boy Scouts of America with its Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award
  • July 18, 1969, while flying towards the Moon inside the Columbia, he greeted the Scouts: "I'd like to say hello to all my fellow Scouts and Scouters at Farragut State Park in Idaho having a National Jamboree there this week; and Apollo 11 would like to send them best wishes". Houston replied: "Thank you, Apollo 11. I'm sure that, if they didn't hear that, they'll get the word through the news. Certainly appreciate that
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • only the second person in his family to attend college
  • college tuition was paid for under the Holloway Plan — successful applicants committed to two years of study, followed by three years of service in the United States Navy, then completion of the final two years of the degree
  • Armstrong held honorary doctorates from a number of universities.[11]
  • On January 27, 1967, the date of the Apollo 1 fire, Armstrong was in Washington, D.C., with Gordon Cooper, Dick Gordon, Jim Lovell and Scott Carpenter for the signing of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty.
  • returned to the Georgetown Inn, where they each found messages to phone the Manned Spacecraft Center
  • they learned of the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee
Mars Base

Darpa's Legged Squad Support System (LS3) to lighten troops' load - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...s-legged-squad-ls3-troops.html

FebMedia Darpa

shared by Mars Base on 09 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Darpa's Legged Squad Support System (LS3)
  • The Army has identified physical overburden as one of its top five science and technology challenges
  • DARPA is developing a highly mobile, semi-autonomous legged robot, the Legged Squad Support System (LS3), to integrate with a squad of Marines or Soldiers.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Recently the LS3 prototype underwent its first outdoor exercise
  • Over the course of the next 18 months, DARPA plans to complete development of and refine key capabilities to ensure LS3 is able to support dismounted squads of warfighters.
  • Features to be tested and validated include
  • ability to carry 400lbs on a 20-mile trek in 24-hours without being refueled
  • refinement of LS3’s vision sensors to track a specific individual or object, observe obstacles in its path and to autonomously make course corrections as needed
  • the addition of “hearing” technology, enabling squad members to speak commands to LS3 such as “stop,” “sit” or “come here.”
  • serves
  • mobile auxiliary power source— troops may recharge batteries for radios and handheld devices while on patrol
  • DARPA seeks to demonstrate that an LS3 can carry a considerable load from dismounted squad members, follow them through rugged terrain and interact with them in a natural way, similar to the way a trained animal and its handler interact.
  • LS3 seeks to have the responsiveness of a trained animal and the carrying capacity of a mule
  • The tests culminate in a planned capstone exercise where LS3 will embed with Marines conducting field exercises.
  • based on mobility technology advanced by DARPA’s Big Dog technology demonstrator, as well other DARPA robotics programs which developed the perception technology for LS3’s “eyes” and planned “ears.”
Mars Base

UHF-Satcom.com - Chang'e 3 & Yutu reception - 0 views

www.uhf-satcom.com/...chang-e-3

scibyte120 ChineseSpaceProgram ChineseSpaceProgram-Yutu

shared by Mars Base on 15 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • 10th February 2014
  • some nice signals are detected from the Lunar Lander but nothing from the Lunar Rover - several news outlets report that the Rover has had a failure after its Lunar sleep, and that it was not expected to become alive again
  • t doesn't hurt to monitor the downlink now and then.
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  • it was thought possible to hear any command uplink signals
  • 12th February 2014
  • Again, searching the various downlink frequencies for signs of life from the 'dead' Lunar Lander
  • nothing was heard
  • indicating that a communications session with the Lunar Lander was not progressing
  • Tuning to
  • did however reveal another huge signal, this time an uplink to the Lunar Rover - China was attempting to talk it back into life
  • immediately the dual band converter was switched
  • was checked where to everyone's surprise, the Lunar Rover was in full chat mode, the Rover had survived and was not dead after all
  • 13th February 2014 - The second night of Yutu's rebirth - would there be signals again?
  • 13th February 2014
  • ere was a lot chatter on the @UHF_Satcom Twitter feed about the discovery of signals from the Yutu rover
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